Chapter 405: The Beginning of Chaos

Behind the stone wall of the labyrinth, two preparatory students from the School of Protection were leaning back-to-back, breathing heavily in nervousness. Their mana was already bottoming out, and one of them still had a tear in their mage robe corroded by acid.

"We... we're lost, Ma Ding." The voice of the thin, small apprentice trembled. "The map is fake; we were deceived by those undead!"

The apprentice called Ma Ding had a pale face; he gripped his wand tightly, the light at its tip as faint as a candle in the wind.

"We were too naive... to actually believe that Master Moke would kindly prepare supply points for us!"

"I knew it, that 'official supply point' wasn't a real supply point at all; it was a trap deliberately set by Master Moke!"

The two poor children had only guessed the first layer.

The so-called official supply point was of course fake, but this thing really couldn't be blamed on Master Moke, who had designed the labyrinth seriously.

Just as they fell into despair, the sound of footsteps accompanied by the friction of bones came from the corner of the corridor.

The two immediately became tense, gathering the little mana they had left at the tips of their wands, only to see a lone skeleton soldier appear before them.

It did not rush over making strange noises like other undead; it merely tilted its head, its eye sockets burning with soul fire quietly "watching" them.

Ma Ding immediately raised his wand, but the skeleton soldier slowly raised its bony hand, waved it, and then pointed to another fork in the road behind them, making a "follow" gesture.

"It... what does it want to do?" the thin apprentice asked, puzzled.

"A trap, definitely!" Ma Ding said vigilantly. "Don't trust it!"

The skeleton soldier seemed to see through their hesitation.

It no longer paid attention to the two and walked toward that fork in the road on its own. Just after it turned a corner, a dull roar that did not belong to the undead sounded, followed by the clashing of metal.

A moment later, the skeleton soldier walked back, dragging the half-corpse of a cave spider in its hand; it threw the corpse in front of the two and pointed to that fork in the road again.

It looked as if it were saying—

I can lead you out.

The two, at the end of their rope, looked at each other and saw shock in each other's eyes. There were monsters behind that road, and this skeleton soldier... was helping them lure away the danger?

After hesitating again and again, they finally chose to follow.

The skeleton soldier walked in front, its pace neither fast nor slow; when it encountered a fork in the road, it would even stop and use its bones to draw a simple map on the ground, indicating the location of traps.

Many traps in the labyrinth were pressure-sensitive and triggered by vital signs; generally, mirror images of monsters or skeleton soldiers could easily discover and avoid these dangers.

This behavior gradually dispelled the two apprentices' doubts.

They even felt that this undead might be a hidden "Easter egg" set by Master Moke, specifically used to help those unlucky ones who had stumbled at the so-called "official supply point."

"Lord Shengxi is above... I knew Master Moke wouldn't design a level we couldn't pass at all!" the thin apprentice said with a flushed face, excitedly.

Ma Ding did not speak, but he couldn't help but mutter in his heart—

Could it be that he had wronged the Master?

Soon, the skeleton soldier led them to a secluded dead end.

The two were just about to be alert when they saw a cluster of grass emitting a faint white light growing at the end of the alley; the soft light was like silver radiance sprinkled by the moon!

"It's Moonlight Grass!" the thin apprentice exclaimed in surprise and immediately ran forward to prepare to pick it.

That was a quite rare alchemical material!

Although the Master might not lack it, for an ordinary magic apprentice, wanting to get one would take at least several months of living expenses.

However, just as his fingers touched the grass leaves, a large net fell from above, instantly hanging him upside down, caught off guard.

Ma Ding was terrified and just about to chant a spell to cast magic, only to find that the skeleton soldier had already circled behind him at some point; a thick leg bone hit his wrist with a "snap," and the wand fell to the ground with the sound.

"Ow—!" Ma Ding screamed in pain, clutched his hand that was almost broken, and took two steps back, tripping over the pebbles on the ground.

The skeleton soldier, playing with the leg bone, did not continue to attack.

It just bent down, picked up the wand on the ground, then pointed to the money bag at the waist of its panic-stricken companion hanging in mid-air, then pointed to itself, repeating this action several times.

