Stepping over the body of the steel horse, Mu You continued to move forward.
After walking through a dark corridor, a staircase appears in front of you.
"It finally looks like a tower..." Mu You breathed a sigh of relief.
Just as he was about to step up the steps to the second floor, a faint blue light suddenly struck beside him, like a carriage pulled by some kind of wild beast. It came first and rushed up the stairs before him, disappearing into the darkness above. middle.
"What?" Mu You looked at the stairs in surprise. The light and shadow flashed too fast, giving him no chance to see clearly.
"finally found you!"
At this moment, another familiar voice sounded behind Mu You.
Mu You subconsciously looked back, but there was nothing behind him, and the sounds seemed to come from the walls in all directions.
"Don't be nervous, it's me!" The voice came out again, and this time Mu You was sure that it was the voice of the bard.
"Djinn?"
"It's me," said the bard's voice.
"What's going on? Where are you? Where are Pocket Toad and Coke?" Mu You asked hurriedly.
"As you can see, this passage is the test scene designed by the Pen of Order for the trialists. However, this is only the first floor. There are many more floors above. You must pass all the floors and reach the top of the tower. See the magic pen..."
The bard's voice said: "As for your pet and I, we were trapped in different spaces after entering the tower. We are invisible to each other, but we are safe, so you don't have to worry."
"Besides, I only managed to contact you briefly by consuming the oil in the magic lamp. I'm afraid I won't be able to hold on for long, so I'll try to keep my story short."
Hearing that both Coke and Frogzi were fine, Mu You breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "What do I need to do next?"
"Same as what you did just now, continue to use the Pen of Order to deal with all the monsters along the way, and become familiar with the rules of order in the battle, and keep killing until you reach the top of the tower..." the bard said.
"How many floors is the top of the tower on?"
"have no idea."
"have no idea?"
"The original lighthouse only had fifty floors, but it has been transformed beyond recognition by the Pen of Order. I am not sure how many floors there are now..."
"What was that light and shadow that rushed over just now?" Mu You asked.
"It's Caesar."
"Caesar? He can also participate in this trial?" Mu You was surprised. Doesn't it mean that the pen of order is repelling Caesar? Why would you allow him to participate in the trial?
"The Pen of Order only designed the trial scene, but could not designate the trial participants. All humans who enter from outside the tower will automatically be qualified for the trial," the voice said.
"That means I have to get to the top of the tower before Caesar?"
"Yes, and Caesar once had a magic pen for a period of time. His understanding and application of the laws of order are far better than yours now. Whether you can surpass him in the future depends on how quickly you understand the laws of order... …”
The bard's words immediately gave Mu You a sense of urgency. Not to mention his competitors in this trial, there was an opponent whose foundation was far superior to his...
"Don't worry, the flow of time here is different from that in the outside world. Even if you stay here for a year, it will only take a few breaths in the outside world. You have enough time to pass..."
The troubadour spoke again, and his voice became intermittent: "In addition, I can't follow you to the next level, and you can only rely on yourself from now on... Remember, the magic pen in your hand is your strongest weapon... With this pen, theoretically you can do anything here...master the fastest...methods of using it to kill enemies..."
The sound stopped abruptly.
Mu You waited for a while, but the bard's voice never sounded again. It seemed that the contact had been interrupted.
Mu You breathed out, looked at the stairs ahead, and stepped up.
"Snapped!"
The stairs seem to be too high to reach the top, but the climbing process is short and terrifying.
As soon as he took a step, Mu You came to a new passage.
There are still bluestone walls on both sides, and there is still a blocked road behind you. Everything is almost the same as the previous floor.
The only difference is the monster ahead.
With the sound of gears clattering, two iron-clad mechanical spiders quickly climbed up from the walls on both sides, each over two meters long.
"Is there two this time..."
Mu You frowned. It would definitely be more difficult to deal with two monsters at the same time.
Fortunately, the weaknesses of these two monsters have also been magnified.
Mu You held the brush tightly and looked through the perspective of order. The discordant points in the two spiders' bodies became two locations: one in the lower abdomen and the joints of the left forelimb.
"hiss!"
While he was observing, one of the two spiders neighed, raised its front claws, and flew towards him.
