Chapter 61

The sand table was now Xue Jin'an's magical medium, functioning much like a game server, while other sand tables served as gaming ports. Theoretically, anyone using a sand table during this period would be uniformly affected by his magic, thereby entering the game—though Xue Jin'an's current magic was limited, so he simply set up IP conditions, allowing only the ports in the capital and Qizhou to enter successfully.

The sand table had existed since the Qin Dynasty, serving as a vital and indispensable wartime equipment throughout the ages. The simplest and most primitive version was made by piling rice. Currently, military applications dominated the use of sand tables, and the Great Qi Dynasty explicitly prohibited civilians from privately making or collecting them. Even if a sand table were found in the mansion of a soldier or general, their motives would be viewed with suspicion.

Therefore, privately owned sand tables were rare, mostly belonging to well-known generals and commanders, or county-level officials in charge of security, such as county lieutenants. Apart from them, the owners were mostly anti-court mountain bandits, water bandits, or martial arts practitioners who did not abide by the rules.

All in all, as Xue Jin'an's magic spread out, although it affected all sand tables in the two locations, very few people actually managed to enter the game and successfully match with teammates or opponents—only about a hundred people were fighting simultaneously. The heroes each person could activate varied; those with lower official ranks and poor social connections could often only activate their direct superiors.

It was truly fortunate that Xue Jin'an's battery durability had returned to normal, supporting so many people playing online at once while managing to maintain operation for two hours before shutting down.

Xue Jin'an was not worried that they would be frightened by this bizarre and sudden change. As mentioned earlier, any unreasonableness constructed by Xue Jin'an's magic would be subconsciously rationalized by everyone according to their own understanding. When inevitably linked to supernatural forces due to certain unavoidable reasons, they would also rationalize his identity through their own perception and accept it smoothly.

This was much like how the Emperor believed that Teacher Xiao X was a deity and willingly offered incense money; Master Cen's first thought upon receiving the article was that his ancestors were showing their divine presence; while Helian Cheng and Doctor Chang unanimously concluded that Long Aotian was a ghost.

In everyone's eyes, they had simply carefully selected puppets to place into the sand table, and then experienced a clear and distinct reenactment of battle scenes in their minds—this was normal, as people accustomed to using sand tables were well-versed in simulating battlefields mentally.

To sum up, the combat awareness of the opponents Xue Jin'an and the others matched with was actually quite good, and everyone felt a strong sense of gaming experience, except for Xuan Eleven.

They played three games in total, and in the first two, Xuan Eleven chose the Emperor.

The Emperor's first skill, "Imperial Majesty," prevented everyone within the line of sight from using skills, regardless of whether they were friend or foe, lasting for two seconds. The skill's range was so vast that, for the sake of balance, activating it reduced all of the Emperor's attributes by 30%.

Since the Emperor's attack power wasn't high to begin with, a further reduction meant he truly couldn't even defeat a minion. Failing to secure the last hit was one thing, but he also almost got counter-killed and gave away the first blood.

Xue Jin'an: "..."

Even though he had anticipated the Emperor's lack of skill, playing this badly made him wonder if the Emperor really ought to reflect on himself.

In the end, Cui Zui shot an arrow just in time to rescue the Emperor, allowing him to flash away. Having barely escaped with a sliver of health, he was then brushed ever so lightly by a minor minion and died on the spot with eternal regret.

Successfully securing their team's first kill.

Xue Jin'an and Cui Zui finished harvesting the enemies, turned around to see the notification, and the latter's face turned completely green.

Cui Zui opened his mouth several times, swallowing harsh words back down, ultimately mindful of the Emperor's status. He finally suppressed his frustration and tactfully said to Xuan Eleven, "Next time, run as soon as you finish casting your skill, and don't come over for the last hit. Otherwise, dying like this every time is too humiliating. Those who know will realize you're doing your best despite lacking the ability, but those who don't might think you're an undercover spy."