Ma Ding instantly understood its meaning.

This undead did not want their lives; it just wanted to rob them.

He swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"I... I'll give it all to you, can you let me go?"

Having lost his wand, his combat power was not much stronger than an old farmer of the Empire, and perhaps not even as good as the latter who was well-trained.

Looking at the nodding skeleton, Ma Ding used his trembling hands to untie the cloth bag hanging at his waist, which contained a little pocket money and the magic crystals he had harvested in the labyrinth.

The skeleton snatched it up, then searched the guy hanging in mid-air.

Just as Ma Ding was hesitating whether to negotiate with the skeleton and have the latter return the wand to him, the skeleton suddenly crushed the distress rune it had looted from them.

Ma Ding's face changed abruptly.

"No—!"

He lunged forward, wanting to snatch back the rune stone, but it was already too late.

While the skeleton scattered the fragments of the rune toward him, it dodged his lunge with incredible agility and slipped away without a trace before the patrolling assistant could arrive...

Regardless of whether the magic apprentices of the Xuebang were satisfied, the players participating in the All Souls Festival event had a blast this time.

In just two hours, more than three hundred magic apprentices had been sent away, and the assistants responsible for patrolling had almost run their legs off!

This elimination speed could be called unprecedented!

In the past, large-scale eliminations would at least start at the third layer of the labyrinth; in previous years, if the number of eliminations in the first layer could reach one hundred, it was already considered exceeding the difficulty standard.

Inside the duty room outside the labyrinth, Master Moke was frowning and staring at the magic crystal in front of him, and the few assistants accompanying him didn't even dare to breathe loudly.

Kai Mi Di Er was even more eager to drag out the eighteenth generation of ancestors of Ao Sa and scold them; where on earth did this guy get such difficult undead?

He swore that after the matter was over, he would definitely make that damn adventurer pay the price! He would use the most vicious curse to turn that idiot into a toad!

However, what Kai Mi Di Er did not know was that the adventurer who cooperated with him had already boarded a ship to the New Continent at the port of the North Sea at this moment, preparing to start a new adventure.

As for the dividends of the magic crystal mine...

He could only find Baron Ge Si to cash them in.

It was not just Kai Mi Di Er who couldn't figure it out; Master Moke, with his frowning brows, also couldn't figure out why this was happening.

In the crystal, the white light spots representing distress signals lit up one after another in the area of the first layer of the labyrinth, their frequency far exceeding his expectations.

"What's going on?" he muttered to himself, his fingers tapping on the table unconsciously. "Are this year's apprentices so vulnerable?"

Although the labyrinth he designed had difficulty, it was by no means enough to make so many apprentices collapse collectively in the first layer...

Just as he was puzzled, an assistant responsible for coordination ran in hurriedly, with exhaustion and anxiety on his face.

"Master Moke! The number of distress runes activated in the first layer far exceeds our expectations; the patrolling assistants are no longer enough! They are requesting reinforcements!"

Moke raised his head and said with an unhappy expression: "Then draw manpower from the second and third layers, and prioritize ensuring the safety of the apprentices!"

"We have already done so," the assistant said, panting, his tone becoming more solemn. "But... a new problem has appeared, a more serious problem."

"Speak."

"The evacuation magic circle inside the labyrinth core... has failed." The assistant said with difficulty. "We cannot send those disqualified apprentices out through the magic circle; some assistants are still trying to take them to other areas to activate the portal... Now many areas in the first layer of the labyrinth are in a mess."

His statement was already very conservative.

A more accurate statement was that those patrolling assistants had to avoid interfering with the trials of other apprentices while running back and forth in the labyrinth with the eliminated ones.

They didn't know why the magic circle couldn't be used, and could only hope that the next area might improve...

Moke stood up abruptly, a flash of shock in his eyes.

To prevent cheating, the entire trial labyrinth had isolated its physical connection with the outside world from the beginning of its construction, and the only entrance and exit was the starting portal.

Besides that, there were only some ventilation ducts!

Once the internal evacuation magic circle failed, it meant that those eliminated apprentices were completely trapped in the labyrinth.