Mu You hurriedly rolled to avoid it, and then took advantage of the gap between the two spiders to get up and fight back.
What he is worried about now is not whether he can deal with these two spiders, but how to deal with them without aggravating the injury. There is no other way. Without looking back, he can only be as careful as possible.
With one stroke, Mu You accurately stabbed the irregular rune under the spider's back belly. Like a sharp blade, it directly penetrated the rune and turned into dust.
But what he didn't expect was that the spider that had been stabbed in its 'weak point' screamed wildly, turned red, and rushed towards him at a faster speed.
Mu You hurriedly dodged, but he still underestimated the speed of the spider after it went berserk. He was bitten on his left arm, and his left hand was directly bitten off by the spider. His whole body was knocked away more than ten meters by the huge force.
Fortunately, Mu You didn't feel much pain when his left arm was broken, only a numbness in the joints of his left arm.
At the same time, in mid-air, the angry roar of the spider could be heard in his ears.
Mu You jumped up hurriedly, preparing for the next more violent attack from the two spiders.
However, when he stood up and took a closer look, he discovered that two spiders were entangled in the distance and were biting each other.
"Huh?"
Mu You was stunned for a moment, but quickly realized something.
It seems that the 'weak point' hit just now is not ineffective. While the spider becomes violent, it seems that it has become indistinguishable between friend and foe!
good chance!
Mu You's eyes lit up, and he immediately rushed forward. Taking advantage of the gap between the two spiders' scuffle, he sneaked in and stabbed him from time to time.
Under his deliberate control, the injuries on the two spiders increased evenly, and their speed became slower and slower.
After that, it took nearly half an hour for Mu You to finally drag the two spiders to death.
As the two steel spiders fell to the ground, a staircase appeared again at the end of the passage ahead.
Mu You didn't rush over, but looked at his missing left arm with some helplessness.
This was only the second level, and he lost an arm directly. The difficulty of this trial was a bit unbelievable.
The most important thing is that he is now in a mortal body and has no chance of being injured.
Mu You was thinking about how to pass the next level with only one hand, when he suddenly noticed that the two mechanical spiders that had just died in the distance, from the rune perspective, the order runes in the body did not completely stop flowing like dead objects. There is still a small part that is rotating normally.
Mu You hurriedly stepped forward, carefully cut open the bodies of the two spiders with a brush, and completely took out the two squirming rune groups inside.
From the perspective of reality, these two pieces of meat are just two ordinary lumps of monster meat, which have nothing to do with life. However, from the perspective of order, these two pieces of meat seem to be alive.
Could it be...
Mu You thought for a while and tried to bring two pieces of meat closer to his missing left arm.
What surprised him next happened: the two groups of runes actually squirmed on their own, spliced to his joints, and after a period of deformation, turned into his left arm.
Mu You looked at the regrown left arm in front of him and tried to hold it. As a result, everything was as usual, there was no discomfort at all, and he even felt stronger than before.
The only change is from the perspective of order.
Originally, all the runes on Mu You's body were blue and white, but now, on his newly grown left arm, all the runes were in eye-catching red.
Not only that, even the joint position where it joins the left forearm has a small part of the runes dyed red.
"What impact will this thing have?"
Mu You frowned and couldn't figure it out for a moment.
He now knows nothing about the laws of order, and has no idea what the colors of the runes mean.
The Djinn God said before that this space is a world of order created by the Pen of Order. Theoretically, he can do anything with the pen in his hand, including repairing his body and easily killing all enemies, but to do these The premise is that he must first master the rules of order and the meaning of each rune.
Mu You recalled the process of killing three monsters before. On the first war horse, he hit a 'hook'-shaped rune, which caused an injury to the left forefoot of the war horse. Later, when fighting against a spider, he hit a 'hook'-shaped rune. It was a vertical rune, which caused the spider to go berserk. Obviously these two runes were directly related to these two results.
However, this refers to a single rune. If different runes are connected together, they may have different meanings. The entire order rune system is like a brand new language, and he now needs to learn this language without any guidance or reference, which will inevitably require a lot of attempts.
Mu You misses the pocket watch again. If he had the ability to look back, he could now try and make unlimited mistakes to test out the meaning of these runes one by one...
Mu You shook his head. No matter what, he finally knew how to recover from his injuries, and he had much less worries about it.
