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Chapter 4202 Giant Cocoon
Chapter 4202 Giant Cocoon
This is a classic study.
The floor was covered with a red and gold wool carpet, and the ochre-colored semi-circular desk was polished and gleamed under the glow of the gas lamp.
The space is small, with standing bookshelves on all four sides, densely packed with all kinds of thick-covered books.
This study, bathed in soft yellow light, may seem cozy at first glance, but upon closer inspection, you'll find that it has no doors or windows, resembling a finely decorated prison cell.
At that moment, a figure appeared out of nowhere in this cramped yet exquisitely furnished "cell".
Angell opened his eyes.
He looked around and confirmed that he was in what appeared to be a closed study.
There was no one else in the study except him; the members of the Rabbit Hole team seemed to have been forcibly separated.
However, Angell was not too surprised.
This is a classic part of the Echo Library: the admission assessment.
Previously, the Dawn Poems team experienced a similar separation when entering the Echo Library.
This separation doesn't break up the team, but rather places them in five adjacent, different secret rooms. Once they solve the puzzles in their respective rooms, they can reunite in the main hall outside.
And this mystery is the entrance exam.
It sounds difficult, but it's actually not that hard.
The puzzles in the Library of Echoes test your observation skills; as long as you observe carefully, the puzzles themselves are not difficult.
Therefore, the poet of dawn escaped his predicament without much effort.
On the contrary, starting with everyone gathered together might be more difficult, like... the Dragon Squad.
They started out in the same tiered library, and the puzzle for their entrance exam was: find a way out.
Despite their combined efforts, it took them a full half hour to solve the puzzle.
A comparison reveals that when team members are separated and working independently, the difficulty of the puzzle decreases; however, once they come together to discuss the puzzles, the difficulty increases significantly.
This is probably a kind of... fairness?
After confirming the surrounding environment, Angel did not immediately begin deciphering the mystery, but instead adopted a God's-eye view.
Just like the previous levels, there were no familiar secret room scenes in sight, only a pitch-black void and countless glowing bubbles floating in the void.
Everyone who challenged the Library of Echoes, including himself, was asleep inside those bubbles.
Judging from the number of bubbles, the number of teams challenging the Echo Library is even greater than Angor expected...
The true Library of Echoes lies on the other side of the distant void, accessible only by activating the Perfect Challenge mode. What they are currently in is merely a "Nightmare State" library with a structure completely identical to the true library.
Because of the "structural consistency," as long as the geographical details of the real library are understood, the mystery of the Nightmare Library can be solved in turn.
In just a few seconds, Angell found his study and saw the "door".
Once you see the "door" to leave, solving the puzzle won't be difficult.
Angor was about to retract his God's-eye view with satisfaction when he suddenly paused and shifted his perspective back to the void.
He quickly identified his target.
It was a little guy lying on a glowing bubble, about a meter tall, and looked just like an elf from a fairy tale.
Her face was so delicate it was almost translucent, her pointed ears were a light pink, and her long golden hair cascaded down like flowing satin, making her look lively and beautiful.
But unlike the fairies in the story who live in nature, she is permeated with the aura of "books" from head to toe. Instead of ordinary hair ornaments, she has a small, open book on her head; her dress is not made of fabric but is made of layers of book pages, which make a rustling sound when she moves; even the glowing butterfly wings that unfold on her back are printed with dense "book" patterns, and when the wingtips flutter, it seems as if there are tiny light and shadows of book pages flowing around.
If nothing unexpected happens, this is the observer of the Library of Echoes.
She looks like a "book sprite".
However, in the descriptions of Tereta and Barbaregon, the "book spirits" in the Library of Echoes are almost inhuman, looking like glowing white lumps.
Completely different from this "elf".
Perhaps this is also a book spirit? Just with a different appearance?
Angel didn't think much of it, simply memorizing her features before reverting to his God's-eye view.
After opening his eyes, Angell walked to the bookshelf directly opposite the desk.
Based on observations in a real sandbox, the "door" is behind this bookshelf, so the mystery is most likely nearby.
