337 A Good Start?

Using the mine map from the church, the group moved quickly. In fact, they had even overtaken many people. Under Ye Qingxuan's perception, a complex yet detailed map formed in his mind. There were barely any fights during their journey. Ye Qingxuan had avoided all the musicians. However, he suddenly halted during their wordless walking.

"Wait, there's a situation."

During the journey, his teammates had acknowledged his exploration abilities. Hearing his words, everyone grew guarded. Ye Qingxuan tossed down his bag to lighten to weight and cautiously walked forward.

One step, two steps… The mercury threads extended and sank into the soil, sensing something hidden under the decaying dirt. Ye Qingxuan froze and was immediately covered in cold sweat.

"Who the f*ck did this cruel thing?" With his Eye of Silence, he looked past the disguise. The entire tunnel was covered in alchemy arrays and carved music scores. It looked like a wall covered densely in Boston ivy. Though beautiful, it was terrifying.

This thing was activated by the slightest touch. Without using help from aether, he took out a small shovel and carefully drew some circles on the ground.

"Come over one by one and follow me," he turned around and said seriously. "Step in the circles, alright? There are three layers of traps buried here. One layer is mechanic, one is an aether trap, and the last should be some parasitic phantom beast. It won't be good if it gets onto you. If you take a wrong step, the entire tunnel might collapse from the chain reaction."

The others were stunned. They gulped. Buried under hundreds of thousands of tons of dirt, meters under the ground…no one would be able to survive.

Soon, they passed through the trap safely under Ye Qingxuan's guidance. The pissed off Baro raised his hand, ready to destroy the trap, but Ye Qingxuan stopped him.

"What are you leaving it for?"

"If you want to mess with others, you have to be ready to get messed with." Smiling, Ye Qingxuan opened his bag and took out some tools. "I'll change it a bit and add some new stuff. When the person who set this trap tries to go back, he'll have fun."

His hands did not stop moving while he talked. He quickly changed the activation requirements of the traps. By changing the positions of a few music notes, the intervals of the complex array were changed completely.

He connected the rhythms, changed the notes, edited the intervals…he did everything in one breath. Compared to changing Avalon's vast enchantment, this was nothing. The outer appearance was still the same in the end.

"I just changed the activation requirement," Ye Qingxuan murmured to himself. "It'll be fun when that friend comes back, right?"

His three companions felt something evil and cold radiate from him and they took a step back in unison.

-

They soon started forward again. This time, Baro summoned a dark falcon to discern the direction and he froze. "Did we go the wrong way?" He looked from the map to Ye Qingxuan. "Why are we going south? The entrances are in the north and east…"

"Huh? Did you buy your map from a local?" Ye Qingxuan took Baro's map and studied it with a nod. "Look at mine."

He took a new map from his pocket. Comparing the two, Baro shut his mouth obediently. Yesterday, he had spent a sum to buy a layered map from a Romulusian engineer who had entered the mine before. However, the map drawn from memory was incomparable to what Ye Qingxuan had. God knows where the guy had gotten it from. It was detailed to the point of noting the width of the tunnels, situation, and even a scale and depth differentiation.

"Where did you get this from?" Baro asked after a moment of shock. "How much did you spend?"

Ye Qingxuan looked at him as if he was a retard. "The church's archive has resources from the mine's early days. Anyone can go look at it, and it's easy to copy the map. Why would I spend money?"

Baro shut his mouth.

The saying was, 'you do it if you can.' Ye Qingxuan could so Baro had no need to embarrass himself.

In Baro's map, there were three entrances to the second level. In actuality, there were five in total. One of the other two was made by early engineers and was abandoned now so few knew about it. The other one was cracked by earthquakes and had been buried. It was only recorded in the safety records.

"If we don't want to get slowed down by fights, we should have gone by the path made by the earliest explorative engineers." Ye Qingxuan raised his lantern and illuminated the darkness before him. However, the ones here did not need these tools. The lantern was just a prop.