Moreover, for this trial only, he does not need to fully master the 'language' of order runes. He only needs to test some common killing methods, and then use these methods to kill all the way through the level.
After stepping over the corpses of the two spiders, Mu You continued to climb the three stairs.
There was a flash of light and shadow, and Mu You appeared in the passage on the third floor.
"Kaka..."
As soon as he entered the third floor, Mu You heard the sound of neat footsteps coming from the front.
Looking up, the monsters that came out of the darkness this time were three infantrymen in full armor, holding shields and halberds. However, the inside of the helmets was empty and had no entity at all. They were just three sets of moving 'iron armors'.
"There are indeed three on the third floor..." Mu You nodded. From this point of view, the number of monsters on each floor is equal to the corresponding number of floors.
After seeing Mu You, the three armored infantrymen immediately raised their halberds, raised their shields, and took a defensive posture. They approached him step by step, all in uniform movements.
Mu You didn't waste time. He held the brush tightly and rushed forward. He began to beat the three of them wildly, trying to exchange injuries for injuries and test the effect of each rune.
…
A few minutes later, all three armored men fell to the ground.
"Destroying the 'Chuan'-shaped character can slow down the monster... The combination of 'Bu' and 'Hook' can make the left forelimb disabled..."
Mu You silently recited the new pattern he had just discovered, stepped forward and cut open the three armored corpses with a writing brush, took out three clusters of runes from them, and spliced them onto his mutilated body.
As expected, all the injuries healed immediately after being fused with the new runes of order. However, the healed parts turned red again, and more red runes spread into his body.
Mu You simply ignored it. Even if the red rune really had any impact, he couldn't control it now. This was his only means of recovery at the moment.
After three consecutive battles, Mu You already had an idea of how to deal with the next monsters in the tower.
However, it is not enough. He needs more attempts and masters more rules.
Next, Mu You began to climb layer by layer.
The fourth floor...
The fifth floor...
…
All the way up, there are indeed more and more enemies, and their strength becomes stronger.
Mu You used injuries to test the rules again and again, and then used the order taken out of the monster after killing the monster to repair his physical damage.
As time went by, Mu You gradually forgot to count floors and count the number of kills. In short, if an enemy appeared in front of him, he would kill one.
And every time he defeats an enemy, he will master one more rule for killing the enemy.
As he mastered more and more rules, it became easier and easier for him to kill enemies, but at the same time, the red runes of order in his body were also spreading rapidly.
Mu You instinctively felt that something was wrong, but he could no longer stop.
Before he even noticed, he had gradually sunk into the feeling of easily destroying his enemies with the pen of order.
This inconspicuous brush is more powerful than all the powers he had before. It can cut through the strongest shield effortlessly, and then destroy the order in the enemy's body.
But, it's not enough!
The speed at which he mastered the rules of order was far less than the speed at which floors could be upgraded.
As the floors continued to go up, the enemies became stronger and stronger, and the resistance Mu You encountered became stronger and stronger, until he could no longer make any progress.
Until he entered the passage on a certain floor, Mu You could no longer count which floor he was on. In short, venomous snakes were surrounding him, spitting out their letters.
Mu You had slaughtered the rushing venomous snakes as quickly as possible, but he still often looked at one thing and missed the other. The venomous snakes jumped out from all tricky angles, clinging to him, biting towards him, and constantly tearing off his flesh and blood.
The pain that penetrated into the bone marrow suddenly came like a tide, and toxins entered the body. Mu You only felt that his vision was blurred and his consciousness was chaotic.
The sounds of the poisonous snakes spitting messages around him were like a tape recorder that was out of power, and the scenery in front of him was constantly distorting and moving away.
Mu You felt that his spirit and soul had been completely separated, and the resentment and anger that had been accumulated in his heart for a long time were brought out. A picture seemed to appear in front of him. It was two years ago, on the day his parents had a car accident, he was there. In the morgue, I saw the cold, mutilated remains of my parents...
At the same time, the poisonous snakes around him seemed to have turned into fierce ghosts, constantly pestering him like life-threatening impermanence, laughing wildly in his ears: You will be the next one to go to hell!
"It's you who deserve to die!"
