A Good Guess (2)
"I'll choose this one."
—
—
"Alright, adventurer. Without further ado, let me ask you." The Amber Guardian began.
Evan caught a good breath, steadying himself, and concentrated on his listening capability.
The Guardian continued. "I am easy to obtain yet hard to maintain-"
'A golddigger?' Evan seriously considered.
"Alone I am nothing but among us I am everything. Allies treasure me and enemies respect me. I am desired during peaceful times but required during times of war. What am I?"
A new system message popped up transcribing the Guardian's riddle word by word.
A countdown timer in the corner of the transparent message signaled that Evan had one minute to come up with an answer.
59s
58s
—
Alone I am nothing but among us I am everything.
Allies treasure me and enemies respect me.
I am desired during peaceful times but required during times of war.
What am I?>
—
44s
43s
'Hmm, maybe there are clues in the keywords?' Evan mulled. 'Hard to maintain... Everything? For whom? Allies and enemies are both positive about it. Same with peace and war. Could it be power?'
31s
30s
He continued to ponder. 'It's not power. It doesn't go with the third line.'
Lamenting the fact he had chosen something above his weight class, or so he thought, he gritted his teeth to maintain his focus and soldiered on.
25s
24s
'What about influence? No. It fits slightly in each line but falls short. Particularly in the first and third lines.
Evan kept using this method to cross-examine whether some of his guesses would line up with each of the riddles' lines until the countdown hit the 10 seconds marker.
9s
8s
'Wait... Diligence? It kinda suits well with each line. Hmm, maybe not. It's the first line again. And the fourth line would be a little messy. I feel I'm close.'
5s
4s
3s
"Ah, I got it!" Evan spoke up for the first time since the countdown began.
2s
"The answer is duty!"
All of a sudden, the timer stopped with 1.19 seconds remaining. The Guardian narrowed his brows for a moment, then his frown turned into a smile, and the smile grew into a considerable grin.
"Well done, young man! Congratulations on being the first-ever player to solve a Nigh Impossible riddle!" The Guardian applauded.
Apart from a rampant pulse, Evan finally felt relieved. Though he wasn't certain, he estimated that the chances of being correct were rather high.
He had used the same thought process he utilized during many of his exams when he was younger and still attended school.
Evan didn't consider himself a bibliomaniac or a bookworm of sorts. In fact, he never studied much for any test except for subjects that only had singular answers such as mathematics.
Every time he received tasks that required him to use logic, he would most of the time find a way to extrapolate the given information in a deductive manner.
He had just barely narrowed down the info with little time to spare. He shuddered at the thought of trying to deduce any riddle from the Beyond Possible option.
After receiving his rewards from the Amber Guardian, sent to his currently locked inventory, the system introduced a new set of notifications.
—
<1. Choose an ancestry and ancestry traits>
<2. Choose a starting class>
<3. Choose proficiencies>
<4. Character customization>
—
The game information released by Bell Inc had never talked about the specifics when it came to the gameplay.
The company had only ever released short video clips showing beautiful landscapes, townships, and dungeon areas combining into a massive fantasy world, including various types of mobs and boss monsters.
Yet, that was still enough to capture the hearts of millions of players. What words couldn't describe, half a dozen short videos tentatively released at random in the last 2 years were enough to stun and allure newcomers, casuals, and veterans alike.
Since everyone had the same prior knowledge about the game, no one could completely prepare themselves or make any elaborate plans such as setting up farming routes, knowing the best leveling areas, or choosing mobs with the best drop rates and items.
...
On a tall office building floor, several hundred meters above ground, a handful of analysts, game designers, chief engineers, and various important personnel sat around a large oval table.
Advanced high-definition monitors took up the space where paintings and portraits would normally be placed in a regular household.
At the center of the table, a large 360 degrees holographic live feed displayed multiple events occurring inside Soulbound Online since its release less than an hour ago.
At one of the spearheads of the table, Bell Inc's CEO and lead developer sat cross-legged with all of his attention on a particular event.
"Eliza. Benjamin. Any thoughts?" He composedly asked.
"First the Beyond Possible riddle, now the Nigh Impossible one. This is unprecedented." A woman in her mid-twenties voiced.
"Are the Guardians malfunctioning?" She questioned, mostly herself, since she was the lead NPC software developer behind Soulbound Online.
Eliza graduated with her computer science doctorate at the age of 19, the age most people would start enrolling in universities, meaning she was the youngest person in the room.
"I don't think that's the case." An old voice rebutted.
"The data show no signs of our AIs glitching out. This is well-tested. Have faith in our abilities, Ellie. We've checked every possible detail hundreds, if not thousands of times."
"Then what's the case, teacher? Is there foul play in the picture?" Eliza surmised, only to doubt her own words again.
Eliza's mentor, Benjamin, a man in his 60s, had been employed as the company's lead AI developer ever since the beginning of the Soulbound Project. He was also a neuroscience professor at the world's leading institute of science and technology in his earlier years.
"That's not the case either." Benjamin opined. "The recordings clearly show no signs of cheating.
Even if it was possible to cheat in the first place, the system would have picked it up, either through facial readings and heartbeat monitoring combined with several other security checks."
The room began to ponder like a hivemind thinking in unison.
"Then." The CEO began. "These two have the potential of Soul Sense?"
A few people in the meeting furrowed their brows. The rest of the members had no clue what their CEO was rambling on about.
"Hmm. That's possible." Benjamin carefully stated.
"I don't disagree either now that I think about it. There might be other Soul Sense players that we're unaware of due to the lower difficulty riddles clouding their potential." Eliza added.
The gazes of the members fell back on the 4D projector displaying Evan and the Amber Guardian.