novelslam Chapter 564 The Fox's Words Are Valid
Chapter 564 The Fox's Words Are Valid
This was the first time Su Tianqing had doubted Inari's words.
"I feel like this is a bit too radical," Su Tianqing said, pulling the red fox girl beside her as they walked down the streets of Stargazer Town.
The Inari stalks wag their tails with a smile.
"I think it makes perfect sense. Think about it, as long as we follow my plan and observe how Garuda responds to our actions, we can deduce its location, right?"
"What I mean is... no, this... shouldn't we first... then, then... and finally..."
"Why did they resort to this method? Is it really the right thing to do?"
Su Tianqing tried to express her inner confusion, her mind filled with the thought, "That's not what the magic book says! I can't accept it!"
Now it's Inari's turn to appease the golden-haired fox girl beside her.
"Think about it again. This method is the best we have right now. And with so many people here, even if we can't pinpoint Garuda's location all at once, we can use the method of piling up information to gather the relevant details."
"Besides, they're just newcomers, so even if it's outrageous, it can't be that outrageous."
"Even if you say that... um..." Su Tianqing hesitated, which was rare for her.
It wasn't because the "experiment" Inari mentioned was too dangerous or terrifying, but because—even from my perspective as the villain—Inari's plan was a bit too thrilling and exciting:
Since Garuda needs to invade the mental world before it can invade the real world, let's give it more layers of mental imagery to slow down its progress.
At the same time, we need to disrupt these overlapping mental images as much as possible.
The extra mental images must be designed by someone who has never experienced the rules of the mental image world before. The designer must have little experience in magic and rely entirely on instinct to adjust and design the rules, in order to disrupt Garuda's encroachment.
【In summary--】
Inari's answer is: let Sasha and marigolds design the world of the mind.
Moreover, it came with a series of additional requirements, long enough to fill a document. Su Tianqing even doubted whether the two of them could manage to create the corresponding mental world before the time limit expired.
But seeing Inari's serious and confident expression, Su Tianqing swallowed back the refusal she was about to utter.
It wasn't until Su Tianqing returned to the villain's rooftop and met Alice's gaze, who was watching TV to pass the time, that she realized what had happened. Alice jogged up to her and asked what she had talked about with Inari. Su Tianqing still felt like she hadn't quite caught up in what had happened.
.
"What?"
"Let them design their mental worlds?"
"And you want [as much chaos as possible]???"
The girls gathered in the villain's rooftop lounge and posed three progressively more perplexing questions.
"No... Is Inari serious?" Nan Jiayu asked, puzzled, but received an affirmative answer from Su Tianqing's face.
The catgirl fell silent instantly, but her tail arched behind her in confusion, unable to understand why Inari would offer such a strange solution.
After asking a question in surprise, Xia Taotao seemed to immediately understand something. She pinched her chin, trying to follow Inari's train of thought, her rabbit ears twitching.
Fei Yelan seemed completely confused, repeating "Huh? What did you just say, Fox?" until the two Alices came over and explained it to her in detail before she finally understood.
...Did you really have an epiphany?
Looking at the half-understanding expression on Gray Wolf's face, Su Tianqing felt that this matter might be highly questionable.
"I think we need to think this through more carefully. At the very least, we should ask Akashi and the Hero Association what they have to say."
Nan Jiayu spoke very cautiously, and her idea was met with a nod of agreement from Su Tianqing.
"Yes, I think the same way as you, Cat. This is absolutely not something to be taken lightly. If anything goes wrong, even if we all tied ourselves together, we might not be able to patch up the hole we created."
To Su Tianqing's surprise, the first person to accept this situation was actually Fei Yelan, who seemed to understand the least:
The gray wolf girl clenched her right fist and tapped it against her left palm, her eyes resolute, and nodded.
"I see, I understand completely now!"
Upon hearing this, even Rabbit looked at her with surprise, and her actions of tying up her ponytail and transforming into her intelligence rabbit mode temporarily stopped, ready to hear what the big bad wolf had figured out.
"Doggy, what did you understand? Tell everyone quickly." Su Tianqing immediately moved a small stool and sat down next to the catgirl, her fox ears standing up high.
Don't underestimate the dog. The Greedy Wolf Star has endowed her with surging magic, which may have given her some special abilities such as prophetic magic, turning her into the second-best intelligence master in the villain team, second only to the rabbit!
...It's not impossible, is it?
"First and foremost, I am a wolf."
Fei Yelan very seriously corrected Su Tianqing's previous form of address.
"Then, after listening to Alice's explanation, I think I understood Inari's reason for doing this."
"Have you ever gotten lost?" the gray wolf girl asked.
