Hall of Choice

"It's a corpse! And Hundred Treasure Box!"

Sun Xiaowei said excitedly, and took a step forward, but was stopped by Old Yuan.

"Don't be impulsive. Haven't you thought about how he died?"

Sun Xiaowei was taken aback, then suddenly realized, "Oh right... It was clearly a Dead Alley, how did this person die in there?"

"There's definitely danger." Luo Jun looked at Sun Xiaowei: "Senior, you're the Creation Faction, could you build a cat or dog to go in and scout things out?"

"Um..." Sun Xiaowei shook her head somewhat awkwardly. "The Creation Faction is divided into two branches: Creation and Creation. I belong to the Creation Faction, so I don't know how to create living beings..."

"Ah?" Luo Jun sighed, "Then we'll have to think of another way..."

He spoke casually, but the sigh he uttered conveyed disappointment to Sun Xiaowei. She immediately retorted, "Although I can't create, the Creation System has its own methods!"

As she spoke, she placed her hand on her face, and the Mechanical Mask that covered most of her face suddenly came to life. It began to split into parts and deform, falling off her face and landing as a Mechanical Spider. Its four legs moved alternately, and it nimbly spun around on the ground.

"That's not a Noble Phantasm on your face, it's a robot!" Seeing this, Ma Qiao said in surprise, "This was created by creation ability? I thought creation could only make some swords, spears, and halberds, and the most powerful things were houses and firearms with slightly complex structures. You can even create something as intricate as a robot?"

"This is nothing! Our SanChuan Sun Clan are experts in creation!" Sun Xiaowei said proudly. "Don't even mention this kind of small machine, my Grandmother can even build Transformers!"

"The Sun family of SanChuan City?" Old Yuan was slightly taken aback. "Your Grandmother, is her name Li Xiuzhen?"

Sun Xiaowei and Luo Jun were both taken aback.

Sun Xiaowei asked, "Old Yuan, do you know my Grandmother?"

Yuan Shouzhen nodded. "She was also my student back then, and her talent for creation was second to none in the entire Zhendan. Your grandfather was the heir of the Sun family and was naturally a master of creation, but he was defeated by your Grandmother and fell in love with her at first sight... I was the officiant at their wedding."

"Your Old Yuan and my Grandmother have this connection?" Sun Xiaowei asked excitedly. "How come I've never heard my Grandmother mention this?"

"Well..." Old Yuan hesitated for a moment, "For some reasons, all my students..."

"Oh, let's not talk about those old stories." Luo Jun could roughly guess the reason, and quickly changed the subject. "Senior, isn't your robotic spider amazing? Can you show us?"

"Of course it's amazing!" Sun Xiaowei, having removed her mask, had her expression written all over her face. She raised her hand and said, "Xiao Hei, go check on the situation."

Upon receiving the order, the Mechanical Spider swiftly crawled into the side path on all four legs, quickly arriving at the skeleton. It then extended two mechanical arms from its back, grabbed the bracelet on the skeleton's wrist, and began to remove it.

But as the bracelet moved, the skeleton trembled all over. Then, from beneath its tattered clothes and through the gaps in its bones, hundreds of worms suddenly crawled out and swarmed toward the Mechanical Spider!

"What are those!" Sun Xiaowei was startled. The insects were about the thickness of Thumb and more than a foot long. Their bodies were soft and smooth, and their heads were open, with terrifying mouthparts full of sharp teeth. They crawled onto the Mechanical Spider and began to bite!

"Don't be afraid!" Sun Xiaowei gritted her teeth, unsure whether she was comforting others or encouraging herself. "Xiao Hei is tough, it won't be easily..."

Before the words were even finished, one of Xiao Hei's mechanical arms had already been bitten off, and the Jade Bracelet fell to the ground. But the insects were not satisfied and continued to entangle it and bite it frantically. The seemingly hard Mechanical Body was as fragile as paper under their mouths!

"Are their teeth really that strong?" Ma Qiao's teeth ached a little. "They can bite through metal so easily?"

"Something's not right!" Sun Xiaowei's forehead was covered in sweat. "These insects can devour vital energy! Xiao Hei is a creation of vital energy; its hardness is meaningless in front of their mouths!"

"Let's remove it," Old Yuan said. "Creation consumes a lot of vital energy, especially a stable creation like yours that has been maintained for many years. If it's consumed, the loss will be huge. Removing it now will allow us to recover some of the vital energy."

Sun Xiaowei gritted her teeth. She knew Old Yuan was right, but she was unconvinced. Not wanting to lose face was secondary; she desperately wanted to prove herself, to prove she could stand on her own, so she could get closer to that figure...

