BXBX NOVEL Chapter 172: Hidden map
Or was this the price of stealing the Starlight Stones?
The Starlight Stones were very precious, and precious things required one to pay a large price. So was the trial space set up in a way that if the Starlight Stones were taken, the labourers’ levels would increase?
Right now, it didn’t matter what the reason was!
These labourers had broken through to the 3rd Awakened Soul Layer and were getting close to the 4th Awakened Soul Layer and the Illustrious Realm. Moreover, they had comprehended basic level martial arts and cultivation techniques, so their battle potential could not be compared to what it was before.
There were around four-five hundred cyclopes in the group. They were all around four meters tall, weighing around one-two tons. They were like giant and fast tanks, being equivalent to an army of several tens of thousands of people. If they were surrounded, they would have no chance of escaping!
Nangong Yun shouted in a voice full of pleasant surprise, “I’ve found it!”
On the wall of the main hall, there was a giant metal book that was like a giant steel mosaic on the wall. It would be hard to distinguish it from afar, and only by getting close would one be able to observe the slits created by the thick metal edge.
So this should be a door.
Nangong Yun summoned her strength and attacked it. The result was, the door did not open and she was knocked back.
“How dumb. Brute force won’t open it, this is a secret lock door!” Chu Tian walked over to inspect it and found that there were small pieces in the shape of a square on the door. Each piece had a complex rune engraved on it, “A jigsaw puzzle? You guys cover me!”
Feng Caidie looked at the wild cyclopes troop charging at them, “I’m afraid we won’t have enough time!”
“Ten seconds is enough!”
Chu Tian controlled the metal pieces with his spirit energy, and the pieces moved up and down. The rules of the door were very simple, as long as one could complete the source energy array in a certain amount of moves, then the door would open.
The rules were simple.
But doing it was very hard.
First, no one knew what the original array looked like. So even with it being a jigsaw puzzle, how could one do it without the original as a reference? There was no reference at all and compared to a picture, the runes and arrays were much more difficult, so it was hard to discover what the array was.
The worst part was this puzzle had a set number of moves one could make. If one surpassed the limit, the pieces would reset and the person would have to do it all over again.
Even if this puzzle were taken to the Central State City Yun Sect, it would take them ten days to half a month before being able to solve it.
Chu Tian not only needed to solve it in a short period of time, he also had to face the threat of the labourer group.
Was he performing magic?
How could this possibly be done?
The giant labourers were only a few dozen meters away from the secret door. There were even a few that were loading their bows.
“Stop them!”
Nangong Yun’s spirit energy turned into fist wind that knocked away the arrows.
Streaks of purple lightning shot into the sky. The Thunder Spirit Bead turned into a shadow as it flew around in the sky. It continued to release bolts of lightning, weaving a dense electrical net. When the giants came close, they were sent flying by the electrical net.
“Wind and Cloud Sword Song!”
Feng Caidie summoned dozens of streaks of sword qi that surged forward like a blue wave, slamming into the labourers charging over.
They tried their best to stop them, but the monsters were too big and too vicious. They had no way of blocking them with just their strength.
The short range soldiers would reach them soon.
Once those cyclopes came within ten meters, they would be able to kill anyone with just one attack!
Chu Tian was completely concentrated on the door, ignoring everything happening around him. The array on the square was slowly coming back to life as it floated in the air, connecting piece by piece to form a whole.
Shua, shua, shua, shua!
Chu Tian continued to move the pieces, connecting them one by one. A complex complete image was being formed, and when Chu Tian moved the final piece.
A loud noise sounded!
The source energy array began to glow!
Countless runes began to appear as they spread across the giant door. Finally the sound of the door opening was heard and with a ‘ka’ sound, the seams of the metal door appeared.
A sound rang out in his mind.
“You have successfully opened the secret puppet door! You have been awarded twenty points! You currently have one hundred and seventy points!”
“It’’s open!”
Yun Xiao, Lin Mu, and Fang Han immediately drew back when the heavy door had opened a little.
Chu Tian turned back and shouted, “Come quickly!”
The seven of them quickly entered the giant door.
Countless labourers charged over and prepared to smash open the hidden door. Yun Yao’s Thunder Spirit Bead began to glow, and countless streaks of lightning appeared, forcing back all the labourers.
Yun Xiao, Lin Mu, and Fang Han began to push the incomparably heavy door, trying to close it once again.
This was truly terrifying!
The little fox appeared back on Chu Tian’s shoulder. It licked its claw and had an embarrassed look on its face.
“It’s been hard on you!” Chu Tian patted the little fellow’s head, “You’ll be awarded for your work!”
The little fox nodded in satisfaction. He had not wasted his effort.
Yun Xiao was very serious as he said, “The trial monsters are already becoming stronger. At this rate, we won’t be able to last that long. It’ll be too hard to survive for three days!”
Everyone looked depressed.
