"Welcome to the first floor of the Labyrinth of Blood. To leave the labyrinth, you must enter the last room."
Ken heard the same voice welcoming him inside.
"Where is the floor?"
He tried to ask just in case, but as he thought, he didn't get any answer. He walked through the long corridor and used his Blood Sense, trying to find out whether there were any living beings nearby.
To his surprise, he did sense some, but he felt that the walls of the labyrinth blocked his technique, and his senses couldn't go beyond them.
When looking forward, the labyrinth continued for nearly a kilometer before it branched off into two paths. Along the corridor, there were several doors, and Ken assumed that each contained either a treasure or a danger, probably both.
He chose one of the doors and opened it but waited outside cautiously before taking any step further. His Blood Sense washed over the room, and he could sense multiple beings. The bloodlust was pure, which led him to think those weren't normal beings but artificial monsters.
He didn't sense any threat from them, so he placed his hand on his waist where his flexible sword was concealed and came into the room. As soon as he took a step inside, 3 beasts pounced on him.
'Flash Unwind.'
The sword cut through the heads of the three beasts, and they turned into blood and splashed on the floor. He felt some energy flows from their blood into his token, and he understood he gained BP from killing them.
It wasn't much; he estimated it as 1 point for each monster, making it a total of 3 BP. The beasts were only at a power of low Core Formation cultivators, so he understood their low worth.
'There are 5 rooms, which means I can make 15 BP by killing the monsters in this corridor alone. If it's so easy to gain BP without killing humans, why would anyone fight for BP?'
He tried searching the stone room, but it was empty other than the lurking beasts. He sighed with a tinge of disappointment and continued to another door.
There were 5 doors from the entrance until the junction, and he opened them all. They all had the same monsters, and the number of monsters varied from 3 to 5 in each room.
The monsters were always the same type; they were humanoid in their structure but barely had any features. They had vague faces that always looked the same, and their bodies turned to blood once he slashed their necks. Since they always lunged together, he easily slashed them with a single Flash Unwind.
'Only the fourth room had any treasure.'
He gained two Twilight Apples in that room, but it wasn't enough. He ate the apples, each making his core expand by 0.1 of its original size. To reach his previous maximum of 5.5 times the original, he would need 43 more of those apples.
He also got the answer to his question from earlier. After killing 10 monsters, he stopped getting BP from them. He concluded the designer of this place limited the BP earned from monsters to keep the business of human hunting lucrative.
Standing in front of the two paths, Ken tried to see a difference but didn't see any. He could sense monsters on both sides of the floor, and he picked the right corridor for no reason and walked on it.
This corridor seemed the same as the one he just exited. It was long and straight, surrounded by gray stone walls. There were doors here as well, and Ken checked them all as well.
This time there were no fruits, but in the fifth room, he found a puddle of blood that gave him 10 BP when he touched it. So far, he earned 20 BP in the labyrinth.
Ken kept strolling on the first floor of the labyrinth. After clearing 5 corridors, Ken finally arrived at a large metallic double door. The door was rather simple and carried no decoration other than the words "Last Door".
'Seems like I finished the first floor, let's head inside.'
Ken pushed the door, and as soon as his Blood Sense could peek inside, he found out there was a battle going on inside. Surprised, he concentrated on those people and found out they were a group of 5 disciples at the peak Core Formation Stage.
Even more surprising was the fact that he recognized one of them; it was the woman he shared a room with when he first got to the Divine Sword Sect.
"Junior Brother Ken, you're here. I didn't expect you to be that strong, you have made a mess outside."
Tiara looked toward Ken once the five finished the fight against a particularly large blood monster, assumingly the floor boss. She still talked with the same indifferent voice, making Ken wonder if she still wasn't impressed with him.
"Hello, Senior Sister Tiara. I've lost my self-control and acted recklessly."
He cupped his fist and bowed slightly, following the usual etiquette of meeting a senior. Tiara just nodded at him while the other 4 converged around her. They all recognized Ken, but they never met him before.
"Well, it's surprising to see you here. I thought those doors would be the path forward, but it makes no sense that you walked back. We came from this door."
Ken's eyes scanned his surroundings and saw it was a large and tall room. There was a round platform in its middle, surrounded by stone pillars connected to each other from their tops.
There was a large puddle of blood where the large monster was defeated, and the group of 5 seemed unscathed.
Outside the platform, there were four large identical double doors, and Ken could guess that there were multiple entrances to the labyrinth and four paths that led to this room.
"How strong was the monster here?"
"Rather weak. It was only equal to an intermediate Core Formation cultivator. We initiated the fight with it 5 seconds before you came in."
Ken was only there for 10 seconds before the fight was over, and it was understandable that it was the best the monster could do against 5 stronger opponents.
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