Thinking of this, Sun Xiaowei formed a hand seal. "Xiao Hei, fire!"

As she gave the command, Xiao Hei, who was entangled by the insects, suddenly transformed. Its intact parts automatically separated and fell off, immediately reassembling into a smaller machine. It grabbed the bracelet and ran out.

As for Xiao Hei's true form, it was completely submerged as bait to attract insects.

"Huff, huff..." After getting the bracelet, Sun Xiaowei took a couple of deep breaths, sweat beading on her forehead.

Old Yuan is right. Being devoured by a creation greatly depletes one's vital energy. Sun Xiaowei's foundation isn't very solid, and in order to catch up with Ye's pace, she has focused her cultivation on the Heart Refining Realm for the past six months. Although being devoured by Xiao Hei didn't completely exhaust her vital energy, it was still a significant drain on her.

"Well done!" Old Yuan encouraged, "But don't be so impulsive next time."

"Senior, take a breath." Luo Jun took out Qi Storage Spirit Stone. It could hold two hundred Breath Vital Energy, which was useless to him, but for ordinary Cultivators, carrying one with them meant they wouldn't have to worry about consuming Yuan Qi.

"Thank you." Sun Xiaowei didn't stand on ceremony, took it and took a puff, her complexion noticeably improved.

"Wow, Senior has a huge capacity!" Luo Jun took it back and saw that 70% of the Spirit Stone's energy had been depleted, which was more than most people's total energy.

"Maintaining stable creations consumes a lot of vital energy," Old Yuan explained. "To become a powerful Creation Faction, one must have sufficient reserves of vital energy. Xiao Zhen and her husband both possess exceptionally high spirituality, so their granddaughter will certainly not be lacking in talent either."

Hearing Old Yuan's praise, Sun Xiaowei proudly tilted her head back. "Although I'm only at the fourth level of the Body Refinement Realm, my Qi Quantity has already exceeded four hundred!"

This is indeed a remarkable talent. Luo Jun had met her before, and in his judgment, Sun Xiaowei's Innate Potential was not high, at most no more than 1.5 times that of an ordinary person. To have such a high level of temperament at the fourth level of the Body Refinement Realm, her spirituality is probably no less than that of Lao Miao Miao!

Anyway, the bracelet was finally retrieved, and after confirmation, it was indeed the Hundred Treasure Box. The insects seemed to be bound by some rules, unable to leave the Dead Alley. After eating Xiao Hei, they shrunk back inside, burrowing back under the skeleton's clothes.

"How do we use this now?" Ma Qiao asked. "Should we try making a Noble Phantasm first?"

"Don't rush," Old Yuan suggested. "We don't lack magical artifacts right now. The real problem in this maze is supplies. Besides, teleportation and hints are very useful functions. Let's bring them along for now and deal with any issues that arise."

The group put away the bracelets and continued on their way. They encountered many more forks in the road, and each time they had to choose randomly. They also went up two flights of stairs. According to their calculations, they should now be three floors above their initial room.

Three hours passed in the blink of an eye. After turning a corner, the group arrived at a spacious room.

This room was different from the previous ones. When they entered this room, the door behind them suddenly disappeared, replaced by a seamless wall.

Looking ahead, although there were five doors in the room, they were not open doorways, but closed doors.

Each door is four or five meters high and more than three meters wide, looking heavy and sturdy, with bolts inserted in them.

"What does this mean?" Sun Xiaowei asked curiously.

"Look up," Ma Qiao reminded them. Everyone looked up and saw a rule written on the ceiling.

The Hall of Choice: The Hall of Choice has five doors. Once one door is opened, the other four will disappear. Each opened door can only remain open for one minute, after which it will automatically close and disappear, becoming a wall. Each door leads to a different path, and a special event will occur not far behind each door, corresponding to "Relic," "Shop," "Monster," "Mechanism," and "Teleportation," respectively. Please choose carefully.

Special events?

After reading the description of the Hall of Choice, everyone looked at the five doors around them.

"So, each door corresponds to one of these five encounters, right?" Sun Xiaowei said. "It seems like shops and relics are definitely safer... Monsters and traps are out of the question, and as for teleportation, who knows where we'll end up?"

"We can't decide what to choose." Ma Qiao glanced around. "These five doors look exactly the same."

"It still depends on luck..." Luo Jun looked at Old Yuan: "Did Caroline mention any information about the Hall of Choice?"

