Bob’s heart had climbed to his throat; he was utterly focused, paying attention to every rustle of grass and gust of wind around him. Time ticked away second by second, yet nothing happened.
Bob let out a long sigh of relief and almost collapsed to the ground.
"Is it seriously this simple?"
Bob picked up the box from the ground, still feeling a bit incredulous.
How could something so important be left here without any protection?
That was like tossing a gem of immeasurable value onto the streets.
What Bob didn’t know was that the room he was in was a Chamber of Mechanisms filled with peril; triggering any one of them would mean certain death.
The mechanisms were hidden behind the metal walls, inactive.
This was actually easy to understand; once a mechanism was activated or even partially activated, there would definitely be a leak of energy.
It was like police officers attempting to catch a criminal; the officers wear uniforms and carry weapons. Gathered together, even several kilometers away, the criminal would likely detect them.
An inactive state was akin to police in plain clothes, significantly reducing the chance of being detected.
If a place is heavily guarded, it’s obvious to everyone that there’s something amiss.
The ploy of a "fake treasury" was simply an exercise in futility.
The condition to activate the mechanisms was the detection of Abnormal Energy.
This created a bug; what would happen if a creature with too low an energy entered the room?
During dream exercises, Xu Yi repeatedly experimented until he finally confirmed something.
If a Common person entered, the majority of the mechanisms would not activate, except for the heat-sensing systems.
So before Bob went in, Xu Yi had filled the entire room with steam.
He had attempted multiple times in his dreams before eventually discovering this method.
The simpler the tactic, the more effective it was.
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With the only threat to Bob, the sensing system, neutralized, Bob naturally took to it like a fish to water.
Xu Yi stood at the end of the corridor, gazing out like a statue longing for its partner.
Although everything had been rehearsed time and again in dreams, who knew if something would go wrong in reality?
Only when he saw Bob’s figure emerge from the thick fog did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The designer of the Treasury probably couldn’t have imagined that his painstakingly designed Chamber of Mechanisms could be circumvented by a Common person with nothing more than steam.
This was actually the result of a cognitive trap.
People rack their brains to design a cage for weasels, but who would anticipate an ant getting in?
Perhaps this is what they call "a novice defeating the expert" in legends!
This was also one of the reasons Xu Yi absolutely had to have Bob come here.
However, to be fair, a Common person would never be able to get here under normal circumstances.
Not to mention how a Common person might enter a well-defended Ocean Base, let alone know of this hidden Treasury.
Even if they managed all that, they wouldn’t be able to break through the "red copper" on the Treasury’s surface.
Of course, that wasn’t actually red copper, but merely resembled it; it was an extremely strong material, much stronger than the "glass" of the Magic-Prohibiting Box.
Only something as unreasonable as the World Tree could damage the "red copper" in a short span of time.
In the end, it could only be said that the method of dream exercises was far too unconventional.
Even if a game is exceedingly difficult, as long as one can keep retrying, the end can eventually be reached.
Moreover, he could steal the "strategy guides" from people’s minds through the Dream Seed.
Xu Yi looked at the box in Bob’s hand, and the worry that was hanging in his heart finally settled.
In fact, it wasn’t merely a Common person plus steam that had undone the entire Chamber of Mechanisms.
The "fake box" was also key.
The material used to make the fake box was "Deceiver’s Clay," a very rare substance that could only be found on subterranean mud monsters.
Xu Yi sought the help of Maria and the others through entering their dreams.
It took all of Maria and her connections’ efforts to find the Deceiver clay within a mere three days, and to create a fake box using the template provided by Xu Yi.
The function of the Deceiver clay was simple; it absorbed the target’s energy and then disguised the target.
This function had a mysterious similarity to the Holy Artifact of the Ancient God Sacrificial Organization.
The difference was the Deceiver clay’s effect was short-lived, lasting only about three hours.
"This thing is too cold to hold!"
Seeing Xu Yi not taking any action, Bob hastily put the box on the ground, rubbing his hands together and blowing hot air on his hands.
The box had a strong ability to conceal its aura, but the Origin of the clown was too powerful, and if the energy that was leaking wasn’t drawn out, the box would soon become overwhelmed.
Xu Yi exhaled flames toward the box, and the icy chill of the box alleviated slightly.
But this method could only offer temporary relief, as over time it would lose its effect.
Xu Yi opened his mouth, and sucking force emerged once again.
He wanted to swallow the box into the Different Space within his mouth. The box sent forth a resisting force; indeed, the box couldn’t enter the Different Space.
Of course, this wasn’t the handiwork of the Ancient God Sacrificial Organization; they would have preferred to hide the box in a Different Space, it was all because of the clown’s Origin taking effect.
Xu Yi’s face switched back to Bob, who had no choice but to pick up the box and stuff it into his pocket.
"Boss, what do we do now, go back the way we came?"
Bob was troubled. If they returned the same way they came, could their gang of "thieves" go undetected?
He thought of the horde of monsters above and shuddered.
It was like stealing a gemstone from an exhibition hall, then taking it for a stroll past the police. Who could endure that?
In his view, going back the way they came was simply courting death.
"What shall we do!" The more Bob thought about it, the paler his face got, and his body even began to tremble slightly.
"Do you see that button on the wall? Press it," Xu Yi’s indifferent voice came.
Bob hesitated for a moment but saw there was indeed a button on the wall which he instinctively pressed.
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The heavy door slowly opened.
"If there’s no door, how do you think others come and go?" Xu Yi said softly.
The corner of Bob’s mouth twitched; he had also walked into a thinking trap. Even the sturdiest of doors were to keep out enemies, while exiting a room from the inside was, of course, a very simple matter.
He poked his head out and saw no guard in sight, just a room full of miscellaneous items, looking like a storeroom.
The entrance to the Treasury was located in a place like this? He was a bit puzzled.
Xu Yi’s expression did not change at all; he already knew all this. To deceive passersby, of course, they couldn’t station a bunch of people outside.
In fact, apart from the head of the Ocean Base, Inason, no one knew there was a Treasury here.
The door closed automatically, without any gaps, and from the outside, it appeared as just a wall with no flaws whatsoever.
"How do we leave now?" Bob asked, his expression excited.
"Return to the factory we were at earlier," Xu Yi replied softly.
Bob froze because the factory was at the very bottom level of the base, nowhere near the direction of leaving.
"Now that we have the goods, shouldn’t we be hurrying to leave?" Bob was filled with doubts.
Xu Yi did not explain, not because he didn’t want to leave with the clown’s Origin, but because he couldn’t.
If the clown Pennywise was so dangerous, why would the Ancient God Sacrificial Organization keep the Origin near the clown?
Was it because they were worried the clown couldn’t retrieve its own Origin?
The reason was actually quite simple; if the Origin strayed too far from the clown, it would self-destruct.
That’s why the Ancient God Sacrificial Organization opted for the method of energy extraction, continuously weakening the clown’s Origin.
Stealing the clown’s Origin was only the first phase of Xu Yi’s plan, and the simplest part at that; what followed was the real challenge.