Mu You's eyes suddenly turned red, and he burst out with strength from nowhere. He reached out and grabbed a snake in front of his neck, brought it to his mouth, and took a bite.
The poisonous snake was in pain, struggled wildly, and bit him on his left eye, biting off his eyeball.
Mu You didn't realize it. He crumpled the bitten poisonous snake into a ball and roughly stuffed it into his missing left eye. The left eye instantly returned to its original state.
Mu You immediately grabbed another one, continued to tear and bite it, and then stuffed it into the missing parts of his body...
As he continued to kill poisonous snakes and repair his body, the red order runes in Mu You's body became more and more dense, like a person who had just been fished out of a blood pool.
At some point, Mu You finally cleared away all the poisonous snakes on this floor.
However, his eyes turned red and he didn't stop at all. He went straight to the next floor with a grin.
"Not enough, not enough! I need more order!"
Rushing to the next level, Mu You rushed straight into the dense group of monsters in front and started killing them.
After the madness just now, he simply gave up the troublesome method of trying the rune rules one by one, and instead chose to directly destroy it!
Since the pen in his hand can change all the rules, he doesn't have to worry about the good and bad, destroy them all at once, and then stuff the remaining order into his body and merge it into his own power. This is the fastest way to improve!
As more and more chaotic order mixed into his body, Mu You gradually felt that he became infinitely powerful, and his every move was as fast as lightning, and those monsters became extremely slow in his eyes.
kill! kill! kill!
Mu You's eyes were red and he had lost all reason. He was running through the narrow passage like a meat grinder. Not a single monster on both sides could survive a round under his hands.
"Power, more power is needed!"
"Destroy, destroy, destroy everything!"
"The power of order is destruction!"
Thick blood and desperate wails continued to burst out around him. Mu You didn't notice it at all, he just kept tearing the monster apart and reassembling it into a part of himself.
At this moment, the runes on his entire body were as red as blood, and a large amount of red order was still spreading deeper into him, constantly occupying and eroding, getting closer and closer to his heart.
However, as the red order gets closer and closer to the center, the speed of spread also begins to slow down rapidly, until the small core part in the middle is finally unable to advance even an inch. A small boat, no matter how it drifts, will never capsize.
This was an extremely weird feeling, which made Mu You, who was furious, feel an indescribable awkwardness. It was like standing in front of a bungee jumping cliff. He was clearly hanging in the air, but there was an inexplicable rope attached to his back, pulling him back desperately to prevent him from taking the last step.
This weird feeling almost drove Mu You crazy. He tore off a lot of hair manically, roaring that he wanted to get rid of the rope, gain complete freedom, completely sink into the world of order, and experience the power that truly belongs only to the gods. .
And as he struggled desperately, after an unknown amount of time, he finally broke free from the shackles, and the boat in the sea of blood quietly capsized.
The last white rune in the body is gradually turning red...
"Boom!"
At this moment, the back of the head was suddenly hit by something.
At this moment, the twisted illusions and lines around him, and all the chaotic sounds in his ears, disappeared in an instant.
Mu You opened his eyes in a daze and found himself sitting cross-legged on a piece of green grass. In front of him was a crucible with black smoke. The breeze blew slowly, sending the fragrance of grass leaves and earth into his nose.
"...Concentrate, be calm, and don't be greedy for success. These are the essential qualities of a potion master... I have said something so many times, but I just can't remember it..." A familiar nagging voice came from his shoulder.
This scene was extremely familiar to him: when he was studying Potions before, whenever he made a mistake, Vivian would always peck at the back of his head like a woodpecker, saying she wanted to crack open his elm head to see if it was stuffed inside. What rubbish...
"Vivian?"
Mu You woke up suddenly and took a closer look.
The surroundings were dim, and all the green grass and green areas disappeared. He still stayed in the narrow corridor, with no one around him.
Mu You was a little confused, and the hostility in his body gradually dissipated. When he looked down, he was suddenly surprised.
At this moment, his feet were covered with dense monster corpses, almost bleeding like rivers.
But what's even more terrifying is himself.
Now he has long lost his human form, and his body is covered with various monster organs, such as snake heads, crab claws, fish scales, spider legs... He has completely transformed into a bloated, deformed, sarcoid-like monster that is five or six meters tall.