Moke, whose face changed wildly, gradually realized that this was no longer an ordinary trial accident, but a serious crisis...

A drop of cold sweat slid across his forehead, slid across the wrinkles at the corner of his eye, and dripped onto the ground.

Damn Demon God—

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He had messed up!

The atmosphere in the duty room was as suffocating as viscous Shi Laimu.

There was no time to hesitate; he must take action immediately to bring the out-of-control labyrinth back to its normal track!

After a moment of thought, Moke no longer hesitated and gave the order in a decisive tone.

"Notify all patrolling assistants to gather all disqualified apprentices and take them to the temporary refuge in the East District of the first layer."

"Refuge?" The assistant was stunned for a moment; that was a backup area set up to deal with extreme situations, and it was usually only activated in the most critical situations.

"Yes," Moke's voice was unquestionable. "Let our assistants wait there and soothe the emotions of the apprentices. I will personally take people there and open a physical passage for them from above the refuge—"

Before Moke's voice fell, a deafening roar suddenly came from below the duty room.

The sturdy stone floor and walls trembled violently, and the ink bottle on the table was shaken over, staining a smudge on the map.

A young assistant lost his footing, stumbled, and barely supported himself against the wall, his face full of horror and astonishment.

"What happened?"

"This movement must be at least a High Tier spell—"

"Maybe it's Gao Jie..."

"Which idiot brought a Gao Jie magic scroll inside?!"

Before everyone could recover from the earth-shaking tremor, a harsh alarm suddenly came from the magic crystal.

Only to see a scarlet crack appear abruptly on the surface of the crystal; that was a scar reminding everyone that the labyrinth structure was damaged!

Moke's pupils shrank suddenly; he rushed to the crystal in a few steps, and when he saw the situation fed back in the magic circle, he couldn't help but blurt out a curse.

"Damn it—"

That alarm did not come from the chaotic first layer, but from the third layer!

A large area there had actually collapsed entirely!

Time returned to an hour ago—

The third layer of the labyrinth.

The cold and damp air accumulated in the narrow corridor, as if it had condensed into a solid; five young female apprentices moved forward cautiously, every breath carrying turbid water vapor.

Although the vast majority of apprentices were held back by the undead in the first layer, quite a few people successfully broke through the blockade of the undead and reached the deeper parts of the labyrinth.

And what made many magic apprentices feel surprised was that from the second layer, the difficulty of the labyrinth trial suddenly eased?

There were no such incredible undead wandering here, and those traps finally became the appearance they had seen in textbooks...

"Finally got rid of those damn skeleton frames..."

"That Moke is really crazy; where on earth did he get those troublesome guys."

"Could it be that someone is controlling them from behind? I see their actions don't look like ordinary undead at all; it's more like there's a necromancer operating them..."

"Don't talk nonsense; where would the Xuebang get a necromancer, and how many mages would it take to operate so many undead?"

"Could it be the Netherworld..."

"Ha, unless those demons are crazy. They spent that much effort just to trouble us apprentices in the labyrinth trial?"

"Anjie, I say... your brain is getting less and less useful."

"I'm really worried about whether you can graduate; you can't even trouble Miss Lasi Tina for such a small matter, right?"

"Yes, I'm sorry..." Facing the "closeness" of Lasi Tina's two good friends, Anjie shrank her neck, trembling.

Looking at Anjie who seemed to have been bullied, Yi La Na frowned slightly, wanting to say something, but 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 Yi La Na always felt that this one-sided tolerance and fawning were abnormal.

I'll ask her when the trial is over...

Just as Yi La Na was looking at Anjie, the gaze of a certain "captain" also fell on her intentionally or unintentionally.

Lasi Tina's fingers rubbed on the storage bag at her waist; through the leather, she could clearly feel the hard outline of that square box.

That was something she bought a few days ago from a shop introduced by a senior.

The box was pitch black, and it was wrapped with a circle of rune black cloth on the outside; it was said that as long as it was opened in the labyrinth, it could cause huge turmoil.

Should I use it now?

Lasi Tina was still hesitating in her heart.

