When they landed again, they found that they were in a strange room.
This place looked like a normal room, but it seemed like there were too many things that were here.
There were many things that didn't seem to belong in a room like this, but here they were in front of them.
There were also many things that seemed to be placed in a strange fashion. For example, there was a stove that was placed right beside a bed or there was a table that was placed on the wall.
It didn't seem like there was anything normal about this room.
When the statue landed, it spoke again.
"Welcome to the second task. Your job here will be to find the clues that will lead you to the key that opens up the exit to this room. All of the clues that you need are in this room, so please take your time to look for them. There is no time limit like with the first task, so there's no need for you to rush."
The way that the statue said this was almost as if this was some kind of game to it, instead of being a serious trial.
Even with that mechanical voice, that was what it seemed like.
But then again, this was indeed just a game for the statue or whoever was speaking through the statue. There was no consequence for them, so it wasn't as if they cared about what happened.
So they could talk about it in this casual manner.
As soon as the statue finished talking, the room fell into silence.
Everyone looked at each other rather than looking around the room, almost as if they were being wary of each other.
Though the one that they really seemed to be wary of was a certain person who was standing there looking around the room. He was standing there as if he didn't notice them being wary of him at all.
Huang Xie was looking around the room with Xiao Ming and the others, trying to find some kind of clue to solving the riddle behind the room.
After looking around a bit, Huang Xie swept his eyes around the rest of the people who were just standing there and said, "What are you all doing? Hurry up and start looking for clues."
There was a moment where they just stood there looking at him with uncertain looks, but they still listened to him when he raised his hand in a shape that seemed like he was about to crush something.
They felt a chill run down their spines when they saw this, so they no longer hesitated.
Though not a single one of them had thought that Huang Xie would be so decisive that he would threaten them like this.
Their souls were in his hands, so they had no choice but to follow his every order.
So they all spread out around the room and started looking around for clues as to where the key the statue had mentioned was.
However, it didn't seem like there was anything that was useful.
The room was currently shrinking in terms of micrometers, too small for normal people to detect with just their eyes alone.
But Huang Xie knew that it was only a matter of time before the room started shrinking at a rate that the others would be able to detect. That was because he had seen that the speed was doubling almost every minute.
Soon it would start shrinking in terms of millimeters, centimeters, and even meters.
This room was a decent size, but Huang Xie doubted that it would be able to last long once it reached meters.
So he knew that there was a time limit placed on them, even if the statue had said that there wasn't a time limit. After all, if they were still in the room when it completely shrank...even if the task didn't end, it would still be the end since they would be crushed.
Huang Xie started to look around the room again, but this time it was clear that he was looking for something specific.
The statue had said that there was no time limit to this task, so that meant that there had to be a way to clear it even if the room were to shrink. That was a clue in itself since it meant that wherever this key was, it was in a place that wouldn't be affected by the shrinking of the room.
That meant that there had to be things that hadn't moved from the beginning.
It was hard for him to figure out what hadn't moved since the beginning since he didn't have a frame of reference to use. He had only discovered that the room had started to shrink, which was why he thought of this.
So it really wasn't easy for him to find things that weren't moving.
That was until he looked at one thing in the room that he seemed to have forgotten.
Huang Xie revealed a smile when he saw this thing since he never thought that the answer would be this, but it seemed like it was the most likely answer.
Shaking his head, Huang Xie couldn't help feeling that he had been overthinking this.
So he waved his hand at Xiao Ming and the others while the other people were still looking around the room. He only wanted them with him when he checked out this possibility.
As they reached the thing, he said to them, "Can you guard me while I check something?"
The three of them quickly gave a nod, even Yu Huang agreed as he took a position around Huang Xie to protect him.
Huang Xie went around this thing that he was suspecting and looked carefully at it until he suddenly found something.
Shaking his head with a helpless smile, Huang Xie said, "This really isn't fair, is it?"
He reached out for the thing that he found, but he found that he wasn't able to budge it. It was as if there was something locking this thing in place, so that he wasn't able to reach what was behind it.
It seemed that it really wasn't as simple as he thought it would be.
With the way that this thing was designed, it seemed like it required something else to open it up.
That meant that there had to be something else in this room that would help him open up this thing and get the key.