The next day.
The two purchased tickets to the maze.
The caravan drove along the South City Avenue towards the West City Gate’s barbican, passing through the towering gate that resembled a fortress wall. Suddenly, the view opened up into a vast expanse of wasteland and forest.
By noon, the caravan stopped in front of a massive camp.
The surface near the maze entrance had rapidly developed into a bustling temporary town, clearly still expanding.
The muddy dirt road was crowded with adventurers carrying backpacks. The morning rain had left countless puddles on the ground, but boots stepped through them without concern.
“Anyone forming a team to go down to the second level? Need a priest!”
“Top-quality blood medicine, essential for survival during exploration, brave warriors! Take a look!”
“Today’s target: break through the underground second level!”
Voices clamored throughout the camp.Some called for team-ups, others sold goods, and some discussed exploration plans. The noisy bustle flooded their ears all at once.
“Need to restock on food?” Aria asked.
“That should be enough,” Gauss said thoughtfully. “We need to keep some space in the storage bag for loot too.”
Besides supplies bought in Grayrock Town, the bag also contained dried frog meat and freshly made dried frost snake meat.
Besides, there should be some edible monsters inside the maze. If worse comes to worst, they could forage on site.
Since it was their first time exploring the maze, Gauss didn’t intend to venture too deep. For a few days, the food they prepared was completely sufficient.
If they packed too much, there would be no room for the loot collected inside the maze.
“That’s true.” Aria nodded, realizing she had been overthinking.
After all, it was their first maze exploration, so she instinctively felt the preparations weren’t thorough enough.
The two of them and the wolf followed the crowd flowing toward the maze entrance.
At last, a huge collapsed pit appeared before them, dozens of meters in diameter and bottomless, as if it led straight to the earth’s core.
Underfoot were orderly stone steps.
Adventurers either eagerly descended or climbed back up exhausted and covered in dirt.
Gauss and Aria took a deep breath and merged into the crowd, stepping down the long stairway into the deep unknown underground world.
The stairs were very long, going down about a hundred meters underground.
Upon reaching the bottom, the view suddenly opened up.
The first thing appearing was the entrance hall of the first underground level.
The Adventurers Guild had transformed it into a fully functional area.
The spacious space featured a fountain, temporary buildings, and a large tent camp. Fully equipped adventurers made their last resupplies and assembled here.
According to the Adventurers Guild’s provided Maze Guide,
this maze was vast, with an unknown number of levels. The deeper one went, the more dangerous it became, but the rewards grew richer.
The maze was a creation of an ancient civilization, and its nature was especially mysterious—like a gigantic living organism.
So even at the topmost level, which adventurers believed they had fully explored, new areas and monsters would emerge daily.
It was like a giant beast continuously growing and refreshing itself.
Based on this concept, the Adventurers Guild proposed a “lifespan” theory for the maze.
They believed the maze’s growth stages were divided into infancy, adolescence, maturity, and finally the late stage. During this process, the maze continuously grew and developed toward maturity.
After the late stage ended, the maze would wither. At that time, the maze would completely exhaust itself, no longer grow or refresh, and monsters and treasures would gradually diminish until it withered away and ultimately disappeared from the world.
Among adventurers, there was also a term for “clearing” the maze.
Some mazes had very long lifespans, lasting hundreds of years or more, while others were short-lived and could “die” completely after just a few years of exploration. This could not be known in advance and could only be gradually discovered through continuous exploration.
This uncertainty was the origin of the name “maze.”
Currently, this maze was in its infancy stage, a burgeoning phase, and the friendliest stage for low-level adventurers like Gauss.
“Slimes again!”
A shout came from somewhere in the hall, and a few newly appeared slimes were immediately overwhelmed by swarming adventurers.
Around the hall was the vast first underground level area.
In sight were some broken walls, ruined buildings, and various underground plants.
Yes, various plants grew in the underground maze, thanks to occasional light shining down from unknown sources above, allowing plants to grow freely underground.
“Shall we set off?” Gauss looked at Aria. After a night of rest, both were full of energy.
“Okay, you lead.”
Their first step into the maze made them extra cautious.
Gauss chose a direction.
Walking ahead, he released a Gauss Field protective barrier for both himself and Aria.
Although the guide said the first underground level mainly had low-level monsters posing little threat to them, it was better to be cautious entering the maze for the first time.
“The entrance location to the second underground level changes periodically...” Gauss recalled the guide’s content.
The entrances and exits between levels changed every so often. This dynamic change increased exploration difficulty and prevented fixed routes, meaning every visit required fresh exploration.