From the perspective of Order, his whole body was completely filled with the scarlet chaotic runes of Order, leaving only a small amount of purity in the deepest part of his heart.
"What have I done..."
Mu You broke into a cold sweat. Just now, he was completely dominated by the thoughts of killing and cruelty, and was immersed in the power brought by order.
The white rune in his heart represents his remaining sanity. If it weren't for Vivian's reminder at the last moment...
Wait, Vivian?
Mu You hurriedly turned his head and looked around. The entire passage was empty. He was the only living person standing. Where did Vivian come from?
Moreover, when he entered the divine realm before, Vivian had already been left by Lin Xue's side, so there was no way she would appear here.
Mu You looked around, and finally looked at the brush in his hand.
"So, were you reminding me just now..."
At this moment, the only thing around him that might wake him up was this pen.
Facing his inquiry, the brush in his hand remained motionless, like a dead object.
Mu You breathed out and didn't ask any more questions. He put away his brush, turned around and took a look at the monster corpses on the ground.
The result surprised him: there were actually 182 monster corpses!
In other words, he has reached the 182nd floor!
Although the Djinn God said before that this place had been transformed by the magic pen, but even if it was transformed, could it be transformed to more than 180 floors?
Looking at the dense corpses at his feet, Mu You suddenly had a hunch: Even if he continued to kill, there would only be endless levels and monsters behind him, with no end at all.
The fact that he was able to kill here in one breath just now shows that he has completely mastered the method of breaking the rules with the magic pen.
However, this usage is incorrect.
His state just now could almost be described as being possessed, and he was completely on the wrong path.
In other words, the information told to him by the bard's voice before was wrong. This time, the test was not to ask him to use the power of order to kill.
"By the way, that voice at that time was really a troubadour?"
After experiencing the thrill just now, Mu You suddenly began to doubt this.
Thinking of this, he simply sat down and began to recall and take stock of everything he had just experienced.
Fortunately, even though he had just entered a violent state, every scene he experienced on the way remained in his memory like a brand.
Mu You started from the first level, recalling all his processes of destroying order runes.
And the more he recalled it, the more sweat broke out on his forehead.
Only then did he realize what kind of tightrope he had been walking on the whole time. He was only one step away from falling into the abyss at any time.
It wasn't until he recalled all the memories that Mu You let out a long sigh of relief, and suddenly realized something: the God of Order is not the one who destroys and modifies order, but the one who protects it!
The power of order, of course, includes the power to destroy order, but every time it is destroyed, it will produce a certain 'deviation value', which is a red rune. If the deviation value is too high, it will lead to a madness like he just did. Get lost in the power of order and lose yourself.
This is still in a virtual illusion scene. If it were in reality, the deviation value would only accumulate faster. People with weak will may fall after a few abuses of order!
Thinking of this, Mu You has already thought of Caesar's situation.
Perhaps, the Djinn's original vision was not wrong. Caesar was once a truly virtuous monarch. His first desire to turn the desert into an oasis was out of sincerity, hoping to improve the living environment of the people.
However, after obtaining the magic pen, he quickly embarked on the wrong path and fell into the power of order. He remained the same on the outside, but on the inside he had become a slave to destruction and killing.
The troubadour's voice just now should also be Caesar's disguise. After entering the lighthouse, this guy used the power of the djinn to gain some authority. Perhaps he knew that he did not have the ability to pass the test, so he misled him through sound transmission. In an attempt to drag him, a competitor, into the water.
If he hadn't been determined enough, and at the same time, the Pen of Order couldn't bear it and helped him, he was able to recover.
Thinking of this, Mu You took a deep breath, picked up the Pen of Order, and started cutting on himself.
Pieces of monster rune meat were cut off and discarded by him. It was not until all the chaotic order was expelled from the body that Mu You discovered that his body was riddled with holes and was no longer human.
But it doesn't matter. The real power of order is not destruction and destruction, but restoration. It is to bring order out of chaos and restore all disorder to its original state. When he fully grasps the power of order, even if there is only a speck of dust left in the broken world, it can be restored to its original state at any time.
The real content of this test is not to let him kill monsters with the pen of order, but to repair the disordered order in the monsters and master the rules of order in the process.
In other words, this is not actually a test at all, but an opportunity to teach him the laws of order.
(End of chapter)
