Chapter Thirty-Two: Ancient Greece

A low hum vibrated from all three of their phones at once.

Yan Luo picked his up and saw the World Tuning Program interface. A long “Installation” bar crept to the top, then a message appeared: “Language module loaded. In this world, you will automatically master Ancient Greek.”

“What?” Zhu Xiaoyong exclaimed in alarm. “Ancient Greek? Don’t tell me...”

His body began to tremble. “No way, this sports competition isn’t... the Spartans’ gladiatorial games, is it?”

“Wrong,” Wang Dongwei replied with a furrowed brow. “First, gladiators were a Roman thing, not Greek. Ancient Greece did have similar sports, but they were a mix of boxing and wrestling called Pankration—mixed fighting. Second, when it comes to sports competitions in ancient Greece, have you forgotten where the Olympic Games originated?”

“The Ancient Olympics!”

“Is the theme of this world actually the Ancient Olympic Games?”

As he spoke, another prompt appeared on the phone screens:

“Level 1 Sports Competition World, Main Quest: Participate in the Olympic Games.”

“After the Games close, you will be transported directly back to the Main God Space.”

“You may earn the following titles in this world—”

“Athlete: Participate in the Olympic Games.”

“Philosopher♂: Participate in the wrestling event of the Olympic Games.”

“Olympic Champion: Defeat all opponents in an event to win.”

“I Am Legend: Win more than five championships.”

...

After reading the prompts, Zhu Xiaoyong let out a long sigh of relief and laughed. “Looks like this main quest isn’t hard at all. Just participate in the Games—it scared me at first, but the task itself seems friendly enough.”

“You’re being far too naive,” Wang Dongwei said grimly. “Honestly, I’d almost prefer to be thrown into a gladiator world! Do you realize what it means to participate in the Olympic Games? The Ancient Greek Olympics had extremely strong ethnic requirements!”

“Competitors had to be pure Greeks, with both parents of Greek blood!”

“The athlete himself had to be a free man!”

“As for the rest—had to be male, had to be morally and politically unimpeachable, physically whole, and on top of that, you needed eight or more judges to attest you’d undergone at least ten months of training. The requirements are absurdly strict.”

He sounded dejected. “The three of us, with our East Asian looks, not Greek citizens at all, have absolutely no right to participate! It’s like if a few Americans showed up to our national games—would the whole country just accept it?”

“The Greeks would never let us compete!”

“Sigh... I dread to think what price we’ll pay if we fail the main quest.”

Zhu Xiaoyong stared in disbelief. “So we’ve basically failed before we’ve even started?”

“There’s no use overthinking it.” Yan Luo, who had been listening, interjected. “Rules are dead; people are alive. If worst comes to worst, we find whoever made the rules, take them out, and write new ones! If that doesn’t work, then we overthrow this country and host our own Olympic Games.”

Wang Dongwei stared at Yan Luo, mouth agape, his gaze blank. This was supposed to be a sports competition world—they were here to compete, not to play at historical conquest...

Besides, the three of them—overthrowing the entire Greek alliance of dozens of city-states?

Still, somehow Wang Dongwei felt a little steadier after hearing those words. One way or another, they had to find a solution. Yan Luo aside—he at least had the authority to enter the inner world again—but as for himself and Zhu Xiaoyong, if they failed the main quest, they’d get no enhancements, maybe even pay a penalty. What if the next task was a mandatory mission?

“Let’s focus on finding a way to break the deadlock first.”

Wang Dongwei motioned for Zhu Xiaoyong to sit on the grass. Yan Luo, meanwhile, began merging his persona masks in his mind.

Since this was a Level 1 world, there would be no gods or powerful supernatural abilities; the power level here should be low. If he could fuse a Nightmare persona mask to use as a trump card, he might be unbeatable. With enough persona masks, he could probably overturn the whole world.

Ten points confusion, ninety points shock—fuse!

With the Heartless Doll’s Fate Talent, two streams of light converged within his consciousness, slowly forming the outline of a mask.

A sharp cracking sound echoed in his mind.

“Fusion failed.”

In an instant, all one hundred emotional points accumulated by the Heartless Doll vanished. Anyone else would likely have broken down and wept, but Yan Luo’s face remained calm, as if nothing had happened. Of course, persona fusions weren’t guaranteed to succeed.

He hadn’t expected that last time, when he fused three emotions, it worked, yet this time, with just two—when the odds should have been better—it failed.

He noticed that after the outline of the mask shattered in his mind, it didn’t disappear completely.

Most of it dispersed into particles, but a single fragment remained.

Brown.

Yan Luo raised his hand; a brown shard appeared in his palm.

“Level 1 Persona Mask Fragment (7%): Remnants from a failed persona mask fusion. Collect enough fragments to assemble a Heroic Spirit Mask.”

Wang Dongwei and Zhu Xiaoyong, unaware of the fragment in Yan Luo’s hand, continued their discussion.

They’d expected this to be an easy world—a sports competition. Though one was a failure and the other a slacker, neither was stupid. Yan Luo’s looks and aura had clearly been enhanced—after killing a boss as twisted as that evil entity, how could there not be a huge reward?

Besides, when fighting the boss, he’d turned into a horse... no, a Nightmare...

In a sports competition world, just sticking with someone that strong was enough.

Wang Dongwei had hoped for a peaceful world and a good chunk of time to practice swordplay—after getting advice from that sword sage, Master Yu, he’d originally planned to unlock Basic Agility, but gritted his teeth and picked Basic Swordsmanship instead. He’d even searched online for a few sword routines to memorize and practice.

As for Zhu Xiaoyong, his inner couch-potato feared dangerous worlds, but now with Basic Strength unlocked, he’d gained a layer of muscle beneath his fat. Some strength-based sports shouldn’t be too hard for him.

They hadn’t expected to draw such a short straw—Ancient Greece and the Olympic Games!

“We have to find a way to blend into this country,” Zhu Xiaoyong said.

“Blend in? That’s impossible. The three of us have East Asian features—how could we possibly pass in a Greek land? Ancient Greece had slavery—barbarism and democracy coexisted. Democracy was for their own citizens; barbarism was for outsiders.”

“And we are outsiders.”

“High-quality slaves could fetch high prices. As oriental slaves, plenty of Greek nobles would be interested in us.”

Wang Dongwei couldn’t help but sigh. “We don’t even know the era, or if this inner world matches real history. But since it’s the Olympic Games, we’re probably somewhere around the sixth or fifth century BC...”

“To think we’ve ended up over two thousand years back in Ancient Greece... what a tragedy...”

“Brother Wang, you know, I just remembered ‘Love Before the Common Era’... I wonder what Greek girls look like?” Zhu Xiaoyong wore a dreamy expression.

“Don’t you only like anime girls?”

“But this is Ancient Greece! The Aegean Sea and all that... it has to be romantic, right? I’m getting curious—are the girls here as cute as anime characters?” The chubby guy even drooled a little.

As the conversation drifted, Yan Luo put the persona mask fragment into his phone, drew a pair of Mandarin Duck Blades, and tucked them into his belt.

“Let’s go have a look at that little town.”

“I wonder what Greek combat ability is like? And by the way, Sparta was a Greek city-state.” Wang Dongwei also drew his Eight-Faced Han Sword. In a foreign world—on what was, to Chinese people, barbarian land—he said worriedly, “If we’ve landed in the same era as King Leonidas, we’re in trouble.”

“Oh, crap!” Zhu Xiaoyong shuddered at the thought of those three hundred nearly naked madmen.