Upon hearing this, the group exchanged glances, and Nan Jiayu was the first to raise her hand in denial:
"I've never gotten lost. I have a great sense of direction; I can find my way home even with my eyes closed."
"Go away, go away, what are you cats doing getting involved? Besides, I was just using an analogy, and I hope everyone understands what I mean."
Fei Yelan complained irritably, raising her hands. Magic flowed from the tips of her wands, drawing two lines in the air and creating a thin gap between them.
"Let's imagine—if everyone here is Garuda, trying to invade the mortal world from the gap between the astral plane and the mortal world, the first thing you'd have to face is the mental world of Fox, right?"
"Yes...that's right, that's how Miss Inari explained it too," Su Tianqing nodded and said.
Fei Yelan continued to wave her wand, and the two magic lines separated further in the air, drawing a realistic maze in the middle, which she then showed to the people in front of her.
"Then I can imagine it this way: since Garuda has to invade the mortal world, it has to invade the mental world. If the rules of the mental world are more complex, wouldn't it need to spend more time understanding and distorting these rules to make them able to accommodate its own existence?"
As a long and complex sentence was uttered, Nan Jiayu was slightly out of sync. The tip of her cat tail twitched twice, and she quickly gave an expression that said, "I understand."
Su Tianqing could understand what Fei Yelan was saying, because these were all pieces of knowledge that Inari had told her and then that she had passed on to Alice. It seemed that the dog had indeed understood these things during their conversation.
"What you said makes some sense," Xia Taotao said softly. "So, Ye Lan, do you think Inari plans to use this method to expand the depth of Tian Qing's mental world as much as possible, thereby trapping Garuda within that mental world?"
"That's right, that's exactly what I meant. You really understand me."
The gray wolf chuckled and gave a thumbs-up, praising the pink-haired rabbit girl's understanding.
With this hint, and reflecting on it again, Su Tianqing seemed to understand how Inari had derived this method:
The mutation at the Gate of Fox Virtue was much less severe than that at Foxkov. In the end, Garuda only gazed at himself and Iris from afar in the sky, without creating any terrifying illusions like in Foxkov's photo corridor, which even included spaceships.
Ultimately, the problem lies in the "complexity" of the two mental worlds.
The Fox Gate has a very rich set of features, enough to warrant a complete rulebook and player manual. Its complexity far surpasses that of Foxkov, a gunfight and escape shooting scenario.
Incidentally, he had already divided the profits from the sale of the rulebook on the website equally among his fellow villains, and everyone smiled with delight when they saw the money.
"That's why Inari came up with the idea of letting the little birds and marigolds roam freely," Xia Taotao muttered to herself.
"If you and Alice were to design it, no matter how unorthodox the mental world becomes, it wouldn't stray too far from the norm. Garuda could easily see through the rules of the mental world by following logic, and thus quickly control and distort it."
Su Tianqing nodded in reply:
"Hmm... I think I understand what Inari means. I'll handle this. I'll contact the Hero Association right away and try to get it done before the time limit Inari gives me."
The villain's companions all left.
Fei Yelan had another class in the afternoon, so she quickly used teleportation magic to rush back to the mountain city for class. Aurora didn't have much to do, but considering that Xiao Wang also needed to relay the news about Inari, she acted as the liaison between the villains and the heroes.
The cat and the fox sat side by side in the lounge, looking at the suddenly empty sofa and chairs, and exchanged a glance.
"Little fish."
"Hmm?"
The fox girl called softly, and her fox tail clung to the cat girl's side, tightly wrapping around her cat tail.
Nan Jiayu instinctively hooked the unruly fox's tail with the tip of its own, tilted its head, and looked at the golden fox beside it.
"Little Fish, do you think this Inari thing is really reliable?"
Su Tianqing muttered to herself, her fingers connecting Marigold and Iris on the Divine Stone, instructing them to bring Sasha to the Hero Association to inform Inari of their arrangements.
Nan Jiayu shrugged honestly, admitting his helplessness in this matter.
"I don't know how to put it, but my intuition tells me... Inari's theories are trustworthy."
"Wasn't it the same last time in Hong Kong?"
The catgirl curled her tail, reached out and grabbed the tip of her rather unruly tail, and said:
"A person who has the ability to foresee the future should have a more reliable plan."
"...Since you've said so, Little Fish, let's do it this way."
The fox girl chuckled as she got up, her fox tail smoothly slipping away from the cat's attempt to hold her back. She swayed behind her a few times, then hopped to the bedside and looked down at the bustling city street scene.
Su Tianqing suddenly murmured softly, as if talking to herself:
"Regardless of why Garuda wants to invade the mortal world,"
"...We must investigate this thoroughly."