There was more to the story than that what meets the eye, and this was greatly exemplified by the next few lines spoken by Zhihao, "To understand the situation better, let's go back to the beginning. There was a fire in the region and the sun goddess blessed the land with spiritual powers but why would a god who was unsatisfied with how much power she had, spare it for some poor creatures who were dying. Even if they were dead, it wouldn't affect her at all. So why would she go out of her way to save them?"
Kaoru was quick to react, "Because she was touched by the prayers of the animals?"
"That's what the system wants us to believe but such a woman who is even jealous of her sister would never have such a benevolent heart." Zhihao shook his head, "From the clues, we can somewhat guess that the power that gods possess is limited and this power is used to help the people who worship them. Helping someone meant depleting your own powers and the sun goddess really doesn't strike me as the type to do this so what if by blessing this land she was actually having another goal?"
"What sort of goal?" Andy suddenly felt as if he was in a detective movie, figuring out who killed who but with a disadvantage of the murder weapon missing.
Zhihao was more than happy to spell it out now that he was somewhat sure his theory was correct, "A gamble, actually no, to be more specific, she was multiplying her power by harvesting."
"Huh?"
The players could not understand the thinking process of Mastermo, at least, everyone except for Li Ling.
Li Ling, "I get it. The sun goddess gave her spiritual powers to the land and let it grow stronger on its own."
Zhihao nodded, "As time passes, the spiritual power of plants, trees, and beasts increase. This is a natural process of nature. A human would need to cultivate for years to achieve a breakthrough but plants and beasts don't need that long, it is a natural process for them, the more they grow, the more their spiritual powers increase."
Zhou XinYi also seemed to understand what Zhihao had to say, "So you are saying that the sun goddess planted her spiritual powers here in the hopes of increasing it? But that would defeat the purpose, would it not? Even if her power grows here, it has still been gifted and doesn't belong to her anymore."
Zhihao, "That's where the beast conference comes in. Remember the Sun goddess' son who came here to bless the land?"
Kaoru, "Yeah"
"System, what was the mission behind the sun goddess' son descending to this mortal realm?" Zhihao found it much more interesting when it was him yet also not him who explained the situation. It was a great feeling when you could have a robot backing you up with factual data
[Answering player's question: The young god had descended on this land to collect the spiritual power.]
Wang GuiYing was stunned, "Wait, wasn't it to bless the land?"
Zhihao suddenly felt like this man was too naive—though he didn't seem like it.
"To bless the land with his presence and to harvest the land for his mother." Zhihao responded, "The only beast that saw through him was the cursed snake, and what else was different about the cursed snake? We needed to kill it in order to break the last seal, this could be the vengeance of her son's death but it could also be a safety measure to ensure that the beast doesn't alarm the other's of the truth."
Aunt Su could feel her head suddenly spinning wildly from all the excess information she had received today, "How did you come up with all this?"
"I like solving puzzles and Cricro also told me something about the cursed snake wanting to warn everybody but the beasts just brushed it off as the snake trying to trick them."
Wang GuiYing, "Wait, doesn't that contradict with what you said? If the beasts didn't believe the cursed snake, why would it need to be killed, so that it does not inform the rest about the trap?"
Zhihao, "The cursed snake was not believed by the other beasts under normal conditions but in the beast conference, it was an altogether different story. Although it is cursed and different from the rest, it is still labeled as a treasure beast so it could enter that inner circle and stop the sacrificial ceremony from happening."
Li Ling sighed, "And we killed the one thing that could have helped us."
"Wait" Aunt Su cried out, "I still don't understand how this beast conference has anything to do with the rest of the information."
Zhihao was patient with his explanation, "When we plant rice, we wait for it to grow and after it has riped comes the harvesting time, when this time came around, her son descended on the land to harvest but failed. The curse that she put on the land in anger of her son's death? It was actually her making sure that the rice doesn't rot away and hence the time was paused so that the spiritual energy doesn't grow any further."
Kaoru, "But isn't that a good thing? The more she waits, the more the powers would grow and the more she can harvest."
"Except, she won't be able to harvest that much, there must be some sort of restriction to her collecting back the power. A god suddenly got immensely powerful overnight? I don't think that would go unnoticed by the other gods." Li Ling answered the question.
Andy, "So right now....?"
Zhihao, "The sun goddess is harvesting back the powers that originally belonged to her."
Kaoru, "What about the treasure beasts? Aren't they the most spiritually powerful? Shouldn't they be the first ones to go?"
"Should have been but in this situation, you should also consider the fact that the treasure beasts are well aware of the sun goddess's plans. They know it and are playing along with it, an accomplice or more like servants. They had already sacrificed themselves to the sun goddess so there is no way they could run away or disobey her orders. Another thing to note is that they are in the middle of the circle and are being protected by the sun goddess." Zhihao frowned.
