Cheng Shi’s gaze lingered a bit too long on Bai Ling, and combined with the strange smile on his face, it immediately gave Bai Ling the wrong impression.
She threw him a flirtatious wink, thinking she had met a kindred spirit.
But the moment her Sensory Hunt activated, she realized that there wasn’t a trace of desire in his emotions—his mind was as clean as a blank sheet of paper, making it impossible to leave any kind of mark on him.
While her outward smile remained unchanged, inwardly, she labeled Cheng Shi as either a eunuch or gay.
Of course, Cheng Shi was unaware of this. Realizing he had been staring inappropriately, he quickly averted his gaze.
This trial was getting interesting.
Three men, three women; three bards, three non-bards; three with glasses, three without.
What symmetry.
That said, though, bards were primarily a support class, which meant there would definitely be some freeloaders among them.
But weak ones were really weak—pure deadweight.
Unlike priests, whose healing could still be useful even with poor talents, a bard’s performance heavily depended on their talent. If their talents were lacking, the buffs they provided could drive you insane.
To give an extreme example: imagine a battlefield where men are dying left and right, and your bard bursts into song, applying a buff to… increase everyone’s appetite.
Sure, it’s technically a buff.
But is it useful in the middle of a battle? What are you supposed to do—take a bite out of the enemy?
Absolutely useless.
However, given the current situation, at least the curly-haired English teacher-looking girl seemed reliable.
“I didn’t sense any opposing faiths, so to improve efficiency, I’ll be upfront with you all.”
Fang Shiqing smiled as she placed a book on the table.
“To pierce through essence, to seek truth—I am a follower of Him.”
A bard of [Truth], a Scholar-Poet.
A powerful class that could transcribe skill books into pages and use them whenever needed.
Ah-Ming’s eyes widened as he looked from her to the man who had identified as a follower of [Chaos], his expression tightening.
“Are you certain he doesn’t follow [Folly]?” Ah Ming asked.
Fang Shiqing nodded with a smile, then added gravely:
“The situation may be a bit complex, but I believe we should all cooperate. In a [Memory] labyrinth, the more people we have, the faster we’ll progress, don’t you think?”
“You’re absolutely right, sister. In fact, I think I don’t even need to introduce myself—you all already know exactly who I am,” Bai Ling chimed in with a laugh, finishing off the last drop of her drink.
“Let’s get started before my desires get the better of me—I’ll be more useful to you that way.”
With a 2000-point bard taking charge, Cheng Shi obediently played the role of a freeloader.
The goal of a memory labyrinth was usually to break through the intertwined memories, find the person to whom the final memory belonged, and use “them” to exit the labyrinth.
In simpler terms, it was like navigating through layers of dreams to find the exit, somewhat like Inception.
Everyone knew that this current layer couldn’t be the final one, so they all prepared to perform their individual [Divine Will] and start searching for clues.
Just as Cheng Shi was keeping his head down, not speaking, and everyone else was getting up to leave, Xu Lu suddenly interjected:
“I… I have a clue.”
Fang Shiqing raised an eyebrow but, with a playful smile, first glanced at Cheng Shi.
She seemed to have an uncanny ability to sense the dynamics between people and had already picked up on the subtle connection between the two of them.
“What’s the clue?” Fang Shiqing asked.
“No one from [Existence] mentioned having any clues, yet here we have a follower of [Void] with one. Are you… a Prophet?”
“Sss—my head hurts,” Xu Lu winced, pressing her lips together before nodding hesitantly.
“Yes, I’m a Prophet. I’ve seen a vision of something that will happen today. It might help us in our search for clues, considering we only have 12 hours.”
Prophets could foresee a glimpse of the near future by rolling the Dice of Fate, although they could only see one of many possible futures, and even failure was possible.
Fate was always shifting; no one could be sure that what they foresaw would actually come to pass.
But that didn’t stop it from being a guide.
Ah Ming blinked. “You’ve already completed your [Divine Will]? Just now?”
