On one hand, it could be considered to be a blessing. In reality, it could easily be said it might have been more comfortable to have taken a side path and traveled through an unknown number of traps. Since each laboratory was a unique size. However, each section was generally made of equal, equivalent sized segments. From the distance it had taken them, it could be said that this laboratory was on the larger small size. The reason for this conclusion was very obvious. After a little over two weeks, they stepped onto a different path.
From the second, they found themselves at the first crossroads, the paths moving forward all contained tiled floors. The current path they were resting on was a room that had a solid floor that didn’t have any groves or marks to distinguish it. The only similarity to the rest of the laboratory was the ever present engravings on the wall, giving off a very weak light. Far weaker than what was normally available.
“What do you think happened to this place?” She couldn’t help but ask this question as they both rested against the wall.
Without looking up, John spoke without much emotion in his voice, “It is impossible to tell. But one thing is certain, this place for one reason or another is different. Usually, there is a natural day and night cycle that corresponds to the time outside. This place is much darker than even at night in other laboratories.”
Unsatisfied with the answer, she couldn’t help but spit out coldly, “I know.”
While getting increasingly used to her cold tone, he did look up briefly. There was a bit of interest in his tone when he spoke, “You have been inside one before?”
“It would be stranger if I hadn’t. Most people have gone to a completed laboratory before. It is one of those mysteries that is more popular than even writing left behind by the Will of the World.”
He couldn’t argue with that. While many were more interested in unconfirmed, completed laboratories. Those that didn’t want to die would enter a completed dungeon up to the first crossroad. Those that were more daring would go deeper, but even then most didn’t risk it by exploring all the way until the deepest reaches.
There however were a large group of people that held great interest in the unconfirmed completed laboratories, as they were generally heavily explored. For this reason, a large amount of the traps were dealt with. Most laughed at this stupid reasoning, and yet between an unexplored and an unconfirmed completed laboratory. Generally, the unconfirmed one was shown more interest. While the unexplored one was more interesting to discuss.
Seeing her eyes closed, he looked back down at the notebook. Even if he memorized it, he would find himself reading it over and over again. While his eyes continued to scan the pages, his mind was elsewhere. Not evident by any physical signs that could be seen from outside, but by the beating of his heart that sped up and slowed rather dangerously as he thought about the past.
They stayed a few days. It could be said that their group was a bit special. Neither wanted to admit the suffocating feeling they had while traveling to the middle reaches was bad. They didn’t run into nearly any traps. Even the few they did come across didn’t affect them more than the bodies they kept coming across. Becoming worse by the reality that the last pristine set of bones were found not an hour from the entrance to the middle reaches, even with their slowed speed.
The safe zone they rested in was so close, and still so out of reach, for the last set of bones. This gave the two, much to think about as they tried to stabilize their mentality before moving onto the middle reaches. As they once again were met with tiled floors, it became a large amount more difficult. After inspecting the three hallways, she came to the conclusion that the group behind them was truly wiped out. From this point on, they were moving into no man’s land.
Living up to its name, they were met with less than imagined, but each trap they did find left her feeling more tense than the last. Middle reaches were a mixture of hallways connected to a crossroads. In the smallest laboratory, it was a well known fact that it was possible to see the entrance of the inner halls from the entrance of the middle reaches. Each hallway was roughly twenty feet in length. Anywhere from ten to twenty traps would be hidden in the hallways.
In that laboratory, from the entrance to entrance was only estimated to be anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 feet. What was also known was that this laboratory was discovered over 3,000 years ago and only completed a few hundred years ago. It is said that if you could go from entrance to entrance, you would become the richest person in the world. In that small 1,200 to 1,500 feet path are the corpses of countless Grade B and even over twenty confirmed Grade A individuals.
Seemingly intended, the laboratory was set up with not just the most common physical traps, but that passage was filled with magic traps that only targeted anything that entered. As for how it was able to pinpoint invaders was unknown. To this day nobody has been able to conquer the path, in fact to this day nobody has been able to loot anything outside the first two hundred feet. As for the rest, the magic traps would kill and have destroyed countless items. Yet somehow preserve the remains and items that are left contained within.
Since she couldn’t feel the same death energy she felt from before, it was clear that these passages likely hadn’t seen anybody. Or they died deeper inside. Not all the traps would be magical in nature, but this was the section she believed had the highest chance of killing the both of them. If not for the bodies that cleared out the beginning section, it was likely she wouldn’t have made it this far.
The first day started off good. Moving down two hallways, they used her ability to determine the danger and moved down the easiest to conquer paths. The first hallway was filled with magic traps. Each seemed to have their own themes. The first was the magic arrow. While she originally believed this should have made it easier to deal with the traps, if not for John she would already be dead.
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With the first step, she had to roll forward as she felt something coming from behind. This caused her to roll into a blinding blue ray of light flying straight at her face. With no hesitation, she rolled until she hit the wall before she tried to stand. Her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t help but gasp for breath as she felt a burning sensation on her palms and knees. With no choice, she used everything she had to get out of the way of the magic arrows, this caused her clothes to snag and rip as her skin was scraped.
Still, she only looked back slightly to see if John was fine. She didn’t have time to check before this, but the shot from behind was too sudden. Thinking back it came at an angle that he was also in the line of fire, the same was true for the second shot that was shot low. She could see he was holding his shoulder. But it didn’t look too bad. “Come over here now, use the same path I took.”
