Chapter 440 - Traps!

The four of them plus three familiars, did not go into any towns or cities.

Instead, they completely lived in the wilderness, which almost caused Le Xuan to die.

Her earthly comforts… gone.

Her delicious food… gone.

Her soft, soft bed… gone.

She felt like crying. Who were these beasts that she was living with? How were they all so used to it?! Especially Katherine! Wasn't this girl just like her?!

But the girl still bore with it because she didn't want to be a burden. She felt like her three worldviews were constantly being refreshed from how naturally Katherine, Alec and Ye Sha acted in the wilderness. It just made no sense to her at all. 

It was as if they were born in the place and were completely at ease. It was so different from herself who was dying every single day, faced with inconveniences in and out.

Sure, she learnt a lot of things from them in the past couple of weeks, but… she really… wanted to trade it all for a night of comfort!

Alright, maybe not. But she still longed for those comforts!

When had Le Xuan ever been in such a sorry state? Even when she travelled, she was always going between cities and towns and staying in at least an inn at night.

She was a city girl through and through, and her specialization reflected that. She dealt in intelligence, so her contacts were all in the city. When did she ever need to live outside in the forest on the hard ground?

But the three other people 'politely' turned away when they saw her plight, as if they were sparing her from the ugliness of how she looked right now.

She felt like crying.

Le Xuan didn't even know why they were living out in the wilderness in the first place!

They never answered why they couldn't go to a town to stay in the inn for the night.

Maybe she sounded like a spoilt brat, but she just wanted to know the answer, damnit!

Was it combat? Was that it? Or were they training their survival skills or what?

Somehow, only Alec and Ye Sha had a tent, so each night, each gender took one tent and huddled together. originally, the tent was made for one person alone. When there were two people inside, it was even smaller!

Le Xuan lost track of the number of times that Katherine whacked her in the middle of the night. She wanted to cry but she had no tears.

Le Xuan picked up a bunch of dry sticks – making sure they were completely dry – the last time she picked up freshly fallen branches, she'd had a hands on demonstration which showed her that they could not be lit at all.

She tried to hard to light the fire, but it could not spark at all! She was still vaguely resentful at the thought of how Alec did it in a split second with the other two laughing secretly at the side.

Bunbun and Fenrir were playing around, running circles around her, which made her dizzy.

"Stop, stop," she said, "I'm dizzy. What if you make me trip and fall down?"

Saying that, she took a step forward and was prepared to trip to tease the two familiars, only for the ground below to truly give way.

She let out a scream in shock as she plummeted from the solid ground into a hole that had been hidden underneath.

"Ah! I was just joking! My life is a cosmic joke!"

Her shocked scream and angry cries drew the attention of the rest of her group. None of them hesitated to chase after and jump in after her, which made her feel a bit funny and warm as she saw their figures up above descending towards her.

She rolled on the ground and was in a sorry state, but she wasn't harmed at all. Le Xuan stood up and dusted herself off with a blank look on her face.

The rest of them landed much more gracefully, and Alec's two familiars sniffed around.

They darted off towards the right, and the rest of them quickly followed behind. 

"There should be some level of danger in this place," Alec said quietly. "This looks like a treasure cave."

They agreed with his assessment. The place that Le Xuan had literally stumbled across was probably someone's cavern before they died. With the person's death, any arrays or seals that were laid down were faded, which created a bit of a gap for them to enter.

That person was most likely trying to break through into the next rank before their death, only to fail, which lead to this situation.

Bunbun and Fenrir acted like they were stimulated, likely sensing treasures or what not.

Unbeknownst to them, Alec c.o.c.ked his head as he listened carefully.

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Chantelle carefully disabled whatever traps she saw along the way. 

She would take no chances with her safety, and if she were right – and she knew she was – this place contained at least the remains of a Grand Meister who was trying to break through into becoming a Transcendent. 

She could tell just by the quality of the things lying around and the defences that this place had.

As a professional tomb raider, she was extremely clear about matters like this. There was no one better than her.

Still, Chantelle would never neglect any aspect when it came to her safety.

She could do it quicker, but that would mean a loss in her safety measures. There was no one around, so she didn't have to take the risk and could leisurely do it.

She skilfully disabled a trap and stepped over it, moving forward.

She dodged under the spears that appeared above head and jumped onto the spears to avoid the floor giving way.

Chantelle went through things like this various times, and it kept increasing in difficulty.

But she didn't show any impatience, enjoying it even.

They were life threatening to other people, but to her, as long as she paid a bit more attention to her personal safety, there was no trouble at all.

It wasn't often she managed to find a tomb worth raiding, and alone, no less.

There were many traps, so many that she felt like she was in a dream.

She stopped before a door that held a puzzle, and she raised a brow. This Grand Meister truly didn't want anyone to get the treasures that he left behind. How stingy!

Still, she enjoyed the process nonetheless, and she was looking forward to what was left behind if there were this many traps to drive people to madness.

If she weren't extremely gifted in the area of traps, as well as having caution not to lose her head, she would have died long before.

Finally, she reached the end of the road, and with a pull of the door, the cave rumbled.

In the middle, she saw a corpse sitting in the middle.

Even though the Grand Meister was dead, his body still exuded the aura of splendour and grandeur. It would have awed all the people and made them marvel, but Chantelle wasn't interested in him at all.

She looked around, only to frown when she realized that this place was incredibly barren.

It was too far from her imagination. She knew that he was stingy, but who would have thought that he wouldn't even have a single treasure in sight?

She didn't believe it. 

There must be a secret mechanism somewhere that led to another place with all the treasures.

In any case, she would not leave here empty-handed. If she had to, she would bring away this corpse and sell it!

That was, of course, the last resort, but it wasn't like she hadn't done it before!

She walked around the room, her sharp eye keeping an eye out for any mechanisms.

Finally, she found something. It was so small and so subtle that she would have missed it if not for her ample amount of experience.

She stabbed a thin dagger into the hole, and suddenly, the ground gave out from under her.

Chantelle didn't shout as she disappeared into the hole, and the moment the dagger left the crack in the wall, the hole closed back up…