Chapter 404 The Beginning of Chaos
Behind the maze's stone wall, two candidates from the School of Protection stood back to back, breathing nervously. Their magic power had been exhausted, and one of them still had a tear on his mage robe from acid corrosion.
"We...we're lost, Martin." One of the thin apprentices said in a trembling voice, "The map is fake, we've been deceived by those undead!"
The apprentice named Martin was pale. He held his wand tightly, and the light at the tip of the wand was as dim as a candle in the wind.
"We were so naive... We actually believed that Mentor Merck would be kind enough to prepare a supply point for us!"
"I knew it! That 'official supply point' wasn't a real supply point at all. It was a trap deliberately set by Instructor Merck!"
The two poor children only guessed the first level.
The so-called official supply point is of course fake, but this thing can't really be blamed on mentor Merck, who designed the maze carefully.
Just when they were in despair, the sound of footsteps accompanied by bones rubbing against each other came from the corner of the corridor.
The two men immediately became nervous and gathered their remaining magic power to the tips of their wands, only to see a lone skeleton soldier appear in front of them.
It did not roar and rush forward like the other undead, but simply tilted its head and quietly "looked" at them with its eyes burning with soul fire.
Martin immediately raised his wand, but the skeleton soldier slowly raised his bony hand, waved it, and then pointed to another fork in the road behind them, making a "follow" gesture.
"What...what does it want to do?" asked the thin apprentice in confusion.
"A trap, it must be!" Martin said warily. "Don't believe it!"
The skeleton soldiers seemed to see through their hesitation.
It no longer paid any attention to the two people, and walked towards the fork in the road. Just as it turned a corner, a dull roar that did not belong to the undead was heard, followed by the sound of metal clashing.
A moment later, the skeleton soldier came back, dragging half of the burrow spider's corpse in his hand. He threw the corpse in front of the two men and pointed to the fork in the road again.
It seemed to be saying—
I can take you out.
The two men, at their wit's end, exchanged a glance, each seeing shock in their eyes. There were monsters behind that road, and this skeleton soldier...was he helping to divert them from danger?
After much hesitation, they finally decided to follow.
The skeleton soldier walked in front, at a moderate pace. When he came to a fork in the road, he would stop and use bones to draw a simple map on the ground to indicate the location of the trap.
Many traps in the maze are pressure-sensitive and triggered by life signs. Generally, the monster's mirror image or skeleton soldiers can easily detect and avoid these dangers.
This action gradually dispelled the doubts of the two apprentices.
They even thought that this undead might be a hidden "easter egg" set up by Mentor Merck, specifically to help those unlucky people who stumbled at the so-called "official supply points."
"Saint Sith... I knew that Master Merck would not design a level that we can't pass!" The thin apprentice said excitedly with a flushed face.
Martin didn't say anything, but he couldn't help but murmur in his heart -
Did I blame my mentor wrongly?
Soon, the skeleton soldier led them to a secluded dead end.
Just as the two were about to be alert, they saw a cluster of grass emitting a faint white light growing at the end of the alley. The soft light was like the silver glow from the moon!
"It's moonlight grass!" The thin apprentice exclaimed in surprise and immediately ran forward to pick it.
That is a very rare alchemical material!
Although there may be no shortage of mentors, for an average magic apprentice, it would take at least several months of living expenses to get one.
However, just as his fingers touched the grass, a large net dropped from above his head, instantly hanging him upside down while he was caught off guard.
Martin was horrified and was about to cast a spell, but he found that the skeleton soldier had circled behind him at some point. A thick leg bone hit his wrist with a "snap" sound, and the wand fell to the ground.
"Ah!" Martin screamed in pain, covered his almost broken hand and took two steps back, tripping over a stone on the ground.
The skeleton soldier playing with the leg bones did not continue to attack.
It simply bent down, picked up the wand on the ground, then pointed at the purse around the waist of its panicked companion who was hanging in the air, then pointed at itself, repeating this action several times.
Martin understood its meaning instantly.
This undead spirit didn't want their lives, it just wanted to rob them.
He swallowed.
"I...will give it all to you. Can you let me go?"
Without his wand, his fighting ability was not much stronger than that of an old peasant from the empire, and was even worse than the latter who had been well-trained.
Looking at the nodding skeleton, Martin untied the cloth bag hanging on his waist with trembling hands. Inside was some change and magic crystals he had harvested in the maze.
The skeleton snatched it away, then looted the guy hanging in the air.
Just when Martin was hesitating whether to negotiate with the skeleton and ask the latter to return the wand to him, the skeleton suddenly crushed the distress rune that he had looted from them.
Martin's expression suddenly changed.
"No--!"
He rushed forward, trying to take the talisman stone back, but it was too late.
While showering him with rune fragments, the skeleton dodged his attack with incredible agility and disappeared before the patrolling assistant coach arrived...
