Chapter 148
The next moment, on the wide stone platform.
The roar was deafening; it was no longer a single legion attacking, but two legions flanking and surrounding Wen Jing's troops.
She was immediately surrounded upon entering the area. This time, unable to order her subordinates to retreat, she directly activated Gravitational Field.
"Bang!"
The first crisp sound of weapons clashing rang out as they clashed, followed by more roars and the sounds of weapons striking flesh.
Having passed the test of the priesthood, Wen Jing's subordinates are now all extremely loyal.
The soldiers fought bravely and fearlessly when surrounded, while the craftsmen obediently huddled in the center of the ranks, holding their weapons for protection, showing no intention of fleeing.
Wen Jing was like a sharp knife piercing into the enemy's encirclement.
At the same time, the Gravity Silk emanating from her body exerted an inertial influence on the battlefield.
The enemy gains a boost, becoming more agile and powerful; while the enemy suffers from stagnation and a loss of coordination.
Applying [Inertia Manipulation] to targets other than oneself requires a massive amount of simultaneous calculations.
When she had just evolved, she was able to reliably influence about a dozen people.
However, after consciousness split in two, the number of people affected increased exponentially.
Because Wen Jing can have one consciousness responsible for boosting his own side and another responsible for weakening the enemy, similar to how an increased CPU memory leads to improved algorithms.
At this moment, the battlefield, with nearly a hundred people, was not even her limit.
After a fierce battle, Wen Jing's side, at the cost of six warriors and one craftsman, broke through the encirclement and achieved a great victory.
They captured twenty-three enemy soldiers, including a tiger-headed chess piece.
As in previous battles, these captured pieces who surrendered had only low loyalty.
Having already gained experience, Wen Jing didn't take it seriously; he could just find another priestly group to test his skills in the future.
As expected, when she returned to the chessboard, even more legion forces surrounded her.
The priesthood, which had previously been rampant on the chessboard, was now clearly lagging behind, driving other legions to attack Wen Jing.
The combined attack from both sides is just the appetizer. Judging from this momentum, scenes like "a four-sided chess game" and "eighteen warlords attacking Jing" are likely to appear one after another in the future.
Instead of being afraid, Wen Jing was pleased and turned his gaze to the tightly closed door behind the chessboard.
The greater the pressure she faces now, the greater the power she will be able to reap in the future.
The reason why a new ideology attracts widespread criticism is precisely because it demonstrates a formidable influence.
*
"It's been almost a month, and we've finally made it this far."
During this time, Wen Jing traversed the Chess Game World at night, constantly fighting and conquering, finally wiping out the power of the second palace.
The reason it took a month was because the total number of pieces on the board was not actually 169, as she had initially seen.
After the power struggle begins, as the number of pieces decreases, when there are extra empty squares on the board, each legion will continue to develop and start producing troops on the surrounding squares!
Therefore, the actual number of pieces Wen Jing needs to fight far exceeds the capacity of the chessboard.
In comparison, her legion size cannot grow automatically; it can only be increased through plundering and conversion.
Of course, the most important point is... Wen Jing also travels back and forth every two or three days, as he has to attend various classes during the week.
Now, she has passed the mastery level in all thirty-six courses she has enrolled in at Azure Jade and is starting to advance to the perfect level of proficiency.
"Click--"
After defeating the last legion on the chessboard, Wen Jing, who had returned to the chessboard, heard the sound of a heavy door being opened in front of him.
As a familiar light shone, the third palace revealed its true form.
Upon being teleported to the third palace and regaining his vision, Wen Jing first looked towards the end of the palace.
"Great, there's no way out."
She was genuinely afraid that this third palace would be another gate, and then this world would truly be filled with an endless array of palaces...
Immediately afterwards, Wen Jing's gaze was drawn to the center of the chessboard—
Besides the numerous chess pieces surrounding it, the most striking feature of this palace is the center of the chessboard.
The first and second palaces are both flat, square-grid chessboards.
This third one is different. The third palace still follows the grid pattern, but in the very center, it transforms from a two-dimensional space into a three-dimensional one.
The central chessboard is a three-tiered square pyramid structure.
This palace contains three clearly higher-level chess pieces: eagle head, snake head, and bear head, which are not found in the second palace.
However, they are all located on the 'flat ground' of the chessboard and are not eligible to climb the steps.
Standing on the steps are three chess pieces with mythological designs.
If we compare the chessboard palace to a feudal dynasty, it is clear that they represent the pinnacle of three professions: religion, military, and craftsmanship.
