‘It’s below us again.’

Red looked at his feet, but all he saw was the cold, hard stone ground. A few seconds later, though, even more fluctuations entered his detection range. One of them was, in particular, far stronger than ordinary. In the boy’s memory, the only fluctuation stronger than that belonged to Hector.

‘Another being in the Lesser Ring Realm?’

He continued to focus on this fluctuation, trying to discern anything out of the ordinary. Soon enough, though, these signals disappeared. Red hesitated, but returned to the group in the end.

“Did you find anything?” Rog asked.

“A few things, but I don’t know how much help they will be.” Red said.

“Well, it’s better than nothing.” the hunter shrugged.

“Like you claimed, we are indeed in an illusion of some sort. This…” the boy hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Ability of mine can detect signals from other people, and depending on how far you are from me, the stronger the signal.”

“Of course!” Rog slapped the top of his head in realization. “That’s why you wanted to walk away, right?”

Red nodded.

“And what did you find out?” Rimold asked, hurrying him along.

“We are walking in circles. More specifically, we are walking back and forth in a fifty meter long path.”

The boy explained how he arrived at this conclusion, as well as how he could feel the presence of his companions right next to him but couldn’t touch them.

“H-How’s that possible?” Allen asked with a fearful look in his eyes.

“It’s an illusion, kid.” Rog shook his head. “It can block out everything we feel from the real world and replace it with whatever it wants. We might be touching and doing things in here, while in real life we’re just walking around like idiots doing something completely different.”

“T-Then… Could our conversation we’re having not be real either?” the young master’s eyes widened in fear.

The hunter smiled. “I doubt it. Even an illusion couldn’t simulate your look of fear this well.”

“You’re still in the mood to joke?! We’re still stuck here!” Rimold said, interrupting their conversation. He looked over at Red. “Can you use your power to break us out of here?”

Red shook his head.

“So in the end, we’re still stuck in here!” the rogue threw his hands up in defeat. He stared at the boy with hostility. “What a great help you were!”

The youth ignored his taunting. “There is something we’ve missed, though.”

“W-What is it?” Allen looked over at Red with hope in his eyes.

“If the others have all passed through this tunnel, shouldn’t they have been stuck in the same illusion too?”

At his words, the entire group fell silent.

“That’s a good question.” Rog scratched his beard. “Maybe they found a way out?”

“Could they?” Red shook his head. “Neither Narcha nor Eiwin have opened their Spiritual Sea, so they wouldn’t have been able to break this formation either.”

“Maybe there’s something we missed…” the hunter examined the surrounding tunnel. “A key to breaking the illusion inside of the illusion itself.”

“Why would they put a way to break the illusion inside the illusion?” Rimold said with a scoff. “Cultivators don’t do that unless they are… Unless they are…” the man trailed off, a frown forming on his face.

“Making a test.” Rog completed his sentence, the smile on his face widening.

“T-That’s absurd!” the rogue shook his head. “There are other explanations for this! You’re just obsessed with the idea!”

“It would make sense, though! A tunnel network suddenly appearing out of nowhere, entrances hidden by formations… This has to be an inheritance ground of a powerful cultivator!”

“What do you mean by that?” Red asked. The hunter’s words confused him.

“You don’t know about it, kid?” Rog looked surprised.

“Should I?” the boy frowned.

“Everyone knows about it! Inheritance grounds are places that powerful cultivators set up when they’re close to dying where they put all their treasures and techniques, hoping to find a worthy successor after they pass away! It’s a treasure trove!”

“Stop over simplifying it!” Rimold still looked angry at Rog. “Inheritance grounds might have lots of treasures, but they are also extremely dangerous places! People only ever remember the cultivators that won it all in these tombs, and not the hundreds of victims who died in the process! Inheritance grounds are nothing more than massive graveyards for greedy fools!”

‘An inheritance ground?’

These explanations somewhat clarified the situation to Red, but it still left him confused on a few matters.

“Why would a cultivator set up an inheritance for after they’re dead?” the boy asked. “Couldn’t they find a worthy successor while they’re alive?”

“It’s not that simple, kid.” Rog shook his head. “A lot of cultivators never take disciples, focusing on their own cultivation for their entire life. When they are close to death and unable to progress any further, though, they are unwilling to see all their knowledge and treasures forgotten, so they start thinking about a successor. By that point, though, it’s too late to raise a disciple, and even harder to find one they’re satisfied with before they die.”

Red followed his logic. “So they try to take a disciple after they’re dead?”

“More or less.” the hunter nodded. “They set up a bunch of trials to their preference as a way of judging the candidates. The person who passes all of them will end up inheriting that cultivator’s techniques and treasures.”

“And are those trials dangerous?”

“Sometimes.” Rog shrugged. “But if you win, then you hit the jackpot!”

“And have you won any?”

“Uh, no…”

“… Have you actually ever been in a one of these inheritance grounds?”

“Well… I heard a lot about them!”

The youth was starting to get a clearer picture of the situation. Before he could make any other questions, though, Rimold interrupted them.

