Black Gopher~

Tang Mo places the pink altar on the table, looking in through the opening, intent on seeing what's inside.

"Bang--"

A loud door opening came from behind her, and Tang Mo's hand was the first to press against the tinder tattoo as she turned to look back.

Granny Wolf, dressed in a little dress, walked into the house with little steps and took the little pink bag on the sofa. Noticing Tang Mo looking at her, she gave her a stern look and said, "Remember the time. If I don't see a golden gopher when I come back in seven days, you're my dinner!"

There was another rumbling of the door, as if it were an earthquake, and the whole house shook with it.

Tang Mo's body shook twice and walked to the window. Seeing Granny Wolf slowly disappearing down the mountain path, he narrowed his eyes, and turned his head to look at the altar again.

Tang Mo looks up at the little pink alarm clock next to the couch.

"It's the first day, twelve-thirty noon." The main quest of this Tower Attack game gave Tang Mo a total of seven days for the quest, and the time of the Monster Valley was calculated in the same way as on Earth, "In that case, I entered the game at more than five o'clock in the afternoon of November 30th, and according to the time projections, it should now be the first day of December ...... "

Tang Mo carefully went over in his head the rules of the game that the Black Tower had just enacted.

He has seven days to catch a golden gopher, and the only way to attract one is to put food in the hole at exactly 6:00 p.m. every day, and if he misses that time, the food expires, so he has seven chances in all.

The probability of a golden gopher appearing on the first day is 40%, and the probability of appearing on each of the remaining days is doubled to 80%.

If he follows the correct rules of the game every day for seven days, placing food in a hole at 6:00 sharp and then standing in the hole waiting without violating the rules, the probability that the golden gopher will not appear for seven days is 0.000192. Conversely, the probability of catching the golden gopher in seven days is 0.999808.

The odds are frighteningly high.

Although Tang Mo felt that his luck wasn't too good, it wasn't so bad that he couldn't catch a gopher with these odds.

Unless there's something wrong with the game itself.

Tang Mo pondered for a long time without coming up with an answer, and finally decided to look at the props he now possessed first. Granny Wolf was not there, so he walked over to the sofa and sat down, placing the altar on the coffee table.

"Any thing that belongs to Wang Guo, the Earthling, can be turned into a geode. Anything ......"

Tang Mo's gaze flicked to the mass of underground human hair in the crack of the couch.

With a tear, Tang Mo yanked the slimy mass of hair out of its crevice. He tugged a strand of hair in a petty manner and put it into the altar. After a few moments, the altar didn't budge.

Tang Mo looked down along the mouth of the altar. The hair was still lying at the bottom of the altar and hadn't turned into some kind of groundnut.

"Is it not enough?"

Tang Mo frowns and puts a big handful of hair right in.

After waiting for about a minute, the altar suddenly shook violently. The pink altar shimmered with colorful light, as if it were a colorful neon sign in an old karaoke from the last century, the light shone in all directions, illuminating blinding and complicated colored patches of light in every corner of the house.

Tang Mo stared at the altar without blinking for three minutes before the altar's flickering lights finally went out, and finally only a loud rumbling sound was heard, followed by a stench that came overwhelmingly.

Even Tang Mo, who has been trained on Mario's hats, almost fainted when he first smelled the scent.

He held back the stench and looked at the altar. Only to see that from the mouth of the altar, an invisible line was silently drawn downward. Where the straight line passed through, the pink color of the altar turned into a thick black. When the line reached the bottom of the altar, the entire pink-colored altar turned all black.

Tang Mo was shocked and said, "This mission is difficult here? It's hard to get food?"

Without giving Tang Mo a chance to think, a black colored object suddenly popped out of the altar and smashed into Tang Mo's leg. The black color of the altar's exterior slowly dissipated and turned pink again.

Tang Mo, with a stunned look on her face, picks up the unidentified black object that seems to be charred and looks at the altar on the coffee table.

A line of small letters slowly emerges on the altar -

[Pile of long-rotted subterranean human hair, ah shucks!]

Tang Mo: "......"

What Tang Mo throws into the altar is hair, and what is spat out is a charred, black, unidentified lump that emits a horrible stench. Tang Mo pinched his nose to examine the object, and he used a knife to cut open the shit-like object. When the black shit was cut open, Tang Mo lowered his head and observed it for a long time, and finally concluded with an expressionless face, "...... Roasted shit-like groundnut?"

As if in answer to his words, the pink altar shimmered and glowed again.

Even without putting the stuff in the hole for experimentation, Tang Mo guessed that there was absolutely no way that something like this could attract a golden gopher.

Tang Mo picks up the altar and caresses the small writing on it.

"Rotting Underlander hair ...... means that those hairs have been left too long to be considered Underlander Wang Guo stuff to be converted into food?"

If that's the case, then the task does seem slightly more difficult.

Tang Mo walks over to the fireplace and looks up at the subterranean man's head that hangs on the wall. He looked at it for a while before finally taking out his pocketknife and grabbing the hairs of the subterranean man with one hand, and using the other to carefully cut those hairs off with the pocketknife. After doing this, he went back to the couch and put these hairs into the altar.

In five minutes--

[Pile of rotting subterranean human hair, ah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah!

Tang Mo: "......"

Not even this?

Tang Mo didn't bother trying to cut off the rest of the organs from that Underground Man's head and put them back into the altar. This altar seems to have very high requirements for the items being put in it, and if Tang Mo is really Little Red Riding Hood, then he is himself a subterranean man, and all he needs to do to get food is to put what he has with him on the altar.

But he's not Little Red Riding Hood.

"Mario's hat would be considered something from Wang Guo, the Underground Man. Huo Ji's egg is from the Great Mole, and the Earthworm's Tears are from the Earthworm; they all belong to the Monster."

These three items are Tang Mo's prize props from the Black Tower game, and the only one of them that comes in handy is Mario's hat. But there's no way Tang Mo would ever put a fine-quality prop on an altar like this in exchange for a groundhog.

He had thought of a way.

Tang Mo takes the ruby out of his pocket and raises it directly above his head and puts on Mario's hat.

No less than the stench of black shit groundhogs hit his face, and Tang Mo immediately held his breath. He gazed stonily at the fireplace in Grandmother Wolf's house, and after three seconds, he let out a loud cry and suddenly slammed his head against the fireplace wall.

"Dang!"

"Dang..."

The first sound was the rattle of a head hitting the wall, the second was the sound a false braces made when they fell to the floor.

"This wall is not too hard!" Tang Mo rubbed his head and took Mario's hat off.

He leaned over and picked up the false braces on the floor.

It's a yellow, old denture set with a bit of uneaten chocolate stuck in the teeth. Tang Mo had even touched a shit-like groundnut, so how could he be afraid of this? Without changing his face, he picked up the braces and threw them into the pink altar.

A minute later, the pink altar once again radiated colorful light. The colorful light dissipated and an invisible line appeared from the mouth of the altar. Where the straight line crossed, the altar turned a pale yellow color. This difference made Tang Mo's heart flutter, and when the entire altar turned yellow, a yellowish thing leaped out of the altar and popped onto Tang Mo's lap.

[An old cobbler's 70-year-old dirty braces]

A line like this surfaced on the altar, and soon the yellow faded and the altar turned back to pink.

The groundnut that hit Tang Mo's leg was the size of an adult's arm and was a thick, long one. It looked no different from the ones on Earth, except that the flavor was a little lighter. Tang Mo hadn't eaten anything for a day, but he didn't have much of an appetite when he saw it.

He took the groundnuts and walked to the kitchen to find a plate to put them on.

After all this, it was only three o'clock in the afternoon. Tang Mo thinks for a moment, puts on Mario's hat again, and thumps the wall twice. The first time, a small, broken mirror fell out, and the second time, a half-eaten chicken leg fell out.

Props Mario's hat, fine quality, wear the hat with the head to hit hard objects, there is a certain chance to get the magic treasure, drop probability of up to 10%.

Tang Mo experimented with the prop when he got it.

When wearing Mario's hat, you must hit a hard object (such as a wall) with maximum force in order to drop the object, and what comes out is so strange and bizarre that there's never a set number.

After being notified by the Black Tower that he was going to participate in the Tower Attack game, Tang Mo didn't waste a single day, banging his head against the wall every night with his hat on to see if he could drop the so-called treasure.

The hat's limitations don't say how many times a day it can be bumped, but Tang Mo found out firsthand that the hat will only safely drop items three times a day. The first three full impacts already made Tang Mo dizzy and uncomfortable. By the fourth time, he was certain that the hat would have a negative impact on his body. The more times he hit it, the greater the impact.

So this hat can only be used almost three times a day and has a touchy drop rate.

Since getting the hat, Tang Mo has hit the wall a total of 34 times, and not once has he dropped anything useful.

Sometimes it's a dirty rag, sometimes it's a small, unassuming stone. The only time a delicate knife with seven-colored stones fell out, Tang Mo was so surprised that he picked it up in a hurry. No sooner had he tried to see if the knife could sharpen iron, than a line appeared on the hilt...

[Props: White show Princess's knife for peeling apples]

[Owner: Tang Mo]

[Quality: Rubbish]

[Rank: None]

[Attack Power: Poor]

[Functions: Quite beautiful]

[Restrictions: No restrictions required]

[Remarks: White show Princess: "Do you peel your apples?"]

Tang Mo ："...... "我我家吃苹果还真削皮!

Originally, Tang Mo was still not dead.

It was the White show Princess's knife, and even if it wasn't used for peeling apples, it probably served some other purpose, and wasn't so much of a piece of trash. Until his fingers accidentally touched the blade of the knife, Tang Mo was shocked, before his brain could react to the pain of his hand being cut by the knife, his vision first saw the knife suddenly break into two halves, and with a snap, it fell to the ground.

...... This knife can t even compare to the hardness of a finger!

How pitiful Mario's hat really is can be imagined.

Groundnuts in hand, Tang Mo walks toward the nine big gopher holes.

The monster valley was silent. Granny Wolf lived in the deepest part of the mountainside of a big mountain, and all those other ape monsters and monkey monsters lived in the basin in the center of the valley, so far away from Granny Wolf's house that there was almost no communication.

Tang Mo vaguely felt that Granny Wolf's position in Monster Valley seemed a bit unusual.

Granny Wolf's vegetable garden is so much bigger than all the other monsters'.

Tang Mo When I just entered the mountain valley, I saw that every household had a vegetable patch in front of their door, all of which were very ordinary small vegetable patches, similar to the kind that rural people would casually plant something in front of their own house to fill their stomachs. Only Grandma Wolf's vegetable patch occupied the whole back of the mountain.

There was only one monster living on this hill, Granny Wolf, so all the land in the back of the hill was cleared by her and used for vegetable plots.

After about ten minutes of walking down the hill along the trail, Tang Mo left the vegetable field and walked to the nine cave entrances.

Looking down from the hut on the mountain, these nine big black holes appeared abruptly on the smooth mountain wall, incongruous with the whole setting of the Monster Valley. Now at the bottom of the mountain, Tang Mo stood in the middle of the big holes and the vegetable patch, with the mountain where Granny Wolf lived behind her, and in front of her were nine big gopher holes of unknown depth.

Nine large circular holes three meters in diameter were lined up horizontally in a straight line, embedded in the mountain wall, lined up from left to right. Looking in from the mouth of the cave one could only see one or two meters deep, and further in was shrouded in the dim light of the cave, making it impossible to see.

Game Rule #8: Prior to seeding, gophers are only allowed in their burrows.

The seeding will not take place until Grandmother Wolf returns home, so it is unlikely that these gophers will leave their burrows now. Tang Mo approached these gopher holes cautiously, placing the groundnuts outside the holes and walking himself from the first hole to the ninth, observing these gopher burrows.

On the ground of each cave entrance were some marks of claws digging into the ground, four claws, five nails, each nail about five centimeters wide. A deep digging mark appeared on all the ground that had been gouged by the claws, and the deepest mark was half a meter deep.

"The monster gopher is at least two meters in size and has a lot of strength in its claws." Looking at these marks, Tang Mo thought to himself, "Are these marks caused by a black-furred gopher, or a golden-furred gopher?"

There were a few blonde and black hairs near each hole, a little more black, but it was impossible to discern exactly who had made those marks.

"The length and shape of the hairs are the same, and if that's the case, the Golden Gopher and the Black Gopher might be the same size." Tang Mo didn't enter the cave entrance, he stood as close to the cave as possible and observed what was inside, "Assuming that both the golden-furred gopher and the black-furred gopher can cause this kind of marks, their attack power might not be inferior to those two monkey monsters, and might even be stronger."

Tang Mo sulks for a moment, walks to the spot and picks up the gopher tray and walks towards the nine large gopher holes.

The probability of a golden gopher appearing on the first day is 40%, and 60% for a black gopher.

Tang Mo wasn't going to take any chances.

He didn't know exactly what these two types of gophers looked like and how strong their attacks were. There were seven days in total, and he could go and catch the golden-furred gopher for the next six days; there was no need to rush to start the mission on the first day just to be on the safe side. If the one that was attracted was a black-furred gopher, then Tang Mo would be trapped in a passive situation.

Knowing one's enemy is the only way to win a hundred battles. The information he knew now was still too little.

Tang Mo found a random hole, he chose the fifth one. He stood next to the hole and raised his wrist, looking at the time on his watch.

The second hand ticked across the dial.

Three minutes later, when the minute hand was pointing straight to "12", Tang Mo quickly put the melon into the hole and ran away. He ran as fast as he could to a boulder ten meters away, then raised his head and stared at the melon in the fifth hole.

As soon as six o'clock rolled around, the valley of the monsters was sunny one second and suddenly dark the next.

There's no sun in Monster Valley, and Tang Mo hasn't found a light source all day, but there is sunshine in Monster Valley. It comes on at 6:00 in the morning and goes off at 6:00 in the afternoon.

Six o'clock had now arrived, and darkness fell over the silent valley. The moonlight was dim, and the breeze blew without a sound of movement.

Tang Mo's eyes were dead set on the large piece of groundhog, his body tensed as he waited for the creature to appear.

Game Rule #7: The probability of a Golden Gopher appearing is 0 if the player and the food are not standing in the same hole.

So, will it be black-furred gophers that show up, or nothing at all?

Three seconds later, a thumping, smashing sound came from the depths of the fifth hole. Tang Mo's eyes widened as he straightened his upper body and stared into the cave entrance. In the next moment, in the depths of the dark cavern, a large, dark figure gently swayed in the cavern. Suddenly, a pitch-black claw slapped down on the golden-colored groundnut.

The black monster clawed a handful of the groundnut, its nails sliding across the plate, which immediately shattered into powder. It cupped the groundnut and cackled.

In the quiet of the night, the cackling sound of chewing groundnuts was very piercing. Tang Mo held her breath and watched carefully as the unknown thing ate the groundnut bit by bit. When it finished eating the melon, it suddenly raised its head and looked at Tang Mo, who was hiding behind a big rock.

Tang Mo's heart lurched and he didn't run away, he separated himself from this thing by a distance of ten meters and looked at it from afar.

The black-furred gopher stood in its burrow, its body merging with the night. A pair of tiny green eyes passed through the night and stared straight at Tang Mo, their eyes were cold, and the ghostly green color hid a bloody smell.

One person and one rat looked at each other across the cave, and after five seconds, the black-furred gopher stomped on the ground and turned to run into the cave. It ran extremely fast, and the heavy smashing sound of the ground became lighter and lighter, and finally disappeared.

Still standing behind the boulder, Tang Mo waited for five minutes to make sure the black-furred gopher wouldn't come back, then he cautiously walked over to the fifth hole.

The groundnuts were eaten clean, leaving no residue.

The plate was shattered by the black-haired gopher's slap, leaving only a little bit of white powder. The powder was so mixed with the dirt that it was impossible to see it without looking closely.

The probability of the Golden Gopher appearing is 0, meaning that it will definitely be the Black Gopher. Black gophers are stronger than those two monkey monsters, and probably even stronger than the big earthworms in Kill Bill.

Tang Mo draws this conclusion, looks calm, and turns to walk back to Granny Wolf's hut.

The next day at noon, Tang Mo put on Mario's hat again and started banging on the wall. There were still three pieces of junk that didn't serve any purpose, but Tang Mo threw one of them into the pink altar and got a big groundnut.

At 5:00 p.m., he ate a cookie to replenish his energy, then walked to the nine large gopher holes, holding a groundhog.

The big black gopher hole was so deep Tang Mo hid behind the boulder. He took out large matches, sharpened the blades of two pocket knives, and strapped them to his thighs. At 5:59 p.m., Tang Mo took a step toward the fifth hole with his plate.

All nine holes have the same probability of gophers appearing, and it doesn't matter which one you choose.

At six o'clock sharp, Tang Mo stooped down and placed the groundhog on the edge of the hole, which he stepped into with his feet up. His hands were thrust into his pockets, seemingly casually, while both hands firmly grasped two small darts. He stared unseeingly into the depths of the hole shrouded in darkness, his left foot turned in the direction of the hole, ready to escape at a moment's notice.

Tens of seconds later, Tang Mo heard a familiar smashing sound. It was as if a huge animal had come running from far away, and the sound of its limbs hitting the ground echoed continuously in this narrow hole in the ground, shaking the walls with it.

Tang Mo stood up straight and saw a dark object appear twenty meters away.

Small, ghostly green eyes and a huge, terrifying body. The light was still too dim to see if it was black or gold.

When it ran to a place five meters away from the cave entrance, the moonlight finally shone on its fur, and its thick black color pierced into Tang Mo's eyes. Tang Mo's eyes lurched, and without hesitation, he turned around and ran, but a sharp whistling sound rang out behind him.

The black-furred gopher didn't even look at the groundnut on the ground, its eyes were glowing as it excitedly slapped a paw at Tang Mo.

The reaction of this black furred gopher was really too fast, much faster than Tang Mo, Tang Mo had only stepped out of the hole with one foot when his way was blocked by its paw. Tang Mo didn't hesitate, he stomped on the black-furred gopher's paw, and took out his hands from his pockets, four small darts whooshed and shot at the big gopher's eyes.

Tang Mo had not practiced shooting darts specifically before. He practiced a little bit for a few days after he got the small darts, but when he shot the darts in the heat of the moment, all three of them were skewed, and only one of them flew towards the right eye of the big gopher.

The gopher rushes out of the way, giving Tang Mo a chance to catch his breath. Tang Mo takes out a giant match and meets the big, fat paw of the black gopher.

Tang Mo's huge claws hit the match, and Tang Mo's tiger's mouth was numbed by the shock. The black-furred gopher seemed to not expect what Tang Mo took out to be so powerful, and it was caught off guard and knocked back a step, one of the nails on its paw was broken hard by the large match.

Bright red blood dripped from the broken nail.

The black-furred gopher let out an angry roar and snarled as it charged at Tang Mo.

Tang Mo immediately swings a large match to meet the attack, while constantly dodging.

The gopher is very clever, and it blocks Tang Mo's way out of the cave with its huge body. The light in the tunnel was dim, and Tang Mo was forced further and further in. At this rate, he was getting farther and farther away from the entrance, and it was impossible for him to escape.

Tang Mo clenched his teeth and didn't dodge out of the way when the big gopher swung a paw at him once more.

The gopher's claws broke through the wind and Tang Mo faced the gopher, holding the match tightly in both hands. As the gopher's claws fell, he saw his chance and struck a match on the gopher's fingernails from between the tiny gaps in the claws.

The gopher let out a shrill whine of angry agony.

Tang Mo's match was not simply to break his nails, but with the reverse force of the match, he stomped on the ground and leaped over the gopher's body, flipping behind him. Not caring about the pain of his nails, the gopher turned around to grab Tang Mo.

Tang Mo ran as fast as he could in his life to the hole, and the big gopher reached out his claws in annoyance to grab it.

"Rip-"

Sharp claws slice through Tang Mo's clothes, making a shallow bloody mark on his back.

Tang Mo had already leapt out of the cave entrance, and his whole body fell to the ground outside the cave.

Inside the big gopher cave, the black-furred gopher growled in anger and refused to leave, standing at the entrance of the cave and watching Tang Mo. Tang Mo sat down on the ground and gasped for breath, he checked his back, but it was not too serious, just a little cut on the skin. But his clothes had been cut open from top to bottom, and his back was completely exposed to the air.

After resting for a while, Tang Mo uses a large match as a walking stick and prepares to go back to the hut.

He didn't expect his luck to be so bad, with a 20% probability, only one in five, he actually didn't encounter a golden-furred gopher and encountered a black-furred gopher.

The strength of this black furred gopher was indeed extremely strong, its defense was not as strong as the big earthworm, but its attack power was far superior to the big earthworm, and its intelligence and means of attack were also much stronger than the big earthworm.

Behind him, the black furred gopher was still snarling at the entrance of the fifth crypt. Tang Mo panted, pondering as he walked, "One in five probability, the Black Tower doesn't lie, today could it really just be that I'm just too unlucky ......," he walked through the fourth burrow, "Two days in a row, the probability of running into a black furred Gopher's probability is one in twenty-five, tomorrow my luck shouldn't be that bad."

Tang Mo walks through the third cave and continues on to the next one.

Suddenly, his steps stopped and his whole body stiffened as he turned to look at the third hole behind him.

Tang Mo stared dead at the floor of the third hole for a full minute. After a minute, he put away the large match, took one step to the third hole, and bent down.

The night was deep in the silent, dark valley, and the angry growls of the black-furred gopher were long in coming.

On the floor of the third cave entrance, a little bit of tiny white powder was mixed in the dirt. The moonlight shone on it, reflecting the smooth color belonging to a ceramic plate.