Cultivating in Online Games

Chapter 99 - Mirror Maze

“Dugu Zhuo, are you okay? I can’t find you!” Ye Zhou’s voice came from a distance.

“I’m fine.” Upon hearing his strong voice, Dugu Zhuo felt slightly reassured and continued observing the mirrors.

These mirrors are unusual.

Unable to locate Ye Zhou, Dugu Zhuo could only warn him, “Don’t break the mirrors.”

Ye Zhou clearly heard Dugu Zhuo’s words. After responding, he said, “This is the mirror maze, the mirror maze from the real world. Generally, you walk in one direction while feeling the mirrors to find the exit, but I’m not sure how it works here. Why can’t we break the mirrors?”

Dugu Zhuo replied, “I suspect these mirrors are heart mirrors. What they reflect isn’t our image, but some of the desires in our hearts. If we break the mirrors, one of our desires will vanish.

“Desires are a part of our soul. Wanting to ascend and become an immortal is a desire. Wanting peace for the people is also a desire. Desires for money, fame, lust, and so on are all desires. Damaging any of them will cause the soul to lose a part.

“In this heart mirror maze, breaking the mirrors is truly losing oneself. Even if you manage to leave, you won’t be the same person you were before.”

“That’s terrifying!” Ye Zhou said. “Should we still walk in one direction and meet at the exit in the end?”

“Let’s try it for now,” Dugu Zhuo said. “Try to avoid touching your reflection in the mirrors.”

Ye Zhou replied, “…How do we avoid touching ourselves while walking out of here?”

Dugu Zhuo said, “Use the hilt of your sword to carefully probe ahead. That way, if your reflection suddenly reaches out to pull you in, you’ll have enough distance to escape.”

“Is it that scary?!” Ye Zhou asked.

Dugu Zhuo replied, “I suspect they’re trapped inside the mirrors and can’t get out.”

Dugu Zhuo had privately asked several players what place they were trapped in and why they couldn’t get out. Their replies were blocked by the system.

The conversation roughly went like this: “Zhuo God, we’re in XX. When you enter this dungeon and see XX, don’t XXXX!”

If it was written, certain key words were blocked. If it was a voice message, it was muted, with XX replaced by a “beep.” They didn’t want anyone to hear it.

Dugu Zhuo had suspected they were trapped in a place like an illusion created by heart demons. When he saw the mirrors, he immediately thought of the blocked words.

It was unclear whether the blocking was the system’s doing or some malicious joke by the game developers.

Having been in the game for a long time, Dugu Zhuo had often seen players cursing the game developers in the world chat and understood that some system settings were done by the game designers. It was probably that the game developers input commands into the AI, and these commands were unchangeable and had to be executed. But outside of those commands, the system could interpret things flexibly.

For example, Little Bao’s face had been growing rounder, and when someone said fireworks should be set off, fireworks would appear in the sky.

If the developers input the command “The system cannot set off fireworks,” the system would follow that command and not set off fireworks, but it might change it so that all flowers in the game bloom at the same time, showing that the system could still execute commands flexibly.

However, some commands couldn’t be bypassed. For example, the current muting process. Once the game developers set a rule, the system couldn’t break it for them.

Dugu Zhuo suspected the mosaic command was something the system couldn’t crack, and since he was a bug in the game, Ye Zhou didn’t trigger the censorship mechanism when they were together.

Following Dugu Zhuo’s advice, Ye Zhou took out his flying sword and used the hilt to carefully probe ahead. After passing two mirrors, the third mirror showed a strange smile from “Ye Zhou” and grabbed his flying sword, trying to pull him into the mirror.

The Ye Zhou in the mirror was incredibly strong, and Ye Zhou was no match. He didn’t dare to use the sword control technique to break the mirror, so he could only watch his flying sword being pulled into the mirror.

What was terrifying was that only the Ye Zhou in front of this mirror was different. The other mirrors didn’t reflect him struggling with his reflection at all. Instead, they replayed his movements from the previous two mirrors when he was testing the path.

No wonder the third mirror was the one to act. The first two mirrors had only been recording his actions to play them back in case he encountered danger, so his teammates would think he was still safe.

Ye Zhou let go of the flying sword. His magical tool was gone, so he had to find something else from his storage belt to probe the path.

Sometimes when he killed monsters, they dropped strange items like bamboo flutes, suona horns, scrolls, and brushes. These items were useful for some quests, so Ye Zhou always kept them in his inventory as long as there was enough space.

He had used the flying sword earlier, thinking there might be a battle. Now that he thought of the flying sword swallowed by the mirror, he felt a bit heartbroken. If he had known, he would have just used the bamboo flute.

Ye Zhou took out the bamboo flute and began walking ahead, calling out, “Dugu Zhuo! You were right. I just met my reflection in the mirror and almost got caught. Thanks to you. My flying sword is gone now, and I don’t know if the system will return it after I finish this dungeon. How are things on your end?”

“I’m fine.” Ye Zhou heard Dugu Zhuo’s calm and indifferent voice.

Ye Zhou, hearing that he was fine, continued walking forward with relief.

On the other side, Dugu Zhuo encountered the same situation when he reached the third mirror. The Dugu Zhuo in the mirror grabbed the hilt of his sword. Dugu Zhuo exerted all his true energy, but couldn’t overpower the reflection.

Fortunately, he was holding a broken sword he had used at level 10, so he wasn’t too upset when it was lost. He let go and stopped struggling with the mirror.