With good luck, one might descend multiple levels in a row, but with bad luck, one might never find the entrance no matter how hard they searched.
However, after some time, when maze exploration stabilized, at least the first few levels should have real-time map information established.
Fortunately, they were not in a rush to rush straight to the second underground level.
While the two carefully explored,
“Uwaa!!”
Several goblins waved crude wooden sticks and howled as they rushed out from behind a broken low wall.
Seeing these familiar green-skinned figures, a hint of nostalgia flashed across Gauss’s face—he hadn’t seen these goblins for almost half a winter.
Feeling the pulse of his Reptilian talent in his body, he stopped the excited Ulfen and drew his steel longsword with a backhand.
“Gift!”
The longsword unsheathed with a crisp ring.
Though he had switched weapons—from his rapier to this steel longsword, which reduced wind resistance—he quickly adapted due to the Basic Swordsmanship skill and days of training.
“Whoosh!”
The air flowed smoothly along the sword’s spine.
A white flash passed.
The first goblin bore a deep blood wound, bone visible, blood spurting out.
Gauss moved swiftly, his figure like the wind. Second sword, third sword... in an instant, several goblins lay dead in pools of blood.
“Goblin kills *5”
“Phew—” Gauss felt his body slightly warm.
He knew it was his Reptilian and Energy Storage Gland talents absorbing “nutrients” and strengthening himself.
Still, it had to be goblins.
“These monsters are really aggressive.” Aria approached.
Normally in the wild, five common goblins would likely not dare attack two professionals and a giant wolf.
“Must be the maze’s influence, right?”
Gauss looked at the soil beneath him, already absorbing the blood flowing from the goblin wounds.
Of course, this wasn’t a bad thing for him.
During the Winter Hunt, those easily fleeing low-level monsters had added a lot to his workload.
He hoped the low-level monsters here were all fearless battle maniacs.
After quickly looting their kills, the two looked toward the direction the goblins had rushed from.
“There must be more goblins there, right?” Gauss mused.
Then he led Aria forward.
Along the way, sure enough, they encountered other monsters.
Some were few and lone, others in groups of three to five.
But none of them posed any trouble.
Besides goblins, they also encountered goblin-like creatures, skeletons, and slimes—common low-level monsters.
After several hours of travel,
they rested briefly on the second floor of a damaged building and lit a small fire.
“Total monster kills: 1386”
Gauss checked the Monster Encyclopedia information.
So far, they had killed 60 monsters in total.
About forty of those were goblins, with the rest being other small monsters.
He was mostly satisfied with this kill efficiency.
But this maze environment felt strangely eerie.
“This first level is really big.”
The two had only encountered other people a few times during exploration.
Also, what Gauss never understood since entering was how, despite being deep underground, light still poured in.
Or rather, whether it was sunlight—he wasn’t sure.
“Gauss! Look what I found!” Aria’s voice came from downstairs.
After eating, she had been searching several empty rooms below. She said she had heard others at the surface camp mention finding treasures in ruined buildings, so she went to look.
Gauss went downstairs following her voice. In a corner of a room, Aria was holding several heavy metal bricks shining with a silvery white luster.
“Is this sun silver?”
“Authentic,” Aria knocked on the silver bricks, producing a crisp, pleasant sound.
“Should be worth three to four hundred silver coins.” Gauss was a bit surprised—several gold coins in hand. “Your luck is so good?”
“Hehe, hidden in here.”
Aria chuckled, tapping with her toe at several loose floor tiles nearby that had been pried open.
Gauss gave her a thumbs-up.
No wonder adventurers flocked here. Even on the first underground level, they could find such treasures. And considering the time they arrived, many areas of this level had already been looted.
Just as the two were happy about the unexpected fortune,
“Boom!”
Outside the courtyard of the ruined building near an ancient well, the ground suddenly trembled violently without warning.
Immediately, a huge shadow several meters high rose from the ground!
“Shh.”
Gauss heard the noise outside and became instantly alert. He put away the silver bricks and gave Aria a look.
His figure moved silently like a cat to the room facing the courtyard, pressed against the wall, and peeked through the window hole at the courtyard’s open space.
“Boom!”
Just as he peeked out, a large mass of dark brown sticky substance with an ominous aura smashed through the window hole like a cannonball, heading straight toward them.
“Watch out!”
Gauss reacted quickly, pulling Aria aside.
“Bang!!!”
With a heavy boom, the sticky mass brutally smashed through the loose brick window frame, scattering mud and stones everywhere.