"Arrgh! I only got 1 Silver Panda Medal from it." Yue Han grumbled after redeeming his prize from the Sakura Treant Climbing Challenge. Even though he had climbed the highest among the group with his Blinding Bat Cultivation, he got one of the lousier prizes compared to the rest.
"Aww, don't complain, you had the easiest time reaching the item as opposed to the rest of us. Shall we do the Zither Mistress String Obstacle Course or Niu Lang's Supa Robot Wars next?" Bu Dong asked as he took a marker out and crossed out the Sakura Treant Climbing Challenge from the WunderPanda Theme Park Map.
"Last I checked on the Pandamonium App, Supa Robot Wars has a queue with a waiting time of 1Hrs 30Mins…that is unless you decide to go the fast track route of paying 1 Silver Panda Medal or at the very least 25Yuan (~4USD) to bypass the crowd." Jing Ru said as she checked the app.
The Pandamonium App had a section for the WunderPanda Instance where it dedicated real time tracking of the queue and estimated waiting time for all of the users. This was to allow users to have a better gauge of the time spent in this theme park as well as determine if they should try something else while waiting.
"Let's just do the Zither Mistress String Obstacle course first since our objective is to play at least all the games and rides." Yue Wen commented and everyone, as usual, began sprinting towards the Zither Mistress game station. It was not too far away and when they reached, they noticed that the game station had a fast moving queue.
While waiting, the Wunder Pandits manning the station, gave an overall view of how the game worked since the obstacle course was not evident until they entered the building with a large statue of Ke Mi playing her beloved Zither and the Great White Snake right beside her.
"This is somewhat similar to those Ninja Warrior obstacle course with a slight twist. You are to complete the course in the shortest time possible while avoiding the Zither Mistress' string attacks. There will be blunt arrowheads attached to the strings so you can either avoid the strings entirely or destroy the string by deflecting the blunt arrowhead away from your path." The attending Wunder Pandit said to the group.
"Should you touch the string, it will stick on you momentarily before fading away causing you to suffer an additional 5 seconds penalty to your timing each time. If you try to cut it once the blunt arrowhead hits the ground, it will also incur an additional 2 seconds to your timing." The Wunder Pandit added as he brought them to oversee the obstacle course through a wide glass panel from the first floor. The obstacle course in the basement spanned around 400 metres. The Pandawan group could see multiple people attempting it to the best of their abilities with Ke Mi at the centre of the entire course on a tower watch post, acting like an overseer for the entire obstacle course.
Her music was as enchanting as ever as it lifted the spirits of the cultivators attempting the obstacle course. However, the fast tempo also meant that the appearance of the stringed arrowheads was numerous until she changed to a slower song.
"This is clearly the same as a bard in those video and board games." Deng Long could feel his whole body relax as his mind swayed a little with the music of the zither but it was a different story for the cultivators in the obstacle course. Their movements suddenly became sluggish and it did not help that the stringed arrowheads were still travelling at the same speed.
"Clearly a disadvantage to the ones participating." Se Lang understood why this obstacle course was brilliant for training. One might try to cheat by using their cultivation against these static obstacles, but Boss Jin had added in the unpredictable nature of those strings as well as music that would affect the body's performance. It was clear that those were used to hinder cultivators who could jump high or customers with speed based cultivation.
"It's our turn, what are we waiting for?" Bu Dong said as the obstacle course was cleared in no time and the eight of them entered the fray. The Zither Mistress immediately recognised them when Shi Hui shouted to her and she even did a musical opening which invigorated the group before the Wunder Pandits started the timer.
"Looks like Ke Mi is not giving us any chance at all." Jia Ying laughed bitterly as her body was filled with adrenaline. They knew that kind gesture was a double edge sword for things to come in the obstacle course.
"We can only hope to meet her expectations." Se Lang said and then the Wunder Pandits did the same thing as for every start of a game station. The ringing of a Bell Gong. This obstacle course could only easily fit five people at the same time without becoming hindrances to each other, so the Pandawan group raced in batches with the first four consisting of Se Lang, Deng Long, Shi Hui and Jia Ying. Only a minute later would the Wunder Pandits ring the gong once again to let the following group move.
The first obstacle was a low wall, and sure enough, stringed arrowheads arose from the ground which caused Se Lang and Deng Long to lose their momentum as they prepared for the jump over the low wall. However, the girls with higher perception did better than the guys.
Shi Hui gracefully evaded the strings while Jia Ying performed a somersault to maintain her speed while deflecting the arrowhead. The Sanguine Stag cultivator landed on the top of the low wall via her somersault before she crouched to kick herself forward through to the next pitstop, Stepping Stones on water.
For that particular section of the obstacle course, they knew it was not that simple since the Pandawan group had seen people fumbling with that. This was because the stringed arrowheads that appeared from the depths of the pond could be misinterpreted due to the reflection of the water's image.
Not only that, some of the stones were fake so that if one were to step on it, they would fall into the water, making them waste their time. Some of the cultivators initially thought to overcome all these obstacles by just running of water. However, because of the chi used to maintain their water walking, it attracted one nasty individual.
The Great White Snake.
The Pandawans had seen that the cultivators had to defeat the Great White Snake to a certain degree or else it would keep harassing and not just the ones who used chi to water walk but everyone that was participating in the obstacle course. Thus that alone would cause the entire group to lose some time.
Thankfully, Jin wasn't too evil and those who managed to ward off the snake would get a small token prize regardless of the timing the cultivators achieved. Count it as an additional hidden objective that could be completed running the obstacle course.
