The female mercenary looked at all this with some confusion. Yuffie and Yudina looked at each other, and the Elna wizard spread his hands, seeming to confirm the girl's idea.
"This is a secret entrance, but because it has not been used for too long, the activation circle has expired." Yuffie turned to the machine man with a bitter smile, "Alphonse, could you please blow up the ground here?"
The agency man nodded in agreement. He pointed his palm towards the ground and motioned for everyone to take a few steps back.
Green flames flowed out from the silver-white fingers and fell onto the cracked floor tiles. Wherever the light touched, the ground quickly turned into powder and disappeared into the air.
A vertical hole nearly one meter in diameter extended downward. Suddenly, the green in the air dimmed, and Alphonse withdrew his right hand and nodded to Yuffie.
Everyone approached together. Lily looked around and saw only a pit more than ten meters deep, with the end hidden in a mass of darkness. She withdrew her gaze.
"If nothing happens, it's a good thing." Yuffie waved her hand, letting the light source lower from the entrance of the cave, and then cast a simple spell for herself and the other people, "I'm sorry to trouble you, Lin."
The blonde girl responded and jumped into the pit first. As if something was holding her body, she was slowly dropped to the end of the pit. She looked around carefully and waved her hand upward to indicate that everything was safe.
Lily and the others jumped down one after another, but Bell remained at the last one. Below the pit was a room about five meters square. There seemed to be a complex circular magic circle carved on the ground. The whole room was almost spotless.
"...I can't feel anyone's presence at all." Lily sniffed the air and wiped her fingers across the smooth ground, "But it's too clean here, isn't it?"
"Because dust and some external substances can interfere with research, this place should have the function of cleaning visitors' bodies, but now it is also ineffective." Yuffie walked to the closed door of the room, confirmed that there was no trap, and gently turned the handle
, "Welcome to the Wizarding Research Institute two hundred years ago."
The originally closed silver door opened, and scorching air rushed in, causing the temperature of the room to rise instantly. The air still carried a faint smell of sulfur, and although it was still silent, it seemed to be in another world in an instant. It was as smooth as a mirror.
The corridor is filled with dark red light, leading to the far corner.
Lily felt her heart beat a little faster. The hunter's instinct told her that there might be a powerful enemy here. This made her a little nervous and even more excited.
"It's the pure magic power of the fire elemental world." Lin pointed to the corridor in front of her, "The escaped magic power has reached this intensity. How big a trick have they done?"
"So we must be careful." The Erna wizard looked grave. "This may be the power the other party borrowed through the ritual, but the caster's ability is probably better than mine."
Lily nodded and continued to walk ahead with the machine man. They slowed down slightly, giving Yuffie enough time to confirm whether the passage ahead was safe. There were closed doors scattered on both sides of the passage, and Yuffie stopped at the nearest one.
In front of the door, he carefully checked the traps and mechanisms on the door.
"Same as before, it has failed." She sighed, "I don't know if it is because of time or drastic environmental changes... Even magic has its limits."
Lily didn't care about the girl's sighs. She pushed the door open and found that the inside was spacious and clean. The platform about one meter high was filled with various bottles and cans, as well as instruments that she couldn't see the use of. Beside it was a platform that was about one meter high.
There are many sealed transparent jars or dark brown vials on the shelves, which contain liquids of different colors.
"Hmm... I don't understand it at all." She tried to read the labels on the bottles and jars, and found that they were all words she couldn't understand at all. "Yuffie, Lin, and Yudina, why don't you come over and take a look?
"
The three wizards came forward, spent a short time inspecting the entire room, and exchanged opinions with each other. Then they each took a few bottles and cans from the shelves and put them into the small bags on their waists.
"Most of them are reagents for neutralization, and there are also some finished products... However, they are basically past the expiration date." Lin said as she opened a small bottle, licked it with her tongue, and then spit it out with a grimace.
"The light potion was supposed to be orange-flavored... but this bottle turned out to be salty! As expected, it's better to forget it's for drinking..."
They did not check here too carefully. Even if there was no longer a patrol team of demons, the time left for them was still limited. The team continued to move forward, roughly checking a few rooms of little significance, and then opened a large two-door door.
Stop in front of the door.
"The door is protected so that it can only be opened from this side - and it is still in effect." After checking, Yuffie said with certainty, "There may be dangerous things inside. Do you want to go in and take a look?"
"Let's go?" the female mercenary said nonchalantly, "We are all here, there is nothing to worry about."
The pink girl hummed and put her hand on the center of the door. Since it was not a trap or a seal, it didn't take long to remove it. She stepped back a few steps and signaled that Lily's door could be opened.
Lily held the giant sword in one hand and pushed the door open with her other hand. As the door silently turned inward, a smell that seemed to have accumulated for hundreds of years and was so bad that it was indescribable hit her face, making her endure.
I couldn't help but cover my nose and took two steps back.
The space behind the door is quite vast, with large and small iron cages scattered all around, most of which have been distorted to the point of not resembling their original form. Dark purple marks are scattered on the ground, as well as bones belonging to various creatures, from which she can barely recognize dogs, monkeys,
Sheep and human skulls—many more so mutilated that they were difficult to identify.
There are several tables about waist high in the center of the room. Some are just big enough for a person to lie down on, while others are much wider. There are silver-white shackles hanging on both sides of the table, which are obviously used to fix something on them.
The walls and floor are covered with traces of battles of varying depths. Some are caused by spells and have gradually faded over time; others are pits from impacts and scratches left by sharp claws. Most of the traces are very shallow.
, which made several of the claw marks particularly conspicuous - they were grouped in groups of four, thirty centimeters wide, and carved parallel lines on the wall that were five centimeters deep and nearly one meter long.
The female mercenary swung her sword towards the wall, making a loud bang. She used nearly half of her strength, but only a faint white mark was left on the wall.
"This is the biological laboratory of the White Tower wizard..." Lin walked to her side, lowered her eyebrows, and looked at the indoor scene, "For their own research, wizards can become enemies of any living thing. In the "Code of Biological Experiments"
"Two hundred years ago before it was completed, the content of the experiment may only be more excessive - be careful!"
Before they finished speaking, a huge translucent figure appeared in front of the two of them and quickly turned into a physical form - as if it was originally hidden in the air and only revealed its form at the moment of launching the attack.
It raised its thick left arm, and its four sharp claws, which seemed to be forged from metal, shone with cold light, tore open the air, and swung straight towards Lily's chest and abdomen with lightning speed.