Phi-Fic Chapter 304 gets straight to the heart of the problem.
Chapter 304 gets straight to the heart of the problem.
Seeing the message "[Remaining attempts: 1]" quickly made Yuan Bao's heart race.
"My lady..." Xiao Jiu nuzzled her cheek worriedly, "This is the last time."
Yuan Bao closed his eyes, recalling his journey: numbers may fluctuate, demons may disguise themselves, but the symbols seen by the Eye of Truth are always reliable.
More importantly, she trusted her intuition, just as she trusted Xiao Jiu...
"I understand!" She opened her eyes abruptly, her fingers firmly typing: "The truth lies between numbers and intuition."
The bronze door burst forth with dazzling golden light and slowly opened.
Behind the door was not a passageway, but a mirror—reflecting not Yuan Bao's current appearance, but her appearance at age six with pigtails, struggling with a math problem.
[Proof of Wisdom Passed]
You have proven that you can see through appearances and understand the essence.
The changing images in the mirror reveal the key moments Yuan Bao has experienced in various instances over the years: she always chooses to trust her own judgment rather than system prompts, and relies on intuition rather than pure logic.
The mirror suddenly shattered, and the fragments transformed into countless points of light that reassembled into a text:
[The Truth About the Demon Tower, Part 1: All Numbers are Illusions; Reality Exists Only in Symbols]
Yuan Bao gasped: "So those addition and subtraction symbols..."
[The Truth About the Demon Tower Part 2: The Eye of Truth is not granted by the system, but is a manifestation of your inner abilities]
Xiao Jiu's mouth dropped open in astonishment: "This...this means that Master already possessed this ability? The system merely activated it?"
The space shifts again, revealing a massive and complex data stream against a white background.
Yuan Bao's Eye of Truth automatically focused, identifying a pattern from the chaos—these data recorded the performance of countless players in the Demon Tower, and the points they ultimately earned were actually extracted from some kind of spiritual energy.
[The Ultimate Truth About the Demon Tower: This is an Experimental Ground for Collecting Human Intuition]
Yuan Bao felt a chill run down his spine: "So we were all...being experimented on?"
The data stream suddenly fluctuated violently, and space began to distort.
The alarm sounded:
[WARNING: Core secrets leaked]
[Activate emergency protocol]
"Oh no!" Xiao Jiu screamed, "The system has discovered we know too much!"
The ground—if there is a ground in this space—begins to collapse.
Yuan Bao hugged Xiao Jiu, trying to maintain her balance.
At that moment, she noticed a stable point of light in the distorted data stream, which the Eye of Truth displayed as "Safe Exit ⊕⊕".
"Over there!" She rushed toward the light without hesitation.
The moment I passed through the light spot, a familiar sense of teleportation washed over me.
When Yuan Bao regained her footing, she found herself back on the fifth platform, but the surrounding environment was completely different—three fully armed players were standing at the edge of the platform, turning around in surprise to look at her sudden appearance.
"Another intruder?" The red-haired youth at the head narrowed his eyes; the system assistant on his shoulder was a mechanical eagle.
Yuan Bao immediately went on high alert, noticing that the number above his head had changed to 5068, while his three opponents' numbers were 3200, 2800, and an astonishing 7500.
“Xiao Jiu,” she asked in a low voice, “what happened?”
Xiao Jiu quickly replied, "We've been teleported to the multiplayer arena! These are other players who are also challenging the Demon Tower."
The red-haired youth sneered, "Little girl, hand over the rare demon, and we can let you leave safely."
Yuan Bao then noticed that he had somehow acquired a golden badge in his hand, which the Eye of Truth displayed as [Core Key?].
She immediately gripped the badge tightly: "Why should I?"
“There are three of us.” Another girl with dreadlocks brandished her weapon—a blade of light formed from condensed numbers.
Yuan Bao quickly assessed the situation: one against three was disadvantageous, but her True Eye could see the weakness of the opponent's weapon—the dreadlocked girl's light blade had three cracks, indicating "Durability -";
The red-haired youth's mechanical eagle has a "sensitivity ↓" symbol on its right wing;
The third boy with glasses looked the most dangerous. Although his number wasn't the highest, all the props he had on his waist were "effects++".
"Xiao Jiu," Yuan Bao said in a voice only Xiao Jiu could hear, "prepare to use that."
Xiao Jiu's dark eyes widened: "But Master, we've only used it once in the trial layer, and it's still unstable..."
"Now is the time."
Just as the three approached, Yuan Bao suddenly raised the golden badge.
The intense light emanating from the badge temporarily blinded everyone—except Yuan Bao, who possessed the Eye of Truth.
She could clearly see the digital path emerging in the air, pointing to a hidden teleportation point at the edge of the platform.
"Let's go!" She grabbed Xiao Jiu and rushed towards the teleportation point.
"Stop her!" the red-haired youth roared.
The dreadlocked girl's light blade slashed down, and Yuan Bao dodged it with a side roll, kicking up dust from the ground in the process—in the Eye of Truth, this dust showed the attribute of "interference effect +", which did indeed temporarily hinder the pursuit.
The bespectacled boy calmly pulled out a spherical device and threw it into the air.
Yuan Bao's True Sight immediately issued a warning: [Area Lockdown ▽ Countdown to Activation in 3 seconds]
"Jump!" She leaped towards the teleportation point with all her might, and Xiao Jiu grabbed her hair tightly.
The moment the spherical device exploded, Yuan Bao's finger touched the teleportation point.
The familiar pulling sensation came, but this time it was accompanied by intense pain—the bespectacled boy's device still grazed her left leg.
When his vision returned, Yuan Bao slumped into a small, safe room.
A piercing pain shot through her left leg, and she looked down to see a deep wound oozing blood.
"Master!" Xiao Jiu anxiously rummaged through her system inventory, "I'm looking for healing potions!"
Yuan Bao gritted his teeth and tore off his sleeve to bandage his wound, while observing the safe house he had unexpectedly arrived at.
The room was only five square meters in size, with a transparent cube suspended in the center, through which colored data flowed.
The wall was covered with strange symbols, which, in the eyes of truth, formed the sentence: "Only those who see through the falsehood can leave."
Xiao Jiu finally found a bottle of red potion: "Drink it quickly!"
After taking the medicine, the pain in the wound immediately subsided.
Yuan Bao struggled to her feet and walked towards the central cube. As she approached, words appeared on the cube's surface:
[Safe House Rules]
The time flow rate here is 1/10 of that outside.
Points can be redeemed or stamina can be restored.
Answering the questions correctly will unlock special rewards.
Yuan Bao answered without hesitation: "I will answer the question."
The cube blinked a few times, displaying:
Do you trust numbers or your intuition?
This question gets straight to the heart of the matter.
Yuan Bao recalled his experiences amidst the truth and reflected on every decision he had made along the way.
She took a deep breath: "I believe in...a balance between the two. Numbers provide information, intuition gives meaning."
The cube burst into a pleasant bell sound:
[Answer approved]
[Reward: Intuition Enhancer x1]
[Effect: Temporarily increases the True Sight ability to level 2]
A small bottle was ejected from the cube.