Thriller Paradise

"Hah…" Feng Bujue laughed rather coolly. "At this moment, I only want one thing…" he looked right at the Sealing Hand. "But… why settle for a trade when I can just as easily take it for myself…" Then he raised his hand, "Again! Rock paper scissors!"

"Ah! A~~~~" The Sealing Hand wailed for mercy but it still played the game, one last game in its life…

When it lost, the Sealing Hand toppled over and started to fall. It slammed heavily into the ground and started to flatten like a 3d model was forcibly pressed into a 2d paper.

"You… mad… man…" Before the Sealing Hand was fully pressed into the ground, it groaned out this last word.

"No matter what, I have obtained what I needed…" Feng Bujue lowered his eyes on the giant hand print on the ground, and said in jest. "…thanks for the entertainment."

Two seconds later, the area around the players opened up. It felt like some kind of corporeal material had sublimized into air but the material was invisible.

"Ah… nice, the barrier has dissolved." Feng Bujue commented. "As I expected, we still have 5 minutes to rush to the Shrine of Faith." He said as he turned around. "I'll lead the way from here on out, I know the general direction."

"Erm… what…" Atobe couldn't help but cut in. "Don't you plan to explain… what just happened earlier?"

The other three also looked at Brother Jue like he was some kind of monster, they did not dare to get too close to him. Initially they were shocked by how good Feng Bujue was at the game but later… especially what Brother Jue did in the last few minutes caused his teammates' Terror Points to rise. They had an illusion that… Feng Bujue was the real antagonist here and the Sealing Hand was another hapless victim.

"Of course~ I ~ will." Brother Jue dragged out his tone. That was the truth because the man liked to gloat. "But there is less than 5 minutes to complete the main quest. How about I give the explanation after we reach the shrine?"

"Hmm… He's right." Ambitionist swiftly calmed down and concurred. "In any case… we should get moving for now." Ambitionist words helped to even out the nervousness and tension. The group hesitated for half a second before they followed Feng Bujue who was already moving ahead.

…

The five shadows raced up the hill along the stone paved path. In less than a minute, they had covered about 300 metres in distance and came to the top of the small hill. Standing at that vantage point and looking ahead, one could see a slate of grey barren field. In the middle of the field stood a group of conical towers. The towers were closely clustered together and there appeared to be a set pattern to them, they looked from a far like a bamboo shoot that had risen from the ground.

"The group of things is the rooftop of the Shrine of Faith." Feng Bujue explained. "90 percent of the building is buried underground, we better find an entrance as soon as we can." He said as he used his finger to point forward. "If we really fail to find one, we will use brute force to crack open an opening."

"Okay, let's not waste time then. Let's get moving." Ambitionist added.

"We will split up to search for the entrance when we reach the place," Uncle Worthless also added. The five communicated for a while before they continued with their journey. This time they moved even faster because they were moving downhill. They managed to reach their destination in record time. But when they arrived at the side of the towers, they realized with surprise that… the entrance was surprisingly easy to find. On top of each tower, there was an openable door (skylight), and upon they were close enough, they would be able to make them out from the rest of the building.

"So do we choose a random one to enter?" Atobe used an inquisitive gaze to look at the rest of his teammates.

"At this moment, we do not have the time to try them one by one anyway…" Feng Bujue uttered as he walked to the tower closest to him. He peeled the door open. "I will go down first. If there is any trap, I can avoid it using my aerial ability." Of course, Brother Jue was not going to go down blindly into the unknown…

When he said that, he had already picked up a pebble that was on the ground and tossed it down the entrance. Pa. tat.

The echo of the peddle landing reverberated back up almost immediately. Looks like the fall was not going to be that long.

"Oh? It does not look like it is the kind of chute that will bring straight down to the bottom directly…" Feng Bujue commented as he took out the compound anti-gravity gun from his inventory. With an expert hand, he flicked on the light and shone it inside the door. His four teammates also came over to his side to lean over to look inside…

The five used the light from the gun and they saw the wall and the ground of the interior of the building.

"What kind of space is this? Some kind of attic?" Pegasus asked.

"Who knows…" Ambitionist answered. "In any case, this is good news for us, at least we do not need to worry about falling to our death." While the two were speaking, Feng Bujue took a half step forward. He grabbed the edge of the door by one hand and then leaped over it into the entrance. Two seconds later, Brother Jue landed on firm ground. He stood steadily inside the interior of the shrine, at the same time, the system sounded in his ears. "Current quest completed."