The [Divine Will] of [Fate] was divination, or rolling the Dice of Fate.
However, the results of this divination were often vague. It wasn’t until the trial ended that players could match the dice roll to the outcome.
Xu Lu had secretly rolled her dice on her thigh just after she woke up, getting a 5. She was worried that the number might hint at the final number of survivors, so she was trying to ensure her own safety.
She didn’t want to take any risks, even though the [Existence] player across from her might not belong to an opposing faith. Despite being a priest with a lower score than hers, she didn’t want to gamble.
“Yes, my rank isn’t high, and I’m not very clever. I need to team up with someone to avoid dragging everyone down…”
Clearly, she was negotiating. Cheng Shi smiled but didn’t comment, while Bai Ling rolled her eyes and Huang Bo continued scratching his head.
Ah Ming, ever the gentleman, gave her an out: “Then you…”
Xu Lu didn’t respond to him but instead looked toward Fang Shiqing.
It was obvious that Fang Shiqing was the strongest player here.
Fang Shiqing smiled gently and didn’t turn her down.
Relieved, Xu Lu continued:
“I have two prophecies. Yesterday, I saw that someone would die today, and the number shown on the dice was 9. Just now, I saw a woman’s hand, wearing a ring, raising a teacup. The dice showed 4.”
“You’re at 1600 points, so your Dice of Fate only has 10 sides?”
Xu Lu nodded.
“Was the person who died male or female?”
Xu Lu shook her head, her expression grim. “Fate’s revelations aren’t always clear. I only saw someone lying in a pool of blood…”
The larger the dice roll, the higher the likelihood of the event happening. In other words, there was a good chance someone would die today.
Everyone’s expressions darkened at this revelation, especially Ah Ming, who nervously glanced at Huang Bo.
As for the woman…
Cheng Shi scanned the room and noticed that, aside from their table, there didn’t seem to be many other women in the tavern.
Even if there were, none of the tables seemed to have teacups.
Perhaps this scene corresponded to another layer of memory they had yet to reach.
“Time is short; let’s avoid speculation and focus on gathering clues. Everyone should perform their [Divine Will]. Whether or not we find anything, let’s meet back here in one hour. Does everyone have a watch?”
Fang Shiqing rolled up her sleeve, revealing a delicate wristwatch, and continued:
“I noticed the sunset just dipped below the horizon. Based on previous [Memory] labyrinths, we have 10-15 minutes of preparation time. Let’s exclude that and anchor this moment as 12:00. Let’s start the countdown—any objections?”
As everyone began synchronizing their watches, Fang Shiqing swiftly put hers away and prepared to perform her [Divine Will] for [Truth].
But before she could finish, Cheng Shi flashed a smile and pulled out six gold pocket watches, handing them out to everyone.
Noticing that Xu Lu’s eyes widened in shock, he added with a significant look:
“If no one minds, I suggest using my pocket watches instead.
I’ve already anchored the time—12:00 was when we first entered the trial. All of these watches are synchronized. They’ll chime 5 minutes, 3 minutes, and 1 minute before the hour, so make sure to keep track of your status…”
His spiel was an exact copy of something Cao Sansui had once said. It wasn’t because Cheng Shi lacked original words—it was because his current “faith” in [Time] was something he had… borrowed.
If he could steal someone’s faith, stealing their lines was hardly overdoing it.
Looking back to the previous trial, while everyone else was unconscious in the Wood Elf’s treehouse, Cheng Shi had snuck into their pockets with a grin, resetting each of their pocket watches by one full hour.
Then, for safety’s sake, he had stayed on high alert, guarding the area alone. Once everyone else started waking up, he pretended to wake up at the same time and shared “dreams” with the group.
In that way, he managed to deceive everyone.
And he even fooled the [Time Battlefield].
After all, the [Time Battlefield] had indeed started and ended at an exact hour.
It’s just that the exact hour had been moved forward by one, unbeknownst to the Time Walker.
And so…
For today’s trial, Cheng Shi was a follower of [Time], the Forgotten Doctor.