"Sorry for not be believing in you earlier," Leilani said with a guilty look on her face. The others share the same feeling as her. If they had believed in his words, they wouldn't have wasted time going around in circles.

"No problem. I am not going to blame you guys for what happened. It's not like anyone could've known that this forest is like a maze. Let's forget about it and move on." Vincent said, pacifying the situation with his words.

"All right." Nevis said, "Buddies, what should we do now?"

"Hmm, how about splitting up in three pairs and going out in different directions? Let's see what happens then?"

"Sounds okay to me," Vincent said, agreeing with John. The others didn't have a better plan, so they decided to follow along with him for now instead of wasting time trying to come up with something to solve the mystery of the forest.

They split up, creating three groups. Leilani and Vincent went west. Varth and Nevis dashed towards the north side of the forest. John and Iris headed south. After a while of wandering around the beautiful forest and admiring its beauty, Vincent and Leilani saw the silhouette of a few people who happens to be only several meters away from them. They ran towards them in a hurry, calling out their names and got a shout in return. Turns out that they were their teammates and not some strangers, and this led them to believe that no matter which direction they head towards, they would always come back to this place.

"I think this is some kind of a starting point in the Mysterious Violet Forest, and we are going to get send back to this place by whatever's in the forest," John said, feeling a bit cleared about this place.

"Indeed, it's as he says. Take a look behind you," Varth said, telling them to take a look behind their back and they saw a few spider-like devices crawling out from behind the trees, happily climbing up Varth's shoulder.

"These are?" Nevis asked in a somewhat surprised voice as this was his first time seeing such a thing.

"My tracking and scouting devices," Varth replied before his eye narrowed down to reveal a glint of seriousness. "Even they didn't manage to find out what's going on here and instead got fooled by the forest to come back to this starting point. I think there's some kind of magic being used here to not only fool our sense of direction but also mess with the functions of my devices."

They continued to try different methods. They used threads, attaching one end on their bodies and another on the trees, but somehow still ended up at the starting point. They took to the top of the trees, jumping from one to another. However, they still somehow ended up returning to the starting point. They even chopped off a few trees in the starting point and along the way, but they only returned back to the same place to see that the tree has somehow mysteriously grown back to its original size. Even using abilities to destroy the forest and force their way to the castle proved to be useless, further devastating them.

Is this the end of our journey?

They didn't want to think that but only a few hours were left before the end of the trial. Yet, they didn't know what to do, and couldn't come up with a single plan to solve the mysteries of the forest.

"Guys, wait for here for a while," Vincent suddenly said, and they stopped at the starting point.

"Do you have a plan?" Leilani asked as her eyes brightened in the light of hope, thinking that he might have a way to help them out of this place.

Vincent nodded with a calm expression on his face and told them that he needed to confirm something before he can say a word.

"Blood, use energy sense to project a map of this entire forest," Vincent said in his mind, ready to sacrifice his hard-earned units of life force to complete the trial.

‹ Are you sure? It will cost more than a few hundred units of life force to project a map of this entire place in your head ›

Blood words hurt his heart, but he agreed nonetheless, and that too with a smile. After all, he could earn life force by completing tasks and killing others, but he wouldn't be able to find a treasure trove like this once again.

After he consented to the use of the energy sense spell matrix, the heirloom of his family activated it. Vincent trembled a bit as a lot of intangible and invisible burst forth from his body, permeating Into the surroundings and stretching outwards towards all four directions, touching and passing through thousands of trees, purple mushrooms, and very mysterious things.

‹ 1000 experience points consumed to project a map of this place in owner's mind ›

Vincent's eyes suddenly glistened in a mystical light before the glow vanished in the blink of an eye, and an image of this entire place popped up in his mind. The map showed a lot of trees, a lot of mushrooms, and a lot of vines, and everything they have seen so far, but it also highlighted several hundreds of walls scattered all over this place, placed in different turns and near thousands of trees.

"I will be going ahead for a bit! Don't move from this place and wait for my return!" Vincent said out loud, charging ahead with an incredible speed, passing by several trees in the blink of an eye.

He followed the map in his mind, purposely avoiding all of the invisible walls in his way, and saw that he was indeed making progress and reaching closer to the castle in the distance.

"Turns out these walls that are invisible to our eyes and nearly everywhere in the Mysterious Violet Forest has been playing with us all along," Vincent scoffed, mocking himself.

He jumped into one of the walls and returned to the starting point.

"Alright, I have solved the mysteries of the forest!" He exclaimed smilingly, walking up to the others who were resting on the ground.

"What did you find?"

"Ninety percent of the paths ahead of the starting point are laced with some kind of magical invisible walls and passing through one sends us back to this place. Simply put, we'll never be able to reach the castle unless we evade all of them."

The young boys and girls turned to look at him with an expression of awe on their faces. How did he manage to find that out? Even they weren't able to understand what's actually wrong with this place! Thank God we have him with us, otherwise reaching the castle would have been a pipe dream.

However, it is still a pipe dream!

"Doesn't that mean there's a very little chance of us taking the right turn till we reach the castle," Varth said, thinking that it is next to impossible to not pass through walls they can not see, feel, or even sense.

As soon as he said those words, the expression of the others fell once again. After all, they realized that it is still pretty impossible to complete the trial.

"I know where the walls are though, so just follow after me and we will reach the Castle in no time!" Vincent exclaimed, and they cheered up in an instant before moving closely behind him.