Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1441: Gradual Resolution

Looking at the beast constructed from numerous metal pipes, Lin Sanjiu finally deduced Silvan's solution to the problem of the storage space being too small. After all, he once used Erudite to reproduce a Munitions Factory worker jacket for her.

As an original item, the jacket was similar to the bag on Silvan's waist: both were common objects woven from fabric. Consequently, Erudite would analyze them in the same way. The myriad key nodes in the knitted structure would be vastly magnified, even to the point of clearly seeing the direction of the fiber texture, revealing a complete item structure map.

In the Munitions Factory, Erudite replicated an item based on this map. Now, it could modify the pouch at the microscopic level, providing ample space for Silvan's team's target items. The volunteer emphasized not altering the form of the products, but he never mentioned anything about not altering the construction of the storage space.

With this in mind, as the two beside her continued to gaze at Erudite, Lin Sanjiu walked towards the opposite shelf. When Advaita and Chen Hanwu's attention shifted to her, she was already sitting with her back against a shelf. The distance between the two groups was a few steps; she had only changed her sitting position.

"I'll take a break," she said, closing her eyes. "The storage space isn't with me anyway, and you don't need me. Do whatever you want; just don't disturb me."

"Uh..." Chen Hanwu uttered hesitantly, but Advaita remained silent. Perhaps she thought it would be best if Lin Sanjiu remained this way until the game's end.

Starting from her forehead, Lin Sanjiu intentionally relaxed every inch of her facial skin and muscles, ensuring her face was as calm as a still lake, void of expression. Under Advaita's scrutiny, she couldn't show the slightest hint of her next move.

This was because the difference between Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing's demeanors was stark.

To activate [Consciousness Mimicry] under Advaita's watch would be impossible to hide due to the sudden shift in behavior, speech, and disposition. After much thought, the only time she most resembled Ji Shanqing was probably when both were asleep.

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The resting and motionless Lin Sanjiu swiftly entered Ji Shanqing's state with minimal effort. As soon as [Consciousness Mimicry] was activated, the notion of Erudite modifying items immediately brought another conclusion to her mind, as if she had never been interrupted at all.

Silvan probably planned to expand the space between each fiber by several times. In this way, a tablecloth would be spread out like a fishing net, naturally increasing its storage capacity. His mind was nimble; there was no need to worry about his part of the challenge.

Next, she had to tackle her own problem.

"Mrs. Manas," she silently said in her mind, "Replay the video footage you memorized for me."

The content of the footage was singular: Advaita appeared and disappeared between the various aisles, repeating over and over.

If every appearance and disappearance of hers was considered an information point, then in the thirty-plus minutes of footage covering the entire mall, there were probably hundreds or even thousands of these sporadic information points. Just memorizing them all had considerably drained Lin Sanjiu's Higher Consciousness. If she had to watch and analyze each one herself, it might take her until next year to see any patterns.

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But with Ji Shanqing's mimicry activated, it was different. In just four to five minutes, she had categorized Advaita's movements into several major types. By categorizing and extrapolating from thousands of data points, Lin Sanjiu soon reverse-engineered about seventy to eighty percent of Advaita's movement patterns, such as which direction Advaita would go based on a certain movement or how much distance she would cover with a particular stride, and so on.

Slowly, Advaita's enigmatic movements, which seemed as unpredictable as a ghost's, revealed underlying patterns. To put it in perspective, it was as if Lin Sanjiu had been colorblind before, unable to decipher a picture made of colorful noise. But now, the different colored noises began forming distinct images before her.

"She walked between C8 and E2 once, and between G4 and A10 once," Lin Sanjiu muttered. "These 72 information points can form a complete map, covering the entire mall. Judging by the timeline, this was her first reconnaissance of our half of the mall."

This was also when Advaita instructed the two to search the shelves, saying she would go to the frontline. They thought they were moving fast, but by the time they had walked past two or three aisles, Advaita had already surveyed half of the mall and even noticed the presence of the girl with fox-like eyes.

"Then... she retraced her steps several times..."

Lin Sanjiu slowed down the playback speed in her mind, comparing it bit by bit with the newly-formed "Advaita Movement Map." "Wait a sec..."

Right there – exactly there – was a significant discrepancy between Advaita's initial reconnaissance and her subsequent movements in the mall.

Some places she visited for the first time, she never visited again.

For example, when heading to intercept Silvan, if one drew a line according to the shortest route, part of that line should have connected the shelves C4, A9, and F3. At the time, F3 was where Silvan was, making it the end point of this line.

But Advaita did not take this route. In fact, when Lin Sanjiu secretly left Caster's card, Advaita happened to rush ahead of her, making Advaita the one leading the way. After that, the shelves that Advaita led Lin Sanjiu past were C4, B7, A2, G1, and F3.

Why take a detour that added the distance of two more shelves?

A more precise question would be: why did Advaita deliberately avoid walking past A9?

Advaita seemed certain that Silvan had the means to monitor her. Assuming this premise, the places she walked past and the shelves she glanced at would be highly noted by the opponent — because it was highly likely that one of them was where her domain shelf was.

It was human nature. Most of the attention is always given to the words spoken and actions taken, rarely to the words left unspoken or actions not taken — in this case, the paths not taken.

Lin Sanjiu felt her heart warming up, thumping strongly in bursts.

A9... If A9 was one of Advaita's domain shelves...

However, this led to another problem.

She didn't know what Advaita's target items were.

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