…
Regardless of whether Xuebang’s magic apprentices had a great time, the players who participated in the All Souls’ Day event had a great time this time.
In just two hours, more than three hundred magic apprentices had been sent away, and the assistant instructor in charge of patrolling the field was almost running his legs off!
This elimination speed is unprecedented!
In the past, large-scale elimination would not begin until at least the third level of the maze. In the past, if the number of people eliminated reached 100 on the first level, it was considered too difficult.
In the duty room outside the maze, Instructor Merck was staring at the magic crystal in front of him with a frown on his face, and the several teaching assistants beside him didn't dare to breathe.
Kemidil even wanted to pull out Osa's ancestors and scold them. Where on earth did this guy get the undead from that are so difficult to deal with.
He swore that after this was over, he would make that damned adventurer pay the price! He would use the most vicious curse to turn that fool into a toad!
However, what Kemidil didn't know was that the adventurer he was working with had already boarded a ship to the New World at the port of the North Sea, ready to start a new adventure.
As for the dividends from the magic crystal mine...
I can only ask Baron Gus to fulfill the promise.
It wasn't just Kemiadir who couldn't figure it out. Mentor Merck, with a frown on his face, also couldn't figure out why.
In the crystal, white light spots representing distress signals lit up one after another in the area of the first level of the maze, and the frequency was far beyond his expectations.
"What's going on?" he muttered to himself, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the table. "Are this year's apprentices so weak?"
Although the maze he designed was difficult, it was definitely not enough to cause so many apprentices to fail collectively on the first level...
Just when he was puzzled, an assistant teacher in charge of coordination rushed in with a tired and anxious look on his face.
"Instructor Merck! The number of distress runes activated on the first floor far exceeded our expectations. We don't have enough assistant instructors on patrol! They're requesting reinforcements!"
Merck raised his head and said unhappily, "Then we'll transfer personnel from the second and third floors to prioritize the safety of the apprentices!"
"We've already done that," the assistant instructor gasped, his tone becoming more serious, "but... a new problem has arisen, a more serious problem."
"explain."
"The evacuation teleportation array inside the core of the maze...is broken," the assistant teacher said with difficulty. "We can't use the array to send those disqualified apprentices out. Some assistant teachers are still trying to take them to other areas to activate the portals...right now, many areas on the first floor of the maze are in chaos."
His statement is already very conservative.
To be more precise, the assistant instructors on patrol had to avoid interfering with other apprentices' trials while leading the eliminated ones back and forth in the maze.
They didn't know why the teleportation array wasn't working, so they could only hope that the next area might be better...
Merck stood up suddenly, a flash of shock in his eyes.
In order to prevent cheating, the entire trial maze was isolated from the outside world at the beginning of its construction, and the only entrance and exit was the starting portal.
Other than that, there are just some ventilation ducts!
Once the internal evacuation array fails, it means that the eliminated apprentices will be completely trapped in the maze.
Merck's face changed drastically as he gradually realized that this was no longer an ordinary trial accident, but a serious crisis...
A drop of cold sweat ran across his forehead, across the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and dripped onto the ground.
Damn Demon—
He messed up!
The atmosphere in the duty room was as suffocating as sticky slime.
There is no time to hesitate, he must take action immediately to get the out-of-control maze back on track!
After a moment's thought, Merck no longer hesitated and gave the order in a decisive tone.
"Notify all patrol assistants to gather all disqualified apprentices and take them to the temporary shelter in the east area of the first floor."
"Shelter?" The teaching assistant was stunned. It was a backup area set up to deal with extreme situations, and it would only be activated in the most critical situations.
"Yes," Merck's voice was unquestionable. "Let our teaching assistants wait there and calm the apprentices. I will personally lead the team over and open a physical passage for them from above the shelter—"
Before Merck finished speaking, a deafening roar suddenly came from below the duty room.
The solid stone floor and walls began to tremble violently, and the ink bottle on the table was knocked over, leaving a stain on the map.
A young teaching assistant lost his balance and stumbled before he could barely hold onto the wall, his face filled with shock and astonishment.
"what happened?"
"This movement must be at least a silver-level spell—"
"Maybe it's gold level..."
"Did some idiot bring in a gold-level magic scroll?!"
Before everyone could recover from the earth-shaking tremor, a shrill alarm suddenly sounded from the magic crystal.
A scarlet crack suddenly appeared on the surface of the crystal, which was a scar that reminded everyone that the maze structure was damaged!
Merck's pupils suddenly contracted, and he quickly rushed to the crystal. When he saw the feedback from the magic circle, he couldn't help but blurt out a curse.
"Damn it—"
The alarm did not come from the chaotic first floor, but from the third floor!
A large area there actually collapsed completely!
…
Time goes back to one hour ago——
The third level of the maze.
