The Trial Game of Life

Table of Content | Character Guide

Tang Cuo waited for ten minutes, but the snake still didn’t wake up.

Peng Mingfan, No. 6 Ghillie Suit and the others had completed the test one after another. Tasks such as washing a centaur’s back and bathing a beetle were nothing too dangerous, but they gave the contestants no gifts either.

The people who received the most attention in the arena were Jin Cheng and the only female contestant No. 10, both of whom now met with a Q&A test.

Jin Cheng’s first question: ‘What kind of sports does Mr. Yorkshire the phoenix love the most?’

A. Fire rings acrobatics

B. Swimming in the North Pole or South Pole’s glacier

C. Grilling elves on charcoal

D. Dodge ball

If there were three shorts and one long, always go for the long answer. Jin Cheng chose B. 

The answer was wrong, and the phoenix chased him one full round around the colosseum.

Second question: ‘Who is the first love of Mr. Yorkshire the phoenix?’

A. Joanna the witch

B. Elizabeth the lady

C. Bobo the elf

D. Beetle the knight

What wrong did Bobo the elf do? Once it was the phoenix’s first love and later it was grilled on charcoal? Was it because their love ended and it was grilled? Jin Cheng, an old bachelor who never understood all this anyway, chose D decisively.

Jin Cheng was wrong again, and was chased by his angry master again, but as long as he ran fast enough, the flame wouldn’t burn his ass.

“Hahahahaha!” The little demon watched very happily and encouraged the spectators to watch the show with him, but then he found another treasure: “Look at No. 12! Our big baby No. 12, how amazing it is! What a compassionate baby, he is actually feeding dinner to the Dark Lord by himself!”

Tang Cuo didn’t want to wait any longer, so he picked up the iron pot, pried the snake’s mouth open and poured everything in. “Gurgle gurgle”, the strange smell drifted away again, sending all spectators into blissful ecstasy.

The giant snake finally moved, its tail suddenly straightening up and its body rolling around, something conspicuously surging in its body.

Tang Cuo threw away the iron pot and quickly retreated. Ten meters away, the snake stated spitting out a lot of things. Rotten foods, metal scrap and all kinds of items, which even spread to the next track.

No. 11 ran away in fright.

The spectators went “Ewww ―” and looked away simultaneously.

“The Dark Lord is awake!” The little demon flapped his wings and few far away, until he became only a small dot in the sky, then he held his nose and continued: “The Dark Lord looks very angry, he doesn’t like this dinner at all. Okay, we see that No. 12 has already run. He runs very fast but it, does, not, work! Hahahaha!”

Tang Cuo was bitten in the shoulder by the giant snake and immediately felt his head spinning. He opened the character panel and saw the status ‘Poisoned’ pop straight at his face, his HP’s upper limit reduced by 30.

“Tsk.” Dissatisfaction could be read on his face despite the ironic fact that it remained expressionless. He turned around to see that a distance away, Jin Cheng was standing amid a sea of flames, calmly drinking his potion. Jin Cheng had given three wrong answers in a row and the entire No. 4 track was now entirely covered in fire, leaving absolutely nowhere to hide.

In this kind of situation, the most important thing was who had the most potions.

Soon, Tang Cuo saw his second test ― ‘The Dark Lord is a knowledgeable Potions professor. Today he needs to produce a transformation potion, but his assistant is temporarily sick. As his favorite pet, contestant please help the Dark Lord to finish making the potion.’

Potion?

Tang Cuo watched the kitchen stoves turn into a potion table, completely equipped with a mortar, a full set of test tubes, measuring cups, cauldrons, brushes and everything that was ever needed for potion-making. There were plenty of materials on the shelf next to the table, including strange-looking leaves, tree branches, feathers, stones, etc. ― truly befitting of medieval black magic.

Unsurprisingly, the study of potions was an option in the career system of Yong Ye City. Wen Xiaoming’s ability to invent medicines however he liked might have something to with potion study.

Tang Cuo now became interested, a serious look casting over his face.

On the table lay the recipe of the transformation potion. The snake wrapped its tail round an hourglass on the ground, and looking at the flow of sand, it would only be patient with Tang Cuo for about half and hour.

In other words, Tang Cuo had half an hour to complete this test.