The old witch who sold her the "box" exuded an ominous aura all over her body, making her feel a palpitation to this day. She did not doubt the power of this box, but she still had a trace of hesitation about whether to take things to that extent.

She just wanted to teach a certain bitch who didn't know herself a lesson, and didn't want things to get completely out of control... although this was the safest thing for her.

Lasi Tina took a deep breath and temporarily drove away the chaotic thoughts in her head.

She decided to look for other opportunities first and wait until it was absolutely necessary to use this box...

If only I could meet a few acid Shi Laimu.

Just then, movement really came from the corner of the passage ahead, and several huge figures squirmed, completely blocking the way of the group.

Those were three soft mud monsters two meters high; their gray-green translucent bodies were like huge jellies, exuding a faint sour smell.

They had no facial features, only the bubbles that occasionally bulged on the surface proved they were living things.

The record in the "Monster Illustrated Book" flashed through Yi La Na's mind instantly—

Soft mud monster!

The attack method is to swallow prey alive!

Its slashing, piercing, and magic resistance are all not bad; the best way to deal with it is to freeze it with ice magic, and then cooperate with wind or earth attack magic to destroy it!

Although the soft mud monsters in the trial labyrinth would not swallow people to digest them, they would still swallow the prey alive and make them suffocate and faint, so they were also quite dangerous existences!

Just as Yi La Na was quickly analyzing the weaknesses of the monsters in front of her, a perfect thought also exploded in Lasi Tina's mind at the same time.

This is simply a god-given opportunity!

Her sharp gaze quickly swept over the two followers beside her, and Anjie and the others immediately understood, with bad smiles on their faces, eager to try.

"Don't worry! Yi La Na, this kind of small character is not worth mentioning! Watch me solve it now!" Anjie raised her volume, as if cheering herself up, or as if deliberately saying it to Yi La Na.

"Flame Explosion!"

"Haha, watch my continuous fireballs! Go! Little cuties!"

The two mage apprentices standing beside Anjie raised their wands almost at the same time; in the chanting, hot fireballs and explosive flame clusters roared toward the bodies of the soft mud monsters.

"Wait! They don't—" Yi La Na was shocked in her heart when she saw this, and the warning cry just blurted out, only to be drowned out by a huge hiss.

The flames hit the soft mud monsters, not only failing to cause effective damage, but instead, it was like pouring boiling water into a pot of hot oil!

In an instant, an incomparably thick white steam exploded, instantly shrouding the entire corridor with the momentum of devouring everything!

This was a mistake that almost all mages from the wild path would make; the fire magic that seemed to restrain the soft mud monsters was actually a trap!

The soft mud monsters, which contained a large amount of water in their bodies, were not Shi Laimu after all, and were not so easy to be evaporated, unless the caster had enough mana to crush them!

It was understandable for adventurers to make this mistake, but for "classically trained" mages, it was a mistake that should never be made.

After all, on the mage exam paper, the strategy to solve the soft mud monster was almost a free-point question...

But it was too late to say anything now.

The world in front of her instantly became a vast expanse of white, and she couldn't see her fingers!

The light of the spells, the figures of the companions, the walls of the labyrinth, everything was swallowed by this sudden steam storm.

At this time, Anjie, with a guilty conscience, shouted pretentiously.

"Ah... it's terrible! I remember the Monster Illustrated Book said that fire magic cannot be used—"

"Stop your damn nonsense, retreat quickly!" Before her nonsense was finished, she was grabbed by a hand reaching from the side.

Lasi Tina and her followers retreated quickly.

They had been prepared, having released the wind spirit that guided the direction in advance, so naturally, they would not be trapped by a little white fog.

Yi La Na, coughing, drove away the steam surrounding her while retreating backward, trying to find the lost sense of direction.

However, just at this moment, an angry roar suddenly came from the depths of the white fog; that was the sound made by the soft mud monster after being enraged!

Feeling the tremor crawling along the floor, Yi La Na, with a pale face, felt her heart sink.

Can't just sit and wait for death!

In a panic, she tried hard to force herself to calm down, and based on the position of the monster in her memory, she condensed a slightly immature ice arrow at the tip of her wand and waved her wand violently, throwing it into the fog in front of her!