Xue Jin'an: "..." (Wait, Xuan Eleven *was* indeed an undercover spy.)

Although Xuan Eleven was not a man of many words, he could be rather stubborn at times, especially when his professional competence was questioned. Acknowledging that he had gotten a bit carried away, he began to participate very actively in team fights.

Then, Xuan Eleven looked at his newly refreshed skill and fell into deep contemplation.

The Emperor's second skill, "Harem Gu-Raising," caused enemies to attack each other when used in team fights, and reflected attack damage when applied to a single target. It sounded useful, right? But—wasn't there something slightly wrong with the skill's name?

Did the "gu" in harem gu-raising refer to the calamity of poisonous insects, or did it refer to... those imperial concubines?

Xue Jin'an: "..."

In the first game, Xuan Eleven's operations were as fierce as a tiger, but his score at a glance was zero kills and five deaths. The only thing he could proudly present was an assist count equal to the number of his deaths.

"Am I really that bad at playing?" Xuan Eleven doubted himself.

"Be confident. It's the hero you chose that's bad," Xue Jin'an spoke the truth. Although the others refrained from chiming in out of reverence for the Supreme Ruler, the way they secretly exchanged glances clearly showed their agreement.

They had a very clear understanding of the Emperor's skills; a surprise move in a team fight could be very effective, but it was a one-time trick—you die the moment you are exposed.

To be honest, if Xuan Eleven's reflexes and operational awareness hadn't been decent, the Emperor might not have even managed to pick up an assist, becoming a true zero-kills-five-deaths player.

Torn between whether his own gameplay was terrible or the Emperor's character was genuinely useless, Xuan Eleven struggled through and ultimately chose the former option. "One more round!"

He needed to prove himself.

Sticking with the Emperor this time, he encountered opponents who were obviously much stronger than the previous team. Moreover, the enemy team possessed exceptional synergy; during the blind hero selection, they didn't suffer from the severe duplication issues of the previous match, and many of the hero names that popped up were completely unknown to them, leaving Xue Jin'an's team entirely clueless about the enemy's skills and forcing them to play very conservatively in the early game.

The only certain thing was that these people were military figures, as their uniform styles indicated they belonged to different army camps.

Yet the opposing team was very familiar with the characters Xue Jin'an's side had chosen. Someone opened voice chat and taunted, "Oh, it's the capital folks again, and all high-ranking nobles to boot. Our luck is really terrible today, constantly bumping into cowards and good-for-nothings like you."

They assumed everyone playing the sand table was in the military, never imagining that imperial princes were participating. Furthermore, long-standing grievances existed between the border troops and the capital garrison, so taunting was hardly surprising. Facts proved that they indeed possessed some capital for arrogance; their combat awareness was quite impressive, and even Xue Jin'an learned a lot from them.

This time, Xuan Eleven's Emperor was practically pinned down and murdered in the resurrection point. The enemy opened voice chat with a mocking smile, "Did you think we wouldn't dare hit you just because you're using His Majesty? This is just a game. His Majesty is His Majesty, and you are you. I'm sure His Majesty would certainly want us to win, too."

They were a group of generals with brains who knew how to take precautions against potential troubles.

In the end, Xue Jin'an and his team won by a narrow margin. Excluding the highest score, each of them averaged two deaths. Ultimately, Cui Zui's racial-like specialization against the Northwest Army probably played a role; once he quietly farmed himself up, he took out enemies one arrow at a time.

"Who would've thought the capital actually has capable people? You guys are pretty good. Care to join our Northwest Army? We take female soldiers too!" The opposing side remained quite cheerful despite losing, laughing as they added them as friends and arranged to team up together in the future.

To summarize: throughout the entire match, everyone else was showing off their skills, while the Emperor was the only one getting beaten up.

Xue Jin'an had zero gaming experience.

