Chapter 1 The Enemy's Attention

At this moment, Su Zhou naturally had no idea that his enemies valued him so much that they had marked him as a prime target.

However, he had already suspected as much, and for Su Zhou, it would be abnormal if they didn't.

Currently, he was in the underground labyrinth, experiencing the unique subterranean structure of the Tartarus world.

The first level of the labyrinth had been explored by generations of labyrinth adventurers for over a thousand years and was the safest area. After entering the labyrinth entrance, which was several hundred meters wide, and descending nearly a hundred meters, Su Zhou saw a completely new underground world.

It was a colorful underground chamber composed of a combination of glowstone lamps, fluorescent moss, and various luminous minerals. The underground labyrinth was not dim; on the contrary, it was extremely bright due to the adventurers' lighting tools and the native luminous plants, even brighter than the surface, where the sun was dim.

Here, Su Zhou could feel that even if they were outside the protection of the elemental array, the stagnant elemental conversion rate on the surface would not affect this place.

There were also the most adventurers here, and their tasks mostly involved planting some special magical plants.

"Huh, but there's no soil here, how do you plant them?"

Hearing this, Su Zhou remembered what the merman maid had said during breakfast. She had said that there were areas in the labyrinth suitable for normal plant growth. Now it seemed that, with this level of light, the underground was indeed more suitable for farming than the surface. However, the first level of the labyrinth was entirely composed of rock and mineral layers, so where would there be a place to plant?

"You'll see when you look," Elias said with a mysterious smile, before leading Su Zhou to a corner of the first level.

Then, Su Zhou saw groups of giant earth golems, walking back and forth in the vast open space.

Rumble, rumble... the sound of the behemoths walking echoed, drumming like thunder.

The giant earth golems, nearly ten meters tall, were the 'monsters' that this level of the labyrinth produced in abundance. They were the precursors to earth elementals, composed entirely of soft soil and sand, and possessed little intelligence.

"Wow!"

Su Zhou widened his eyes because he discovered that the front, back, chest, and back of these earth golems were covered with various plant seedlings!

Each earth golem was like a mobile field, evenly distributing sunlight to all parts of its body by constantly walking around. The magical power it possessed, permeating the soil of its entire body, became fertilizer to nourish the plants.

Here, dozens of adventurers were working, some casting water magic to 'attack' all the earth golems, performing watering operations, and others using binding magic to 'harvest' and 'replant' the earth golems with mature crops on their bodies. Of course, there were also adventurers responsible for eliminating some earth golems that were too large and about to advance into 'ultra-giant earth golems' or 'earth elementals,' ensuring the stability of this labyrinth farm.

All the adventurers moved smoothly and skillfully, indicating how familiar they were with this process. Clearly, they had done this hundreds or thousands of times.

"Your utilization of the labyrinth is truly ingenious."

Even Yala couldn't help but complain, "The people of this world are quite similar to you Zheng people, they can farm anywhere." Su Zhou was even more amazed: "Earth golems can become fields, then can metal golems become your source of ore?"

At this time, Elias revealed a reserved and mysterious smile. It wasn't until Su Zhou left the 'Fluorescent Cave' of the first level and descended to the 'Metal Chamber' of the third level that he realized his guess had been spot on.

Because the metal golems that appeared here, the alloy that made up their body structure, was the prototype of 'gold,' the common currency of the Tartarus world! After defeating and crushing them, taking out the metal from the core area and refining it slightly, it could become that solid metal alloy!

The currency of this world, even, originated from the labyrinth.

The first four levels of the labyrinth, the shortest of which had been developed for over eight hundred years, had all the monsters that would appear inside and how they would act deeply ingrained in the minds of all adventurers. As long as they didn't settle there for a long time, there was almost no danger. The most dangerous monsters were only officially high-level, or Awakening high-level. These places, to Su Zhou, held little value other than surprise.

Actually, it wasn't just surprise, but also fright—because in the second level of the labyrinth, 'Mushroom Plain,' Su Zhou found 'mushroom sprites' that were very similar to the grilled mushrooms he had eaten for breakfast. Most of these mushroom sprites were only the size of a fist, with bizarre, spider-leg-like white limbs. They could secrete a highly acidic corrosive liquid, fixing themselves to the dissolved bodies of creatures, and then growing on the corpses of their victims.

In general, although they were fungal organisms that grew on humus, like most mushrooms, these mushrooms created their own corpses and were quite proactive.

"Could it be that the mushrooms I ate this morning were these things?!"

Upon seeing these mushroom sprites, Su Zhou's expression froze. But soon, he didn't care: "Hey, they look a bit disgusting, but as long as they taste good. Thinking about it, they're just mushroom-shaped crabs that hunt on their own. Nothing disgusting about that."

He was not picky about food. As long as the source wasn't too excessive, then as long as it tasted good.

Elias himself hadn't been to the labyrinth many times, mostly gaining experience from watching records. Along the way, he was more engrossed in everything in the labyrinth than Su Zhou.

