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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: TushChen
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After lighting the torch we had prepared, we entered the cave.
The cave itself ended after just about a dozen steps.
“Hmm. A secret cave… Is this the entrance?”
“Yeah. Looking at it now, doesn’t it seem a bit suspicious?”
“It certainly does.”
It’s bound to look suspicious when there’s a flat stone surface about the size of a full-length mirror at the deepest part of the cave.
Black Cat also curiously felt the stone’s surface.
“Hmm. There’s no reaction even when I knock… Would it be okay if I try to solve this?”
“Go ahead.”
I nodded and stepped back.
I chose this secret cave and brought Black Cat here because this cave had a form very suitable for stimulating curiosity.
To go on extraordinary encounter hunts with Black Cat in the future, I needed to instill a sense of anticipation for events.
Black Cat fumbled around trying to find mechanism devices, knocked on the wall repeatedly, or even tried injecting internal energy for a while.
She eventually stepped back, tilting her head in confusion.
“Hmm. I can’t figure it out.”
“Well, it’s simple.”
I understand why Black Cat couldn’t open the door.
A rectangular stone surface as flat as a mirror.
And its ends are rounded.
It’s a shape that would remind a modern person of that object they couldn’t go without for even a day.
Black Cat isn’t modern, so she probably wouldn’t be reminded of that object seeing this shape.
I lightly touched the wall surface and then stretched my hand to the side.
Rumble rumble.
The method to open the entrance to the secret cave.
It was [slide to unlock].
“Oh, Senior Ho seems to know about this secret cave?”
“I haven’t been here before. I just saw what was left behind about this secret cave.”
While answering Black Cat’s question, I just shrugged.
This [Secret Cave of Hyeon Cheon-ja] was a regular customer I had visited countless times during the game era.
But it was my first time in reality.
“Whew.”
Fortunately, a familiar stone tablet greeted me.
[Challenger! I am an old man called Hyeon Cheon-ja! I had a talent for making things since childhood. I made various things with money earned by selling my skills in creating mechanisms and formations.
Still, I only made things and couldn’t find owners, so I want to test your abilities and bestow items upon you.]
[I want to test your martial arts and wisdom, so challengers with spirit will obtain items befitting them by passing the tests from the first gate to the third gate!]
[However, those who cannot pass this Hyeon Cheon-ja test will not be able to set foot in this secret cave again.]
“Oh, the last phrase is a bit scary. Does it mean he’ll kill and destroy those who fail?”
In reality, you just get kicked out.
You just can’t open the secret cave door again.
If you try to forcibly break the secret cave door, the entrance of the natural cave collapses, poison mist is released inside the cave, and you die.
Black Cat’s voice seemed a bit elevated, apparently a little excited by the message left by Hyeon Cheon-ja.
“Senior, do you know about this person called Hyeon Cheon-ja?”
“Just what I heard when I learned about this secret cave?”
This secret cave of Hyeon Cheon-ja is not so difficult in itself, but rather, the process of discovering the cave is the type of extraordinary encounter that’s difficult.
You reach here by tracing various clues and getting involved in multiple incidents. In that process, stories about Hyeon Cheon-ja are mentioned a few times.
“Hyeon Cheon-ja is a person who comes down in myths and legends. It’s said that he made mechanisms for the imperial palace, and even immortals are said to have struggled in the formations he deployed, so his skills must have truly reached the heavens. There’s also a theory that the celestial realm gave him rare materials to make various qi-invigorating treasures.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m curious whether this person is the real Hyeon Cheon-ja or someone impersonating Hyeon Cheon-ja.”
Rumble, Bang!
As soon as we entered the first gate, the door locked firmly.
The sound was so loud that even I, who knew about it, was startled, and Black Cat also flinched and lowered her posture.
I carefully raised the torch and found a stone monument.
“There’s a stone monument here too.”
[Challenger, you have only 3 chances to challenge each gate.]
[Stand on the foothold and strike the marked points on the Asura statue ten times without allowing attacks while under the statue’s attacks to pass the gate.]
[If you deflect the Asura’s weapons head-on, it’s designed to reveal openings, so challengers should keep this in mind.]
[Also, if you don’t retreat from the foothold even when hit, the statue’s attacks will become fierce, so don’t be stubborn.]
“Hmm.”
As Black Cat approached the Asura statue, its six arms showed a movement.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!
A speed that was barely visible to my eyes.
Black Cat remembered that speed and nodded.
As soon as Black Cat stepped on the foothold, the Asura’s arms moved immediately.
Black Cat evaded the attack, falling diagonally once.
She hesitated momentarily when she realized the other arms weren’t moving.
Black Cat immediately extended a palm strike to the statue.
One of the Asura’s ten eyes lit up.
Then, immediately, the second and third strikes fell.
Tak, tak!
Black Cat blocked the second strike and deflected the third.
Then, the unnaturally bent second arm slowly returned to its place.
“Oh, so that’s how it works!”
Thwack!
Black Cat, who had blocked the fourth and fifth strikes, immediately delivered a palm strike to the Asura statue.
Two of the ten eyes on the Asura statue lit up.
When seven eyes were lit on the statue, all six arms attacked Black Cat’s body in unison.
Tatatatatata!
“Ha!”
Black Cat, who had only been blocking since the sixth strike as it wasn’t easy anymore, finally struck back.
As if she had read the statue’s rhythm, Black Cat extended her hand without hesitation and deflected all six weapons.
Eight eyes lit up.
