"What does this mean?"
Albert said:
"That stronger version of you gave a game example, said there was a game called ’Martial Arts Heroes’."
"In the game itself, there isn’t much change over time. The early, mid, and late stages of the game aren’t divided by time..."
"They’re divided according to your quest progress in the game."
"The Bunker is the same. There’s no such thing as early, mid, and late stages of the Bunker from the perspective of time."
"If the Bunker People don’t climb the Towers, they’ll always remain in the early stage."
"If they stay in the early stage for too long, unable to use the Three Towers to change the Three-Tower Battlefield, and unable to provide combat power for the Three-Tower Battlefield themselves..."
"Then in the end the Bunker will be destroyed, and the Three Towers War will end with humanity suffering a crushing defeat."
"But if the game reaches the mid stage... that is, once the Bunker People’s tower-climbing, their exploration of the Three Towers, has broken out of the early phase, and they’ve already formed a certain understanding of the Three Towers..."
"Then the Bunker enters the mid stage."
Albert’s brows furrowed slightly:
"In the early stage, people worry about lack of supplies, worry about the Great Devouring."
"But in the mid stage, what people need to worry about are the Gatecrashers."
Wen Xishu thought it over briefly and said:
"Gatecrashers? People who treat the Bunker like a Tower and climb it?"
Albert nodded:
"Yes. In the first phase, the Great Devouring creates vortices, swallowing some people into the Deceit Tower."
"But as long as enough people climb the Towers, the Great Devouring disappears."
"Once enough people are climbing the Towers, facilities in the Bunker will increase, supplies will increase, and the Bunker will become prosperous."
"But correspondingly, in the second phase, some special ’outsiders’ will appear."
"These people must complete certain missions inside the Bunker, and only after completing them can they leave the Bunker and return to their original world."
"They can stay in the Bunker for at most seven days. Sound familiar?"
Wen Xishu did find it familiar.
Isn’t this exactly what the Bunker People do when they climb the Towers? Only after completing missions inside the Towers can they return to the Bunker. At the same time, Bunker People can stay in the Three Towers for at most seven days.
Wen Xishu truly hadn’t expected it could be like this.
"Sounds like their missions are to stop us from climbing the Towers? Or to kill us?"
Albert nodded:
"Yes. According to what that version of you said, they also have tiers, and each tier’s mission is basically the same in content—deal with someone in the Bunker. The higher the tower-climbing tier of the outsider, the stronger the target they must deal with."
Hiss.
Wen Xishu immediately thought of Mr. Jin. Mr. Jin had been hiding in the facilities the whole time before, because he suspected some unknown force might assassinate him.
Could Mr. Jin know these things?
Later, once Mr. Jin learned of his tower-climbing progress, he suddenly decided to leave the Bunker...
Wen Xishu wasn’t quite sure whether there was any connection in this.
He raised a question:
"The higher the tier, the stronger the assassination target... Old Headmaster, in the Bunker, you’d be equivalent to someone in the nineties, right?"
Albert was completely unafraid of assassination:
"Hahahahaha, I don’t think there’s likely to be anything that can kill me."
"Honestly, I don’t believe at this stage there can appear anyone who poses a threat to you or me."
"But it’s very possible that some promising seedlings will be assassinated."
"You climb the Deceit Tower to change the future. You let many originally weak Qualified change their trajectories of fate and become important figures who will have a certain impact on the Three Towers War in the future."
"So is it possible that the outsiders are also climbing in reverse, so that some Bunker People who would have had an important impact on the Three Towers War in the future are killed when they’re still weak, thereby changing the future?"
This answer genuinely surprised Wen Xishu.
He seemed to understand a bit now, felt that Wen Chaohua’s sudden disappearance instead of continuing to climb the Towers step by step suddenly had a reasonable explanation.
Wen Chaohua had many statements and views that "climbing the Deceit Tower is the most important thing."
But the one who actually pushed forward the reform of the Deceit Tower was himself. Wen Chaohua, this pioneer, instead stopped halfway.
Could Wen Chaohua have learned of this? So he didn’t push the Bunker into the mid stage?
"So right now, we count as having entered the Bunker’s mid stage?" Wen Xishu asked.
Albert shook his head slightly:
"I don’t know, but I think even if we’re not there yet, we’re close."
"According to what that version of you said, the fact he could appear in the Bunker and invite us to rescue you means that some of the restrictions between the Bunker and the Three Towers have loosened."
