Faust walked through the labyrinth, lost in thoughts as he had nothing else to do. He walked between the walls and after the first encounter he had, no more happened.
Everything looked the same, doesn't matter how much he walked, he wasn't reaching nowhere. He stopped to rest a few times, over twenty hours had already passed since the start of the trial. It was taking way longer than the first trial.
Interestingly enough, he wasn't feeling hungry or thirsty. He brought a small amount of food with him but hadn't even touche it yet.
This place numb my senses of food and thirst… or it just makes me unable to feel it somehow. Anyway it's quite interesting, if I could train in a place like this I wouldn't have to worry about getting too tired or having no resources.
I wonder how the other people are doing in this trial, besides the fruit I found some time ago I didn't find no more fruits or anyone else. I mean, most of them flocked into groups, so it makes sense I didn't find anyone, I guess most of them should be at the same place.
As Faust kept walking, he still held his executioner's sword in his hands, prepared to protect himself in case anything tried to attack him.
If everything went to worse, he would eat the fruit before he got killed and hope it worked to make him go the next trial, and deal with things from there. But he was almost sure it was not that easy, if it was, the guy holding the fruit earlier would just have eaten it and try his luck on the next trial.
Faust was sure there was something else besides simply "eating" the fruit.
For hours and hours more he kept walking, occasionally resting.
Finally, after almost thirty hours, he found something, but it didn't exactly made him happy.
He found an open area with corpses on the ground, some were cleanly cut through while others where clearly slashed through. He analyzed the corpses and the area, trying to find signs of hostility life.
As he found nothing, he looted the dead this time too. The loot this time combined with the loot from the previous people amounted to over ten of these yellow healing stones. He had broken one earlier to test their efficiency, he made a shallow cut on his hand and waited to see how long it would take.
It took a few good minutes, it was far less efficient than his healing rune, but it didn't spent mana, so had its advanges. He also grabbed a few more of those adventurers insignias, ranging from bronze to silver. Though not every body had one of these, so Faust assumed not everyone here was exactly an adventurer.
They were still flocked together, so probably allies or friends from other places. So many people had died already, yet everyone that survived the first trial also took the second. Was the reward that great that people were willing to die to reach it? What could it possibly be.
Treasures probably wouldn't be it, considering some people at this place looked to have money already. A way to get stronger? That was something people searched for incessantly. Ways to garther more knowledge? Could be, some scholars would rather die knowing than in ignorance.
He looked around and found a trace of blood going towards one of the paths.
Faust decided to follow it, on the best, he would find injured people and loot them, maybe even another fruit or information about them. On the worst, he would have to fight or run.
He kept walking for hours, following the trace of blood.
Someone actually walked all of this while bleeding? Wow, that's actually… impressed.
Then, he heard a sound. A sound of voices coming not far from there and they apparently also followed the trace of blood.
He went toward the direction of the sound and found a group of people, with them, the slave that survived the previous trial, he was badly beaten and bleeding heavily, but alive.
Two men and one woman were sat on the ground, talking conversating and laughing, they didn't look the least worried about the trial.
They were on a semi open area, the only entrance it had was where Faust was, but the area itself was like a square. They hadn't noticed him yet as he keep quiet and listened to their conversation.
"Guys, we just need one more fruit and we can leave to the third trial. To think this slave had two of them, I wonder who he robbed to get it hehe, well, it works for us I guess."
Then, a feminine voice said,
"To think we will be able to reach the third trial so easily… but what we will do about the slave? If we kill him, his soul will get absorbed by the labyrinth and a new fruit will appear, so that could mean more people on the next trial."
Watching this, Faust was puzzled.
"So the labyrinth absorb people souls and turns them into fruits? How would that even work? But whatever, that's not even the weirdest thing here… that slave probably knows more stuff too, since he had two soul fruits."
Faust waited, he had already decided to act the moment they said they had two fruits. He still had to undestood why more people wanted to gather more than one fruit and why so many teams compared to the first trial.
