Free Web NovelChapter 30: Chapter 30: Hidden Easter Egg
After a hurried breakfast, Mo Ning didn’t linger in the cafeteria.
He quickly left the sparkling underwater world and re-entered the Secret Hall of the Secluded Forest.
The moment he stepped inside, his eyes were drawn to one thing—the Secret Gate.
There, where the floor tiles had once been, was a hole in the ground two meters in diameter.
Visually, the hole was bizarre.
Although the opening was flush with the floor tiles, it gave the impression that it was bulging upward.
Mo Ning paused, his mind subconsciously whirring. ’Is this Witchcraft distorting light to create a visual anomaly? No, it can’t be that simple...’
He had a nagging feeling that something was off, but with his limited knowledge, he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Getting closer, he saw that the hole was dim inside, revealing a stone staircase that extended downward to some unknown place.
Every few steps, a dim sconce on the left wall barely illuminated the passage’s outline.
Just then, one of the newcomers began to descend the stairs.
The instant his right foot touched the first step, his body abruptly turned ethereal. Like a reflection cast on disturbed water, his form blurred and dispersed, vanishing into the darkness in the blink of an eye.
He didn’t walk down the stairs.
It was more like he was swallowed by them.
Mo Ning’s pupils constricted slightly, but he said nothing.
He walked over to the Secret Gate and queued up silently behind a few other newcomers, waiting for his turn to enter.
While waiting in line, he focused his mind.
The diamond-shaped lattice of light woven from the Threads of Truth reappeared, silently unfurling to cover the area of the Secret Gate.
His intention was merely to observe the fluctuations in Magic Power. Since the Secret Gate had just opened, the residual energy should still be active, and he might be able to capture some valuable information.
The luminous net expanded rapidly, each Thread of Truth beginning to capture the faintest ripples of Magic Power.
The next moment, Mo Ning’s breath hitched.
Two halos of light had appeared on the net.
One of them was larger, about the size of a fist, corresponding to the area of the Secret Gate.
The other, however, was incredibly faint—even dimmer than the glow of a firefly.
It corresponded to another floor tile, about three meters from the Secret Gate.
If the Demon-Seeking Net had just swept by quickly as it did before, it would have been impossible to detect these Magic Power ripples.
Only by performing a focused scan was he able to detect the anomaly.
Mo Ning was momentarily stunned.
’What is this?’
He glanced at the floor tile. It had a gray, stony surface, and its edges were perfectly seamless with the surrounding tiles. There were no markings on it at all.
If not for the Demon-Seeking Net, he never would have given it a second glance.
A flurry of theories instantly ran through Mo Ning’s mind. ’Is this another Secret Gate? A mechanism to control the first one? Or maybe a hidden easter egg left by the academy?’
At his mental command, the Demon-Seeking Net zipped over to the surface of the second floor tile and began to vibrate at a specific frequency.
The halo of light on the net began to flicker in response.
The Demon-Seeking Net recorded every last bit of information.
By analyzing the recorded Magic Power fluctuation patterns, supplemented by extensive Secret Divination and Divination calculations, one could, to a certain extent, deduce the corresponding Spirit Seal structure. This was reverse-engineering!
Or, to put it simply, back-tracing.
Cracking a Witchcraft mechanism through reverse-engineering was the "proper" way for a Wizard to operate—and also the safest method of doing so.
Recklessly trying to dismantle something by hand and risking your neck, as someone like Sitt might, was the method of Ancient Wizards.
Mo Ning tried issuing a command. ’Reverse-engineer the Secret Gate!’
An ethereal eyeball—the Eye of Truth—materialized from nothing, the halo in its pupil flashing repeatedly.
The analysis began.
Two seconds later.
Mo Ning was met with a disappointing result.
Insufficient Magic Power fluctuation data. Insufficient database accumulation. Analysis cannot be completed.
He immediately realized this was likely an assessment the academy had prepared for newcomers later on—something beyond their current capabilities.
At this point, the newcomers ahead of him had already entered the Secret Gate.
It was his turn.
Mo Ning reined in his wandering thoughts and stepped onto the staircase.
The Demon-Seeking Net continued to vibrate. As long as he didn’t exceed its maximum range, the Secret Technique could operate remotely.
The instant his right foot touched the first step, a faint sense of weightlessness washed over him, and the world before his eyes began to blur.
A moment later.
The world snapped back into focus.
Mo Ning blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the sudden change.
When the scene before him finally solidified, he was taken aback.
He was on a small mountain peak.
Not a hall or a basement, but a real mountain peak, standing beneath the night sky.
The sky was completely dark. This wasn’t the manufactured twilight of the Witchcraft-shrouded Secluded Forest, but a true night sky.
It was ink-black, without a single star or moon in sight.
A biting night wind howled past, carrying the distinct scent of the wild mountains and seeping relentlessly into his collar.
Mo Ning instinctively reached up to tighten the collar of his blue robe.
Stranger still, the stairs that had led downward were now a flight of steps climbing upward.
Every ten or so steps, a stone pedestal stood on the right, bearing a brightly lit Magic Torch.
The flames danced wildly in the night wind but never flickered out, bathing stretches of the staircase in a warm, orange glow.
Mo Ning looked up at the deep night sky, his thoughts flowing. ’The Demon-Seeking Net is still active, which means this mountain peak can’t be more than five hundred meters from the Secret Hall of the Secluded Forest.
’That’s extremely counterintuitive. It also means that passing through the Secret Gate wasn’t a spatial jump or some similar form of Witchcraft, but rather a transfer to a different physical location.’