After half an hour, the other players might have already moved to the third round. But no matter whether Tang Cuo succeeded or not, he would obtain this recipe anyway. Perhaps this was what they called ‘no pain, no gain’?

Tang Cuo thought for a moment and decided to not waste any more time as he held tightly onto the recipe. He didn’t know the names of any materials on the shelf, so he could only judge by their appearance and their smell.

Five minutes later, “Bang!” Black smoke came out of the cauldron, and the semi-finished potion that refused to blend exploded, blasting a hole in Tang Cuo’s sleeve.

“Wow, No. 12 is really a big and bold baby. Look at it putting the Gentian rootsA popular herb commonly used in cooking and traditional Chinese medicine.

and star sandThis either refers to sand that has a star shape (they exist in real life!) or sand that shines like stars. together. The Dark Lord’s face has turned green. Everyone, let’s guess how many times he will blow up the cauldron! There’s no prize if you guess it right though.”

At this point, Meng Yufei had finished the task and was showing Mrs. Sally the end result of him almost destroying the sewing machine ― a pathetic piece of floral rag with two head openings and loose strings fluttering messily in the wind.

Mrs. Sally didn’t flip her attitude right away. She kindly took the piece of rag and put it on herself, but the piece was XXXL, while her size was XXXXL!

“%^$%&#$%@!!!” The piece jammed at her belly and Mrs. Sally exploded on the spot. She screamed at Meng Yufeiand and whipped her tentacles wildly, her fishy saliva almost spraying onto Peng Mingfan next door.

The innocent bystander Peng Mingfan could only suffer.

On his left was a giant dung beetle, on his right was an octopus monster, and his noble centaur master now wanted him to play catch. If Peng Mingfan failed to catch the ball, the next thing to get thrown around would be him.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!” Tang Cuo was making a mess out of everything, his HP constantly dropping from 70, by 8 or 9 points at a time. He embarked on Jin Cheng’s habit of casually gulping down potions to sustain the damage.

Jin Cheng now welcomed his final test ― ‘Guess who I am?’

Yorkshire the phoenix had two heads, which were actually twin sisters. As their favorite pet, Jin Cheng of course must be able to tell which was the older and which was the younger.

There was only one chance.

This required sheer luck and zero intelligence.

Jin Cheng’s luck had always been extreme: either fantastically good luck or horribly bad luck. The chance was 50-50 here. He randomly gave an answer, and it was correct.

“Congratulations to No. 4! It passed two out of three tests, and the master and his pet have a mutual understanding of more than 60. It’s definitely my ICK’s favourite cutie. Let us give it a warm applause!” 

The first to complete all three tests was actually Meng Yufei. Although he failed three times, he managed to survive. After clearing them, he didn’t dare to stay any longer, so he gave Jin Cheng a swift angry glare and took his leave.

But merely ten steps later, the little demon’s congratulations to Jin Cheng reached him. His heart beat faster and he turned around, his eyes instantly catching a long arrow flying his way.

“Jin, Cheng!” Meng Yufei rolled on the ground, a bloody scratch quickly forming on his forehead.

“I did warn you.” Jin Cheng pointed his bow at him: “If you dare to kill people again, I will kill you.”

Meng Yufei: “But I did nothing to you! What do you have to do with those low-level losers? They don’t actually die anyway!”

Jin Cheng: “Then what do you have to do with whether they actually die or not?”

Meng Yufei: “You!”

The two fought again. Close combat couldn’t be used with No. 4 and No. 8 tracks separated by a distance in between, but Jin Cheng was an archer. Such a restriction was in fact his advantage.

Not to mention, Meng Yufei had been beaten by an octopus monster and was not in his prime condition. Jin Cheng’s attack at this time was a typical example of ‘striking a hit when your opponent is at his weakest’.

The two figures quickly disappeared from the circular arena.

This didn’t bother Tang Cuo at all. He was still focusing on blowing up his cauldron. He used the method of elimination to confirm the name of each material and was now consistently coming closer to the correct answer.

He took two basic potions with him and had consumed one, so now there was only one left.

Soon, the other players completed their tests one after another, some of them actually failing all three tests but surviving through sheer resistance, such as Qian Wei. There were also those who luckily passed all three tests, such as No. 10 girl. Most failed one or two and ended up with injuries all over their bodies.