"What do you mean 'should have'?" Sam asked.

Gripping his chin, Ye Qingxuan smiled weirdly. "Because things seem to have changed." Before he finished, there was a giant boom up ahead. Something seemed to be fighting intensely.

Ye Qingxuan studied the footprints illuminated by the lantern and realization flashed past his eyes. He was definitely not the only smart one. Others must have realized they could take advantage of church resources and discovered this place.

However, few knew why this path was abandoned.

"At first, I planned on barging in, but now someone has tested the waters for us." Ye Qingxuan pulled out a chair and sat down. "Let's wait for ten minutes. We can go and take advantage of things after they clear the way for us."

Ten minutes later, Ye Qingxuan led the way, and the group entered a giant underground cavern. The ground was littered with carcasses of snakes as thick as a man's thigh. The engineer who discovered this place had noticed the hibernating snakes. They were not big threats to musicians, but it would be bad news for miners.

After all, no one wanted to wrestle with a bunch of poisonous snakes on their way to and from work. Therefore, they abandoned this path while exploring the mine. They even sealed off the center and put up warning signs so brash people would not come dig around. He could imagine how happy the musicians must have been to see so many little friends, starving and ready to prepare for hibernation, waiting for them.

"Should we collect some?" Ye Qingxuan looked back at Miller. "Snake marrow makes great chant consumables. They can act as live substances and help with many Choir scores.

Miller shook his head. "I can buy them in other places. No need to waste time here."

"True." Ye Qingxuan nodded and turned toward Sam. "It's up to you now."

For some reason, Sam felt goosebumps from the gaze full of anticipation. "Do what?" He stepped back subconsciously.

Ye Qingxuan stepped through the pulverized snake corpses and kicked aside the junk. After clearing out a circular space, he looked toward Sam. "Please make a hole here."

"A hole?" Sam was dazed.

"Yeah, a hole." Ye Qingxuan pulled out a map. "If I'm not wrong, we should be right on top of the relic. Instead of going around, why don't we just make a hole and go down?"

"You can do that?!"

"Why not?" Ye Qingxuan waved. "If I say we can, then we can, even if we can't! This is a great chance to get some experience. Pretend you're digging a well for the people of Oz!"

After a long silence, Sam obediently took out a chant consumable that looked like white ash. He sprinkled it onto the ground while murmuring and humming something. He pressed down. A faint melody sounded in the next moment. It was gentle with a shade of sadness. The white cinder melted into the stone, softening it like water.

Under the calling of the melody, the stone gradually rose, increased, and wrapped around the others. They were enveloped in something rectangular like…a coffin? The coffin sank gradually as if bringing them into the ninth level of hell. Did this count as resting in peace?

Ye Qingxuan's expression was strange. Smelling something decaying in the white ashes, his eyebrow arched. "Funeral March?"

The Funeral March by Saint Chopin was extremely widespread and widely used by every school. In the School of Illusion, it could create the illusion of death and the afterlife, such as dancing with skeletons. In the School of Choir, it could fake deaths. The musician could retain the sliver of life and enter hibernation.

It was much more aggressive for Modifications. Usually, they would stuff the enemy into a coffin and add fire for a cremation. The good thing was that it was efficient. They could burn the enemy into ashes which could be used as consumables for future use.

Ye Qingxuan began thinking wildly in the darkness. Suddenly, he chuckled. "We won't disrupt any lost souls by playing this melody while entering the tomb, right?"

The downward motion abruptly turned into falling. Then, with a crash, the coffin landed on the ground. It seemed to have passed through the layers of rock and slammed onto the ground. Cracks appeared on the coffin. He did not feel much shock inside though.

Ye Qingxuan pushed the slabs aside and climbed up, taking a shallow breath. There was the smell of decay in the air but there was no poison, just as he had expected. This was a good start—not just good but very good!

However, Ye Qingxuan's beautiful fantasy quickly shattered. A stone hammer came whistling toward his face!

"F*ck!"