The fog was finally lifted.
When he saw another Ron Warlock arriving at the Bone Burial Abandoned Village, Xu Nan suddenly realized that this wasn’t his first time entering Lost Paradise.
Without the buff ‘newbie’s protection’, he had to compete with others if he wanted to obtain the hidden treasure in the Bone Burial Abandoned Village.
Xu Nan read through carefully and felt a little depressed.
From the information given by the system, it wasn’t difficult to know that the undead in the Bone Burial Abandoned Village were all level 15 bosses. However, none of them could use their abilities or powers in the village. Only the village leader, the grand justice, and the patrol captain were able to do so.
This dungeon clearly wasn’t one that could be passed by using brute force.
The dungeon gave a notice saying that there were three rounds of stand-off. The two Ron Warlocks were to compete and see who would emerge victorious. For the first round, it was none other than the 19th-anniversary celebration.
All the undead in the village loved to watch the circus very much. It was as expected given the fact that undead had nothing but time. They were bored all day long, and since they couldn’t eat anything or make love, the only form of entertainment they had was to watch circus performances and whatnot.
This time around, the 19th-anniversary celebration was held at the center of the village. The village leader also invited a famous circus to come and perform.
And as for Xu Nan and the other warlock, they had to prepare their own performances within half-a-day.
After that, they would head up on the stage to perform.
The village leader, grand justice, and patrol captain would be the judges and give points to the three performances. Those with the highest points would naturally be the victor of the first round and have the opportunity to obtain a part of the inheritance from the Death Spirit Warlock.
As for the second round, it hadn’t been revealed yet.
After the three rounds, the three judges would decide who was the ultimate victor from the points. The victor would then obtain the hidden treasure of the Bone Burial Abandoned Village.
…
At the center of the village, the atmosphere was extremely high.
Many undead were waving flags and screaming down from the audience seats.
Xu Nan was also down there watching the circus performance. When he saw those high-difficulty moves, he completely had no confidence at all!
He just had half-a-day to prepare, how could he have time to do something that could rival the circus?
He also didn’t know any magic. Any type of supernatural power was forbidden in the village. If he wanted to use sleight-of-hand or perform magic tricks, they would surely be seen through by the experts in the audience in an instant.
He could only place his hope on Soupy.
Soupy naturally wouldn’t know the skill ‘shattering a huge rock on chest’. But after Xu Nan expressed to her that they needed to put up a performance, Soupy still loyally agreed.
There were three options for them.
Firstly, to leap through a ring of fire. This was the most basic circus performance. As long as Soupy jumped through a respectable nine rings of fire, their team would have the qualifications to receive the basic scores. However, Soupy was afraid the fire might singe her fur; thus, she decisively rejected this option.
The second option was using a flying dagger to pierce an apple. This was also considered a basic circus performance. Xu Nan absolutely didn’t have any skill to toss a dagger accurately, but Soupy expressed that Xu Nan could be the one standing there blindfolded with the apple on his head, while she was responsible for throwing the dagger.
Xu Nan rejected this without hesitation.
What sort of joke was this? Who knew what were the true thoughts his magical pet had toward him. What if her hand trembled when she was throwing the dagger, and the dagger pierced into something other than the apple?
The third option was for them to come up with their own performances.
Ultimately, after their discussion, they decided to choose the third option.
“Given how rare a national treasure like me is, I will definitely get a high score even if I perform casually! Don’t worry.”
Soupy spoke heroically.
Xu Nan felt extremely nervous below the stage.
The other Ron Warlock hadn’t appeared yet. Maybe, he was already hiding among this crowd of undead!
“In any case, given how confident Soupy is, could it be that she knows the face-changing technique of Sichuan Opera?”
Xu Nan contemplated, he suddenly felt full of confidence.
If Soupy really knew the face-changing technique, he believed these undead creatures of the Alter World would definitely be convinced by her!
Just when his fantasies were running wild.
The clown on the stage suddenly retreated. The undead responsible for hosting smiled and flew up the stage. “Next, the performer is a valuable guest who came from afar. She will be performing a circus trick from the other world named Earth for us on our anniversary celebration!”
“May we invite Miss Soupy!”
Down the stage, the sound of thunderous applause rang out.
Soupy went up the stage with an adorable and innocent look. The eyes of all the spirits brightened. Clearly, they had never seen a lifeform like the giant panda before!
“It’s promising!”
Xu Nan clenched his fists. After all, the points that could be gained from the first impression were very important. Soupy’s adorable and silly-looking expression would most probably leave a very strong impression on the judges!
Soupy went on stage and walked in circles for a while. After that, she cupped her hands in salute.
“This is my first time here. Actually, I also have no idea what to perform. But for the sake of my master, I advance courageously despite the difficulties.”
Xu Nan felt a little moved.
Cheers rang out from the audience; the undead still gave her some face after all.
“Does everyone like me a lot?” Soupy was a little high now. She took two steps forward. “Let me perform a split for everyone then…”
After speaking, her two short legs suddenly stretched into a split as she sat down on the stage.
