Chapter 437 - 208: Digging Three Feet Deep, Cracking the Maze
Chapter 437: Chapter 208: Digging Three Feet Deep, Cracking the Maze
The essence of this plan was for those involved to completely relinquish their subjective judgment. They would become like chess pieces, fully entrusting their decisions to an objective, external "brain."
Lin Ye frowned and spoke. "I understand your plan, but there’s one problem. If I were the one who designed this labyrinth, I wouldn’t have created just a single area with a gravitational anomaly."
"And I definitely wouldn’t be so kind as to have every hidden passage within the anomaly lead to the actual next level."
"Most likely, the ends of most of these anomalous passages are traps or dead ends."
Hearing this, Zhang Daoxuan nodded as well. "Exactly. I was thinking the same thing. We’ve found a way to crack the labyrinth, but that doesn’t mean we’ll have an easy time getting through."
"We’ve merely fashioned a master key."
"Finding the one correct keyhole among countless similar ones will still require a massive number of attempts."
"And we don’t have enough people for that right now."
Zhang Daoxuan sighed.
"Why didn’t you just say you were short on people! You just need someone to scout ahead, right?"
"Leave this to me!"
Hu Dahai finally got the full picture.
He grinned, flashing a mouthful of white teeth. His voice boomed like a bell. "I’ve been with Xinhuo for almost twenty years. I may not have other skills, but this old face of mine still counts for something."
"I’ll go get them all over here!"
...
Hu Dahai’s efficiency was unquestionable.
Using the encrypted channel on his wristband, he quickly contacted all the Xinhuo members still struggling on the labyrinth’s first level.
When they learned that Lin Ye and Zhang Daoxuan might have found a way to crack the labyrinth and needed help, the teams who had fallen into despair, some even on the verge of giving up, all felt their Spirits soar.
Half an hour later, Xinhuo squads began to trickle in, gathering in the massive cavern. Some were at full strength, while others had clearly suffered losses.
Most of them were injured, their faces a mixture of exhaustion and the haggard look of having survived a close call.
Upon seeing so many of their comrades gathered in the cavern, especially Hu Dahai and Lin Ye, everyone felt as if they had found their pillar of support. Their Spirits were instantly lifted.
After Hu Dahai briefly explained the plan, a total of 43 people had gathered—nearly the entire Firewood Martial Hall contingent, aside from a few who had forfeited due to severe injuries and those who were completely unreachable.
Meanwhile, Lin Ye hadn’t been idle while Hu Dahai was rallying the troops.
He closed his eyes.
He levitated in a cross-legged position, his aura seemingly melting into the surrounding darkness.
Within his Sea of Consciousness, a majestic tide of Spiritual Power surged forth like water from a broken dam!
He deliberately shut down his senses of sight, hearing, and smell...
...all sensory information that could possibly be a distraction.
In his world, there was no longer light or dark, no sound, no form of any physical matter.
All that remained was gravity in its purest, most fundamental form.
Through this gravitational perspective, the entire Painful Labyrinth took on a completely different form.
Countless lines and planes intertwined, forming a bizarre, kaleidoscopic model of the Gravity Field.
In most areas, gravity pointed steadily toward a common center: the planet’s core.
However, there were also many twisted, chaotic regions.
In those places, gravity was like a tangled mess of rope—its direction chaotic, its forces pulling against each other, forming invisible whirlpools.
Those were the artificially created gravitational anomalies.
Lin Ye’s Spiritual Power continuously expanded outward, spreading farther and farther, covering an ever-increasing area.
Finally, when the range expanded to a diameter of about five hundred kilometers, he felt a distinct resistance. Extending his Spiritual Power any further became incredibly difficult.
This was the current limit of his exploration using his Martial Arts Spirituality and Spiritual Power.
The sheer complexity of the space within a spherical area five hundred kilometers in diameter was far beyond what any normal person could process.
Fortunately, Lin Ye was not fighting alone.
He had another brilliant mind assisting him.
Zhang Daoxuan opened his personal terminal and called up a three-dimensional map template.
Then he quickly established a coordinate system.
Once Lin Ye finished thoroughly exploring all the anomalies within a scanned area, he would call out the exact locations and structures of the anomalous zones and passages, using the coordinate system Zhang Daoxuan had established.
Once he finished his report, Lin Ye’s levitating figure vanished without a trace, right before the astonished eyes of Hu Dahai and the others.
Castling!
Five hundred kilometers away, Lin Ye instantly swapped places with another one of his fly-like minions that was traveling through a passage.
Then, he released his Spiritual Power once more, scanning and probing the new area.
If not for the Healing out of combat mechanic.
Lin Ye’s Spiritual Power would likely have been completely depleted after just two of these scans.
But as it was, his Spiritual Power and stamina were in a state of rapid recovery, thanks to being out of combat.
The Xinhuo members in the cavern were utterly dumbfounded.
All they could see was Lin Ye’s figure vanishing before their eyes, only to reappear moments later in some unexpected corner of the cavern, over and over again.
This ability was so far beyond their comprehension that all they could feel was a mixture of shock and profound awe.
"He’s..."
"Don’t disturb them," Hu Dahai snapped in a hushed voice.
He could tell that Lin Ye and Zhang Daoxuan were in the middle of something monumental.
It was just something that was a bit difficult to comprehend on their level.
The seconds ticked by, turning into minutes.
The initial shock of the crowd in the cavern gradually gave way to a sense of numbness.
They even started to get a little impatient.
...
「Two hours later.」
Lin Ye’s figure appeared one last time in the center of the cavern. He slowly opened his eyes. A flicker of exhaustion passed through them, but it was overshadowed by the calm confidence of someone with the entire situation under control.
He spoke, his voice somewhat hoarse.
"Sector A-89 contains three anomalous passages."
"Sector C-112 contains six anomalous passages."
Lin Ye continued to call out a stream of coordinates and dry data.
Meanwhile, Zhang Daoxuan, moving with incredible speed, converted this information into visual graphics, rapidly constructing a model on the light screen.
Points, lines, and planes intertwined.
Before everyone’s stunned eyes, a three-dimensional schematic of the Painful Labyrinth’s first level—so vast it was mind-numbing—was completely sketched out right in front of them!
The map was dynamic. Hundreds of gravitational anomalies were marked on it with light-points of different colors, each detailing the precise degree of gravitational distortion in that area.
The entire map formed a hemisphere, perfectly matching their current situation—
—being located beneath a planet’s crust!
"My God..."
Hu Dahai stared at the complex map before him, a structure comparable to a military star chart, and his mind went completely blank.
The others were equally dumbfounded.
Their previous impatience had all vanished into thin air.
They finally understood what Lin Ye was doing by appearing and disappearing, and what Zhang Daoxuan was doing with his constant tapping in the air.
They were mapping!
Creating a holographic map that covered the entire first level of the Painful Labyrinth!
’In just a few short hours, they had scanned an area thousands of kilometers across and deciphered the entire structure of the labyrinth? Was that something a human was even capable of?!’
At the same time, they felt a profound sense of admiration for Zhang Daoxuan’s meticulous mind and professional cartography skills.
’These two newcomers... Just what kind of monsters are they?!’