No. 3, 6 and 10 had a brief discussion and immediately followed Jin Cheng and Meng Yufei. The overall strength of this group was higher than Qian Wei and Peng Mingfan combined, and it seemed that they wanted to at least fight for some decent rankings.

No. 2, 9, and 11 also ran after them.

By right, Qian Wei and Peng Mingfan should have been one step faster than those players, but Peng Mingfan glanced at Tang Cuo and said: “Let’s wait for you and we go together.”

Only Qian Wei, Peng Mingfan, Tang Cuo and the hapless No. 1 were left in the field. No. 1 had made two mistakes in a row and his whole body was curling on the ground in pain, his master continuously beating him until he coughed up blood.

The screen flashed his third test. His bruised eyes opened wide but he didn’t dare to take a look, rather, he desperately crawled towards the next track: “Help me, help me! Please help me!”

“You have to stand up for yourself!” Qian Wei said as he slowly took a sip from his potion.

“I can’t do it, I can’t!” No.1’s face was all blood and tears. “I was actually forced into this mission, I can’t do this. Please save me!”

A forced mission.

Hearing this, even Tang Cuo couldn’t help turning his head to look.

Zhang Xing once said that in Yong Ye City, players who didn’t take the initiative to perform any missions within one month would be forced to. All forced missions would leave players with little chance to stay alive out of it. Perhaps it wasn’t that the forced missions were too difficult, rather, if a player got forced into a mission, he or she was likely too weak to get out of it smoothly.

No wonder this No. 1 had no teammates.

“Oh, it seems that No. 1 can’t hold on anymore. Our tests are about completing certain actions according to the master’s instructions. If you don’t get up, the master will be angry. The entire Demon City knows Lord Servis doesn’t have a very good temper, can our poor No. 1 bear his anger?” The little demon didn’t seem to like No. 1 very much, as he was clearly adding fuel to the fire.

Servis was a typical-looking demon, with red eyes and long horns on his head, coupled with a burly figure.

No. 1 was frightened just by looking at him, and he could do nothing but try to escape.

“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, don’t kill me…” Seeing no one coming to rescue him, No. 1 broke down even more miserably, staggering himself up from the ground then starting to run away.

But his delay has angered Servis the demon, who was lifting his huge foot as if wanting to trample the contestant.

At this life-threatening moment, Tang Cuo suddenly raised his revolver.

“Bang!” A gunshot was heard and the bullet hit Servis’ ankle.

Another gunshot followed, and Peng Mingfan, the expert at drawing a human shape with his gun, also hit Servis’ calf and scratched a bit of his skin. Servis paused for a second and No. 1 rolled away at once.

“!” Servis was furious and the spectators were terribly agitated.

“Sure enough, the contestants this time are all too friendly, totally not in line with the our Demon City’s style. My little cuties, let me warn you, you won’t get any gifts if you stay this way.”

In response to the little demon, Tang Cuo fired the second shot, his face unflinching.

Servis had thick skin and a few bullets wouldn’t cause him any major harm. But his attack wouldn’t reach Tang Cuo, so he vented all his anger on No.1 and stepped on him even harder.

Seeing such a scene, Qian Wei was frightened to the core, but he didn’t have any long-range attack skill and could only watch. What surprised him the most was that Tang Cuo fired the shot with one hand while the other hand was still putting those materials into the cauldron.

“Boom!” The cauldron exploded together with the gunshot.

Tang Cuo’s other hand was finally freed and he now held the gun with both hands, but the distance was too far and there was only so much a bullet could do. Tang Cuo could only shoot to stop the demon for a brief moment. No. 1 escaped in panic and wasn’t in his best state to cooperate nicely with Tang Cuo, so he ended up being stepped on still.

“Aaaaaaaaaahhh!” Servis’s huge feet finally cut off his arm. The punishment ended.

His scream pierced through Qian Wei’s heart. Qian Wei had been through several dungeons but still couldn’t get used to this kind of scene. Peng Mingfan pushed his glasses up with a calm expression and turned away.

Tang Cuo remained silent. He put the gun away and immediately began to mix up the ingredients. By this point, he was left with ― seven minutes.

The little demon was delighted: “What will happen to the disobedient big baby No. 12? Hurry up, you are the last one.”

Tang Cuo didn’t look up, his hands moving even faster. The monsters could only see him pick up the materials and throw them into the cauldron without even looking at them, one material after another, as though he had been calculating his moves very carefully. It was only when he finally picked up a bottle of star sand and poured it in that his expression became solemn.

