How Did You Know I Beat the Game

Most players truly get addicted to Slay the Spire the first time they hit a perfect run.

Take Zhong Yi at this very moment, for example.

“I’ll hang [Precision] and [Endless Blades] together! Then play a block...”

“What?! [Blade Dance] and [Flying Sleeves] both showed up at once?! I’ll finish it in one shot!”

“Haha! What a sweet run... what a sweet run!”

Watching the countless flying blades devour the monsters, Zhong felt even more exhilarated than when he killed monsters with real weapons.

Not long ago, those four cockroaches had beaten him bloody. Now, in just two turns, he annihilated them—absolutely satisfying!

“Fellow cultivators, this Silent is way too powerful!”

Zhong Yi kept exclaiming in amazement.

After losing three times in a row as the Ironclad, he didn’t stubbornly keep trying. Instead, he switched to other characters.

And now, the moment he picked up the Silent, he immediately got a dream run.

Right at the start, he got a rare golden [Flying Sleeves]. The first monster dropped a [Precision].

[Precision] boosted the damage of the zero-cost Shivs, while [Flying Sleeves] turned them from single-target to area-of-effect. Then more and more cards that generated Shivs joined his deck...

The Shiv build came together perfectly, and Zhong Yi was having the time of his life.

Lu Ze wasn’t sure if the original developers had built any similar mechanism into Slay the Spire in his past life,

but when he designed Immortal Slay Tower, he added a special “seed of victory” system for new players playing on zero difficulty. Besides the teaching scenarios, there was a guaranteed lucky seed that would appear within at most five runs.

Because Lu Ze knew very well: once players successfully pulled off a coherent build, that rush of satisfaction would drive them to keep playing endlessly.

Lu Ze was watching this one-sided slaughter unfold in Zhong Yi’s livestream when he suddenly felt himself yanked out of the stream by an unknown force.

“Half an hour has passed... Why haven’t I, the Heavenly Dao, seen a single person?”

The remnant spirit of the Heavenly Dao spoke with an unreadable tone, but Lu Ze could somehow feel resentment in its words.

The remnant spirit stared at Lu Ze suspiciously.

It had sensed cultivators constantly dying inside this illusion realm, yet not a single one had fallen at its hand, which left it greatly displeased.

“Patience, patience... It won’t be long now.”

Lu Ze calculated Zhong Yi’s progress with a cheerful smirk. Given Zhong’s lucky hand and his wits, clearing the run should be no problem.

“Oh, and when someone comes to see you, remember to seal their mouth.”

...

...

Zhong Yi’s livestream.

The chat was far from the cold silence of when he first started streaming; it was buzzing with activity.

[Not taking Corpse Explosion? Playing a poisonless Hunter is pure troll.]

[Is slowly poisoning enemies half as fun as spamming flying knives?]

[Golden card! A GOLDEN CARD!!]

[Old Zhong said it—don’t try to grab everything. Sticking to one build is best.]

[Only 18 cards? That’s enough for a fight?]

[Already reached the third-floor boss? That fast?]

[Whoa, you can only play one of the first three cards drawn? That’s brutal?]

[The minion does crazy damage!]

[If he didn’t have AoE, his little minions would wreck him.]

...

The boss Zhong encountered at the end of the third floor was a female demon, flanked by a high-damaging minion.

Her special mechanic: out of the first three cards you drew each turn, you could only play one.

The difficulty in this fight lay in how the hand was limited, while he had to face pressure from two enemies at once.

Fortunately, Zhong Yi’s deck was wildly overpowered. His AoE blades sent both the queen and her minion reeling.

After several consecutive rounds of attacks, the minion collapsed, and the queen had fewer than 200 HP left.

Zhong Yi glanced at his hand and smiled with confidence.

“Fellow cultivators!”

“Behold—”

“A Thousand Swords Return to the Sect!!!”

With that, he played a card he’d held onto—[Blade Trap]. All the Shiv cards he’d played earlier surged up from the exhaust pile and gathered around the Silent before raining down on the queen!

Under the boost of various buffs, the spectacle was honestly dazzling.

The chat exploded again.

[Whoa!! He one-shot the queen??]

