Chapter 428: Exploring the Passage
Translator: Mercurial_ Editor: DarkGem
Li Yunmu couldn't wait eternally. Thus, he finally decided to take the first step, and that was to enter the cave to find out its secrets.
Five minutes after Ya Yan and the other three had went inside, Li Feng and Li Mei paired up and entered stealth mode to follow behind the shadows of four people silently moving toward the depths of the cave.
Soon after, Li Tian and Li De followed behind Li Feng and Li Mei with a distance of five hundred meters between them. After another five hundred meters came Li Ju and Li Lan.
Li Yunmu was even further behind Li Ju's pair. In this way, the distance between Li Yunmu and Ya Yan would be around two kilometers. It was a safe distance which would give him enough time to respond to any changes in the situation.
He kept following behind them for a few days while obtaining all the information about Ya Yan's group from the shadows. The trio clearly hadn't reached the end point, so the cave had to be even deeper than what he had imagined. The system had entered with Li Yunmu so naturally all the information collected was completely accurate.
Couple days after everyone had entered the cave, they had already walked around two hundred or so kilometers. All this time, the system had been carefully recording the terrain of the cave and trying to sketch it out.
When Li Yunmu looked at the map of the path they had walked in the past few days, he was shocked.
"This is circle shaped?" He was baffled.
[Yes, so we've been moving in a circle which is slowly spiralling downward. But because of the extremely large radius of the circle, it seems that we have been moving straight and not going down in a spiral.]
Soon, the system received more data about the path everyone was walking and inputted it within its database while continuing to explain. [Until now, we have completed three and a half revolutions. Our distance from the center of the spiral is roughly three kilometers downward.]
Once Li Yunmu heard the system's words, his mind was shaken. He had to accept that with the system's extraordinary senses, nothing could be hidden completely. "What theory have you come up with?"
[According to the circle-shaped passage map as well as given the location of the center, it is three thousand six hundred and sixty-six kilometers to the center from the starting point.]
After Li Yunmu heard the complete figure, he couldn't help rain curses on the abnormality of the cave. It was clearly built to play people to death. If not for the system, he also would've thought that this cave was extremely deep.
Moreover, given that there was only a single passage, it wasn't a maze to mislead people, and everyone would think that they would have to continue walking, since there would certainly be an end one day.
However, then a problem arose. If they walked the whole distance to reach the center of the downward spiral, then according to the system, they would need to cover three thousand six hundred kilometers.
If they were on his Earth, where there wasn't any gravitational suppression, then Li Yunmu could cover this distance within a few hours by flying with his wings of wind.
But he wasn't in that place anymore. Not only was the gravity pulling him downwards, the surrounding environment was also unknown, which forced people to remain vigilant. Just thinking about the endpoint of this unexplored passage caused Li Yunmu to turn cold.
After all, once a person started walking on this path without being able to sense that it was a downward spiral, they would begin to feel that the cave didn't have any end or exit. At that time, the person would begin to doubt their decision making and rationale.
Moreover, this doubt would continue to grow with time and the oppression from the environment would become increasingly greater.
Without the system finding the distance to the goal in advance, Li Yunmu also would've began to doubt his decision to enter the unknown place and began contemplating whether he should renounce his decision and leave this passage alone for all time.
He may have persevered until two thousand kilometers, or maybe three thousand five hundred kilometers, possibly even three thousand sixty hundred and sixty-five kilometers before turning back.
However because of the doubts rising in his heart as well as the influence of the nasty environment, he and other people would all decide to retreat in the end.
When the speed of Ya Yan's group declined greatly after traveling two hundred kilometers, it only proved Li Yunmu's theory. Previously they had been moving at the speed of sixty kilometers every day, but then their speed had fallen to twenty kilometers per day. It had declined to a third of their starting speed.
Why? Because they had reached the point until which they had investigated previously. From then on, they would face unknown dangers, and they subconsciously slowed down their speed. Their nerves were again stretched taut as they advanced forward with vigilance.
If they continued down at that speed, then wanting to complete three thousand six hundred and sixty six kilometers wouldn't be anything more than a pipe dream.
Because humans aren't machines. Li Yunmu could foresee that as the time went by, Ya Yan and the other three would grow exponentially more fatigued and all sorts of problems would appear which would further slow down their speed. It was also possible that they would frequently stop to rest.
On top of that, when people were in groups, disputes would arise on whether they should keep moving forward or return.
"It truly is a test of willpower."
Li Yunmu sighed and suddenly raised his hand before stopping in his tracks. At that moment, he also commanded all the shadows to return through the connection that existed between them.
Ten or so seconds passed.
Li Feng and the others who had been walking far in the front quickly pooled in the shadow behind Li Yunmu. They silently looked at him, puzzled as to why he had called them back before they had faced any danger.
"We don't need to follow them. I have already discovered a faster way to reach the end," Li Yunmu explained to his shadows. The next instant, he took out a large egg and dropped a drop of blood essence on it. Before long, lights flashed from the egg and a large beetle with enormous pincers crawled out.
It was the enormous beetle which could dig through ground and which he had obtained at the Tower of Glory long ago. It was a rainbow grade monster, but because it was slow, it posed little danger to anyone.
It possessed innately thick carapace and extraordinary strength as well as the ability to dig. It had been nurtured by Li Yunmu in his heavenly world because of it. He had placed great emphasis on it.
Because of that, the enormous beetle had was a lot different compared to when he had obtained it; at least, it had become stronger.
In terms of strength, it had already broken through from rainbow layer and was already a Flux Master level monster. The reason for it was simple, because Li Yunmu had nurtured it and fed it three drops of divine blood.
When the twenty meter large beetle appeared in front of everyone, Li Yun and the others realized what was going on in their master's mind.
"Target is underground, three kilometers downward."