He didn’t throw himself forward or roll on the ground. But he still followed her path against the wall. “Magic traps might reset, but I can feel that for the time being, once they’re triggered they won’t immediately reset. So you need to follow me immediately. I can only recommend you follow my path, as I can still feel some lingering danger behind us.”
She couldn’t help but look over to see John looking at her as his body was slightly shaking. But his gaze was firm as he kept his mouth shut as he nodded with a bit of an exaggerated manner. She always used to laminate about how hard training was, but it let her do the things she wanted. It also came in handy when she needed to put her life on the line.
The rest of the hall followed the same issues. About every two feet, a magic arrow would be fired from a direction and seemingly with eyes aim at her no matter what she tried. She could only take a deep breath of relief when the two of them made it to the crossroad without any more injuries.
As they moved to the second hall they were met with the same issue only instead of magic arrows were physical arrows. Unlike the magic arrows, there was a physical reaction as the arrows cut through the air. This made it much safer to bypass than the first hallway. The largest issue was the alternating speeds.
That wasn’t all the traps. Instead, once she made it to the end, she had let her guard down as she got used to the increasing speed of the arrows. She had her daggers out as she readied herself after the first arrow. She heard something cutting through the air from the front. Only the sound was different. It was much heavier, this arrow was made completely of metal and was very hard to see.
Becoming overconfident, she had deflected one of the previous arrows with her dagger to the point, it only left a slight cut on her side. Considering it was aimed at her abdomen, the damage could have been much worse. When she heard it get closer she felt a large amount of danger but still couldn’t see it, this caused a little bit of panic. When she finally captured its movements, she was already too late. She tried to cross her daggers as the arrow was aimed at her heart. By the time she was able to deflect and turn her body, she was pushed back into John.
She felt him wrap his arms around her. She panicked at first, but he was originally stronger than her to begin with. He moved quicker than she could react, as all the tension in her body was released when she survived the first blow. As he grabbed her, he spun backwards as he pinned her under him as she heard an arrow meet skin.
When all was said and done, they were lucky. John only had a small wound, as he was able to reinforce the area where he was shot. The downside was that it caused problems with him using his left arm. “Why did you do that?”
He spoke with a straight face, “I don’t know. My body moved before my mind did.”
She was easily able to trace their positions with the wound. If he hadn’t done what he did, she would have likely been heavily injured or killed. The second arrow was coated in some type of resistant coating without any fletching. It was a silent needle fired behind the black metal arrow. Even with Grade E mana the needle had penetrated deep enough that when she pulled it out she could see a small bit of bone. Having relaxed, she wouldn’t have been able to reinforce the area with mana and even her daggers were now useless, as they couldn’t even be put in their sheaths. The integrity of the metal was completely gone.
After inspecting the crossroad, they decided to settle down and rest. This was essentially just gathering their mana again. The short distance of about fifty feet had drained her of both mana and energy. Though this wasn’t too easy as both of them continued to glance down one of the halls from time to time. The first road they took was to the left. The second was to the right. She wasn’t in a rush and hadn’t checked which was the safest. But to the left, two halls down, was a set of doors.
In the middle reaches were the failed products. Until they leave, nothing was guaranteed. Still, it couldn’t stop her from thinking about what could possibly be behind those doors. Nevertheless, neither of the two were in a hurry. She didn’t inspect the halls, one because she was tired. Secondly, because of this. Greed could very easily get them killed. It wouldn’t be the first time there would be doors engraved into the stone walls. That was exactly like they sounded, fake doors that didn’t open or really exist. Just a false image portrayed on the stone wall to trick people into greedily rushing to their death.
She could only helplessly close her eyes as she tried to focus on her surroundings and clear her head of any distractions. Entering a meditative state was the easiest way to connect with the world and gather mana to refine and replace used mana. It was the same requirement to generate new mana. This was usually done behind closed doors, as it lost efficiency when you couldn’t concentrate. This also became more difficult when around other people. The only reason it was possible for the two to meditate around each other was because the contract protected them from each other.
Only after a good six hours did she open her eyes again. She stood up rather silently, still John seemed to be disturbed as he looked over. She didn’t say anything and sat down closer to the entrance of a hallway before she closed her eyes and released her mana to sense the danger. When she was done, she had a horrible look on her face.
“What is it?” He had some guesses, but he wanted to hear it from her.
“It’s a trap.”
“So it really is telling us to go towards the doors?”
“Yes.”
“It isn’t too surprising, laboratories are places that breed greed. While in age, you might be a child compared to me. I wouldn’t be so foolish to treat you as a child. So I can assume you also know that many times, it isn’t that the laboratories themselves that are the most dangerous aspects here.”
She didn’t look over but glanced at the path they came from, before looking back to the doors, “So you believe that the reason laboratories are so hard to complete is that it's too difficult to trust other people?”
“The way back?” Turning to look, he saw her nod her head, which had confirmed her previous guess that the traps would reset, “I don’t know. While it is true that Grade S are individuals that likely wouldn’t be interested in even a finished product. It isn’t once or twice that Grade A’s have been said to have killed friends of years for less. But who can really say, as neither of us know how powerful people like that are.”