337 A Good Start? (1/2)

Using the mine map from the church, the group moved quickly. In fact, they had even overtaken many people. Under Ye Qingxuan's perception, a complex yet detailed map formed in his mind. There were barely any fights during their journey. Ye Qingxuan had avoided all the musicians. However, he suddenly halted during their wordless walking.

”Wait, there's a situation.”

During the journey, his teammates had acknowledged his exploration abilities. Hearing his words, everyone grew guarded. Ye Qingxuan tossed down his bag to lighten to weight and cautiously walked forward.

One step, two steps… The mercury threads extended and sank into the soil, sensing something hidden under the decaying dirt. Ye Qingxuan froze and was immediately covered in cold sweat.

”Who the f*ck did this cruel thing?” With his Eye of Silence, he looked past the disguise. The entire tunnel was covered in alchemy arrays and carved music scores. It looked like a wall covered densely in Boston ivy. Though beautiful, it was terrifying.

This thing was activated by the slightest touch. Without using help from aether, he took out a small shovel and carefully drew some circles on the ground.

”Come over one by one and follow me,” he turned around and said seriously. ”Step in the circles, alright? There are three layers of traps buried here. One layer is mechanic, one is an aether trap, and the last should be some parasitic phantom beast. It won't be good if it gets onto you. If you take a wrong step, the entire tunnel might collapse from the chain reaction.”

The others were stunned. They gulped. Buried under hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt, meters under the ground…no one would be able to survive.

Soon, they passed through the trap safely under Ye Qingxuan's guidance. The pissed off Baro raised his hand, ready to destroy the trap, but Ye Qingxuan stopped him.

”What are you leaving it for?”

”If you want to mess with others, you have to be ready to get messed with.” Smiling, Ye Qingxuan opened his bag and took out some tools. ”I'll change it a bit and add some new stuff. When the person who set this trap tries to go back, he'll have fun.”

His hands did not stop moving while he talked. He quickly changed the activation requirements of the traps. By changing the positions of a few music notes, the intervals of the complex array were changed completely.

He connected the rhythms, changed the notes, edited the intervals…he did everything in one breath. Compared to changing Avalon's vast enchantment, this was nothing. The outer appearance was still the same in the end.

”I just changed the activation requirement,” Ye Qingxuan murmured to himself. ”It'll be fun when that friend comes back, right?”

His three companions felt something evil and cold radiate from him and they took a step back in unison.

-

They soon started forward again. This time, Baro summoned a dark falcon to discern the direction and he froze. ”Did we go the wrong way?” He looked from the map to Ye Qingxuan. ”Why are we going south? The entrances are in the north and east…”

”Huh? Did you buy your map from a local?” Ye Qingxuan took Baro's map and studied it with a nod. ”Look at mine.”

He took a new map from his pocket. Comparing the two, Baro shut his mouth obediently. Yesterday, he had spent a sum to buy a layered map from a Romulusian engineer who had entered the mine before. However, the map drawn from memory was incomparable to what Ye Qingxuan had. God knows where the guy had gotten it from. It was detailed to the point of noting the width of the tunnels, situation, and even a scale and depth differentiation.

”Where did you get this from?” Baro asked after a moment of shock. ”How much did you spend?”

Ye Qingxuan looked at him as if he was a retard. ”The church's archive has resources from the mine's early days. Anyone can go look at it, and it's easy to copy the map. Why would I spend money?”

Baro shut his mouth.

The saying was, 'you do it if you can.' Ye Qingxuan could so Baro had no need to embarrass himself.

In Baro's map, there were three entrances to the second level. In actuality, there were five in total. One of the other two was made by early engineers and was abandoned now so few knew about it. The other one was cracked by earthquakes and had been buried. It was only recorded in the safety records.

”If we don't want to get slowed down by fights, we should have gone by the path made by the earliest explorative engineers.” Ye Qingxuan raised his lantern and illuminated the darkness before him. However, the ones here did not need these tools. The lantern was just a prop.

”What do you mean 'should have'?” Sam asked.