The cold and damp air accumulated in the narrow corridor, as if it had solidified into a solid object. The five young female apprentices moved forward cautiously, each breath carrying turbid water vapor.
Although most of the apprentices were held back by the undead on the first floor, quite a few still managed to break through the undead blockade and reach deeper into the maze.
What surprised many magic apprentices was that starting from the second level, the difficulty of the maze trial suddenly decreased?
There were no mysterious undead wandering around here, and the traps had finally become what they had seen in textbooks...
"Finally, I'm free from those damn skeletons..."
"That Merck is really crazy. Where did he get those troublesome guys from?"
"Could it be that someone is controlling them from behind? Their actions don't seem like those of ordinary undead at all. They seem more like they're being manipulated by a necromancer..."
"Don't talk nonsense. Where did Xuebang get the necromancer? And how many mages would it take to control so many undead?"
"Could it be hell..."
"Ha, unless those demons are crazy. They'd go to all that trouble just to trouble us apprentices during the labyrinth trial?"
"Angie, I'm telling you... your brain is really getting worse and worse."
"I'm really worried about whether you can graduate. You can't ask Miss Lastina for help with such a small matter, right?"
"Yes, I'm sorry..." Facing the "closeness" of Lastina's two good friends, Angela trembled and shrank her neck.
Looking at Anjie who seemed to be bullied, Ilana frowned slightly and wanted to say something, but she couldn't decide whether this was a joke between friends.
Anjie had said more than once that she and these three seniors were very good friends, although Ilana always felt that this one-sided tolerance and flattery was abnormal.
I'll ask her after the trial is over...
Just as Ilana was looking at Anjie, the gaze of a certain "captain" also fell on her vaguely.
Lastina's fingers rubbed the storage bag on her waist. Through the leather, she could clearly feel the hard outline of the square box.
She bought it a few days ago from a store recommended by an older classmate.
The box was completely black and wrapped in a circle of black rune cloth. It was said that if it was opened in the maze, it would cause great turmoil.
Do you want to use it now?
Lastina was still hesitating.
The old witch who sold her the "box" exuded an ominous aura that still made her feel uneasy. She had no doubt about the power of the box, but she still had some hesitation about whether to take it to that extent.
She just wanted to teach a lesson to her cousin who didn't know himself, and didn't want things to get completely out of control... although this was actually the safest thing for her.
Lastina took a deep breath and temporarily drove away the chaotic thoughts in her head.
She decided to look for other opportunities first, and use the box only when it was absolutely necessary...
It would be nice if we could just run into a few acid slimes.
At this moment, there was movement at the corner of the passage ahead. Several huge figures were squirming, completely blocking the group's way.
There were three slime monsters that were two meters tall. Their gray-green translucent bodies were like giant jellies, emitting a faint sour smell.
They have no facial features, and only the occasional bubbles on their surface prove that they are alive.
The record in the Monster Encyclopedia instantly flashed through Ilana's mind—
Slime monster!
The attack method is to eat the prey alive!
Its slashing, piercing, and magic resistance are all good. The best way to deal with it is to freeze it with ice magic, and then destroy it with wind or earth attack magic!
Although the slime monsters in the trial maze will not swallow people and digest them, they will still swallow their prey alive and suffocate them, so they are also quite dangerous!
While Ilana was quickly analyzing the weaknesses of the monster in front of her, a perfect idea also exploded in Lastina's mind at the same time.
This is a godsend!
Her sharp eyes quickly swept over the two followers beside her. Anjie and the others immediately understood what she meant and showed an eager smile on their faces.
"Don't worry! Ilana, this kind of small character is not worth mentioning! Watch me take care of it right now!" Angel raised her voice, as if to cheer herself up, or as if she was deliberately saying it for Ilana to hear.
"Pyroblast!"
"Haha, look at my burst of fireballs! Go! Cuties!"
The two mage apprentices standing beside Anjie raised their wands almost simultaneously. As they chanted, scorching fireballs and exploding flames roared and smashed into the slime monster's body.
"Wait! They don't--" Ilana was shocked when she saw this. As soon as she cried out a warning, it was drowned out by a loud hissing sound.
The flames hit the slime monster, but not only did they fail to cause any effective damage, but instead it was like pouring boiling water into a pot of boiling oil!
In an instant, an extremely thick white steam suddenly exploded, instantly covering the entire passage with an all-encompassing momentum!
This is a mistake that almost all self-taught magicians will make. The fire magic that seems to restrain the slime monster is actually a trap!
After all, the slime monster with a lot of water in its body is not a slime, and it is not so easy to evaporate, unless the caster has enough magic power to crush it!
It is understandable for adventurers to make this mistake, but it is something that a "professionally trained" magician should never make.
After all, on the mage exam, dealing with the slime monsters was almost a free point question...
But it's too late to say anything now.
