Vol 2 Chapter 194: The Passage Puzzle
While Xia Liang's squad had already experienced one battle, Lin Xiaolu and the others were still racking their brains over the puzzle in their hands.
—"Bosetsu, have you finished your part yet?"
"Hmm... just a little more!"
"Speed up! I'm almost done on my end!"
"I'm going as fast as I can!"
"Bai i, what about you?"
"Channeling magic here! Mind your own business! Stop asking!"
Indeed, they had successfully discovered a puzzle.
Or rather, it wasn't so much "discovered" as successfully "snatched" a puzzle.
After previously finding traps set by another squad in the passageway, they turned the tables by identifying and checking the number and types of traps laid in the corridor, then collectively detonated all the destructive devices. In the end, they successfully blasted a crater in the maze passage.
Following Mint's suggestion, all three had cautiously avoided moving the traps' positions while triggering them, minimizing their own magic consumption. Thus, the "responsibility" for this explosion wasn't attributed to them but rather to the Magical Girls who had set the traps.
The reason they knew this was because after the explosion, the string of curses from the other end of the passage couldn't be faked.
After passing through the now mostly cleared corridor, just as Mint had predicted, Lin Xiaolu's trio found a half-solved puzzle.
The walkway around the puzzle showed chaotic remnants of magical resonance and nurous signs of human activity, clearly indicating another squad had been working on solving it not long ago.
Perhaps too excited after finding the puzzle, or perhaps misjudging due to the ti-consuming solving process, this squad had recklessly laid nurous traps in their approach path to maintain ownership of the puzzle. Ultimately, their trap devices were turned against them by Lin Xiaolu's group. For "damaging the passage" and "violating rules," they were judged as failing and instantly ejected from the maze.
Of course, their approach wasn't entirely wrong—Lin Xiaolu's group's actions truly exceeded normal Magical Girls' expectations. "Identifying all traps in a passage" wasn't sothing an ordinary Magical Girl squad could accomplish, but Bai Jingxuan's sensory abilities were just that extraordinary; "precisely controlling magic output to collectively detonate devices" sounded like circus acrobatics, yet Lin Xiaolu accomplished it effortlessly with her post-magic-deflection heightened reaction speed, as easily as eating or drinking.
Having painstakingly set traps only to encounter a completely unconventional squad—that was just fate. When these squad mbers heard the head examiner's "rule violation" notification, their first reaction was disbelief until realizing what had happened, then ca the despairing curses.
Subsequently, their half-solved puzzle beca Lin Xiaolu's group's property.
This was a puzzle without any minimap or hints. Starting from scratch would likely consu most of a squad's ti just gathering information. Fortunately, traces left by the previous squad's partial solution allowed Lin Xiaolu's group to quickly grasp the content:
A wide passage with a device at each end, between which lay a 10x200 grid of 0.6-ter square tiles.
Injecting magic into one device would make all tiles display one of three colors: red, yellow, or green. When a candidate stepped on a tile, that tile plus its front, back, left, and right neighbors—five tiles total—would change color in the sequence red→yellow→green→red.
When the trio found this puzzle, the grid already had a roughly 50-tile-long path, making it clear the goal was creating a continuous green-tile path between both devices.
After simple task division and preliminary calculations by Mint, they decided: Lin Xiaolu would supply magic at one device while Mint and Bai Jingxuan explored.
Now, after prolonged effort, their green path had covered most of the passage.
"...Hmm, where was I? Oh right, about that Black Ember Dawn crone turning into a giant moth."
Perhaps because the atmosphere remained relaxed, when Mint curiously asked out of the blue, Lin Xiaolu selectively recounted last year's Moon Festival when Black Ember Dawn attacked Fangting City.
She knew exactly what to omit—many details about Veronica's identity and the Seeder were glossed over. In her version, Fangting's new-generation squad had five mbers: leader Veronica, rookie Little Jin, Bosetsu, Gentian, and herself. Veronica was simply described as an "experienced, powerful and reliable senior."
Mint, ever the gossip enthusiast, naturally noticed inconsistencies in Lin Xiaolu's account but, only seeking entertainnt, didn't press further.
So the trio continued chatting while solving. When Lin Xiaolu described the tyrannical rules after Moss transford into a Molting-stage Remnant Beast, Mint dramatically gasped; when ntioning Veronica countering Moss at full power, Mint applauded appreciatively. Bai Jingxuan listened carefully too, occasionally chiming in or correcting. In this leisurely atmosphere, Lin Xiaolu finished her story just as the passage's completion reached ninety percent.
—"That does sound perilous. It's remarkable you all erged unscathed," Mint comnted appropriately. "And your senior—Veronica, was it? Seems like quite the powerful Magical Girl."
"Obviously, Veronica's the best Magical Girl," Lin Xiaolu said proudly, exhaling with satisfaction at having conveyed Veronica's greatness. "Words can't do justice to how amazing she is!"
"Absolutely!" Bai Jingxuan promptly supported.
"Even more impressive than described? Now that's..." Mint blinked, her lips quirking unconsciously. "...making want to et her."
This gave Lin Xiaolu pause. Seeing Mint's tomboyish deanor and handso features, she inexplicably recalled Madoka Asou's hand-kiss greeting to Veronica, then involuntarily replaced Madoka with Mint in that image. The thought instantly made her feel sour.
"That's probably not happening."
"Really?" Mint looked puzzled. "Not even if I visited Fangting?"
"Just no," Lin Xiaolu insisted firmly. "Besides, you're from another city's squad, right? Isn't randomly visiting other cities without assignnts inappropriate?"
"Well... geographically speaking, my city isn't exactly close to Fangting, but not terribly far either," Mint mused, seemingly genuinely considering a special trip. "At least closer than Tiandu City."
"Your city?" This piqued Lin Xiaolu's interest, prompting a semi-deliberate topic shift. "Co to think of it, you haven't told us about your city, have you?"
"True, I haven't." Standing on a tile, Mint turned back smiling. "Interested in knowing?"
"Spill it already! My mouth's dry from all this Fangting talk," Lin Xiaolu urged, banging the device beside her with loud thuds. "Your turn now!"
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