My Magic Has No Upper Limit

Seeing those strange human faces suddenly turn toward him, Zelir couldn’t help but grow tense.

He suddenly regretted his impulsive act.

’I was just messing around, you guys. Don’t take it so seriously...’

’With so many Corpse Flowers, getting surrounded would be a real headache.’

But the silence lasted only a moment.

"SKREE... KAKA... TEE-HEE..."

The Corpse Flower Field began to sway again, the snickering growing louder and coming from all directions, as if mocking them.

It was as if they were mocking the group.

"Let’s get out of here..."

The scene was utterly revolting to Valles. "Let’s not linger in a place like this."

The rest of the journey passed without further incident.

The group continued onward, passing through layers of gray and white architectural ruins.

The deathly aura of the Corpse Flowers gradually faded, no longer as thick as it had been when they first entered the Central Courtyard Garden.

A fresh, invigorating botanical aroma began to permeate the air.

Zelir’s eyes lit up.

’He recognized this scent...’

’It was the same aroma he’d smelled in the Moon Bay Basin while Monster Hunting.’

Generally, only Magic Plants could emit such a fragrance. And right now, the aroma was even stronger than it had been in the Moon Bay Basin.

’The Magic Plants here must be a much higher grade!’

High Tier Magic Plants were also quite rare and in high demand. They would be excellent whether he kept them for his own Alchemy later or sold them.

"Hill."

Zelir looked at her. "Can you pinpoint the source of the scent?"

Hill’s nostrils twitched slightly before she nodded.

"I can."

Although Valles’s Perception was also excellent, his five senses were still inferior to those of Hill, a Middle Level Advanced Assassin.

And so, Hill took over from Marcus as the guide.

Under her lead, the party passed through a natural archway woven from giant vines and skirted several abandoned fountains still bubbling with poison.

The path ahead gradually narrowed, the once-open view compressed by towering stone walls on either side.

Before them lay a dim, stone-paved corridor, three to four meters wide and dozens of meters long.

The sides of the corridor were constructed from massive, bluish-gray stones.

Although the exterior of the walls was covered in cracks from the erosion of time, the rock layer beneath remained solid.

At the far end of the corridor, a soft halo of light spilled down from above, illuminating a heavy stone door that stood silently in wait.

’Behind the stone door... That’s probably where the Magic Plants are, right?’

But Hill suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Her brow furrowed slightly.

"Something’s not right..."

"A trap?" Zelir asked quietly.

"Mhm..."

Hill nodded slightly. "The temperature here is noticeably higher than elsewhere."

The temperature around the corridor was indeed higher, and the air was much drier.

Marcus opened his guide and flipped to the Chapter on traps. After a quick comparison, he confirmed it.

"This corridor..."

Marcus tapped the page. "This is probably the trap Wells mentioned—the one that erupts with superheated steam."

The group observed the corridor more closely.

The floor was uniformly paved with square, bluish-gray flagstones, each about half a meter on a side.

They fit together seamlessly, like a chessboard.

The tiles were carved with patterns, but like the walls, they were severely weathered.

According to Wells’s description, stepping on the wrong tile would cause an instantaneous eruption of superheated steam.

Even a Middle Level Warrior, with their Constitution and protective Fighting Qi, wouldn’t escape unscathed and would likely be severely injured.

The corridor stretched for dozens of meters. Who knew how many tiles would trigger the trap?

"Is there a way to disarm it?" Gray asked, scratching his head.

Marcus and Valles both shrugged.

This wasn’t their area of expertise; hacking at Demons was much simpler.

"Logically speaking... shouldn’t the trigger tiles have some kind of special feature?"

Zelir mused, "Like an anomaly in the surface pattern?"

"The surface is this worn down."

Gray shook his head. "Even if they had ’Do Not Step’ written on them, we wouldn’t be able to see it."

"Then what about the trigger tiles? Would their surface temperature be higher?"

Zelir added, looking at Hill, "Could you sense it?"

"That’s something I really can’t do."

Hill crossed her arms. "My Perception is sharp, but I can’t detect temperature from a distance... You’re giving me a little too much credit."

’Of course, if I just touched them, I could feel the temperature difference...’

’But who knows how sensitive the trigger mechanism is?’

’If I set it off with a touch, it would cost me half my life.’

"Why don’t we just throw stones to test them one by one?"

Gray said, "We could trigger all the traps that way."

"If only it were that simple. This isn’t a Beast Trap."

"If you’d ever raided a tomb, you’d know that triggering traps too many times can lead to certain uncontrollable consequences... like a self-destruct sequence."

Hill chuckled lightly.

"Or maybe it would blow this whole place sky-high?"

Zelir frowned.

’It sounds like Hill has plenty of experience as a Tomb Raider.’

"If there’s no other way, should we just leave? It’d be safer."

Marcus said, "Whatever we do, safety comes first."

"I have an idea... but I don’t know if it’ll work."

Zelir suddenly spoke up.

"Since the surface temperature of the trigger tiles might be higher... wouldn’t any frost covering them melt faster?"

"Maybe we can use that phenomenon to identify them?"

The party members all retreated some distance, back to a safe area.