At that moment, Feng Bujue's first reaction was not to check his quest tab but to use the light from his gun to scan his surroundings to check for the presence of any trap or monster. After ensuring that they were inside a safe space, or at least temporarily there was no danger in sight, he immediately raised his head to shout above him, "Quickly, jump down!"

Once the shout floated up the space, the four aboveground heeded the direction. They entered the door one after another, and fell down in a quick succession. Finally the five landed safely on the ground together and they each heard the system notification respectively. At that moment, they were 40 seconds away from the time limit of the quest completion…

"Phew… If we did not take the shortcut, we probably would have all been eliminated at the first main quest, huh?" Atobe looked at the quest that had been ticked away in the quest tab and gave a long sigh of relief.

"That might not necessarily be true." Uncle Worthless argued. "If we take a longer detour… perhaps we might not chance a run in with that Sealing Hand."

"Oh! Now that you mention it…" Atobe's expression shifted slightly as he turned to look at Feng Bujue. "Master Feng, now you can please explain… the gamble that you had with the Sealing Hand from earlier?"

"Ah… actually… it is quite simple." When Feng Bujue replied, he still used the light on the gun to look around, the man did not waste any time at all.

"Stop stalling us with these ramblings." Ambitionist pointed you. "The urge to gloat on your face has already betrayed you."

"he he… Fine, fine…" Feng Bujue replied with a laugh. "But I better start from the beginning…" In the next few minutes, Brother Jue waxed the rest of the group with the events from how he found the hidden path in the swamp, fought valorously against the Lotus Soul, how he rescued the 'damsel' in distress and sucked her dry for information. Naturally, he would have added some exaggeration here and there in his storytelling but we were not going to into the details of that here…

In any case, after the long description, it finally came to the part where he was playing rock paper scissors with the Sealing Hand…

"After chatting for a while with that 'beep', I have seen through his ploy." Feng Bujue said in a prideful tone. He started to give his explanation, "First, the game of rock paper scissors itself is something worth suspecting… this is not a game of chess, where a person's tactical brilliance will decide the outcome of the match; this is not a game of cards, where luck and skill are equally important… this is mother beeping game of rock paper scissors! It is purely a game of chance and luck! I would guess 70 percent of it is dependent on luck, right?" he turned around and walked forward for a few steps. "Under the condition of one facing four, the enemy still suggested using the rules of 5 rounds and 3 wins to decide the outcome of the match… that rule in itself screams that 'I have a unique skill that will benefit me when it comes to this game'."

"Aiz… I have come to the same conclusion as well." Ambitionist sighed. "But unfortunately… at the time, I merely thought the enemy would twist some rule or have some weird tactic to help it win, I did not expect… it would have relied on some kind of hidden power."

"That was what I thought initially as well. But for the sake of security, I asked the Sealing Hand a question." Feng Bujue continued. "I asked him…'Did the four of you play with you one after another?'" He then proceeded to laugh. "And the hand admitted to it with some pride… It was from that moment that I was able to confirm the Sealing Hand had to be cheating with some kind of 'power'."

"Huh?" At this point, Atobe was already slowly lagging behind. He was unable to catch up to what Brother Jue was saying. "Hey, hey… the gap between the question and the conclusion that you reached is a bit too big, don't you think…'

"Hmm… I think I get what he means." Uncle Worthless added, "The step of Brother Jue's analysis should be something like this… since the four of us played the game against the Sealing Hand one by one, then naturally there would be an order that we would have decided among ourselves. If there was no accident, Ambitionist who specializes in logical analysis would be arranged to be the last player. With Ambitionist's strategic brilliance, after observing three full cycles, there is no reason he was unable to see through the Sealing Hand's trick unless…" Ambitionist picked up the thread of conversation, "Unless the thing was not relying on the bending of the rules or any form of tactic to achieve its victory."

Now Atobe finally got it after he had it explained to him. He then added, "So… the conclusion is, the Sealing Hand has some kind of power that can allow it to win every time at the game of rock paper scissors?"

"Ha ha ha…" Feng Bujue clapped his hand in praise. "Very good, it is as they say, the wisdom of the three cobblers combined could rival the genius of Zhu Ge Liang (Chinese idiom, the meaning is the wisdom of the collective outshines that of an individual)."