If he was able to kill them, he would ask the slave over there.
He put papers with runes all over the walls and ground, because of the grass, it was quite hidden, and because he hide it between the roots of walls, it was hard to see them to. If no one searched for it, they wouldn't find it.
And then he waited, they would have to leave eventually to search for more fr
A few hours later, the three were still sat on the ground when one said, "Alright, let's search for the last fruit.
Faust retreated and prepared himself. It was a gamble—the sound could attract people. He was betting he could learn about the fruits, consume them, pass the trial, and move to the next before someone possibly reached him.
The three started walking through the path, but the slave wasn't with them; they had left him behind.
When all of them were in the corridor, he started detonating, but different from his usual behavior of going all out, he was holding himself back. He didn't want to somehow damage the fruits; they looked quite fragile.
BOOM!
An explosion happened on the ground, enough to blow off one of the man's feet.
"AHHHHG!"
As he fell to the ground and screamed, his companions raised their weapons.
"It's a trap, let's retreat," they said, starting to step back, dragging their partner.
BOOM!
BOOM!
Two explosions coming from the walls made the two lose balance.
BOOM!
BOOM!
Two more detonations, this time from the ground.
The woman's feet were blown off, but the man reacted and jumped by instinct, dodging the rune.
Instead, he started rushing forward—he couldn't see Faust, but he knew the attacker couldn't be
far.
The ones who had their feet blown off were screaming in agony as they broke a yellow stone, and their bleeding started to stabilize.
The man's rushing strategy was good, but not efficient.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
A series of explosions erupted from the ground and the walls. He couldn't react to all of them, and a crack could be heard.
Although his leg wasn't blown off, it was broken and hanging by a thin piece of flesh. He grabbed a yellow stone, broke it, and tried to recover.
Faust was just glancing from the area where a curve in the path hid him. Since he was behind a wall, they couldn't see him.
But he knew the moment was ripe. He grabbed three detonation runes and ran towards the ones on the ground. All were charged to maximum capacity.
As Faust rushed, the man saw him and tried to attack clumsily, but Faust dodged and touched his head with a detonation paper.
BOOM!
The man's head exploded, and brain pieces, skin, blood, and hair rained all over.
The other two, agonizing in pain, couldn't even react. Faust quickly placed papers on their heads and detonated them.
BOOM!
BOOM!
Their heads blew apart. Faust was completely bathed in flesh and blood, but he didn't waste time. Before going toward the slave, he looted the fruits from their pouches—he obtained two fruits.
He then looted them to see if they were adventurers—and sure enough, they were.
The three wore bronze ranks with a "I" engraved on them.
Faust was starting to understand what ranks meant based on the multiple insignias he had collected before; they ranged from I to V. He hadn't collected all of them, but he could complete the missing pieces in his mind.
Bronze I was probably one of the lowest ranks, if not the lowest. They were probably the weakest people on this expedition, besides the slaves or normal people. They apparently weren't able to use aura nor mana, but had a little skill with weapons.
Then came Bronze II, III, and IV. Faust assumed they were around the same level, probably able to use mana to a degree; probably where one- and two-circle mages were.
Then Bronze V, it should be around the same level he was now. Someone quite skilled but not exactly experienced or a master in an area.
Then there was Silver, which was quite mysterious to him. He assumed only a few people he had found were Silver—the spearman he killed and the dagger girl he fought earlier, though the latter was just an assumption.
Silver probably ranged from I to V too, but he wasn't sure, since he had found no one above Silver I. He just assumed the sub-ranks were equal to the bronze ones. From what he could tell, people here should be around two to three circles in mage terms, and some should be able to use aura.
Then there was Gold, which he knew almost nothing about. They could probably use aura and should be around three circles too, maybe higher.
He didn't know if there was any rank above them, but it didn't matter at the moment—a Gold-ranked adventurer was already far beyond him. It was a step that would come much later in the climb.
After he was done looting, he went toward the area where the slave was. He would try to talk to him.