Old Yuan shook his head. "Chaos Mission are also constantly evolving. The same mission may evolve new mechanisms after a few years. Caroline came out of the Endless Maze more than ten years ago, and her exploration of the maze was also very limited. It's normal that she encountered things she had never seen before."

"What about the shop?" Luo Jun asked. "Did she mention how the shop exchanges goods?"

It seems that Old Yuan did not mention this point when he shared information with everyone before.

The error-free version can be read at 69 Book Bar! 6=9+shuba is the first site to publish this novel.

"The shops should have had them back then, but they were very rare. Caroline said she had never encountered one," Old Yuan explained.

Well... Luo Jun looked at the five doors. The dice were finally going to come in handy, but the question was which one to choose.

The relics are definitely useful, the key is the shop; I don't know what I can buy there, or what to use to buy it...

"Then how do we choose?" Sun Xiaowei said, "They're all the same door, so we can only push any one, right?"

"Let's leave it to fate." Luo Jun took out the small pistol again. "Let it spin on the ground, and whichever door the muzzle is closest to, we'll push it open."

With no other choice, everyone agreed. Luo Jun placed the pistol on the ground and activated the Dice of Heavenly Secrets.

"Point to the door leading to the store!"

In the end, he still chose the store. Even if he couldn't buy it right away, at least he could remember the location and come back to use it when he had the chance.

"Ding! Event Difficulty 81 points, Final Points 37 + 5 points, Event Failed."

Unexpectedly, the highest possible roll on the dice was only in the thirties, leaving him extremely unlucky. Calculating the time, it should be refreshing soon, Luo Jun activated his Regret and rolled again.

This time, a pair of 51 points and a pair of 87 points finally came out successfully.

As the beep sounded, Luo Jun spun his pistol. After a dozen seconds, he stopped, the muzzle pointing diagonally between the two doors, but clearly closer to one of them.

"This one will do!" Luo Jun took the lead, walked up, unlatched the door, and pushed open the heavy door.

At the same time, the other four doors in the room disappeared.

Looking out through the open door, there was a corridor in front, and about several dozen meters away there was a corner, and you couldn't see what was behind it.

The door could only be open for one minute, so the four of them hurried through. Then the door closed behind them, and they disappeared.

The group had no choice but to continue forward. After turning a corner, they found themselves in what was still a deep, dark corridor.

This Endless Maze is quite peculiar. Although there is no visible light source, the maze remains sufficiently bright. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the walls, floor, and ceiling emit a hazy fluorescence that illuminates the entire maze. However, the intensity of this fluorescence is limited, only ensuring visibility of about a hundred meters. Distant objects seem to be shrouded in a dark mist, making them impossible to see clearly.

Therefore, even in a straight corridor, you won't know what's ahead until you walk up it.

The group walked several hundred meters down the corridor when they suddenly saw a fork in the road ahead. They became alert and carefully went forward to investigate. They found that the fork was about ten meters deep, and at the end of it was a small, closed window with a tattered signboard hanging above it that read "Endless Shop".

"A store?" Sun Xiaowei exclaimed excitedly, "What great luck!"

"Don't let your guard down," Old Yuan reminded him. "It might be some kind of trap or scheme... I'll go check it out; you all wait here."

Only Luo Jun knew for sure that this was a real store, so he didn't stop them.

Then, Old Yuan walked up, knocked on the window, and the window opened, revealing a chubby face with a small mustache.

"A customer? Welcome! This is the Endless Shop. How can I help you?"

"So it really is a shop?" Old Yuan asked curiously. "What do you sell here, and how do you pay for it?"

"I have everything here. You can see the product list for details." With that, the man with the mustache handed over a booklet. "Everything listed here is sold in our store, with clearly marked prices."

When Old Yuan opened it, he found that it contained everything from food supplies to weapons and equipment, each with a price tag, mostly ranging from tens to hundreds of yuan. Scrolling further, he found items costing several thousand yuan or even more.

"Where did the money on this come from?" Old Yuan asked.

"If you don't have money, you can exchange it for treasures. Different levels and qualities have different prices," the mustachioed merchant chuckled. "The Hundred Treasure Box you find in the labyrinth can also be exchanged for money, one thousand coins each. You can also get currency by killing monsters, opening treasure chests, and solving puzzles."

"I see..." Old Yuan nodded. "I'll discuss it with my colleagues."

"Sure." The merchant smiled and nodded. "But the Endless Shop won't stay in one place forever. I'll be here for a maximum of one hour. If you want to buy something, you'd better gather enough money within an hour."

(End of this chapter)