It resembles an ox without horns, standing on one leg in a leaping posture, surrounded by cloud and thunder patterns, with a stream of slowly flowing bronze liquid in its hands;
A creature with a face that resembles both a human and a beast, a ferocious mouth, interlocking fangs, its entire body covered in heavy bronze armor, and wielding a massive bronze axe;
Wen Jing wasn't familiar with the other two mythical creatures corresponding to their shapes, but the priest in the very center holding a bronze staff was the easiest to identify, as it was the head of a dragon.
These top-tier players are only in the middle of the pyramid, second only to the leader.
At the very top of the pyramid, in the absolute center, stands a bronze cauldron.
Instinctively, Wen Jing expanded his Mental Vision.
Sure enough, from a distance, in the pitch black, a bronze cauldron with three legs and two handles gleamed brightly.
"So this is the core of this world..."
Although Wen Jing gained a lot of Skill Points through skill and sacrificial challenges in the Chess Game World, her true goal has always been to devour the core of the civilization ruins.
Moreover, the more advanced the civilization of the ruins, the higher their level.
In other words, if Wen Jing can devour the bronze cauldron in front of him, his gains will be greater than those from the oracle bone inscriptions and bone flute!
Chapter 148
After discovering the core of the ruins, Wen Jing excitedly began his strategy.
The objective is now clear: to get close to the bronze cauldron in the center of the palace.
However, as a newly arrived outsider, she unsurprisingly faced targeting.
Three mythical chess pieces sat quietly on the platform, while the pieces below the platform rotated towards Wen Jing's position.
The 'basic units' in this room are all the leader pieces from the previous palace, which is clearly another class promotion.
"Has the empire I conquered in the previous palace simply vanished?"
Wen Jing tried to sense the subordinates in the second palace and found that the connection was still established.
Even the leader-level tiger and ox head chess pieces seem to be able to be summoned.
But when she really tried to 'pull' them over, there seemed to be some invisible barrier between the two palaces.
Wen Jing used the same trick again, and bumped into a tiger-headed chess piece nearby.
The world has changed, and it is once again the familiar battlefield of Shitai, where many tiger-headed people surround the even taller bear-headed people.
Just when Wen Jing thought he was about to face the same siege as when he first entered the second palace, he suddenly sensed something.
The next moment, a thought crossed her mind, and a golden teleportation portal appeared behind her.
One by one, the subordinates who had gathered in the second palace emerged from the golden void.
"So decisive?"
What was expected to be a fierce battle turned out to be a short-lived affair. The opposing leader, a burly bear-headed man, didn't give Wen Jing a chance to carry out his decapitation plan. Seeing the situation was turning against him, he surrendered with his remaining troops.
When Wen Jing stood on the chessboard again, there were suddenly five empty spaces around him.
It was at this time that she discovered she could bring over the subordinates from the previous palace.
However, only leader-level pieces can be used; 'commoner' level wolf-head pieces and monkey-head pieces can only contribute when clashing in battle.
"So it turns out it wasn't that you couldn't bring it, but rather that there had to be an empty space on the chessboard..."
As for the bear-headed piece and the three tiger-headed pieces that just surrendered, their loyalty is very low, practically nonexistent.
Wen Jing thought for a moment and tried swapping the tiger-headed chess piece with low loyalty with his old subordinates in the second palace. Unexpectedly, it actually worked.
However, with this action, she discovered that the loyalty of the bear-headed chess piece had decreased once again.
Wen Jing, Wen Jing figured it out. "Because I 'demoted' his subordinates?"
However, she did not stop, but continued to replace the remaining two tiger-head chess pieces—if they were not loyal, there would always be other loyal pieces.
If she could force this bear-headed chess piece to rebel, that would give her an extra spot to place one of her own.
Unexpectedly, Wen Jing burst into laughter after replacing all three tiger-head chess pieces.
Is it really that real?
The loyalty of the Xiong-headed chess piece, now completely isolated, actually increased instead of decreasing... and rose to a satisfactory level.
At that moment, she naturally understood.
If the second palace represents a specific local power struggle, then the third palace represents the center of power.
At this position, with its greater political significance, high-ranking pieces are less likely to fight to the death and more likely to surrender.
But similarly, if she were to lose, they would easily side with her opponent.
Therefore, the way this game of chess is played is a factional struggle.
Although it is estimated that it will take some more time, the day of finally 'reaching the summit' is now within sight.
*
In the underground training ground, Wen Jing, who had just returned, put on her smart terminal and received several new messages. People in the exchange student group and the academic affairs director were looking for her.