Fifth Floor of the Inn.
Jiang Qiao came out of the stairwell and entered another corridor.
The decor here seemed no different from downstairs, but when he looked ahead, he found the distant end of the corridor blurred and unreal.
It was like a short passage with a giant photograph placed at the far end.
From a distance, if one did not look closely, one would think the corridor was naturally that long.
But the problem was this.
The corridor looked fake from afar, yet once someone truly walked over there, it would become real. This state of alternating illusion and reality, almost like Minecraft, was enough to leave most Awakened utterly baffled.
"The door is gone."
Jiang Qiao glanced behind him. The emergency passage through which he had entered the corridor had disappeared.
Only a wall covered in golden tiles remained.
His Dual Pupils could see through it, but there was nothing inside—only emptiness and a hollow void. There was no staircase leading downward. So if his guess was correct, that passage had only been a one-way staircase. It could lead up, but not down.
If he had chosen to turn back while on the stairs, he might have fallen into the maze as well and been unable to return safely to the Fourth Floor.
"Good enough."
"If there really weren't any differences, then what would be the point of coming up here?"
He looked around.
Jiang Qiao raised a finger and traced lightly through the air.
He left behind an obscure spell as a marker.
He wanted to see how often this corridor would update and erase traces that did not belong to the inn.
Once he had done that,
he began walking toward the front of the corridor.
After he had gone some distance, the hazy, seemingly