Thus, Jia Ying flew forth in great speed while making sure to deflect any arrowheads coming her way but halfway through the stepping stone section, the Great White Snake appeared at the detection of the use of her chi. She somehow expected that as she was already storing one of her techniques in retaliation of this ambush.
"Intermediate Spear Art! The Puzzled Spear of the Stag!" Jia Ying shouted as she zoomed straight towards the snake with its mouth wide open and fangs pointing at the Sanguine Stag cultivator. At the very last moment, the spear suddenly changed its direction, pulling Jia Ying along with her and stabbed the snake at the side. She then slid along the snake's body and later water walked across the remaining part of the section.
Shi Hui, who was right behind Jia Ying, thought the snake was defeated and happily used her chi to water walk (actually, she was sprinting). What she did not foresee was another Great White Snake appearing out of the water which caused her to pause in order to evade the snake strike and reluctantly use one of her techniques.
"Intermediate War Fan Art! Pulsate Freezing of the Swan!" Shi Hui shouted as she swung her fans around, causing the water around to freeze instantly. The frozen pond made it difficult for the great white snake to move about as part of its body was iced by her technique. It was also at that moment, Deng Long ran past her while thanking her for making it easy for him to just use the stepping stones.
"That is why I did not want to use that technique!" Shi Hui pouted and suddenly she felt a grab from her legs. Se Lang had carried her up and skated through the ice, by creating chi focused blades on his shoes.
"I am helping you since you are helping me." Se Lang said which made Shi Hui give him a light gentle kiss in return on his chest. Because of the skates, they were speeding faster than Deng Long who relied solely on jumping over the stepping stones since the ice was too slippery to dash over. Furthermore, he was afraid that another Great White Snake would appear if he used his chi though Shi Hui told Se Lang not to worry about it.
Unlike how the cold weather worked their ice on ponds, she believed her intermediate art had frozen the water underneath them too. She told Se Lang to skate at full speed ahead to catch up with that traitor Jia Ying.
The next section was a hundred metres away after a fifty metre turn with skewed boards. Jia Ying tried to rush her way through ignoring all the skewed boards but regretfully realised that if she did not step on a skewed board, she would be restrained by a massive load of strings.
Those strings would then pull her all the way to the first skewed board and only when she stepped on the board with two feet, the strings would immediately disappear, and she could proceed on. (There was no additional penalty as compared to getting hit by a stringed arrowhead except it was a waste of time.)
Se Lang, who was previously second after leaving Shi Hui behind when they crossed the frozen pond, saw what had happened and performed accordingly on the large skewed boards. He also said goodbye to Jia Ying after she got pulled back from reaching the end of the turn for not touching the skewed boards. Shi Hui also caught up and stuck her tongue out at Jia Ying before attempting to catch up with Se Lang.
The last section was a series of wall panels with windows to jump over. It was a matter of luck since out of the three windows on a wall panel, two would lead them to a pit of mud. Se Lang thought he had briefly memorised where the pit of mud would be when he was observing from the first floor but when he first jumped through the Number 2 window of the first wall panel, he struck mud.
Not to mention, Ke Mi was playing her music with more intensity, and Se Lang had to both avoid the stringed arrowheads as well as attempting to get out of the mud. Shi Hui shamelessly used the same window and stepped onto Se Lang's head 'lightly' to avoid the mud pit.
However, Se Lang was not so kind accepting to act as a literal stepping stone, not even for one of his girlfriends and allow her to get ahead of him. The Wacky Wolf cultivator's hand was free from mud and thus quick enough to grab onto Shi Hui's leg. He pulled her with chi enhanced force, causing the Shadowy Swan Cultivator to fall face flat on the mud pit.
"SE LANG!!!" Shi Hui, who managed to catch a breather after emerging her face out of the mud, shouted his name in anger. Jia Ying, unfortunately, chose the wrong one as well and fell into the mud pit too. Thus leaving Deng Long to select the correct one for the first wall panel.
But there were still two more wall panels before the finishing line and Ke Mi was not letting any of them win so easily as she now played a piece of calming music, causing the four to feel sluggish and lethargic.
To the Zither Mistress' wonderment, that was also where Deng Long shone.
Because of his Wobbling Wombat cultivation, his resistance against elements and even to Ke Mi's music increased temporarily the more he was exposed to it, and so unless Ke Mi directly targeted just him, the music she was playing now had little effect on him.
Unsurprisingly, he reached the finishing line first followed by Se Lang, Jia Ying and lastly Shi Hui. (Apparently, the two girls fought at the third wall panel which allowed Se Lang to sneakily cross through.)
The Wunder Pandits congratulated them as they held onto a wand and swivelled it around the cultivators. All the mud and other stains were removed from their clothes and body in a jiffy. Even girls' hair was back to the original form.
Being the first in the course, Deng Long got his prize of 1 bottle of spiritual essence and 2 Silver Panda medals as well as a QR code to obtain five Zither Mistress Ke Mi's orchestral music songs for free. (Others could have bought it for 50 Yuan (~8USD) in the merchandise store right beside the obstacle course.)
Second Place was awarded fifteen Bronze Panda Medals, third placing eight bronze medals and the last only had three bronze medals. However, what made Jia Ying and Shi Hui happy was the spinning of a physical lottery wheel for killing the Great White Snake. They both were lucky enough to win an additional one silver medal via the lottery, which inadvertently making Se Lang pout with (slight) jealously.
"Ke Mi's music, huh... I might give it a try back home. Her tunes were indeed rather calming to listen to."Little did Deng Long knew that Ke Mi's orchestral music would soon be his daily ritual before sleeping.
Shortly after Se Lang's group completed the race, it was the other group's turn, and it did not take long before they heard Yue Wen screaming at Bu Dong and Yue Han.
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