Li Ling, "You know what is the importance of a center? It is where the central circuit lies where all the power flows through."
Kaoru was suddenly enlightened, "What did you base that on?"
"..." Li Ling looked at the man mischievously, "Nowhere. I'm just saying. Isn't the center of an array the most important part?"
Zhihao wanted to laugh, "That's actually correct. The reason why the treasure beasts weren't the first ones to be absorbed is because they are the key to the harvesting process. They are the collectors and only through them can the sun goddess gain back the powers."
Andy, "Why?"
"System, why can't the sun goddess harvest the powers directly?"
[Answering player's question: The sun goddess can only harvest back pure untainted power. The power is first filtered by the treasure beasts and later collected by her.]
When the players heard the electronic reply of the system, many of their doubts had been cleared and it was also proven that Zhihao's guess had been spot on. The question hit two stones with one arrow.
Zhihao, "I kinda guessed that too, the power once given to the mortal realm has the disadvantage of becoming mixed with impurities and would be harmful to the sun goddess but the treasure beasts are in a contract with her and hence they can act as a vessel that purifies the power and sends it back to the goddess. Something like how a windmill converts wind energy to electricity."
Kaoru was suddenly in awe of the man's intelligence, gawking at him. This man wasn't called the top player for no reason at all, if anything, he actually deserved the title, in fact, so far, as much as Kaoru had seen, this man was the only one who was deserving of that title. The rest of the players were surely amazing, even Mastermo's partner was immensely talented and intelligent but Kaoru was now completely biased towards Zhihao—this was the birth of a new fanboy.
Zhou XinYi, "So we know the whole story but we still don't know anything about how to stop all this."
"Not necessarily." Zhihao shook his head, "We can't enter the circle but that doesn't mean the treasure beasts can't come out."
"So you want them to walk out with their own will?" Wang GuiYing questioned.
"That's the only way. Once they come out, the connection is broken and the ceremony stops."
Li Ling nodded to this but his mind had some doubts of his own, "How do we get them to come out? Haven't we already established the fact that they can't betray the sun goddess?"
Zhihao smirked mischievously, "We make it interested in us. How many explosives do you have?"
Blowing up things had been a hidden hobby of Mastermo and wherever he could use this trick, he would never miss the chance to. Li Ling had also come to notice this by now and he smiled as he heard the man giving such a simple headed answer. For the amount of intelligent guesses Zhihao could make, the solution of blowing things up was always his most brainless solution to almost anything and everything.
"I have 32" Li Ling answered.
Zhou XinYi, "79"
BBtrash, "86"
Andy, "34"
Kaoru, "46"
Aunt Su, "78"
Zhihao nodded as he heard the numbers, "I have 12"
The number of explosives he had was the lowest and Zhihao somewhat felt embarrassed about it, being the one who loved blowing things up the most and yet he had forgotten to buy more of the explosives but then again, he had been running low on T-points so the lack of explosives could very well be blamed onto poverty.
"Let's throw everything we have onto the stone plate, if the explosion is big enough, we might succeed in breaking the thing and would surely catch the attention of the treasure beasts." Zhihao spoke, "And when they come out, we attack. Catch the treasure beast and complete the mission, it's that simple."
Kaoru felt like voicing out his opinion on how he thought it wasn't really as simple as Mastermo made it sound but on second thoughts, he decided not to drag the moral down for the group.
Andy, "I agree to the plan."
Zhou XinYi, "Me too"
Li Ling, "I would always agree with everything A-Zhi says."
Zhihao didn't know if it was just his misconception but Li Ling seemed to be in a happy mood ever since they had survived the cursed snake's cave.
With the players agreeing to the idea of blowing things up, a total of 367 explosives were carelessly thrown on the stone plate. The explosives, although large in number, could still not guarantee a clean victory since many of the explosives were rather small and could only cause small explosions.
If this plan didn't work, Zhihao had a plan B tucked under his sleeve but he would never want to use that plan B.
If the beasts were killed before their powers could be harvested, the powers would die along with the beast. If worst came to worst, Zhihao could always go on a killing spree and murder the beasts left and right, this would for sure catch the attention of the treasure beasts but Zhihao was reluctant in not only using this method, but he was also reluctant on saying it out loud. Hadn't they originally also wanted to save the beasts? How could they go on a killing spree to kill the beasts they were trying to save? It was preposterous and only a desperate player who was only interested in winning the game with any dirty means would dare do such a thing.
Wang GuiYing, "Honey, sometimes I feel like you are cheating."
"..."
"You are always getting your wild guesses correct, makes me think you are cheating."
Zhihao clenched his fist, not liking the fact that he was suddenly proclaimed a cheater. For a pro-gamer, being called a cheater was equal to being called a criminal—a humiliation that could cost them their whole career.