Chapter 30: This is a single player game.

Tang Mo drew his knife straight away, not caring whether walking into the hole would summon gophers and pose a danger. He stepped into the third hole and dug out the dirt mixed with white powder.

Fortunately, Tang Mo's rash entry into the cave did not attract the gophers. He left the burrow with the soil in his hands, placed it on the ground and set about separating the clods from the white powder.

Little by little, he picked out the white powder.

Tang Mo had never been more focused, his face as heavy as water, as he picked out every tiny bit of white powder. It took him a full hour to separate the white powder from the soil.

Having done this, he immediately ran to the fifth hole.

An hour has passed and the black-furred gopher that fought Tang Mo has stopped snarling, having long since left and disappeared into the depths of the cave.

Tang Mo looks down at the clay in the fifth hole.

Each hole is about three metres in diameter, and Tang Mo placed the plate on the left edge of the hole when he put it there yesterday. At the moment, on the left side of the hole, the white powder is mixed with the earth and is about to melt into it. The plate he placed today is also powdered, a little further down from the entrance.

The black-haired gopher still ate this groundnut today.

With Tang Mo around, he won't focus on the groundnuts, he'll attack people first. But without people, it will continue to eat the groundnuts.

Tang Mo stepped deeper, ears pricked up to listen for movement in the cave, while scooping up the day's plate of powder.

There were three piles of clay and three portions of white powder. Tang Mo will first compare the two portions of white powder dug from the fifth hole, which is the powder formed when the ceramics were smashed. Finally, he turns his attention to the white powder from the third hole.

Three powders, all compared.

"Is ...... exactly the same."

Tang Mo squeezes his fingers tightly and looks at the three piles of white powder on the floor. These were all powders formed when the white porcelain plates were smashed.

The white powder in the third hole was definitely not put there yesterday, nor was it put there before six o'clock today. Yesterday Tang Mo looked carefully at the nine holes, and before six o'clock today he checked the nine holes again to make sure they were unchanged from yesterday (except for the fifth one which had the powder from the plate he had put there yesterday near it), before he picked the fifth hole at random.

"Fought the black-haired gopher for about five minutes, then rested outside the hole for three minutes afterwards. Walked from the fifth hole to the third hole in half a minute at most." Tang Mo said heartily, "Plus five or six minutes before six o'clock when I finished checking the third hole earlier. At most ...... fifteen minutes."

Within fifteen minutes someone had placed a plate in the third hole and the plate was shattered to powder.

"There should still be groundnuts on the plate and it should have been smashed by the black-furred gopher as well."

Tang Mo's hand is pressed against the tattoo of a large match as he looks around.

At the foot of the hill is a vast vegetable field, and in the darkness of the night the dull moonlight shines on nine eerie gopher holes. The night breeze blew and stones rolled gently on the ground.

No one.

Not a single person.

But within fifteen minutes at around 6pm, at least one person had placed a plate in the third hole and then also had it smashed by a gopher. If this was the case, it would explain quite perfectly why Tang Mo waited in the fifth hole not for a golden-haired gopher but for a black-haired gopher, when there was clearly a high probability of 80%.

Rule 7 of the game: Place more than two holes or if the player and the food are not standing in the same hole, the probability of the golden gopher appearing is 0.

In total, food was placed at two holes and the two players were not standing at the same hole. How could he have waited for the golden gopher!

Tang Mo tightened his grip on the match and suddenly swung it up, smashing a match against the boulder in front of the cave entrance. A spider's web of cracks radiated from the point where the match struck, and the dull pounding sound echoed across the valley. Tang Mo seems to be mad, trying to vent his anger at being teased by The black tower, but he keeps his attention on his surroundings and attacks the unknown enemy (which could be a player or a The black tower monster) as soon as it appears.

But five minutes had passed and nothing had appeared.

Tang Mo put the matches away and he tightened his brow in thought. Suddenly, as if remembering something, he quickly ran back to Granny Wolf's hut and into her kitchen.

On the kitchen table, there are seven white plates stacked on top of each other. These were taken from the cupboard by Grandma Wolf before she left. Tang Mo saw the way she took the plates and later, when she combined them with the rules of the game, she thought that they were for him to put food on.

Now that two days have passed, he should have used up two plates.

Tang Mo swoops down to the table and counts the plates from bottom to top.

"One, two, three, four ...... five."

No less!

Tang Mo looked at the five plates and after a while he picked up the big match and walked out of Granny Wolf's hut. He did not walk towards the back of the mountain, he walked out along the trail that the gorilla had taken him into. When he reached the corner of this trail, suddenly an invisible wall appeared in front of him, blocking him to one side and preventing him from advancing any further.

"Dingdong! Have arrived at the game copy boundary."

Tang Mo gripped the large match and turned to walk in another direction. There was only one way down the mountain, but what if he were to jump straight down from the other side? With his current fitness level, jumping from halfway down a short mountain like this shouldn't kill him, at most he would break his leg. But then he could get in touch with the outside world and get some more information.

However, Tang Mo was just about to jump down the other side when an invisible wall once again stood in his way.