“This is not the time for this conversation!” the rogue said with an ugly look on his face. “Even if this is an inheritance ground, we still need to figure out how to break through this illusion first!”

No one protested against Rimold’s words.

“We should keep walking.” Red suggested an idea. “Maybe there is a hint along the tunnel walls, or something of the sort.”

Rimold frowned, but still nodded.

The group resumed their walk down the endless tunnel. This time, however, they took their time examining every crevice in the wall and on the ground, under the light of their torches.

Their careful examination of the tunnel lasted for almost an hour, in which Allen was the only one suggesting any ideas. Too many ideas, one might say.

“Look, is that a symbol?!” Allen point at a spot on the wall.

“That’s just a crack in the wall.” Red shook his head.

“Ah, I see.” the young master hung his head low in disappointment. “Ah! What about-”

“That’s another crack.”

The others all remained silent, looking for any clues in their surroundings as they continued walking down the endless tunnel. After another hour had passed, though, their frustration became evident by their troubled looks.

“There’s nothing here, goddamnit!” Rimold threw his torch against the ground in anger. He looked over at Rog. “Why did we ever listen to you?! You’ve always been like this, reckless to a fault! But now you’ve gone and got all of us involved in it!”

“Me?” the hunter frowned. “I didn’t make you come along. You chose to do it.”

“Like I had any choice, you dirty bastard!”

Rimold looked on the verge of coming to blows with Rog. Allen, however, stepped between them before anything could happen..

“S-Stop fighting!” the boy exclaimed. “It won’t help us!”

“I’m not the one who’s fighting.” Rog shrugged. “Tell that to him.”

“Y-You’re provoking him, Rog!” Allen frowned, trying to invoke some kind of authority to his tone, even in his frightened state. He turned to look at Rimold. “A-And you, Rimold! You’ve been like this since we met earlier today! I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but this is not how I remember you being!”

The rogue gritted his teeth and looked away in embarrassment. Still, he refused to back down. “It’s not my fault, young master! Everything has gone wrong since I found you in that forest! They’ve been putting your life in danger!”

“B-Be that as it may, it’s still no reason to fight! We need to figure out a way out of this!” Allen’s gaze turned to Red, looking for support. “R-Right, Red?!”

“Hm?” the boy, who had been silent since the altercation began, looked surprised. “Me?”

“Y-Yeah, don’t you agree with me?”

Red shook his head. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Allen looked on the verge of a breakdown at the youth’s words. The youth noticed the young master’s expression, though, and quickly thought of something to say.

“If this is really a trial, this might be an endurance test.” he suggested. “It might have been created to see how far we can go without giving up.”

“Hmph, that’s a long shot and you know it!” Rimold said with a scoff at his words.

“Still, everyone else who entered before us did pass it, didn’t they? Or else we would have met them here in the same tunnel and I would have sensed them in our vicinity with my powers.”

The rogue frowned, unable to argue against his suggestion.

Red continued. “Eiwin and Narcha are also very smart, but I can’t imagine they would have had an easier time than us with figuring this out. In the end, this might just be a matter of waiting and keep walking forward until the answer reveals itself.”

‘It’s our only choice, after all.’

The boy left this thought unsaid.

“Y-Yeah, Red is right!” Allen nodded. “If the others did it, so can we!”

“Good point, kid!” Rog gave Red a thumbs up. “If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what would have happened to us.”

“If it wasn’t for him, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.” Rimold said from the side.

“Rimold!” Allen looked over at the man with an angry glare

“Fine, fine! Let’s just do as the brat says, okay?!” the rogue massaged his temple in frustration.

“But first…” Rog interrupted them. “We should settle down to eat something.”

“In here?” Rimold frowned.

“Where else? I mean, this has already taken hours. Who knows how much longer this might last? Days? Months? Are you still going to refuse to eat by then?”

“If this lasts for months, I would rather end myself here and now!”

‘Hm?’

These words piqued Red’s attention.

Rog ignored Rimold’s protests and started to set a blanket on the ground and putting his supplies over it.

Allen approached the hunter to help him, but he had a concerned expression. “Is the food we eat here even going to end up in our bellies in the real world?”

“Stop talking, kid!” Rog stuffed a piece of bread into the boy’s hands. “Just eat!”

In the meantime, Red was considering what Rimold had just said, as well as Rog’s explanations from earlier. He was reminded of his own dreams at that point.

‘Could it be the only way to escape this illusion is to… Kill myself?’

This was obviously a huge assumption, but the boy felt that thinking along those lines could yield some results. After all, they had yet to judge how the illusion would deal to any of them suffering harm in this simulated world.

Would that be reflected in real life? If it wasn’t, what would happen if Red tried to kill himself? How would the illusion deal with that?

He didn’t know necessarily, but he needed to do something. He took out a knife from his pocket.

In the meantime, Allen finally looked over at him. “Hey, Red, aren’t you going to join… WHAT ARE YOU-”

At that exact moment, Red slashed his forearm open.