"Now that is shameless even for your standard…"

"Indeed, I am not as moral as a person as the great master Zhu." Feng Bujue nodded severely.

"So in other words… you believe you can rival the man in terms of intelligence?" Atobe chided with his lips twitching. Brother Jue ignored the jab from the man and brought the topic back and continued to explain, "To put the long story short, after I have confirmed that the Sealing Hand was using some kind of 'power' to win the game, then things would be much easier because I too have a power that could predict the enemy's movement in an instant." Naturally Feng Bujue was referring to his zero time simulation.

"Actually, the thing that I really cared about was not the game of rock paper scissors itself… but the zone that we were trapped in." Feng Bujue said. "I am sure all of you have noticed it as well, right? When we were trapped inside that game zone, our fighting ability was greatly suppressed. We were basically no stronger than a normal person."

"Yes. Now that you mention it, it was true." Pegasus agreed. "Or else I would have just destroyed that giant hand with my signature Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken, why should we even waste time on that ridiculous game of rock paper scissors?"

"Yes, therefore, that zone itself is the real scary thing and one that we need to be careful of." Feng Bujue warned. "This island of Devil's Maw is filled with endless powerful enemies. As the guards, they naturally have to possess some of method that could apprehend and suppress the prisoners. Obviously… the Sealing Hand's power alone would not be able to do that. If I am not mistaken, the four guardians, including the Sealing hand, are not using their own power but some kind of special power that has been 'gifted' to them." He paused for a moment as his gaze changed slightly. "based on the earlier test… I have already confirmed that hypothesis."

"Test? What kind of test?" Atobe asked.

Feng Bujue asked in a matter of fact manner. "Of course I am talking about my last round of game with the Sealing Hand." When that was said, Ambitoinist who stood beside Brother Jue sucked in a cold breath… Only those who were able to follow up with Brother Jue's thought would be able to realize how scary this man really was…

10 minutes ago, when everyone thought Feng Bujue's 'ruthless' action was merely his Sophomore Syndrome acting up but the man himself was thinking very clearly… that was nothing more than a show of madness. Behind this show, the man's brain was working perfectly. It was all part of a reasonable action to accompany logical determination and analysis.

"From what we could see from the result, the 'absolute rule' within the game zone is something even the Sealing Hand could not deny." Feng Bujue continued to explain, "Therefore, that proves that the zone itself did not come from the Sealing Hand's own power."

"Oh… no wonder the Sealing Hand acted so funny at the end." Atobe added, "It knew that it would lose the game but it was powerless to end the game, and that was why it was cornered."

"Hmm, indeed…" Feng Bujue continued, "based on my observation, there are four absolute rules within the game zone." He raised his right hand and extended four fingers. "First, before the match is fully decided, no one is allowed to leave the zone; two, only after the victor of the previous cycle agrees to end the match that the zone will be neutralized; three, it is the challenger… which are us by the way… who decide when each cycle will start; four, the reward and punishment for the games can still be negotiated but there is a fixed punishment… and that is the loser will be sealed into the ground to become a cut out of their former selves."

At this point, brother Jue put down his hand. "The above four rules are relatively fair and they are absolute rules that even the Sealing Hand do not have the power to resist. Of course, as the entity that initiated the game zone, it did indeed possess some kind of special rule that would have benefited it. For example… those who entered the zone would have their fighting ability limited and they would be forced to play the game of rock paper scissors with it."

"I still do not quite get it." Pegasus suddenly interrupted and said, "After what you have said, I still do not quite understand how did you manage to win it?" He widened his eyes to ask, "Since it could predict what you will do and you could predict the same of you, then wouldn't that place the both of you on the same playing field?"

"yes…" Atobe concurred. "That is the core of the question, is it not?"

"Ah?" Feng Bujue replied rather weakly and tiredly. "What are you guys talking about… That is the simplest part of all." He titled his head to say. "After my experimentation, I found out the Sealing Hand's special power was none other than… to read the thought in your mind the moment right before you decided what to play." He scoffed. "Hmph… theoretically speaking, there are at least three ways that one can use to defeat an opponent like that. And in the earlier rounds, I have already used two of them."

"You have to be kidding…" Uncle Worthless picked off the glasses and gasped in shock.