The stage trembled while the undead exchanged mutual glances.
“How about it? This performance is awesome, right?” Soupy was immensely pleased with herself.
Xu Nan’s vision turned dark.
The judges below all took the same action without prior communication and raised their point cards!
[0 Points!]
[0 Points!]
[0 Points!]
Under a cacophony of curses and boos, Soupy was chased down from the stage.
Just like that, even before Xu Nan saw his opponent, they had inexplicably thrown away the victory for the first round.
After she got down the stage, Soupy didn’t seem to understand why the scene earlier had happened as she asked Xu Nan.
“Why? Is my split not nice to watch?”
Xu Nan replied to her concisely and comprehensively.
“Next time, let’s just perform the flying dagger trick.”
…
The anniversary celebration continued on.
Xu Nan also got his wish and managed to see his opponent this time.
The other party was a middle-aged warlock with a pale complexion. He chose the option of flying dagger and even called a few villagers up to assist him in the performance.
In the end, the flying daggers pierced the target 100% of the time. His preciseness caused everyone to be shocked. It seemed that he was well-prepared before coming.
Xu Nan cast a deep glance at him. A warlock spending time on learning tricks for performance? He couldn’t possibly have added the wrong skill points, right?
The points the middle-aged warlock obtained weren’t low at all. He shot a contemptuous look at Xu Nan before departing from the stage.
“This fellow seemed to hold victory in his hands already.”
“Could it be that in the Puluo World, warlocks have their own circle and could exchange information about the dungeons they experienced?”
Xu Nan contemplated.
His conjecture wasn’t without reason. Although this warlock named Jason was roughly on the same level as him, Jason’s understanding of the Bone Burial Village far exceeded himself.
Before the celebration ended, Jason took the initiative to run to the village leader’s side and struck up a conversation with him.
Xu Nan observed that the village leader had a reluctant look on his face. Even so, after the first round of the circus performance, he ran over to the stage and sounded a horn as he called out.
“Everyone, attention!”
“This Mr. Jason who came from afar is willing to help us with a case that hasn’t been solved in the past 19 years.
“The site here will temporarily be used by the Bone Burial Abandoned Village’s supreme court. Everyone, please maintain your silence.”
Hushing sounds rang out from below, but no one dared to object. The status of the village leader was different from the rest of the villagers.
He made a gesture and the performance stage became the setup of a court of law.
Everyone was seated down. The grand justice put on a wig, and he, who was originally a lich, now seemed even more solemn and serious.
“Silence!”
“Let the court hearing begin!”
At the same time, Xu Nan received a prompt from the system.
[Second round unlocked!]
[Help the Bone Burial Abandoned village to resolve the case of skeleton theft that has not been resolved in the past 19 years!]
[You can choose a faction: Defense/Prosecution!]
A moment later, Xu Nan was slightly depressed to find out that the Prosecution option had turned grey. This also meant that Xu Nan was automatically in the Defense faction.
Speaking of which, he still had no idea about the situation of this so-called [case of the skeleton theft].
With a woosh, he was teleported to the seat of the defense attorney.
As for the prosecutor, it was naturally none other than the complacent middle-aged warlock, Jason.
Now, Xu Nan could confirm that this fellow had long since known about the trials of the Bone Burial Abandoned Village.
Xu Nan had no idea how Jason had learned about all these, and he could only react passively.
Right now, he hoped that his client wasn’t those types of reprehensible characters that were guilty of terrible crimes.
Very swiftly, the accused and the plaintiffs slowly appeared.
There were quite a number of plaintiffs. They all seemed to be the villagers of the Bone Burial Abandoned Village.
The plaintiffs began to say their grievances and cried in pain. They then stated that the accused, an impatient necromancer, who was seated behind Xu Nan, had stolen many sets of skeletons from the graveyard.
…
When it was time for the necromancer to express his views, his attitude was extremely unyielding and arrogant.
“You people are simply too idle. So what if I went to the graveyard and dug up a few bones?”
“Those corpses didn’t become undead, so I just used them to do some research!”
“I can swear to the heavens that I’ve never stolen the skeletons of any of our villagers!
Bang!
A massive femur dropped out from his robes, crashing onto the ground with a powerful and resonating bang!
The necromancer’s expression didn’t change as he stuffed the femur back into his robes. One of the villagers began to stir restlessly. “That’s my femur…”
“Silence!”
The grand justice cast a silence spell; his attitude was very solemn.
The necromancer continued with his self-defense.
“Everyone says that the Bone Burial Abandoned Village is a paradise for the undead and necromancers. However, I’m extremely depressed. This is a place that doesn’t allow me to do research, what sort of paradise is this?”
“Some people even said that I’m desecrating corpses? My heavens, I really have no idea how you guys manage to say such a thing!
“I’m a necromancer, is there something wrong with me liking to play around with corpses?”
As Xu Nan listened, he involuntarily nodded.
What a logical defense!
…