The trial space could be opened for over three days, and right now, not even three hours had passed. If the monsters grew at this rate, then wouldn’t those labourers become divine beings by then?!
Not to mention the other terrifyingly strong monsters!
Then those dozen meter tall giants in three days would have bodies as hard as diamond, while being as fast as a swallow. They would be incomparably strong!
“The person who designed this place really had no brains!” Nangong Yun was very angry, “This trial tower only allows people under thirty in the Awakened Soul Realm to enter. I don’t believe that there would be True Soul experts that participated back in ancient times! Even if there were True Soul experts, it would still be hard for them to survive here! Those giants at the beginning already had strength at the True Soul Realm, so after a few hours, wouldn’t they turn into flying celestials!”
“You’re all wrong.” Chu Tian said, “The difficulty of the trial is based on the strength of all the participants. The Four Young Masters are stronger compared to the previous Central State City participants, so they’ve increased the difficulty. In other words, even if ten True Soul experts came in, it would not be as easy as it was for us. It would be more troublesome, or else the trial would lose its meaning.”
“What do we do now?”
If we just stay here, the trial space will just summon more monsters around us, so we must keep moving.” Chu Tian carefully looked over the map, “Strange......”
“What is it?”
Chu Tian showed the map to everyone, “The dashed lines are secret passages and the location it leads to is not marked on the map. There is no name for the location either.”
“Does that mean that there’s a part of the map that is hidden?”
“It doesn’t matter since we can’t go back anyway!”
Chu Tian put away the map, and they began to walk down the long passage!
Hong, hong, hong!
Their surroundings began to shake!
Yun Xiao looked around them and immediately cursed, “Fuck! It’s another pathway filled with giants!”
This corridor was exactly the same as the corridor they went in at the beginning of the giant’s maze. On the left and right sides, there were many arched holes in the way with sealed giants standing there.
Once they approached.
The giants would awaken!
In this corridor, the speed at which the giants would awaken was much faster than the speed they could run at!
“Run!”
This was no joke, this would be enough to completely eliminate their team. Other than running, they had no other options, so the seven of them ran as fast as they could.
The corridor began to shake.
Giant pieces of broken stone fell all around them.
When the seven of them reached the center of the hall, the giants at the beginning walked out. They were fifty meters tall with giant muscled bodies releasing a terrifying aura that shocked everyone.
“Fuck! They’re awake!”
“Run faster!”
Behind the seven of them, more and more giants began to walk out, chasing after them with earthshaking steps. Although the seven of them were over halfway through the corridor, the giants were much faster than them. A single step was much longer than their steps, and with their running speed, they would quickly catch up to them.
Chu Tian quickly ordered, “Make ice! Make ice!”
Fang Han was running at the back of the team. He summoned his Ice Giant Source Spirit and a white spirit energy was consistently released. Wherever Fang Han passed, a thick layer of solid ice appeared behind him.
Five, ten, twenty!
There were more and more giants awakening in the hall!
The seven of them charged as fast as they could. Yun Xiao and the others had low cultivation bases, so they were already starting to weaken. At the most crucial moment, a giant opened door appeared in front of them. The inside of the door was glowing as if there was a passageway inside.
“We’re finally here!”
“Yun Yao, Caidie, go in first! Close the door!”
The corridor was not long for the giants, but it was a different story for humans. The seven of them had ran like crazy for several minutes before finally reaching the end of the pathway.
Feng Caidie and Yun Xiao were much quicker than everyone else, so they charged in front of everyone and then, using all their strength, they tried to slowly close the giant metal door.
This giant metal door was about to close.
The other five came right on time and jumped out at the same time, landing in the final slit left.
Dong, dong!
Several deep sounds rang out.
The entire space began to shake as the giants slammed the door. The good thing was that the door was very thick. Once it closed, it wouldn’t open again no matter how many giants there were.
The seven of them were about to collapse.
Chu Tian finally realized something.
In fact, the one taboo thing in the trial was internal strife. The tests set by the trial were based on a team’s strength, so it was necessary for the team to work together to pass the trial.
They had grudges with Chu Xinghe and the others, so the team had been split. Chu Tian’s group was weaker, so they had been at a disadvantage from the beginning.
“We are finally safe!”
“The problem is, where are we?”
Everyone looked around and saw that the passage had just completely ended here. In front of them there was actually a bottomless abyss.
It was completely dark and they could not see the bottom at all. They could not help feeling a chill fill their heart.
“Look at the map!”
Chu Tian opened the map and after walking through the hidden passage, the map that was not drawn in now had an island type of terrain drawn in now.
There were some Heaven Race characters naming it, the “Giant’s Hive”!
“Giant’s Hive? What is this!”
Lin Mu shouted, “There’s a stone bridge over there!”
Everyone sluggishly looked over.
This was a bridge stretching over the void. In this cold and dark abyss that was devoid of anything and was completely lonely, there was a single bridge spanning across the void. It gave them a strange lonely feeling and it also filled their hearts with doubt.