"Outsiders will appear on our timeline. In other words, they can’t enter past timelines to kill us before we start climbing the Towers."
"This counts as good news. At least we don’t have to worry that someone travels back into our past and changes us the way we changed the Three Towers War."
"Even once we enter the Bunker’s late stage, this kind of thing still won’t happen. It seems that changing timelines is something only the Desire Tower can do."
"We don’t have to live in constant fear of being killed in our past."
"But now, we need to guard against outsiders killing some rookies who are just taking their first steps in the Three Towers."
Wen Xishu faintly felt this was like a game of go.
At the beginning, the Outer God wanted the Three Towers’ God to attack, to send human pawns to die, to die inside the Three Towers.
But gradually, humans were able to climb the Towers steadily, slowly adapt to the Three Towers’ difficulty, and as they kept exploring the Three Towers...
The Outer God began to panic again, and thus wanted the Three Towers’ God to slow down the pace of attack.
Which is reflected in arranging outsiders to kill some rookie tower climbers.
The game had entered the middle phase.
As for what kind of mess the Bunker would experience in the late stage, that was still unknown. Before, Wen Xishu thought little of those facilities...
But thinking about it now, those facilities might be of great use in the future.
Albert continued:
"That’s one point. Another is—once an outsider completes their mission and successfully returns to their original world, leaves the Bunker..."
"All of us will lose our memories of them."
"The next time they appear again in the Bunker, we still won’t be able to recall who they are."
That did make sense.
Wen Xishu rubbed his temples, clearly also feeling that the information gained this time was too subversive.
"Good thing we have that stronger version of you, otherwise we might well have fallen into a passive position."
"But once we know all this, we can lure the enemy into the jar."
Albert laughed.
He had in fact been worried about the "Gatecrashers", but now that they had this intel, it was certainly better than knowing nothing.
Wen Xishu also understood the value of what 001 had said.
001’s strength was a means of the Outer God. The Outer God wanted to use 001’s absolute power to kill him.
But correspondingly, there were also methods of the Three Towers’ God planted in 001. If you want to create a powerful 001, you have to accept the logic that the Three Towers’ God will grant 001 a lot of information.
This was mutual contest and constraint.
Clearly, this time it was the Three Towers’ God who had actually won.
"I don’t know what the late stage is like. In the early stage, we’ve already fundamentally dismantled the Great Devouring... then in the mid stage, we also have to find a way to quickly dismantle the ’Gatecrashers’."
How can you allow others to snore beside your bed?
Wen Xishu did not want too many unstable factors appearing in his safe zone.
Albert said:
"Yes, we have to find a way to dismantle them, find a method so that once the Gatecrashers enter the Bunker, they’re exposed immediately."
"Your safe house can analyze the vortices of the Great Devouring, but I don’t know if it can analyze the Gatecrashers."
Wen Xishu shook his head:
"I doubt we can count on that. After all, each stage has its own limitations."
"But Old Headmaster, you did remind me. Maybe in the missions to come, I can guide the Heart Inquiry to answer certain questions, thereby obtaining similar facilities that can prevent outsiders."
Wen Xishu suddenly remembered that last round’s Heart Inquiry had asked a strange question.
[You have become much more resolute, and also much more honest. Last question: those flowers you have cultivated—if one day they must wither and become sacrifices, will you sacrifice them?]
Back then he still didn’t understand what that question meant, but now he did. At the time, the Heart Inquiry said this question would be left for next time.
That was good. Wen Xishu had already thought of how to reverse-manipulate the Heart Inquiry.
In a sense, he was the tree that held up the Bunker, and countless tower climbers were the flowers and leaves on the tree.
Of course he would not be willing to sacrifice them.
"For now, we should first lay out a proper deployment, improve and perfect some of the Bunker’s safety mechanisms."
"And also organize patrol teams. Of course, if we want to address the root cause, it still seems we’ll have to climb the Towers." Wen Xishu said.
Albert approved of this approach.
On this topic, the two of them were in full agreement. Problems that came from the Deceit Tower were best solved using the Deceit Tower itself.
However, this time Wen Xishu didn’t immediately start climbing the Towers. For once, he planned to rest in the Bunker for a day.
Wen Xishu decided to visit the Wen Family’s Old Mansion once more, to see if this version of himself could discover more clues.