Chapter 1202: The Last Card of the Instance
Xu Huo took out a paper slip, walked over to one of the doors, and calmly opened it.
Perhaps he was lucky, as he managed to draw the correct one on his first try. As he stepped through the door, a prompt sounded in his ear: "You have successfully entered the instance."
Behind the door was still a wall of plants, but it had transformed into a long corridor. Both ends of the corridor were hidden in darkness, with only the twenty or so meters where he stood illuminated. The towering plant walls on either side extended hundreds of meters into the air before also vanishing into the darkness—both ends appeared to have no end in sight.
He was not alone in this visible section of the corridor.
A male player who looked to be in his thirties was leaning against the plant wall, smoking a cigarette. He glanced at Xu Huo before looking away, showing no desire to talk.
Having received no game notification, Xu Huo attempted to walk in both directions, but the sections of the corridor swallowed by darkness were completely sealed off. Neither using his traits nor props could advance him a single step.
After failing, he tried climbing up the plant wall.
"Gentleman's Poise" allowed him to ascend directly to a height of a hundred meters, and he used the strings to move further upward. However, no matter how many times he rose, all he could see were the plant walls. There were no signs of an entrance, exit, or end point. After several attempts, confirming that it was impossible to scale the wall, he descended back down.
Another person had entered below. Apparently having just been snubbed by the other player, he turned to Xu Huo and said, "You can't scale the maze walls. Even a B-rank player couldn't do it. This is the power of the instance."
Xu Huo nodded. "Just taking a look... Do you know when the instance will start?"
"First time here?" The man looked him up and down and suddenly smiled. "Yeah, someone who's been here before definitely wouldn't be gawking around like you."
He walked over and tilted his chin at Xu Huo. "What's your name?"
"Xu Zhi," Xu Huo said with a smile.
"Just call me Da Hu." The man's slightly greasy face leaned in. "We're at the same junction. We'll probably have to walk together. Having a familiar face to guide you is way better than fumbling through the instance on your own."
He patted Xu Huo on the shoulder. "Don't worry. If we end up in the same faction, I can give you a hand."
"Then many thanks." Xu Huo offered him a cigarette.
Da Hu accepted it and chatted with him idly. Before long, two more people entered.
A man and a woman, each emerging from between the branches that split off from two different walls—from the circular hall to the maze wall was only a step away, but standing inside the maze corridor, the players seemed to have walked through a very long passage. When they came out, the branches and vines behind them writhed like liquid and closed back up.
After the two came out, they counted the people. The female player said, "It's about time."
"There are quite a few maze entrances. This is just one of them. There are five of us here. The other entrances are probably similar. There should be about fifty people in total," Da Hu muttered.
After nearly ten more minutes, the game notification finally arrived:
[Player Passerby A has entered the Poker Maze and is defaulted to participate in the instance "The Last Card."]
[Background Introduction: As everyone knows, card games are one of the favorite game types among players and ordinary evolvers. To increase the fun of playing cards, a great Artificer, after no less than three hundred sparring sessions with his card-playing friends, successfully built a poker maze.]
[According to incomplete statistics, from the maze entrance to the exit at the center, there are at least one hundred and sixty-two paths with no more than one-third overlapping sections that can reach the exit. However, the success rate of reaching the end is not very high.]
[But that's not a problem, because besides the boring maze route solving, the Artificer has also carefully prepared some small surprises to ensure players have a good gaming experience while navigating the maze.]
[Friendly reminder: The small surprises exist not only in the maze walls and poker cards.]
[Below are the game rules:]
[① Poker cards come in two colors, black and white, representing two factions. A player's stance is determined by the first card they obtain.]
[② When the number of cardholders in one faction is less than two-thirds of the number of cardholders in the other faction, some cardholders from the larger faction will randomly switch factions to ensure the numbers are balanced. If balance cannot be achieved, the faction that originally had more cardholders will have a random advantage.]
[③ Each person can hold a maximum of 6 cards. Exceeding 6 cards will trigger random loss. Except for the first card, all other cards will re-enter the random pool.]
[④ After a cardholder dies, ownerless cards can be obtained by touching the maze walls when they re-enter the game.]
[⑤ Some poker cards have traits beneficial for players to clear the instance.]
[⑥ Each of the black and white factions has six special cards. Players whose first card is a special card can directly enter the nearest correct path.]
[⑦ If the suit corresponding to the first card appears on the maze wall, a safe passage will appear. This passage can only be entered by the cardholder when it opens and can teleport the cardholder 200 meters forward along that passage.]
[⑧ When reaching the maze endpoint, the faction with more cardholders wins.]
[Instance Task: Reach the maze endpoint.]
[Instance Time: 10 days.]
After reading the instance introduction, the maze instance officially began.
Since it was a game-type instance, when the darkness before and after the corridor where Xu Huo and the other five were located dissipated, six rows of projected poker cards appeared in the air on one side of the corridor. The white faction's cards had a white background with black text and black suits, while the black faction's cards had a black background with white text and white suits. Each faction had six special cards and twenty-one number cards, totaling fifty-four cards.
Xu Huo glanced over them. The special cards' faces showed complete patterns: a colorful diamond chain, a flower scepter, a black stone holy sword, a gem cloak, a pure gold boot, and a throne. The number cards' faces were composed of two parts: a larger number at the top and a smaller pattern below, such as question marks, arrow symbols, or leaves, flowers, and the like.
At that moment, the maze issued a warning: "Players can now obtain their first card by touching the wall. Please note, the color of the first card will represent your faction."
The male player in his thirties at the front took the lead. He dashed to the corner of this corridor and swept his hand across the maze wall directly in front of him. Instantly, a projection of a poker card with the number "10" appeared on the wall, a full twenty meters high.
White background with black text, representing the white faction.
As the giant poker card spun, Xu Huo noticed a leaf mark beneath the number "10" on the card face. He wasn't sure what that meant for now, but the man who had already turned the corner reached out and touched another wall!
This time, what flipped over was no card. The towering maze wall split open from the middle, and a mutated plant, two meters thick and over ten meters tall, burst out from the crack. Like a beast unleashed from a gate, it swept across the corridor, lashing out at Xu Huo and the others behind it!
(End of Chapter)