Black Cat’s body staggered at the increased speed.
Judging it wouldn’t work, palm shadows appeared in Black Cat’s hands.
As the palm shadows blocked one or two of the arms’ attacks, the Asura’s arms began to bend back one by one.
The recovery speed of the arms also decreased by about half, but there was no need to bend back all the arms in the first place.
When about three arms were bent back, Black Cat used palm shadows to block the attacks of the remaining two hands and struck the Asura with her remaining hand.
Crash!
And at that moment, all of the Asura’s bent arms gathered.
“No, that’s just too difficult~”
Separately from Black Cat’s flustered voice, six arms covered the strike point.
Six arms alternately guarded the strike point while the remaining five attacked at the same speed.
“Black Cat! You need to bend back the arm that’s next in line to guard to create an opening!”
Swoosh swoosh!
Tatatata!
Even though one arm was sealed for defense, Black Cat’s hands didn’t become any more accessible because now, even if she landed an accurate strike, the bent arm would only leave a momentary gap before returning.
“Ha!”
Black Cat made her decisive move.
She blocked two hands’ attacks with palm shadows and deflected two hands’ attacks with double palms.
The fifth hand went down to cover the strike point, and the fourth hand moved away from the strike point and attacked.
Black Cat twisted her body for the first time to avoid the fourth hand’s attack. Simultaneously…
Her foot extended.
Black Cat’s knee struck down the fifth hand that was moving to cover the vital point.
The fifth hand was deflected, but the attacks of the two hands she had blocked with palm shadows were already coming in!
It was apparent that the statue’s arms would touch before she could attack the statue.
Would she miss this opportunity that she had barely created?
As such, thoughts and regrets flashed through her mind…
Black Cat’s knee straightened.
Thwack!
Black Cat’s last move was a kick.
A combo attack continuing from the knee kick.
The Asura statue’s attacks that had been continuing madly stopped right there.
“Whew…”
“Wow… well done.”
I gave Black Cat a thumbs up.
I had never seen Black Cat use leg techniques before, so I thought the final knee strike was improvisation.
I hadn’t expected it to lead directly into a kick from that position, so I was pretty engrossed.
Judging from the fact that she didn’t use hard qi even in a tight situation, she’s definitely not at the supreme level.
“It wasn’t an easy opponent.”
Black Cat tapped the statue’s arms, but unlike before, the Asura’s arms didn’t move.
Rumble rumble!
With a noise as loud as before, the path to the second gate began to open.
“Indeed, it was a mechanical doll worthy of calling itself Hyeon Cheon-ja. I suppose there will be things like this in the next gate too? Hehe, I’m quite looking forward to it.”
There are many exciting things in Hyeon Cheon-ja’s secret cave.
[Congratulations, Challenger, on passing the first gate.]
[If the first gate tests your martial arts, the second will test your mind.]
[Challenger, do you see the wooden boards embedded in the floor? There are twenty bombs inside them. You pass if you can determine the location of all twenty bombs without detonating even one.]
[Remember to complete all tasks before the Asura statue’s weapons touch the ground.]
[When you open a wooden board, there will be a board with a number written on it. That number indicates the number of bombs located in the eight directions.]
[Challenger, you should be able to determine the location of the bombs through the connections of the numbers on the opened boards, so ponder well!]
“Hmm… what does this mean?”
“Well…”
It was telling us to play Minesweeper.
“Minesweeper? What’s that, Senior?”
I realized I had accidentally said that out loud.
Quickly covering my mistake, I explained, “It’s just a term I’ve heard for this kind of puzzle. We need to figure out where the bombs are based on the numbers we uncover.”
Black Cat nodded, her eyes gleaming with interest. “I see. It sounds challenging. Shall we begin?”
As we stepped onto the platform, the Asura statue moved again, its arms slowly descending towards the ground.
The pressure was on – we needed to solve this puzzle before those arms touched down.
“Alright, let’s think this through,” I said, trying to recall the strategies I’d used countless times in my past life. “We should start with the corners. They’re the safest bet.”
Black Cat nodded and carefully lifted the wooden board in the corner.
A number ‘1’ was revealed.
“That means there’s only one bomb in the three squares around it,” I explained.
“We can mark the other two as safe.”
We continued this process, gradually uncovering more numbers and deducing the locations of the bombs.
Black Cat caught on quickly, her sharp mind making connections I hadn’t considered.
“Look, Senior,” she pointed out. “If we combine the information from these three squares, we can determine that this spot must be a bomb.”
I was impressed by her logical reasoning.
Despite never having encountered this kind of puzzle before, she solved it with remarkable efficiency.
As we worked, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of nostalgia.
How many times have I played this game on a computer screen?
And now here I was, solving it in a life-or-death situation in another world.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
The Asura statue’s arms were getting dangerously close to the ground when we finally uncovered the last safe square.
“We did it!” Black Cat exclaimed a rare show of excitement in her voice.
Just as she spoke, the arms froze, mere inches from the floor.
The room rumbled, and a new passage opened before us.
“Well done,” I said, genuinely impressed.
“You’re quite good at this.”
Black Cat smiled, a hint of pride in her expression. “It was an interesting challenge. I wonder what the third gate will bring.”
As we stepped towards the new passage, I couldn’t help but wonder the same thing.
The final test was always the most difficult, and I knew we would need all our wits to overcome it.
“Whatever it is,” I said, “we’ll face it together.”
Black Cat nodded, and we moved into the unknown depths of Hyeon Cheon-ja’s secret cave.
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