Chapter 1513: Chapter 1511: The Ten Trials of Redemption
Soon, Richard learned the content of several upcoming challenges.
Besides the eternally uneven feather and the forever dormant seed, Richard successively received a broken wooden box, a leaking cup, a bag with a hole... and so on.
When Richard saw the last challenge, he couldn’t help but smile, finally certain of what the True God’s purpose was.
Before him, by the river, stood three slender silver pillars over a meter high. The right and middle pillars were bare, but the left pillar was stacked with densely arranged holed golden plates. From bottom to top, the plates decreased in size, with the bottom plate having a diameter of half a meter and the top one the size of a palm.
What was the requirement?
Extremely simple: move the holed golden plates from the left silver pillar to the right silver pillar.
However, there were three restrictions in this process:
First, extraordinary power could not be used; one must move with hands.
Second, only one plate could be moved at a time.
Third, a larger plate could not be placed on top of a smaller one.
Richard took one look and realized this was clearly the Tower of Han Nuota game from Earth, with almost no changes.
The Tower of Han Nuota game was invented by a 19th-century French mathematician named Edward Lucas. Solving it was simple; even a child could figure out how to do it.
However, there was a trap here, which was the number of golden plates on the silver pillar.
Because the number of plates is greatly related to the number of steps required to complete it. Described with a formula, it’s s=(2^n)-1.
Where s is the number of steps, n is the number of plates.
The completion steps increase exponentially with the number of plates, seeming insignificant at first, but once reaching a certain number, it becomes despair-inducing.
For example, if there’s only one plate, inputting into the formula yields only one step: just move the plate from left to right directly.
If there are two plates, the steps are 3: first, place the small plate on the middle pillar, then move the large plate to the right pillar, and finally place the small plate on the right pillar to complete.
What about ten plates? That’s (2^10)-1 = 1023 steps.
Twenty? (2^20)-1 = 1048575 steps.
Thirty? (2^30)-1 = 1073741823 steps.
In Earth’s original problem, there were 64 plates, requiring (2^64)-1 steps. Most people can’t really feel how big this number is, but converting it reveals: moving once per second would take nearly 600 billion years to complete.
billion years!
So how many plates did the True God place on the silver pillar? Richard glanced at it and quickly found the answer: exactly one hundred.
One hundred.
Ha!
The True God’s purpose, unsurprisingly, was to use a series of such questions to stall him. To prevent the first nine from potentially being solved by him, the tenth was a theoretically impossible Tower of Han Nuota.
If it were someone else, they might be trapped, but he is Richard.
Knowing such a big trap and still jumping into it, he could change his name.
So...
Richard looked at the golden parrot and, after thinking for a moment, commented with some emotion, "All ten challenges are quite interesting."
"Interesting? Good that it’s interesting." The golden parrot responded, urging, "Now you can start solving them. No need to consider order, but you must complete them all. Only then will you be qualified to meet the True God."
"Is that so?" Richard said expressionlessly, "Then I’ve already completed them all and can go see the True God."
"Completed them all? Hmm? Where?" the golden parrot asked curiously.
"Look." Richard waved his hand, the eternally uneven feather, the forever dormant seed, the broken wooden box, the leaking cup, the bag with a hole, and a pile of other things laid before him burst into flames. The flames were an enchanting purplish-red and instantly turned the items into ashes.
Even the Tower of Han Nuota’s silver pillars and golden plates were not spared, their surfaces equally engulfed in purplish-red flames, melting into liquid in a blink, disappearing entirely.
"You!" The golden parrot was first shocked, then yelled angrily, "You are blaspheming! You are completely blaspheming the well-intentioned trials the True God set for you. You’ve destroyed the trials the True God meticulously prepared for you. You’ll forever lose the qualification to meet the True God, you’ll never see the True God."
"Is that so?" Richard said to the golden parrot, "Isn’t there still you? With you, the pet and envoy conveying the True God’s thoughts, I can’t find where the True God is?"
As he finished speaking, Richard gestured in the air, capturing the golden parrot instantly with invisible force, bringing it into his hand.
The golden parrot struggled violently but didn’t show much fear, and instead, said with some sarcasm: "Your plan is to read my memory, right? Hmph, I know you have the ability to break the protection the True God has on memories, which is why you’re able to enter Heaven. But I’ll tell you, everything ends here. The True God has set new protections, or should I say curses, for everything in Heaven.
When you attempt to break through, the curse won’t stop you but will instantly erase the memory. So, you can’t get anything from me; all your plans are within the True God’s expectations!"
"Is that so?" Richard listened, his expression unchanged, looked at the golden parrot, and said indifferently, "But why have I already gotten the memory from you?"
"Hmm?"
"Really. While I was talking to you, I’d already read your memories and know where the True God is," Richard said.
"No, impossible, you’re lying!" the golden parrot shrieked.
"Am I lying? Perhaps. But once I catch the True God behind you, you’ll know whether it’s true. I hope you can be there then," Richard said, smiling lightly, "So, if there’s a chance... goodbye!"
With that, Richard released his hand, letting the golden parrot escape its bonding, and his entire body quickly faded, disappearing.
Leaving only the golden parrot behind, fluttering its wings in a panic, circling in the air several times, shrieking, "Blasphemer, where are you? Come out for me!"
No response.
The golden parrot became more frantic, "Blasphemer, where... did you go? You... you can’t possibly know where the True God is, impossible! The curse on me didn’t activate, you can’t get any information from my memory, impossible! You must be lying, you must be deceiving me!"
But still, there was no response.
Gradually, the golden parrot’s cries grew smaller, becoming aimless, circling for a few minutes before finally unable to resist flying up with a "whoosh," its entire body turning into a golden light, flying rapidly toward the southwest.
It only flew a few hundred meters before "bang," colliding with a mass of viscous air, then being enveloped.
The next moment, Richard’s figure appeared in the air beside it.
The golden parrot saw this, still insisting on its previous stance, shrieking, "You don’t know where the True God is, you must be deceiving me..."
"I indeed didn’t know where the True God was before." Richard nodded, looking at the distant golden parrot, speaking gently, "But now... it’s different. You’ve already told me with your actions."
"Squeak..." The golden parrot’s cry abruptly stopped, finally understanding something.
Richard smiled lightly, didn’t bother to explain further, waved his hand directly to collect the now powerless golden parrot into his personal space items, and his body disappeared again, swiftly traversing space as he moved forward.
So it was the southwest direction... Although finding it with out-of-body means would eventually succeed, this ultimately reduced the time spent... So, let’s see what’s ahead...
Through the traversal, Richard thought.
...
