Chapter 2519: Back to the Starting Point
"There's no one else nearby." Bubble Bean had already sent out the instruments. Although there were some metal beasts in the forest, fortunately, they weren't too numerous, and the instruments could avoid them. "If this is a relic area, there should be quite a few players from Zone 001 trapped here. Where are the people?"
"Have you ever seen a Super Instance?" Xu Huo suddenly asked.
"I haven't even seen an A-rank Instance." Bubble Bean said, "How could I possibly know about Super Instances? If you're trying to get information out of me, forget it."
Xu Huo glanced at him. "If you've never seen one, how can you be sure a Super Instance only has this one venue?"
Instances below C-rank are all regular instances, but once you reach B-rank, there's a certain chance of encountering mental or temporal-spatial type instances. The difficulty of a Super Instance is unimaginable; it definitely wouldn't be just a 'venue' as players understand it.
"So what do we do now?" Bubble Bean asked. "Even if the instance hasn't activated, we still don't know what this place is. Do you have a cross-space teleportation item?"
"No." Xu Huo used his traits to assess the level of risk and chose a direction with lower danger. "Regardless, we need to find people first."
Since the exit was supposedly blocked by players from other zones, and players from Zone 001 couldn't get out, the place where players gathered must be close to the exit.
The all-metal forest was filled with sharp, elongated blades everywhere. One careless move could result in a collision, not to mention the metal beasts roaming around and the occasional 'metal rain' falling from above. So Xu Huo and the other two had to slow down and proceed cautiously.
Bubble Bean toyed with a long, needle-shaped metal leaf and chuckled, "You have to admit, even just hauling this metal out of here could make a small fortune."
"The ones that fall off aren't very useful." Xu Huo tapped the ground with his foot. "It's what's underground that's valuable."
Bubble Bean bent down to look. "This path is way too hard to walk on. It's unnaturally flat, pitch black, and you can't see what's underneath."
"I think those trees seem to be fused with the ground. Could there be root systems underground?"
"With such a vast forest that even produces its own rain, there might be mechanisms hidden underground."
They had already tried using items to clear a path earlier, but even A-rank items could only scratch the surface, unable to cut through the metal. So even if there were mechanisms underground, they were helpless.
Xu Huo looked up at the sky. The patch of dark clouds from earlier had passed, and now sunlight was abundant, gradually covering the entire forest. Under the intense light, everything reflected dazzling rays, twinkling, sometimes strong, sometimes weak.
After putting on an eye mask, Bubble Bean took out a small boat item for transportation.
"Why are there wheels under the boat?" The Painting Woman bent down to look at the row of small wheels sliding across the metal surface and curiously asked Bubble Bean, "Aren't wheels supposed to be for cars?"
"Because my boat is amphibious." Although it was an automated boat, Bubble Bean still carefully watched their surroundings, worried about accidentally hitting a tree or blade of grass.
The three of them—well, actually only Xu Huo and Bubble Bean—remained constantly tense. After two hours of this, they still hadn't found the edge of the forest or seen anyone, forcing them to consider the possibility that this place might occupy a small pocket space.
Bubble Bean tried the ticket again, but it didn't work. This meant they were still trapped in the Cat Whisker Fruit instance, and they were still in Zone 001.
"Where exactly in Zone 001 is this?" he said helplessly. "If I'd known those people were so unreasonable, I would have asked for the details beforehand and come in on my own. At least then I wouldn't be as clueless as I am now."
Xu Huo didn't say anything. For now, continuing in the same direction seemed like the only option.
And so, the small boat traveled non-stop for nearly nine hours before finally stopping again.
The metal forest seemed to have no day or night. After the dark clouds passed eleven hours ago, it had remained brilliantly sunny, with the angle of the light never changing.
"Let's rest for a bit." Bubble Bean got off the boat, stretching his arms and legs. "It's probably already dark in Zone 001 by now."
"We're back at the starting point," Xu Huo suddenly said.
Bubble Bean's arms, which he had just stretched out, froze. "How do you know? The few metal beasts we killed aren't anywhere near here."
"The direction is slightly off." Xu Huo pointed to his left front. "The metal beast is in that position."
Bubble Bean didn't believe it and quickly sent out a flying device. When he actually saw the metal beast 'corpse' that hadn't even changed its posture, he was greatly shocked. "That's impossible! The direction was absolutely correct! My instruments weren't interfered with!"
He then took out the direction finder. "This is a foolproof navigation device I had custom-made for special environments. It can only point in one direction... Could it be that the directions here are constantly changing? We went in a circle and came back?"
Directions constantly changing within the same space sounded somewhat unbelievable, but it was possible in game instances. However, such instances were extremely rare. Xu Huo had never personally experienced one. If this metal forest simultaneously possessed multiple directional criteria, then it was highly likely that multiple spaces existed here, just appearing as a single space.
But what Xu Huo found strange was that he didn't sense any complex spatial power here. To be sure, he took out the 'Cube Space' to test it. The area covered by the instrument's power didn't fuse with any new space rays.
"Could the instrument be malfunctioning?" Bubble Bean realized that if the instrument wasn't wrong, they were trapped in a completely unsolvable predicament. If even directions could be wrong, how were they supposed to find the exit?
"Put the instruments away for now." Xu Huo said in a deep voice. "Let's walk it again. This time, we'll use a different method to mark our trail."
To ensure the marks were real and effective, they chose the oldest and most practical method: writing on the trees and the ground.
They made a mark at regular intervals, with a double layer of security on both the ground and the trees.
Twelve hours later, they returned to the vicinity of the first mark, number 1, with hardly any deviation in position.
This time, they didn't use directional instruments. Instead, they used two marked points to determine the next one, ensuring they didn't stray off course. With Xu Huo's spiritual realm and the assistance of flying devices, this wasn't difficult, but they still ended up back at the starting point.
"Could we be moving on a sphere?" Bubble Bean mused, then looked ahead again. "But as far as I can see, the entire forest is on the same plane."
If it took twelve hours to go around, that meant the sphere wasn't very large. And with the same forest as a reference, they shouldn't have been completely unaware of any deviation in the ground or the trees.
But that wasn't the most critical issue. The key was: if walking around in this damn place always brought them back to the starting point, then was there even an exit at all?