This undoubtedly increased the risk for players.

“I don’t approve of splitting into more elevators,” Wei Bin said. “Our purpose in doing this is to save more people, not to test the limits of the dungeon rules. As long as we stay within the safety line, whether we understand other rules or not isn’t important.”

Just like what Dai Wenqian said about dispersing the numbers, there was actually no need to do this at all. As long as there were still nine elevators left after going down this time, it could basically confirm that the number of safe elevators matched the number of floors. Dispersing the numbers was just unnecessary.

“How can you be sure this isn’t random by floor?” Dai Wenqian still maintained his gentle smile. “Maybe we were just lucky with the previous few floors.”

“But if each floor down only randomly reduces the number of people in one elevator, wouldn’t the risk averaged over each person become smaller?”

“If we don’t try, then for every subsequent floor we can only squeeze into the elevators as much as possible. Even if the random frequency isn’t that high, once we get hit, we’ll lose at least thirteen people.”

“But what if we’re lucky and don’t get chosen?” Xiao Ba said.

Dai Wenqian adjusted his glasses. “It’s never wrong to prepare for the worst.”

Although Gu Yu and others didn’t approve of his method of using human lives to test the rules, this was indeed a solution. The earlier they figured out the rules, the safer they would be.

“Then how many people should be in each elevator?” Zhang Biao tentatively asked. “Do you have any plans? Is more safer or less safer?”

Dai Wenqian made a gesture of invitation toward Xu Huo.

“Any number is fine, as long as it doesn’t exceed thirteen people,” Xu Huo said.

“But for caution’s sake, among the extra elevators, one should have fewer than five people, and one should have fewer than ten people,” Dai Wenqian added.

The other players had no objections. As for the opinions of those outside, they weren’t within their consideration.

The six hours on the tenth floor quickly passed, and everyone still entered the elevators. However, this time the players dispersed and entered six different elevators. Xu Huo, including the cart he was bringing, only had Da Zhi, Jiang Yihua, and three ordinary people accompanying him. There were two other elevators with fewer people, and the one with fewer than five people had Gu Yu and Wei Bin joining.

The moment the elevator door closed, Xu Huo knew that the elevator he was in had triggered a rule trap, because instead of going down, the elevator accelerated rapidly upward!

“Be careful!” he reminded Jiang Yihua and the others, stabilizing the cart with one foot while leaning his back against the elevator.

The others, seeing this, also pressed tightly against the elevator walls, holding onto the back with both hands and bending their knees to prepare for impact.

In the blink of an eye, the elevator rushed back to the fifteenth floor, but after the elevator stopped, the door didn’t open. Instead, the elevator car’s ceiling opened to the left and right.

The lighting went out, and Jiang Yihua quickly turned on her phone, the flashlight illuminating the elevator shaft top only two or three meters away from them.

“Something seems to be coming from the side!” she whispered nervously, suppressing her breathing.

Xu Huo also heard the sound coming from the side pipes and simultaneously smelled a strong odor.

“Cover your nose and mouth,” he reminded the others.

Jiang Yihua and the others were so nervous that sweat beaded on their foreheads, their eyes wide as they stared upward. But just as the rustling noise reached the elevator, even making people feel like it was about to cross over the elevator car, the sound suddenly disappeared!

A few seconds later, the car ceiling closed, the lights came on again, and the elevator abruptly descended to the ninth floor.

“Ding!” The moment the elevator door opened, Jiang Yihua rushed out in a panic. When she looked up, she was frightened by several skeleton specimens that suddenly appeared before her eyes, nearly bumping into Da Zhi and the others who came out after her.

From the other elevators, Dai Wenqian and the others also emerged.

Seeing the terrified expressions of the people from Xu Huo’s group scrambling out of the elevator, Dai Wenqian seriously examined Xu Huo. “You won this round.”

Xu Huo looked back at the other elevators and saw that people from two elevators were missing.

One elevator without player accompaniment had thirteen people who, like the fifteen people from the fifteenth floor, left no traces in the elevator. But another elevator with nine people, including one player, had disappeared together, and the elevator car showed signs of a struggle, with several fresh bloodstains.

“What’s that?” Gu Yu pointed at some greenish-yellow substance resembling adhesive mucus in the corner of the elevator.

“It should be what Wang Cheng left behind when he was attacked,” Zheng Liang said with a grim expression. “We’ve lost another player!”

Dai Wenqian looked at Xu Huo. “What did you encounter in the elevator?”

“Didn’t see it,” Xu Huo said. “After the elevator started, we were taken to the fifteenth floor. The elevator car ceiling could open to the left and right. There should be other places connected above the elevator shaft, and there might still be Mutants inside.”

As the elevator door slowly closed, he stared at the mucus in the corner and said after a moment, “But it didn’t show itself, the car ceiling closed again, and the elevator directly went to the ninth floor.”

“That’s it?” Zheng Liang found it hard to believe. “You weren’t attacked?”

“Can’t you understand human language?” Jiang Yihua said, still shaken. “We were attacked too, we just didn’t come face to face with the Mutant!”

“That Mutant must be very strong, I can feel it!”

She was still being supported by Da Zhi.

“I don’t understand. You’re saying that you were originally taken to the fifteenth floor, but for some reason, the Mutant didn’t attack you?”

Before Wei Bin finished speaking, Xu Huo and Dai Wenqian’s gazes simultaneously turned to the mutant plants in that cart.

Three elevators should have been taken up just now, with people from two of them missing, leaving only some traces of struggle from a player. The elevators with missing people opened at almost the same time as the other elevators, meaning these three elevators went up and down in a very short time.

In such a short time, the player might have already been killed or captured, but in either case, it showed that the situation he encountered left him almost no chance to fight back.

Given such a disparity in strength, Xu Huo and the others retreated completely unscathed. The only difference was the mutant plants brought from the thirteenth floor.

“Are there Mutants killing people in the elevators?” At this moment, the Wealthy Young Girl asked tremblingly. “Did someone get killed? Did you all know about this already?”

Xu Huo withdrew his gaze and looked back at the people crowded around him. “First, check the ninth floor.”

The players suppressed the questions in their hearts and began checking the items on the floor one by one.

The ninth floor was a specimen floor. The skeletons Jiang Yihua bumped into when she came out were human bone specimens. They were randomly hung outside an iron-clad box, and there were many such iron boxes.

“Thump thump.” Zheng Liang knocked on the iron box and pressed his ear against it for a few seconds. “There seems to be water inside.”

“Maybe it’s soaking some specimens,” Gu Yu said, glancing around before adding, “This floor should be safe too.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep