Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 374 - 235: New Instance Opens

Chapter 374: Chapter 235: New Instance Opens

A week quickly passed.

At 10 p.m., Li Hongyun logged into the game world of "Dark Sand" on time.

After entering the "Miracle of Ingenuity" in the Trial Illusion Realm, Li Hongyun viewed the Forbidden City, which was more than half completed from a god’s-eye view, and a sense of pride welled up within him.

I’m too strong!

During these seven days, Li Hongyun had been addicted to playing with building blocks every day, unable to extricate himself.

In fact, after passing the first stage and unlocking a higher-level blacksmith shop in his fief, Li Hongyun could have started trying to make flintlock guns by hand.

But at this time, his interest in passing the Miracle of Ingenuity challenge in the Trial Illusion Realm had already surpassed that of his beloved flintlock rifle.

Because this process was just too interesting!

Earlier, when Li Hongyun was piecing together the Fengtian Hall, he was puzzled: why had these columns, which clearly didn’t delve deep into the foundations, still managed to miraculously survive intense earthquakes without collapsing?

With this doubt in mind, Li Hongyun immediately looked up information after getting out.

And then he marveled, the ancient people’s wisdom truly was incredible!

The Forbidden City had been able to stand tall for hundreds of years without collapsing from any earthquake because its structure had excellent earthquake resistance capability.

And all of this was thanks to the dougong.

The significance of the dougong wasn’t just that it combined all of the wooden components without any glue or nails, lasting forever; it also had an important meaning in its powerful anti-seismic capability.

In ancient times, the biggest threats to large wooden buildings were fires and earthquakes.

The dougong structure, though seemingly fitted together tightly, was actually flexible yet not loose.

These mortise and tenon joint structures also contained small gaps, which during an earthquake, would break down the powerful horizontal and vertical vibrations into weaker forces, evenly dispersing them across every component, and the energy would be consumed through the collisions and friction between the gaps.

And the fact that the columns didn’t go deep into the foundation was the essence of the dougong structure.

If the columns were deep in the foundation, they would certainly be very stable under normal circumstances. But once an earthquake hit, the vibrations from underground would transmit directly to the columns. The robustness of wooden materials obviously couldn’t compare to modern steel-reinforced concrete, and if the columns experienced too much force, they would surely crack and break.

Conversely, by not driving the columns directly into the foundation, when an earthquake struck, the columns wouldn’t bear as much force, so they would shift instead of breaking.

The dougong structure absorbed vibrations, the columns slightly moved to avoid breaking, and the entirety of the architecture formed a system of using softness to overcome hardness, allowing the whole structure to survive earthquakes.

As for normal times, the heavy roof on top of the dougong structure firmly pressed down on the columns, so there was no danger of collapsing just from a strong gust of wind.

Moreover, the foundation of the entire Forbidden City was deep and thick, and many layers of floor tiles were laid, so the ground would almost never have severe bulges or subsidence. This was also a very important reason.

All in all, after delving into these details, Li Hongyun couldn’t help but admire the wisdom of the ancient craftsmen.

Actually, he had also visited the Forbidden City before, but he didn’t have much memory of it. He only remembered there were a lot of tourists, the palatial buildings in front of him were quite large, but compared to the modern skyscrapers that were often hundreds of meters tall, they seemed nothing special.

But after piecing together the entire Fengtian Hall and most of the Forbidden City with his own hands, he truly witnessed the many details of this architectural wonder and sincerely admired the ancients who could construct such a marvel.

To date, there were top players online who could complete the entire Forbidden City in another day or two.

These were the great players who had previously played similar building block or sandbox games.

Li Hongyun estimated that he should be able to clear the challenge in another three to four days.

But for now, he had to put this trial aside.

Because a new Trial Illusion Realm had been opened!

The name of this instance was "Eight Thousand Miles of Clouds and Moon," and many players speculated that it might be General Han Fuyue’s exclusive instance.

But there were also many players with a different opinion. Because, according to the official announcement, this time’s Trial Illusion Realm was actually a two-in-one, combining the historical slice of General Han Fuyue with the core historical slice of the Qi Dynasty.

In this way, the scale of this instance would definitely surpass all previous ones, and there would inevitably be many storylines.

In short, players hadn’t yet encountered such a situation where two large instances were combined into one, and they were full of anticipation for the new gameplay the design team had come up with this time.

Li Hongyun was no exception and couldn’t wait to delve into this historical slice.

...

In the Return Order Space, a new Trial Illusion Realm portal had appeared.

On the platform where the Qi Dynasty was situated, a brand new entrance to the Trial Illusion Realm suddenly appeared.

Compared to the previous entrances, this one was larger in size, resplendent and dazzling. But on closer inspection, one would notice that the inside of the portal also contained a lot of dark energy, implying that the power of demons in this historical slice would be far greater than before.

Li Hongyun didn’t think too much and stepped straight into it.

After passing through the entrance, Li Hongyun found himself in a very bustling and lively small city.