The other mirrors played back the actions from his exploration of the first two mirrors. Dugu Zhuo understood at once. If it weren’t for this, with Ao Tian and the others coming in as a group of six, they wouldn’t have been completely wiped out.

Thinking this, Dugu Zhuo became concerned about Ye Zhou’s side and called out loudly, “Ye Zhou, how are you doing?”

Ye Zhou’s voice came back in intermittent bursts, “I… met my reflection in the mirror… Thanks to you, I… I’m fine.”

Hearing this, Dugu Zhuo was reassured and continued walking a few more steps. Suddenly, he looked down at his feet.

The ceiling and floor of the mirror maze were also mirrors. It would be troublesome if hands reached out from below.

Dugu Zhuo cautiously floated a little, making sure not to get too close to the ceiling or the floor.

He quickly told Ye Zhou about this observation. Ye Zhou replied, “Is it that scary?!”

This time, the voice was no longer so intermittent. It was a short, strong sentence.

Dugu Zhuo felt relieved and continued searching for an exit. He suspected that those trapped in the maze couldn’t protect themselves. After all, the strength of the person in the mirror was so great. If he attacked the reflection, he would likely face an equal counterattack. And with so many mirrors, the backlash wouldn’t just come from one reflection, but from all of them.

Thus, attacking was the worst course of action.

The best approach was to carefully avoid being dragged in and to calmly and cautiously find a way out of the heart mirror maze.

The mirror maze felt much like the saying, “You cannot see the true face of Mount Lu, just because you are in the middle of the mountain,” like when trapped by heart demons, unable to see a way out, thinking either they or the heart demon would die, and becoming extremely extreme in nature. However, once you escape, you’ll look back at the confusion and feel that it wasn’t worth it. Sometimes, you won’t even understand why you were stuck by such a simple problem.

Dugu Zhuo, having experienced life and death, was not going to be ensnared by heart demons.

As he made his way through the maze, he carefully avoided the people in the mirrors. He occasionally reminded Ye Zhou, always getting the response of “I’m fine.”

Just as Dugu Zhuo expected, at first, only one reflection reached out. Later, both in front and behind him, and eventually every mirror, including those on the sides and below, had a hand ready to pull the player into the mirror.

Fortunately, Dugu Zhuo had prepared in advance, being cautious, and was willing to abandon his tools for exploring. The reflections in the mirrors couldn’t do anything to him.

After about ten minutes of walking, Dugu Zhuo’s eyes brightened as he finally found the exit.

However, he didn’t rush out immediately. He tested it with a probing suona horn, and indeed, it was another mirror. The exit was on the opposite side of the mirror. If he rushed through, he would directly fall into the mirror.

Dugu Zhuo turned and walked in the opposite direction of the mirror. After further testing, he confirmed it was the real exit and walked out.

Once outside, the overly bright environment from the mirrors faded, and Dugu Zhuo’s eyes, which had been dazzled by the reflections, felt much more comfortable. He noticed that Ye Zhou hadn’t come out yet, so he sent him a paper crane message: “How are you?”

After waiting for a while, Ye Zhou didn’t reply.

Dugu Zhuo’s heart tightened as he quickly recalled their conversations in the maze.

He suddenly remembered that after the third mirror’s “Dugu Zhuo” attacked him, Ye Zhou’s responses had become strange.

Especially the line, “Is it that scary?!” The tone and emotion were identical to when he first warned Ye Zhou that hands might reach out from the mirrors. There was no difference.

Later, the repeated “I’m fine” responses seemed to be fragmented, as if they were clips taken from earlier conversations.

Dugu Zhuo, being focused on escaping the maze, hadn’t noticed the oddities in Ye Zhou’s replies. Now, however, he realized there were many gaps.

The mirrors could replay his movements, so couldn’t they also replay Ye Zhou’s words? Could it be that the one talking to him later was the mirror’s reflection, using previous recordings of Ye Zhou’s voice?

Then, when he warned Ye Zhou to “watch your step,” did Ye Zhou actually hear it?

Dugu Zhuo turned back, intending to enter the maze to find Ye Zhou, but just as he was about to step in, the entire mirror maze disappeared.

Only seven large mirrors remained floating in the void. The first six mirrors contained Ao Tian, Qing Yue, Hei Mao, Ling Zhi, Shen Bi Xiao Ma, and Jue Shi Shen Jiang. All six were lying on the ground, unable to revive, waiting for Dugu Zhuo to come and rescue them, all neatly arranged.

The seventh mirror was blank, and it was unclear whether Ye Zhou hadn’t entered the mirror or if his situation was different from the others.

Dugu Zhuo suppressed his panic, reminding himself that this was just a game. Being trapped in the mirror and having private messages blocked was just part of the game design. There had to be a way to resolve it. He couldn’t act recklessly and had to focus on completing the dungeon and finding a way to rescue everyone.

He didn’t rashly attack the seventh mirror but began observing his surroundings.

Behind the mirror maze was a dark Buddhist hall, with a Buddha statue facing the seven mirrors. The incense in front of the statue had already burned out.

Dugu Zhuo approached the altar, where six intact incense sticks lay beneath it. He picked them up, ignited all six with true fire, and held them in his hand while bowing three times in front of the Buddha statue. Only then did he place the incense in the incense burner.

As soon as the incense was placed, the six mirrors behind him shattered, and Ao Tian and the others’ bodies appeared behind Dugu Zhuo.

Ling Zhi, the first to recover, rolled and jumped up. She patted the nonexistent dust on her clothes and muttered, “Finally out!”