"Dingdong! Have arrived at the game copy boundary."

Tang Mo: "......"

So that means that from the official start of the game, his sphere of activity became this hill of Granny Wolf's?

And who the hell is the other person who put the plates on!

The hill is shrouded in the thick of the night. Anxious disbelief is not an option, so Tang Mo calms down and recalls the eight rules promulgated by The black tower from beginning to end.

"...... It didn't say there was only one player."

Yes, neither Granny Wolf's words nor the rules of The black tower ever say for sure that Tang Mo is the only one who wants to catch the gopher. It is true that Granny Wolf wants her granddaughter to catch the golden gopher, but there may be others besides Granny Wolf who want to catch the gopher too.

Tang Mo doesn't know who the other man is, it could be a player, it could be an underground man, it could be a monster. But he couldn't find the man.

The hill where Granny Wolf lives is so big that standing at the top you can see everything on it, as well as the nine gopher holes at the foot of the hill. The best possibility is that Tang Mo could not have seen this man at all.

To put it in perspective, Tang Mo is now completing his own game and he is playing a solo tower attack game, which means he cannot have a teammate. But no one is saying that there can't be other players also attacking the tower or playing a copy of the same mission at this time.

"He also put the plate in the hole, and he would have caught the gopher in the same way as I did. I couldn't see him and he shouldn't have seen me either, otherwise he couldn't have watched me place the plate in the other hole. With food being placed in more than two holes, the probability of a golden-haired gopher appearing is zero, only a black-haired gopher will appear." Tang Mo was completely calm by now, and as he walked towards the wolf grandmother's hut, he pondered, "Did he also serve the food on a plate ......"

Tang Mo stood in front of the door of the hut and felt that something was wrong.

An unseen 'companion' (both parties are trying to catch the gopher, so they can be considered companions for the moment) goes about catching the gopher in the same way. The food is not necessarily the same, as Tang Mo only found powdered white porcelain plates in the third hole, and the food was eaten by the gopher, which could have been a groundnut or something else.

Tang Mo suddenly thought, "Could it be that it's not a golden-haired gopher he's trying to catch, but a black-haired gopher?" But he quickly dismissed the suspicion, "The black-haired gopher's favourite food is groundhogs, not gophers. If you want to catch it, there's no need to bait it with food, just stand at the entrance of the hole yourself." And from the tone of Granny Wolf's voice Tang Mo thought that she didn't seem to hate black-haired gophers.

Monsters don't hate black-haired gophers, only golden ones.

Tang Mo closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, opens the door and enters the hut.

There are three questions before him now.

First, who is the unseen person who put the plate in the third hole. Is it a player, a man from the ground, or a monster?

Secondly, what was the man trying to do? Was he also trying to catch the golden gopher?

Thirdly, how to get the man to put the plate in this hole of his own. If the other person is not a monster, he must also be made to stand in the same hole as himself.

The black tower doesn't say only one food, one player is allowed, but no matter how much food or how many players there are, they must all stand in the same hole or the golden gopher won't appear.

Tang Mo was unable to answer any of these three questions.

The situation of an invisible companion, unable to communicate or learn anything, does not give Tang Mo a chance to find a solution.

"It can't be that hard. It's a game, there must be a pass strategy, there must be ......" Tang Mo slammed the door behind him and paced back and forth in the hut, "I can't see the man, and the man can't see me. But eighty percent likely, he's on the same mission as me. I need to find a way to reach him. Now that I've noticed the situation, has he noticed it? How am I going to reach him and make him notice me ......"

Tang Mo's footsteps stopped abruptly. He suddenly felt as if he had forgotten something, a very important thing.

From the first time he was dragged into a library game by the Gods, to being forced to participate in a tower attack game, to a Monopoly game with a huge death toll, Tang Mo has never been so passive as he is now, unable to find a way to get through the game.

Yet this is ultimately a game.

If it's a game, there must be a way to get through it.

Tang Mo slowly sinks his composure as he quiets down and sits on Granny Wolf's soft little sofa, gazing calmly at the pink altar on the coffee table.

The ceramic powder jar is exactly the same as it was before Tang Mo left this afternoon, with no sign that it has been moved. Tang Mo's eyes slid from the bottom of the altar, upwards a little. He looked at the rounded lines of the altar, at the pale pink of the moonlight on it. Finally, he looked at the rounded mouth of the altar for two minutes, and then suddenly his eyes widened.

"Draw a circle and curse you!"

Tang Mo almost jumped up from the sofa. He finally remembered that he possessed such a psychic ability.

Draw a circle to curse your ability, can curse any one object, can only be used once per day, 30% chance of success, effect unknown.

You don't need to know the exact look or name of the person you are cursing to use this ability, you just need to know who the person you are cursing is - for example, Tang Mo knows that person is the person who put the plate in the third hole at six o'clock this evening, then you can use the ability on them.

Tang Mo leans down, rests his right index finger against the coffee table and begins to draw a circle. He gently slides the first stroke towards the top right corner and follows it further towards the bottom right corner. This time, however, as he drew the circle, his fingers began to tremble. It took Tang Mo a full minute to complete the crooked circle from the first stroke.