"Everyone is laughing, why aren't you laughing? Is something weighing on your mind?" Cui Zui shamelessly sidled up, slinging an arm around his shoulder and saying earnestly, "They say 'don't repeat things more than three times.' I learned a term from my master, what was it again—controlled variable method?"

"Controlled variable method," Xue Jin'an corrected.

"Right, right, that's the one. If you want to know whose problem it is, isn't it enough to just change one of the variables?" Cui Zui chuckled. "Want to play another round and test it out? You'll know the result as soon as we finish playing."

Xue Jin'an nodded. He definitely wasn't agreeing with their slander against His Majesty; he simply felt that the game had so many heroes, they ought to try something fresh and let His Majesty have a good rest.

This time, Xuan Eleven selected Cui Pengfei. Since Minister Cui had visited Zhaoyang Palace, choosing him wouldn't be wrong and wouldn't expose his identity.

Cui Pengfei's skills were unsuited for jungling, so he took the support role. The others also wanted to try different positions, so they decided to finalize them after picking their heroes. Yet after much choosing, they ended up with the exact same heroes.

In the end, Cui Zui operated himself to go to the top lane to endure pressure, Fuling took the Empress Dowager for the bottom lane, and Lingzi controlled Lu Bingzhu to jungle.

Meanwhile, Xue Jin'an in the mid lane chose the negative-interaction-value sarira of Chu Wenwan. Finding that she had perhaps chanted Buddhist scriptures too much during her lifetime, her character was steeped in that vibe even without a compassionate heart. Her skills were as follows:

Skill 1, "Greed, Anger, and Ignorance": Randomly allocates half of an attribute point into any other attribute value. — This referred to her jealousy of Zhou Yuting.

Skill 2, "Resentment of Meeting Enemies": After killing an enemy, allows control of their corpse to fight. The side effect is being haunted by vengeful spirits, losing five health points per second and dropping attribute values by 1%. When reduced to low health, the character falls into a confused state and must be killed by a teammate; otherwise, all teammates suffer a continuous health-drain state lasting five seconds. — This referred to her murdering people and framing Xiao Shu during the script murder game.

Skill 3, "Unfulfillment": Silences all own skills in exchange for a 300% attack value. — Obviously, this referred to Xue Jin'an's suggestion of burning the sarira, which reduced everything she desired to nothingness.

Skill 4, "Unable to Let Go": Marks a target to sacrifice oneself for them, turning into a vengeful spirit following the marked target after death, reducing all damage taken by the marked target for five seconds. — This presumably referred to the Fourth Prince.

This hero's kit never explicitly mentioned the sarira, yet the shadow of the sarira was everywhere. Xue Jin'an used her with great delight; every time he saw her shrouded in grievances, he felt a sense of satisfaction, as if Chu Wenwan was finally receiving the ending he had crafted for her.

It was quite nice. Xue Jin'an was happy enough to die a couple of extra times.

This time they achieved a complete victory, seizing the tempo across all three lanes and crushing the opposing team within two quarters of an hour.

Xue Jin'an's battle stats were gratifying; his kills broke past zero, and his assists reached a staggering ten. He finally experienced what playing a game felt like.

Yet after the joy came a creeping sense of terror: Could it be that the Emperor was truly useless?

Xue Jin'an wasn't the only one harboring such treasonous thoughts; let alone the participants of the two matches, the three imperial guards who had watched the fierce sand table battle thought the exact same thing.

These were the three guards who had helped carry the sand table inside earlier and were told by Shou Quan to stay and have tea.

The five of them immersed in the game made no noise, but Fu Lu and Shou Quan instead cried out in repeated astonishment outside. Even Xiaozi, the little servant sweeping the courtyard, couldn't help pushing open the study window in stealth, poking his head inside. The moment his gaze landed on the sand table, he was instantly sucked in.

The three guards felt as uncomfortable as needles sitting behind the screen. Exchanging glances, the cleverest among them gave a dry cough and proposed, "We've been sitting here quite a while. It's time to take our leave of His Seventh Highness and return to our posts."