"We will start by explaining the method with the least rate of success." Feng Bujue continued to explain in his lazy and easy way. "And that is… to keep your mind blank and do not think of anything during the moment before you play anything. Then you just throw out anything that your instinct tells you to do."

"Qie~ And I thought it would be some kind of mysterious power? That is it?" Atobe replied with dissatisfaction.

"Actually, it is more difficult than you think." Feng Bujue retorted. "If you do not believe me, you can give it a try… Most people would end up playing a hand gesture that looks like a chicken claw and that will be counted as paper."

"Hmm… indeed, this kind of method can temporarily block off the Sealing Hand's power." Ambitionist added, "But to rely on instinct will almost never let your hand play 'scissors' and that is an obvious weakness."

"Indeed, the opponent would have discerned this loophole after at most 2 rounds. And then all it needed to do was to keep on playing paper." Feng Bujue concurred. "Furthermore, even for the first two rounds… they were just a test of luck, so… I did not use that method." Brother Jue paused for a few seconds and licked his lips before he continued, "Then… now we shall move on to the second method, actually there is not much to explain about this second method. It is to use my own special power to outshine and out-calculate the sealing hand's power." He scratched his hand. "I am not going to into details about my own power. All you need to know is that my power is much more advanced than the Sealing Hand's power… that is all." He was telling the truth, he was not gloating. The Sealing Hand's power was to read the opponent's thought at the last moment before they played the game, that was the limit of the extent of its power but zero-time simulation was able to calculate and factor in everything….

"Aiz… I hate to say it but its power is too slow and its reflex is too slow. Its movement was basically glacial…" Feng Bujue sighed. "Therefore… in the first few rounds, I used my own power to easily win the Sealing Hand while at the same time, assessing and analysing the opponent's special ability."

"That's enough, stop blowing your own trumpet." Ambitionist stopped the man. "Then what about the third method? That would have nothing to do with your own ability, right?"

"Of course, this is not a solo scenario, the system would not have designed a guard that only one of us can deal with. That goes against the premise of the game." Feng Bujue replied with a smile. "Indeed the last method has no relation to any super power or ability. Everyone can use it to win the Sealing Hand and that is…"

The four listeners now basically leaned their neck forward to await the answer.

"Cognitive distortion." Feng Bujue came out with a strange term.

"What in the world is that?" The statement 'I do not understand what are you talking about' was plainly written on Pegasus' face.

"Well, let me show you an example…" Feng Bujue said as he raised his hand to say, "Rock!" When he said that, his hand flew forward to play the gesture of scissors.

"Erm…" Atobe looked at this for two seconds, "This can really work? Is this just lying to yourself?"

"if you do that, you will fail… Because your mind will still be thinking about scissors." Feng Bujue explained, "But cognitive distortion is different, my mind is thinking about rock but my gesture is playing scissors. To do this, you will have to overrule the preconceived concepts that have been embedded within your mind in a short period of time. Instead of calling it a form of 'lie', it is more of a kind of 'belief', it is rather complicated to put it into words… but if you have mastered it, you will be able to do something like this…" he said as he raised his hand again, "Rock, scissors, paper, rock, scissors, paper…" he recited over them quickly and his hand was changing with each recitation, but every time the gesture that his hand made was completely different from the thing that he said. When he uttered rock, his hand was making the shape of scissors and when he said scissors, his hand would be paper and when he said paper, it would be rock played by his hand…

"What the beep! And you said everyone can do something like this?" Atobe mocked, "This is clearly something only someone like you will be able to do!"

"No, even you can do it, but you will need time to practice." Feng Bujue shrugged. "Actually the system have given us the time… Do not forget, the period between each cycle is decided by the players." He paused before continuing. "And to take one step back, even if you cannot master this, it is fine. Since the Sealing Hand's basic mode of action will not change, as long as you fill up mind with the necessary shape of the hand gesture right before you play it, the Sealing Hand will play the correspond hand gesture that is supposed to win over yours. Therefore… as long as you can master the timing and try to limit your mistake, you will still win the game."

At this point, Feng Bujue had basically given all of the explanation. The system as if was purposely waiting for them to finish the conversation but it did not say anything until this very moment. "Main quest has been updated."

In the quest tab, the new main quest has appeared. "Arrive before the altar at the bottom of the Shrine of Faith within 3 hours. The players who fail to do so within the time limit will be eliminated."