Angel first reached out and tugged at the bookshelf... unsurprisingly, the bookshelf was fixed in place by some unknown force and could not be moved.
Since there's no way to open the door using physical methods, the only option is to solve the mystery.
Angell carefully examined the books on the bookshelf.
A moment later, his gaze was drawn to a thick-covered book on the bookshelf.
The main problem is that this book is just too "dazzling".
Dazzling in the literal sense.
The book covers on this bookshelf are mostly in a forest-themed color scheme, with low-saturation light colors as the main theme, and many of the hues are reminiscent of nature.
For example, moss green, olive green, oatmeal, khaki, off-white, earth yellow, etc.
But within the book cover, which features such a forest-themed color scheme, Angell noticed a fluorescent magenta.
This color is not only eye-catching, but also very vibrant.
Although it's just a thin booklet, it has a very high presence, and you can almost spot it at a glance.
"Could it be this?" Angel murmured to himself, then reached out to take the booklet out.
However, just as Angell took the booklet off the shelf and before he could even open it, it vanished in a puff of pink smoke.
Before disappearing, it made a crisp sound, like...laughter?
As the thin book disappeared, the bookshelf in front of Ingres also underwent drastic changes, as if a geometric arrangement was being reconstructed.
The bookshelf transformed into "Tetris blocks," with different shaped blocks moving rapidly and eventually piecing together an open door.
"..."
Angell stared at the door that had appeared out of nowhere, his expression unusually puzzled.
Is that the solution?
Is it that simple?
Although Tereta and Barbaregon had mentioned before that the puzzles in the Library of Echoes weren't very difficult, it always felt a bit unreal until you experienced it firsthand; now that I've triggered the mechanisms myself, I can confirm that... their statement was indeed accurate, and the puzzles were really quite simple.
However, this simplicity is only relative.
This time it was simple because Angell directly pinpointed the location of the door, knowing the outcome before searching for the process. But if you don't know the location of the "door," then finding the book would be... well, not too difficult, right? It would just take a bit more time to find it.
But what if we made the study room a bit bigger?
For example, if the puzzle were placed in a giant space that could hold hundreds of bookshelves, even if the logic of the puzzle remained the same, the difficulty of finding that thin, brightly colored booklet among thousands of books would probably increase several times.
Of course, these are just the difficulties that Angell himself imagines.
Avoid letting your guard down just because you think the puzzle is too easy.
……
As Angell stepped out of his study, he was immediately confronted by a circular hall.
The center of the hall was empty, with only four doors standing out of thin air around it, and a corridor extending from the front and back, hidden in the shadows with no end in sight.
Of the four doors, only the one he had just come out of was still open; the other three were tightly closed.
It's obvious that behind the door is the secret room of his teammates, and judging from how tightly it's closed, they clearly haven't solved the mystery yet.
Angel didn't rush to explore the two corridors, but instead took the time to open the text panel.
Welcome to "Echo Library," one of the six-part platter.
"Level Description: This level comes from ???, and the challenger team's goal is to successfully seal ■■■■."
"Note 1: The Echo Library has three floors, and each floor contains a [Rift]. Please find and close the rifts with the help of the Book Spirits. Beware of Book Demons during the search!"
Note 2: All three cracks need to be closed at the same time.
"Note 3: Once all [Rifts] are closed, ■■■■ will enter a weakened state."
Current completion rate: 0%
The overall information is correct as previously obtained.
Angell looked away from the text bar and then returned to his God's-eye view.
This time, he still focused his attention on the real sandbox.
He had only glanced at it before and hadn't looked at it in detail. For example, he hadn't explored the "book spirit," the "rift," or the "suspected god" that needed to be sealed.
Now, Angell is ready to take a closer look.
First, there are book spirits and book demons; they are everywhere on every floor, and there are more of them than you might imagine.
Almost every major collection contains one.
Therefore, if you want to find them, you will definitely encounter them if you go to the main collection; it is not particularly difficult.
Angel was worried that the book spirit might be hidden too deep to be found, but now it seems there shouldn't be any problem.
Next is the "crack".