[What? Over 200 damage???]

[Aren’t those swords a bit... short?]

[And a bit few...]

[This combo is insane!! Post a guide fast!!!]

...

As the queen fell, the third-floor boss fight ended.

“Take it easy, guys... Immortal Slay Tower has too many variables. You can’t just get a perfect run whenever you want—it takes some luck.”

Zhong Yi smiled as he replied to the chat.

“Give me a few more days to study it, and I’ll definitely make a guide for everyone!”

He then tried, as usual, to draw Qi from the fallen boss’s corpse and claim a golden card.

But this time, no Qi brewed up from the queen’s remains.

“Strange, why isn’t there...”

Zhong Yi was puzzled, when, suddenly, his view was yanked inward.

He—still in spirit form—was violently pulled straight into the Silent’s body, and in an instant, the two merged.

The next moment, he stood as the Silent inside a strange, unfamiliar chamber.

The room was piled high with all kinds of treasures, scriptures, and scrolls.

A massive figure in a golden robe, holding a staff, stood with its back to him. Above the figure's head was a long health bar.

"Oh? I get it now!"

Zhong Yi understood in an instant.

"This is the top floor of the Immortal Tower... and that's the Master of the Tower!"

"The final challenge is for us to become warriors and defeat it with our own hands!"

"I've had enough of the card games... time to stretch my muscles..."

"Bring it on!"

Zhong Yi laughed loudly and summoned countless flying blades from the magic array behind him, all shooting toward the figure's back.

[-290]

[-360]

[-538]

...

A series of damage numbers appeared above the figure's head. Yet the long health bar seemed completely motionless.

The name above its head changed from a question mark to "Architect."

The Architect slowly turned around. Beneath the golden mask, its purple, ghostly eye gleamed faintly.

"Not even a self-introduction?" The Architect sneered. With a casual wave of its staff, a massive hand descended from the sky, and Zhong Yi's body instantly turned into a cloud of blood mist.

The live-stream chat exploded.

【That... looks familiar somehow?】

【It's the Heavenly Dao... the Heavenly Dao that rules the illusion!!】

【Damn! How is anyone supposed to beat that...】

【Is it possible Old Demon Lu never intended for us to leave the Immortal Tower alive?】

【Uh, maybe taking down the three-tier demon counts as clearing it...】

...

As a cultivator facing the remnant of the Heavenly Dao itself for the first time, Zhong Yi met the Architect, who was the manifestation of that very remnant.

A single slap from that hand gave him the terrifying sensation of teetering on the edge of life and death.

【Victory...?】

【You have dealt 1240 damage to the Architect... but that is barely a scratch...】

【You have dealt a total of 1240 damage to the Architect】

【Even after withstanding 1240 damage from all challengers combined, the Architect remains standing】

"Huh?"

Just recovering from the feeling of death, Zhong Yi stared at the data on the screen, the corners of his mouth curling up wildly.

"Total of 1240 damage... that means I'm the first to clear it?"

Zhong Yi was ecstatic, celebrating wildly, and happily changed his live-stream title to "Number One Little Knife Hunter in the Cultivation World."

The joy of clearing the challenge for the first time made him want to find someone to share (or show off) with.

"Oh? Lao Zhou is streaming?"

Seeing that Zhou Yue was not only online but actually streaming for once, Zhong Yi perked up.

"Haha! Let me see how Lao Zhou's clumsy hands handle this illusion!"

Zhong Yi cheerfully entered Zhou Yue's stream and caught Zhou Yue hesitating among three cards.

One of them was 【Precision】, a core card for the Little Knife Hunter deck Zhong Yi had just been playing.

Zhong Yi, forgetting to boast, quickly sent a message.

【Genius Cultivator: What are you thinking? Pick 【Precision】! 【Precision】!】

"Zhong? Why are you here? Why should I pick 【Precision】?"

Even as he said this, Zhou Yue followed Zhong Yi's advice and added 【Precision】 to his deck. After all, Zhong Yi's advice in these illusions was usually reliable.

【Genius Cultivator: How did you know I just cleared the Killing Immortal Tower with my 【Precision】-based Little Knife Hunter deck?】

Zhou Yue: "???"