In the underground burrow of the Great Mole, Li Bin draws two circles to prove that he has psychic powers. Both circles are extremely neat, as if they had been drawn with a circle gauge, and at the same time they are exactly the same size.

After copying Li Bin's powers, Tang Mo has only used them four times. Once to curse the stowaways who attacked the city's North High School, once to curse Mario, and then twice to curse the two stowaways he attacked on Nanjing Road. When he started using his powers, his fingers would draw a regular circle without his control.

But this time, Tang Mo's gaze heaved a little as he looked at the crooked circles he had drawn on the coffee table.

As if he sensed something, he took his book of powers out of the air.

Tang Mo turns the book to the first page.

[Alien Energy: I am just one spiritual field away from the main character]

This has long been used to store large matches and cannot be used again.

Page 2.

[Ability: Draw a circle and curse you]

It has just failed to be used.

Page 3.

[Ability: Find, Find, Find Friends]

......

Turning to page five, Tang Mo saw the "Goblin, give back my grandfather" power. He walked out of the hut, looked into the silent darkness of the valley, put his hands on his waist, and shouted four words into the empty valley in a loud voice: "Give me back my grandfather!"

Tang Mo's voice echoes long into the dark, slightly chilly night in the Valley of the Monsters. Unfortunately, all that echoes is sound, not fire.

Tang Mo's heart plunged into the ice. He didn't give up, he began to experiment with other powers such as "Qi swallowing like a tiger". But no matter how much Tang Mo tried, none of the other powers that had concrete manifestations worked, except for Chen Shanshan's "super-intelligent thinking" which had no obvious effect.

All failed.

"This copy prohibits the use of psychic powers?"

Tang Mo was pursing his lips and mentally gave the answer: no, he could use his powers and could take out a big match.

The act of taking out the big match from the wrist tattoo is in itself the use of the "I am one spiritual field away from the main character" ability. This ability can be used, but not all other abilities. Even during Tang Mo's fight with the black-haired gopher, he didn't think he had the power.

Only now did he realise that he seemed to have forgotten that he had psychic powers and was fighting the black-haired gopher with sheer physical strength and a large match.

"...... Perhaps this copy will only allow the use of the Reita powers."

Tang Mo offered a tentative explanation. He threw the book of psychic powers back into the air and took a crystalline tear from his pocket.

These are the "tears of the earthworm".

Tang Mo decided to experiment with his ability to use props.

Earthworm's Tears is an expendable item that can only be used three times to repair a fractured wound. Not intending to cut off his hand this time, Tang Mo took out his pocket knife and made a not too deep, not too shallow cut on his left arm. The knife touched the skin and blood immediately flowed down, the sharp pain pricking Tang Mo's brow slightly as he placed the earthworm's tears on the wound.

Five minutes later, Tang Mo's powerful body as a full-fledged player had automatically stopped the bleeding, while the earthworm's tears remained quietly pressed against his wound, doing nothing.

Tang Mo put the earthworm's tears back in his pocket and took out Mario's hat again.

This afternoon he has already hit the wall three times with the hat and got three items, throwing one of them into the pink altar in exchange for a gnome to give to the gopher. Mario's hat can only be used safely three times a day and on the fourth use the user feels dizzy and has some negative physical effects.

But Tang Mo didn't hesitate, he put on his hat and crashed into Granny Wolf's fireplace.

Bang!

An old, blackened silver ring clattered to the floor, and Tang Mo rested against the wall for a moment before bending down to pick it up.

Mario's hat is available.

The last prop he has, then, is a rare quality turkey egg.

Tang Mo took the turkey egg out of his pocket and looked at it intently. After a long time, he tapped the turkey egg three times and whispered, " Mr. Fu?"

A chattering evening breeze blew up to Granny Wolf's window, rattling the glass.

There was no echo in the fire egg.

Tang Mo's fingers tightened as he gripped the turkey egg and he shouted again, " Mr. Fu?"

Three minutes passed and still no sound.

Tang Mo lifted his right finger and drew an "S" directly on the turkey egg. With this stroke, the "S" character on the turkey egg did not glow brightly in white, as it had done every time he had used it before. But Tang Mo didn't seem to see anything as he shouted out the name: "Fu Wenduo!

All that responded to him was the sound of the wind whistling through the window.

Ten minutes later, Tang Mo puts the turkey eggs away. He walks over to Granny Wolf's window and looks down into the nine dark gopher holes at the foot of the hill. At that moment, the pink alarm clock by the sofa beeps, its hour hand pointing to "12" o'clock.

It is already the third day.

"It's a single player game." Tang Mo looked away from the third hole in the gopher's cave, his voice very calm and his demeanour subdued. He came to the final conclusion, "That man, that's me."

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The author has something to say.

Tangtang: Fu Wenduo ！！！！！！！ QAQ ！！！！！ [almost crying]

Mr. Fu School: ...... I want to reply to my daughter-in-law's words too ！！！！！！