Chapter 46. Cooperation
Following the direction of the river downstream, its end revealed a massive stone platform. This seemed to be the only place in the Jade Corridors where any plants existed.
On the platform stood a circular dome. Its edges were wrapped with green vines that stretched down and wound around the pillars supporting the dome.
Several Spirit Realm explorers had already arrived.
Everyone watched the monster on the stone platform with solemn expressions. It was a stone giant nearly five meters tall, with numerous vines growing across its body.
The vine giant threw a punch at a challenger who was attempting to dodge. The tremendous impact smashed him into the ground.
Cracks spread across the surface of the platform. When the vine giant raised its fist again, only a sunken crater remained beneath it. The challenger was nowhere to be seen.
Seeing that the challenger had been eliminated, the vine giant crouched down and remained motionless.
A curtain of light surrounding the stone platform descended, and the crater gradually repaired itself, returning the ground to its original state.
Whenever a challenger attacked the vine giant, once the giant stood up, the surrounding light barrier would descend.
It prevented the challenger from escaping and also stopped anyone else from entering.
“Another failure. Who among you will go next?”
Turner said, casting a wary gaze at the other Spirit Realm explorers.
He could not be sure whether everyone here had already obtained the first jade. Everyone was guarding against each other, afraid that someone might suddenly launch a sneak attack.
Although it seemed possible to ask everyone to show their jade stones, no one suggested doing so.
What if someone had nothing on them? If he revealed that he possessed two jade stones and someone set their sights on him, what then?
There was no rule here that if someone had nothing, everyone could simply gang up and eliminate them first.
Even if someone proposed revealing their jade stones, it was entirely possible that only one person would actually show theirs, while the others silently chose to hide theirs.
“This statue is too strong. I have no way to defeat it. You should go first.”
One Spirit Realm explorer suggested. It was obvious to him that none of them could defeat the statue.
“You go ahead. I will try to find another method…”
“I will observe for a while longer…”
Everyone understood that they could not defeat the stone giant. Yet the river ended here, and it seemed that only here could the third jade stone be obtained.
“Why don’t we attack together?”
A female voice made the suggestion. Everyone turned to look.
A woman stood there wearing red leather armor suited for mobility. She had purple hair and carried an air of decisiveness. Without any ornaments, she gripped a greatsword in both hands.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You think we can cooperate with each other?”
“I seriously doubt you even obtained the first jade stone.”
“Even if we defeat the statue together, how would we divide the jade stone?”
Every Spirit Realm explorer present had already spent a long time in this trial. Some had been here for three days, others for more than a week.
Each of them had struggled greatly just to collect one or two jade stones.
This Spirit Realm excursion had already consumed too much of their energy. During the trial, other explorers constantly attacked them.
Only now, at the end of this river and before the final jade stone, had they achieved a brief and temporary peace.
No one was willing to trust anyone else. Although many trials did not explicitly say that you could seize what others had collected, it was always an unspoken possibility.
Now that they had reached the final stage, none of them could afford to relax. No one wanted the efforts of several days to go to waste.
After all, merely entering this trial required tremendous luck. There would almost certainly not be a second opportunity.
Welinte sighed softly. She knew she could not persuade these people. Long ago, through the mutual attacks of so-called “companions,” they had already lost their trust in others.
Yet Welinte vaguely sensed that cooperation was the key to obtaining the third jade stone.
Although the challengers who had gone up so far were all melee fighters, Welinte had still managed to observe something: the vine giant required the cooperation of two people to defeat.
She noticed that whenever swords or axes struck the vines, the vines snapped almost immediately.
However, when facing the hard rock, melee weapons were ineffective. They could only slowly chip away tiny fragments.
When one challenger with a simple Ignite spell stepped forward, Welinte noticed that the flames struggled to burn the vines. Yet when the flames touched the rock, the stone layer visibly shrank ever so slightly.
A spellcaster and a melee fighter must cooperate to defeat the vine giant, Welinte concluded.
Originally, she had hoped that everyone would attack together. Although everyone present was primarily a melee fighter, many Spirit Realm explorers possessed a few minor spells granted by the Spirit Realm.
The problem was merely insufficient firepower. Each person could probably cast only five or six spells before exhausting themselves.
She believed that if everyone cast spells simultaneously, the vine giant would never withstand their combined assault.
However, these people had already been terrified by the mutual attacks during the struggle for the first jade stone. No one dared to cooperate with anyone else.
She shook her head. Even though she had proposed something that clearly contradicted their expectations, no one suggested uniting together to eliminate her first.
Everyone likely possessed at least one jade stone. None of them wanted a chaotic battle. They feared that if a fight suddenly broke out, someone might ambush them and steal their jade stone.
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After obtaining the Blue Jade, Fulan encountered many attackers while continuing downstream along the river.
“Why are these people acting like lunatics? They attack without saying a word.”
Their assaults were easily crushed by Fulan’s overwhelming stats. One person was sliced in half by a single Wind Blade while charging straight at her.
After they died, it seemed that because she already possessed a Red Jade, nothing dropped from them at all—not even a weapon.
Fulan found this somewhat strange. Aside from the man who had dropped the Red Jade when she killed him, the others who attacked her never spoke. No matter what she said, they ignored her completely.
Moreover, they seemed somewhat lacking in intelligence. She had clearly made the motion of preparing to release a Wind Blade, yet they only attempted to dodge after the blade had already been launched, resulting in them being struck and killed instantly.
She could not understand how they fought at all. Who waits to see the attack appear before dodging? It was almost as if they were not human.
After dealing with these cannon fodder opponents, she finally saw the stone platform in the distance.
Near her position, Welinte had already been waiting.
She knew that she could not search for allies at the platform itself. She had to intercept people before they reached the stone platform and explain the situation clearly.
Once they entered that tense atmosphere of mutual hostility, anything she said would become useless.
Welinte looked at the person before her. The woman wore a robe, which suggested she was a spellcaster.
Her eyes lit up.