The world in front of me suddenly turned white, and I couldn’t see my hand in front of me!
The light of the spell, the figures of companions, the walls of the maze, everything was swallowed up by the sudden steam storm.
At this moment, Anjie, feeling guilty, shouted in a pretentious manner.
"Oh... this is terrible! I remember the Monster Manual said you can't use fire magic—"
"Stop talking nonsense and get out of here!" Before she could finish her words, she was grabbed by a hand that reached out from the side.
Lastina and her followers quickly evacuated.
They were well prepared and had released the wind elves to guide the direction in advance, so they would naturally not be trapped by a little white mist.
Coughing, Ilana drove away the steam surrounding her and backed away, trying to find her lost sense of direction.
However, at this moment, an angry roar suddenly came from the depths of the white fog. It was the sound made by the slime monster after being enraged!
Feeling the tremors crawling along the floor, pale Ilana's heart sank.
We can't just sit there and wait for death!
In panic, she tried hard to force herself to calm down. Relying on the monster's location in her memory, she condensed a slightly immature ice arrow at the tip of the wand, and swung the wand violently to throw it into the fog in front of her!
"clang--!"
The sound of hitting something hard made Ilana's mood sink to the bottom again.
The ice arrow she threw out with all her strength did not hit the target, but hit the hard maze wall in vain and shattered into ice crystals!
To be—
Ilana acted decisively and quickly reached out to touch the distress rune, but found nothing. The rune that was originally tied around her waist had disappeared.
At this moment, a huge shadow approached rapidly in the white fog, and a slime monster with a rapidly squirming body pounced towards her!
Ilana was completely desperate.
At this critical moment, a strong wind suddenly rushed in from the other end of the corridor!
The strong airflow was like an invisible giant hand, instantly blowing away the diffuse white mist and also slowing down the slime monster's forward momentum.
"Frost Shock!"
"Go! Stone bullets! Crush my enemies with the shape of arrows!"
At the same time as the sound of the incantation came, a fierce ice shock and several sharp stone bullets whizzed over, accurately hitting the chests of the three slime monsters!
Accompanied by a few dull explosions, the three monsters that left Ilana helpless were instantly shattered and turned into broken ice crystals on the ground!
When her vision cleared up again, Ilana quickly looked up and saw Ophelia standing at the other end of the corridor with her hands on her hips, accompanied by the panting Hader and Bane, looking very proud.
"Wherever light goes, darkness has nowhere to hide! Ilana, I'm late, I hope I'm not too late." She read this sentence from a knight novel. She had wanted to say it in person for a long time, but unfortunately she had no chance at all when she was in the Holy City.
Ilana, who survived the disaster, was surprised and happy. She didn't expect that she also participated in the maze trial, and she didn't expect to meet her here.
"Ophelia?! Why are you here?"
"Well, that's a long story." Ophelia coughed lightly, twirled her hair around her temples with her index finger, and looked away embarrassedly. "To be honest... I came here chasing a very beautiful butterfly."
She would never admit that she was actually following her and had lost her in a very embarrassing way.
Fortunately, Saint Sis is on the side of justice. She met a colorful butterfly while she was lost, and she chased it and came here.
There wasn't a single trap encountered along the way.
Bain and Had were also amazed at Miss Ophelia's luck. They didn't expect that they could reach the third floor so easily.
Perhaps people with noble souls really have gods watching over them.
Ilana looked at Ophia with disbelief and said suspiciously.
"real?"
"Really!" Seeing her disbelief, Ophelia anxiously gestured with her index finger, "What a beautiful butterfly! Colorful wings! It's a pity that the two idiots behind me ran too slowly. Otherwise... otherwise I would definitely catch it and show it to you!"
Standing behind her, Hader and Bane looked at each other, unsure whether they should interrupt, but they couldn't just stand there forever.
As everyone knows, slimes appear in groups. If you encounter three, you might encounter thirty, or even three hundred...
At Hader's instigation, Bane stepped forward and whispered to Ophelia, "Ms. Castellón, are we still going to test the 'Explosive Thermobaric Bomb' now?"
I didn't expect to meet classmates from the Magic Science Laboratory here. Their original plans seemed to be disrupted by this little episode.
Of course, Ophelia would not confess that her real purpose was to "save the beauty", so she coughed again and forced the topic back.
"Of course we'll continue...our plan! By the way, Ilana, where are your teammates? You couldn't have walked here on your own, right?"
Ilana looked around and said worriedly, "The situation here was too chaotic just now. We got separated. I was just about to go find them—"
Keep the change, please.
Ophelia smiled slightly, but the smile did not reach her eyes.
The golden pupils looked coldly into the depths of the maze corridor, like a spear piercing the darkness, flashing with the edge of justice.
"Ilana, my friend, you are naive."
"Those guys did it on purpose!"
(End of this chapter)
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