Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 261 - 16 Crazy Alice

Chapter 261: Chapter 16 Crazy Alice

Once they reached the source of the light, they saw that Xu Guanlin, Han Zifeng and three others were already waiting outside the room, all with expressions of defeated anger and unwillingness on their faces.

"What the hell is this? It’s obviously sending people to their deaths," Xu Guanlin said frustratedly, pounding the wall and then sitting down against it.

"Geez, it stinks. What happened to these people? Why aren’t they moving?" Zhang Hao asked, covering his nose and looking at the room ahead, before recoiling in shock and stepping back.

The room was a subterranean space with a large swimming pool. However, instead of being filled with clean water, the pool was filled with viscous light green venom, continuously bubbling like boiling magma. Fist-sized bubbles rose to the surface only to burst a moment later, releasing volleys of foul-smelling, green gas that rose into the air.

The Poisonous Pool was about three hundred meters in length and a hundred meters in width. There were no paths or floorways. Instead, thirty bowl-sized chains stretched across towards an iron gate on the other side, which was clearly the exit.

Tang Zheng looked up, the ceiling hovered about twenty meters above the floor, and chains dangled from the high ceiling. The room was dimly lit by torches mounted on the wall brackets.

"The liquid in the pool is corrosive. Xiao Li accidentally fell in earlier, and within less than a minute, he was reduced to bones and disappeared without a trace," Xu Guanlin sighed, pointing to the other side, "Trying to cross this three hundred meters length is impossible. No matter what kind of position we try, without a tool, we will lose our strength and fall within thirty meters. That is a certain death."

"Moreover, once you start to cross the Poison Liquid Pool, there is no turning back. Hanging there to rest or waiting for death it’s basically the same." Han Zifeng, a student with exceptional physical strength, stared at the smooth chains feeling his scalp tingle. "We’ve also been starving for nearly a day, and walked for more than twenty kilometres. We’re already exhausted."

"Walking on them is difficult, and running out of strength halfway is the key issue." Lin Weiguo inspected the chains, his face turned grave. "I brought some carabiners and mountaineering ropes, but they’re useless against these chains. We could possibly make a hanging basket but the basket would be too close to the venom pool, only about a meter of height to spare which is a torture just thinking about it."

"Yes, I’ve seen the method you were referring to. You tie the ends of a climbing rope to carabiners and make two simple loops on the chains. Then you can step onto the rope like you’re on a swing, thus saving the energy of lifting your body with your arms. But it’s hard to maintain balance, and if you aren’t careful, you’re likely to fall. Even more, someone greased the chains with yellow oil, and now can’t even fix the loop." Tang Zheng, who had thought of several methods for crossing the venom pool when he saw the chains, ended up rejecting all of them. They were too risky.

"So what are we going to do? There’s a monster chasing us, remember?" Pang Meiqin looked nervously into the dark passage behind them, then wore a look of disappointment. She knew she definitely couldn’t cross those chains.

Han Zifeng and the others panicked, standing up and looking behind them. Two of the students took a few steps toward the chains, but remembering how Xiao Li had met his end in the poison pool, they turned pale and stopped in their tracks.

"Take the time to rest," Tang Zheng was out of options and began searching the walls around the entrance for other mechanisms.

"We’ve looked everywhere," Xu Guanlin sighed, giving up. "There’s simply no way across. If I had known this would happen, I would have been working out every day. Han Zifeng, I’m really envious of you."

"Bullshit!! Even Superman would have to fly. Honestly falling into the pool is inevitable if we’re relying on crawling." Han Zifeng, clutching his hair, was panicking. He didn’t want to die in a place like this.

"Brother Tang, can you make it with your strength?" Bai Guo believed that Tang Zheng should be fine.

"Yeah, you should have about eight times the strength of an adult now, right?" Zhang Hao recalled Tang Zheng’s enhancement direction, practically dying of envy. "Most people who enter the room choose to enhance their neural response speed, depending on agility to survive. But you chose to enhance your endurance instead. It’s like a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse."

"I should be fine, it’s you guys that I’m worried about," Tang Zheng couldn’t just leave by himself. "Think carefully. There must be a way."

Hearing that he’d be fine, Zhang Hao and the others were seething with jealousy why should they all die while he got to live.

Another grueling hour passed by. Tang Zheng and the others were still without a solution. However, students trickled in from the passage. Their faces were full of panic. When they caught sight of the light and the human shapes in front of them, they wept with extreme joy, thinking that they were saved.

"A total of twenty-three people have arrived."

After three hours, Lin Weiguo counted the number of people. Hearing this number, the students all looked down, some of them expressing their deep sorrow.

"Minus the thirteen who died in the Coliseum, that means almost ten people died in the passage," Tang Zheng scanned the students and saw no visible wounds on them. He was confused. "Did you see any monsters chasing after you in the tunnel?"

The students shook their heads. They were too focused on running.

"What do you think it was? Useful information can be exchanged for a piece of chocolate." Tang Zheng knew they were too tired to think and tried to incentivize them with a reward.