But when Su Zhou decided to go to the fifth level of the labyrinth, 'Miasma Forest,' which might have elite-tier magical beasts and was not fully developed, he solemnly reminded him: "Mr. Su, although you are very strong, it seems that you have not explored the labyrinth many times—so I must remind you that no matter how strong you are, you cannot underestimate the monsters in the labyrinth! They mostly have special abilities, so you must be careful, otherwise you will suffer heavy damage!"

Su Zhou: "Snacks? What snacks?"

In fact, Su Zhou kept Elias's warning in mind. He never underestimated any opponent, although this was mainly because he liked to bully the weak, but it could also be considered a part of his prudence.

The most powerful creature in the fifth level of the labyrinth was the giant chameleon, which could control miasma poison and hide in the miasma. It was seventeen meters long and had the strength of an elite beginner, making it indeed very difficult to deal with. Ordinary exploration teams were easily hunted by it when they came to the fifth level.

But for Su Zhou, who was immune to all poisons and several times stronger, the ending was naturally only being abused.

He didn't even use the Lanjia Armor, thunder magic, or Extinction Blade. He simply used the water control power of the Mingxiao Dragon Transformation Technique and some water magic he had just learned last night to create a water prison and drown the extraordinary-tier beast.

However, Su Zhou did not underestimate this beast because of this: "This guy's ability to control poisonous gas is essentially using a special 'extraordinary organ' to control 'macromolecular' dust! And its unique scales can achieve rapid color change and temperature conversion. If I didn't have thunder magic to directly scan the surrounding electromagnetic waves, relying solely on thermal vision, I would have been fooled by it!"

Thinking like this, Su Zhou carefully cut off a part of the chameleon's body and stored it as reference material. He hadn't forgotten the purpose of his true form cultivation. Fighting these special monsters, each with their own strengths, could not only enrich his reserves of various extraordinary organs but also give him inspiration.

"My true form should face enemies that my normal form cannot handle, and those enemies are generally divided into two types. The first type is those that are so large, like the giant whale I encountered in the deep sea, that are hundreds of meters long, and my attacks are difficult to fully achieve. The second type is those that I can hardly break through, unable to cause damage to the other party."

Su Zhou didn't think much about 'the enemy's attacks are so powerful that I can't defend at all' or 'the enemy's speed is faster than me.' The former was because if he encountered this level of enemy, the first thing to do was to run, not to fight them head-on, and the latter was because his human form was small and light, and with the help of the Lanjia Armor, he could run at supersonic speeds. He might not be as fast as his original speed in his true form.

In this way, the basic structure of his true form was obvious—that is, it must be large and have high attack power. As for defense, it must at least reach the point where it can ignore the attacks of ordinary soldiers, lest it be focused on and killed by the crowd after transforming into its true form due to its large size.

Gradually perfecting his thoughts on his true form in his heart, Su Zhou continued to wander in the labyrinth with Elias.

Along the way, Su Zhou not only hunted extraordinary-tier magical beasts, but he also went out of his way to hunt some weak magical beasts that were very common in the eyes of the locals—for example, the fire poison ant colony, which was about the size of a calf, wandering in the second half of the fifth level of the labyrinth, and the flying hedgehog with a unique chamber structure that could float in the air by breathing... These unique magical beasts and various plants and animals would probably have been extinct long ago in the Tartarus world before the arrival of the apocalypse, but the labyrinth allowed them to recover and reappear in the world.

The locals might have long been accustomed to it, even regarding the existence of the labyrinth as common sense, but as a visitor from another world, Su Zhou had another view of the existence of the labyrinth: "These 'labyrinths,' no matter how you look at it, are like layers of independent special ecosystems, preserving some extraordinary creatures from various eras that can only survive in special environments!"

"Moreover, all of this has a pattern to follow—the deeper the labyrinth, the more complex the creatures, and the more similar it is to the ecology of the Tartarus world before the arrival of the apocalypse recorded in the records. The earlier, the simpler the creatures, and the more primitive and abnormal."

The complexity and danger of creatures grew gradually. This was especially true for extraordinary creatures, so arranging them layer by layer would create a feeling that 'the labyrinth is gradually increasing in difficulty'!

Su Zhou did not hide any of this, but told it all to Elias—he was not the kind of person who would keep things to himself, and besides, he also needed a local to analyze the rationality of this speculation for him.

After hearing Su Zhou's dissection and analysis from another perspective, the young Grand Duke of the Neisser family immediately looked serious.

"I need to go back and compare it with the information in the family."

That was what he said, but it could be seen that Elias also thought Su Zhou's speculation was quite reasonable. Moreover, in this way, it seemed to be vaguely connected with the 'era change.'

Only in this way, the essence of the labyrinth was quite intriguing, and the 'Water God Temple' located deep in the eighth layer, and the 'truth of the apocalypse' hidden in the deepest part of the labyrinth, had more meaning.