The five of them slowly moved through the passage that was in front of them.
They knew that they were short on time, but without knowing what was in front of them, no one dared to move rashly.
The three geniuses were all tense and as for Lin Fan, he was rather relaxed since he had sent his scouts forward, so he had a general gist of what was in front of them. Finally there was Angela who was completely relaxed. She was certain that no matter what appeared, she would be able to handle it and she was right to feel this way since she was an overlord.
Just like this, the five of them continued down this passage for half an hour before they finally arrived at a room.
All of them were surprised by the layout of this room as soon as they arrived since it was just too strange.
There was a long hall in front of them and way off in the distance, they could see that there was a stone door that was waiting for them. But in between them and the stone door, there was a floor that was covered in tiles of all different colours.
There were over a hundred different colours of tiles that were in front of them and they were all arranged in a random pattern. None of the tiles seemed to make any sense, it was just like someone had spilled several buckets of paint that had mixed with each other on the floor.
But even though this room seemed simple, no one dared to take a rash step forward.
They all came to the edge of the colourful tiled floor and looked down at the tile from above, while also releasing their spiritual senses to see if they could find anything. But all they could find was that these tiles were linked to a mechanism and as for what the mechanism did, they had no ideas at all.
Finally they couldn't take the wait anymore and the short haired girl picked up a rock from the ground which she threw at one of the tiles. She didn't know which colour tile she should choose, so she just threw it her favourite colour which was surprisingly pink.
For such a rough looking girl, it was quite funny that her favourite colour was pink, but she was a girl after all.
The rock landed on the pink tile, but there was no reaction at all. They could tell from the reaction of their spiritual senses that the mechanism registered the weight, but it wasn't enough weight to activate it.
Based on the reaction of the mechanism, it seemed that it would only activate when weight that was close to the weight of a person pressed down on it.
They could throw boulders onto the various tiles and use those boulders to test it, but those boulders would eventually get in their way. Especially if they were to make it down this hallway that seemed like it was filled with traps.
They could have also destroyed the boulders with their long range abilities, but all of that would be a waste of energy and time since all that would do would be create debris that could get in their way just like the boulders would.
The three young geniuses just blankly looked at each other because none of them knew what to do and of course, there was no one who was willing to go first.
As for Lin Fan, he was carefully examining the tiles, trying to find some kind of pattern in their randomness.
As for Angela, she just didn't care. With her powers, she could easily break through this stage and also keep Lin Fan safe, which was the only thing that she did care about. Or rather he was the only thing she cared about.
Finally, Lin Fan decided to take the first step.
When the three young geniuses saw that Lin Fan was about to step forward, Yue Jin asked, "Brother Lin, are you certain you want to do this?"
Lin Fan turned to him and gave a nod, "I'll be fine."
What he did note was that while they did show concern for him, all of them had moved several steps back. They were making sure that they weren't going to be caught up in the aftermath of what would happen.
Lin Fan took a single step forward and his foot landed on a red tile.
There was a sudden clicking sound which they had all expected, but then there was the sound of flames that came from above them.
Looking up, they all found that there was a ball of flames that was floating right above the tile that Lin Fan was currently standing on. The ball of flames spun for a few seconds before it suddenly exploded.
As the flames flew outwards, it created a pillar of flames that was falling down right on the tile that Lin Fan was standing on.
Lin Fan could tell that this flame wasn't that strong and that he would be able to block it with his life energy, but it would be a waste of his energy to do so.
So as soon as the flames fell, Lin Fan did the smartest thing and simply jumped back. While he did lose the progress that he made, it was almost nothing since he had only taken a single step forward.
It was much better to save his life energy by losing this little bit of progress than to waste it guarding against the flames.
The flames continued to fall down for thirty seconds even after Lin Fan had jumped away. The strangest thing about the flames was that it had created a pillar which had outlines that perfectly matched the outlines of the tile.
The flames that fell from the pillar only landed on that one tile and not even a single spark of that spread to the surrounding tiles.
After thirty seconds passed, the flames had finally disappeared and there was a click sound as the tile that had sunk down popped up again, returning to normal.
Lin Fan fell into thought for a bit before jumping right back onto that tile.
The same process occurred again. It was the same ball of flames and the same pillar that fell down, which Lin Fan avoided in the same manner.
In the end, the tile popped up once again and everything was silent as it returned to normal.
It seemed like the traps for each tile reset every time they were finished deploying, which meant that it seemed like they had to endure each trap before being able to make any progress or they would have to just run and avoid every trap they set off.
There were naturally pros and cons to each of these methods.
By going slowly and enduring each trap, you would be able to slowly and methodically make your way down the hallway. However, the cons to this was that it would consume a lot of life energy to make it all the way to the end of the hallway and they didn't know what was waiting ahead of them.
By running right through and dodging each trap they set off, it meant that they would be able to save on life energy and would be able to make progress, but there was also a huge risk to this. To put it plainly, they had no idea what kind of traps were waiting for them in this room and if they were to encounter a trap that they couldn't avoid, it could even be a powerful trap that was fatal for them.
The three geniuses naturally weren't fools and they could easily draw this analysis from watching Lin Fan.
Lin Fan on the other hand didn't seem to want to think, he just continued diving right forward.
He moved to the side and jumped out to test another tile, this time it was the pink tile that the short haired girl had thrown a rock onto.
The moment Lin Fan landed on that tile, he was prepared to jump back, but this time the trap that appeared wasn't as dangerous as the other one.
The moment the tile sank and the mechanism was activated, there were two bouquets of flowers that appeared on both sides of Lin Fan's face, suddenly blooming.
Lin Fan was confused by this, but then the flowers suddenly released a burst of pollen in his face. Lin Fan was naturally caught off guard and released a sneeze from this, but he also quickly recovered and prepared himself for more from this trap. In the end, even though he was prepared, there was nothing else that came.
He was confused since he was expecting much more, but thinking of how this was a game, it seemed to make sense that there would be some dud tiles along with the normal trap tiles. This pink tile seemed to be one of those dud tiles.
Lin Fan looked at the tiles in front of him before eventually choosing a bright yellow one that was a little further in, but not too far that he couldn't jump back to the beginning.
The moment he landed on this time, there were bees that suddenly appeared around him.
At first the bees didn't seem like they were about to do anything, but after a few seconds, they suddenly turned towards Lin Fan. All of them pointed their stingers at him and charged forward.
Lin Fan jumped away back to the beginning like with the flame tile and the bees seemed unable to leave the outline of the tile. It was like there was an invisible barrier that was keeping them in, even though they slammed against that barrier, trying to chase after Lin Fan.
Lin Fan fell into thought for a bit before nodding at Angela.
Angela nodded back and jumped onto the yellow tile, spawning the bees, but they acted completely differently this time. The bees didn't attack her at all, they just buzzed around her for a few seconds before disappearing.
Angela didn't move forward and jumped back to land at Lin Fan's side, going back to her same neutral stance.
Lin Fan fell into deep thought as soon as he saw this.
It seemed like there weren't only single trap tiles, but there were also tiles that needed to be activated together to create a trap, like the case of the flowers and the bees.
The pollen from the flowers was naturally something that riled up the bees, which was why they only attacked Lin Fan who had been hit by that pollen and not Angela who hadn't been covered in the pollen.
It seemed like there was a pattern, but it was very hard to find...