But he didn’t hesitate one bit.

He needed three grams of star sand. As the colourful sand was sprinkled into the cauldron that was gurgling with black bubbles, a reaction was instantly seen. 

The black liquid faded quickly and turned into the same colour as the star sand. As specified by the recipe, Tang Cuo kept stirring, and the colourful mix continued to become lighter until it turned totally transparent.

But just when he thought he was going to succeed, the cauldron exploded again.

Where did he go wrong?

The little demon looked as though he heard some commotion from afar, his face filled with surprise: “It seems that something fun has happened in front. Mr. Little Demon won’t entertain this last finisher! See you in the third round!” 

After that, the little demon flew to the front and disappeared from their sight.

The monster spectators booed and seemed to be urging Tang Cuo to hurry up. They didn’t enjoy watching such a tiring show.

Tang Cuo started making the potion again.

He kept to the same procedure and got the same result. Three minutes before the time limit, Tang Cuo frowned, coming to the decision that he had neither the skill nor the talent for this, so he kicked over the hourglass.

“Hiss —” The Dark Lord stuck his tongue out to send a warning signal, but before he even made any moves, a hand was suddenly brought to his mouth.

Tang Cuo: “Bite me. Quick.” 

The Dark Lord was utterly stunned. Qian Wei and Peng Mingfan were completely dumbfounded.

But Tang Cuo’s shocking show hadn’t ended yet.

After being bitten for the second time, the upper limit of Tang Cuo’s HP was reduced again by 20, 10 points fewer compared to the first bite. His HP now stood at 50. The screen quickly flashed the content of the third test, which was exactly the same as Jin Cheng’s baffling Q&A.

Tang Cuo didn’t look at the options and blindly chose C for all three questions. He ended up with one correct and two wrongs.

The Dark Lord was stunned again as Tang Cuo urged it to bite the third time.

Tang Cuo took four minutes to complete the whole process and his HP’s upper limit now dropped to 40, welcoming him back to his usual dying state. Tang Cuo raised his eyebrows and simply nodded at Qian Wei and Peng Mingfan: “Let’s go.” 

As expected, this man was always to the point.

Qian Wei and Peng Mingfan returned to their senses and finally caught up with the boss, but the boss suddenly stopped in his track.

Tang Cuo bent down and picked up something from the ground. It was a ring covered in green embroidery, its original shape hidden behind many layers of strings. This thing was apparently spit out by the Dark Lord during the first test. Tang Cuo didn’t want to pick it up, but when he accidentally kicked it just now, a familiar bell rang in his ears.

“Ding!”

“Congratulations to the player for triggering the hidden mission [Kingdom Hidden in The Moonlight]. This mission is a serial mission. You can choose either single-player mode or team mode. Please decide if you want to enter the mission now?”

Tang Cuo thought for a second and selected ‘No’ in his mind. With that thought, the announcement disappeared at once, and the rust-free ring lay quietly in his palm as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened.

“Tang ge, what’s the matter?” Qian Wei shouted from track No. 5. It seemed that they didn’t hear the announcement.

“I’m okay.” Tang Cuo put the ring away and didn’t say a word about it.

No. 1 was still lying on the ground, grunting in pain. Qian Wei called out to him twice to remind him to leave quickly, but he didn’t move. There were several tracks between the two of them and Qian Wei couldn’t wait for him forever, so he gritted his teeth and took his leave.

Five minutes later, the three set foot on a wide road full of monster corpses. These monsters all looked similar, with small heads, blue-black skin, pointed noses and pointed ears, each holding a saber in their hands. They looked somewhat like the goblins that were often seen in online games.

There were heaps of dead goblins on the road, and the number just kept increasing as the three walked forward. These corpses were stacked up densely at all corners. Most importantly, the separate tracks and the barrier in between disappeared.

Qian Wei finally ran to Tang Cuo’s side, his voice stretched out: “Are these all killed by the players in front?”

Peng Mingfan: “It seems so. We have to go faster.” 

The three stopped talking and hurried forward at full speed. At this moment, Tang Cuo looked back. At the end of the road where they just passed, the dead goblins slowly stood up.

“Faster.” Tang Cuo said coldly.

The goblins were alive again.