Although Barbaregon mentioned that the rift was transparent and moving, invisible to the naked eye, Angor still decided to try and see if he could find any clues from a god-like perspective, thus avoiding the challenge of the book spirit.
Angell looked through all three floors of the library, even seeing several hidden spaces, but he still couldn't find the so-called "rift".
It seems there are no shortcuts to locating cracks; you can only follow the proper procedures.
As for the last being that needs to be sealed away.
Angell saw Him in the basement, or rather, in the "hidden space"...
However, His true appearance was not seen.
All I saw was a "giant cocoon" covered by countless books.
The being that needed to be sealed away was inside the giant cocoon. Angor originally wanted to look through the outer shell of the cocoon and see inside.
But at that moment, some inexplicable feeling stopped him from looking.
It seems that focusing on what lies inside will cause some unknown trouble.
Ingres did not act against his spiritual intuition.
As the true master of the Dream Crystal Plains, he knew very well that the so-called sense of mysticism he was experiencing was, in essence, the general will of the Dream Crystal Plains, or the will of the world, hindering his insight.
Even the will of the world is trying to stop him, so Angell naturally won't go against it.
However, this sense of impending danger caused Angell to frown deeply.
Even simple observation can trigger inexplicable crises. What is going on?
It's important to understand that, under normal circumstances, everything within the instance, including both living and inanimate objects, is basically created by the powers of the Fairy Realm, with at most a portion of the dream's memories being captured and integrated into it.
Now, the power of the fairy realm is warning it not to peer into the cocoon, which is clearly not right.
Creations with the power of the Fairy Realm would certainly not produce such a prompt, so there is only one possibility: there is a problem with the integrated memories.
But can fragmented memories alone make spying on "He" dangerous? Could it be that these memories really come from some "true god"?
Thinking of this, Angell frowned even more deeply.
Can Fairyland really afford to play this big game?
Previously, when he heard about "sealing gods" outside, Angor didn't pay much attention to it, thinking that they were just some insignificant wild gods. He even thought that he could be the master of gods when he went to some primitive worlds.
At the time, he at most thought that Fairy Realm's powers were pretty clever...
Now that I've actually entered, I realize that the Wonderland powers aren't just fun; they're like making people dance on a tightrope!
Although Angor believed that the dungeon created by the power of the fairy realm could not be unsolvable, the difficulty of sealing the "god" should not be too overpowered.
But the significance behind this mission is profound.
Capture the memories of the gods! And, most likely, the "true gods"!
The powers of this fairyland are really audacious!
I have a feeling that if we let the powers of the fairy realm continue to operate like this, there will be many dangers in the future...
However, Angor thought about it again and realized that, just looking at the Dream Crystal Plains right now, there were already quite a few "dangerous traces" left by the Fairy Realm's powers:
For example, a window copy can directly exploit the sequencers in the world of the Rift.
For example, the Dark Corner that Sigismund went to is a place with extremely complex and well-established rules, and it is likely to have a very powerful will. However, the Celestial Authority did not back down. Not only did it dare to go deep into the area, but it even set the main quest as "becoming king of the mountain".
This shows just how rebellious the powers of the fairy realm are.
Of course, Angell was well aware that the above was merely an illusion he had created by "personifying" the powers of the fairy realm.
The powers of the fairy realm have no subjective consciousness; they are merely a set of underlying rules that operate according to established logic. The core mechanism inherently includes "risk assessment"—since it dares to touch these "dangers," it must believe it can handle them.
On a deeper level, the fact that the powers of the fairy realm can do this may also stem from the tacit approval of the world's will.
After all, the power of the fairy realm is one of the rules under the world's will. If its actions really bring uncontrollable danger to the Dream Crystal Plains, the world's will will definitely intervene in advance.
The world's silence on this matter suggests either that the risks of these "dangerous operations" were within a controllable range, or perhaps these operations themselves are of great benefit to the survival or development of Dream Crystal.
With this thought, Angell's tense brow relaxed slightly, and his inner worries lessened a bit.
However, Angell still cannot relax his vigilance regarding "His" existence and must remain cautious.
(End of this chapter)