"Clang—!"

The sound of hitting a hard object made Yi La Na's mood sink to the bottom again.

The ice arrow she threw with concentrated power did not hit the target, but hit the hard labyrinth wall in vain, shattering into a pile of ice crystals!

Something's wrong—

Yi La Na made a decisive decision and quickly reached out to touch the distress rune, but touched nothing; the rune originally tied to her waist didn't know where it had gone.

At this time, a huge shadow approached rapidly in the white fog, and the soft mud monster, squirming its body quickly, pounced on her!

Yi La Na was completely desperate.

Just at this critical moment, a gust of wind suddenly poured in from the other end of the corridor!

The strong airflow was like an invisible big hand, instantly blowing away the white fog, and also making the soft mud monster's forward momentum stagnate.

"Frost Impact!"

"Go! Stone Bullet! Crush my enemies in the form of arrows!"

The sound of chanting came at the same time; a sharp frost impact and several sharp stone bullet spells roared and arrived, accurately hitting the chests of the three soft mud monsters!

Accompanied by several dull explosions, the three monsters that Yi La Na couldn't deal with were instantly shattered, turning into a pile of broken ice crystals!

With her vision restored to clarity, Yi La Na quickly raised her head and looked forward, only to see Ao Fei Ya standing at the other end of the corridor, hands on her hips, with the panting Ha De and Bei En, looking spirited.

"Where the light reaches, darkness has nowhere to hide! Yi La Na, I'm late, I hope I'm not too late." This sentence was something she saw from a knight novel; she had wanted to say it herself for a long time, but unfortunately, she had no chance at all when she was in the Holy City.

Yi La Na, who had survived the disaster, was both surprised and happy; she didn't expect that she would also participate in the labyrinth trial, and she didn't expect to meet her here.

"Ao Fei Ya?! Why are you here?"

"Uh, that's a long story." Ao Fei Ya coughed lightly, her index finger turned around the hair at her temples a few times, and she moved her gaze away embarrassedly, "To tell you the truth... I chased a particularly beautiful butterfly and flew here."

She would never admit that she was actually following her, and she had lost her in a super embarrassing way.

But fortunately, Saint Xisi was on the side of justice; she met a brightly colored butterfly on the way she got lost, and chased it all the way here.

She didn't even encounter a trap along the way.

Bei En and Ha De also felt incredible about Miss Ao Fei Ya's luck; they didn't expect that they could walk to the third layer so easily.

Perhaps people with noble souls are really favored by gods behind them.

Yi La Na looked at Ao Fei Ya with disbelief and asked suspiciously.

"Really?"

"Really!" Ao Fei Ya saw that she didn't believe it and gestured with her index finger anxiously, "It was such a beautiful butterfly! Seven-colored wings! Unfortunately, the two idiots behind me ran too slowly, otherwise... otherwise I would definitely have caught it for you to see!"

Ha De and Bei En, standing behind her, looked at each other, not sure if they should interject, but they couldn't just stand here forever.

As everyone knows, soft mud monsters appear in groups; if you encounter three, you might encounter thirty, or even three hundred...

Under Ha De's instigation, Bei En stepped forward and asked Ao Fei Ya in a low voice: "Miss Ka Si Te Li Weng, then... are we still going to test the 'Explosive Thermal Pressure Bomb'?"

They didn't expect to meet classmates from the Magic Science Laboratory here; their original plan seemed to have been disrupted by this small episode.

Ao Fei Ya naturally wouldn't confess that her real purpose was "hero saving beauty," so she coughed again and forcibly pulled the topic back.

"Of course, continue... our plan! By the way, Yi La Na, where are your teammates? You couldn't have walked here by yourself, right?"

Yi La Na looked around and said worriedly: "The situation here was too chaotic just now, we got separated, and I was just about to find them—"

"No need to look."

Ao Fei Ya smiled slightly, but that smile did not reach the bottom of her eyes.

Those golden pupils looked coldly at the depths of the labyrinth corridor, like a spear piercing the night, flashing with the edge of justice.

"Yi La Na, my friend, you are too naive."

"Those guys did it on purpose!" ===== CHAPTER 406 =====