Chapter 7 Cave Wall Paintings

  "Somebody has to go first and pull a rope so that others can use pulleys to get across."

  Xiao Xuan opened his backpack, took out the rope and pulley, tied one end of the rope to his waist, and threw the other end to Ruo Nu.

  Ruo Nu tightly grasped the rope, also tying it around her own waist. She was clear that this rope was Xiao Xuan's lifeline. If Xiao Xuan lost his grip while climbing the rock wall, this rope would be the only thing that could save him. Given the depth of the abyss, falling from here would definitely result in a fatal outcome, with no chance of survival whatsoever.

  "Xuan, be careful." Sarah said as she came over and grabbed Xiao Xuan's shoulder.

  "Ah, don't worry, I can."

  Xiao Xuan smiled, pushed away Sarah's hand, and then jumped up, grabbing the recess of the upper rock layer with one hand, and smoothly put a pulley on it. One end of the pulley was like a clip that could hold onto the gap in the rock layer, while the other end was a ring that could be used to pass through a rope.

  With his left hand grasping the first protrusion, Xiao Xuan twisted his waist and swung himself over, his right hand grasping another protrusion that fit into a crevice in another layer of rock.

  "Rope!"

  At this time, Xiao Xuan's feet had already left the ground and were above the abyss, but he still had to pull the rope out of the pulley at the same time as placing it.

  Sarah threw the rope over, Xiao Xuan grabbed one end of the pulley with one hand and caught the thrown rope with the other. Then he passed the rope through two pulleys, the front end of the rope was bitten in his mouth.

  Xiao Xuan once again flashed, starting to place the next convex wheel and passing the rope through it. This operation was completed entirely in an environment where the foot was on the bottom of a deep abyss. Xiao Xuan's entire body weight was applied to both hands, and sometimes, in order to place the convex wheel or pass the rope, he could only hold onto the convex wheel with one hand. However, Xiao Xuan still managed to persevere by gritting his teeth, demonstrating the strength of his arms and the grasping force of his fingers. These were not granted by the main god, but rather a result of Xiao Xuan's daily exercise routine before he exchanged for the magician physique, which did not enhance his physical strength or muscle power.

  A total of seven pulleys were placed, Xiao Xuan finally reached the upper space on the other side, with both hands released, his body steadily landed on the ground on the other side of the abyss, and the rope also came over completely.

  "Throw another rope over here!" Xiao Xuan shouted at the opposite side.

  Ruo Nu threw over another rope, Xiao Xuan tied the two ropes together and pulled out one end to tie around his waist. Then he made an "OK" gesture towards the other side.

  Ruo Nu first tied the rope around Beth's waist, and a pulley was hanging from the top of the rope. Beth bent down, grabbed the pulley with both hands, and slid over directly. When she reached the other side, Xiao Xuan supported her waist, landed steadily, untied the rope on Beth's body, and then pushed the pulley back.

  Following the calabaza painting method, Sarah and Sumu came over like this, but when they arrived at Ruo Nu, she gave up the direct method of using pulleys to come over easily, and instead chose to use the same method as Xiao Xuan to come over, because she wanted to retrieve these pulleys, otherwise if there were such deep ravines below, the pulleys might not be enough.

  "Ah!"

  When Juno was retrieving the pulley, she suddenly slipped and fell down. Fortunately, she had a rope tied around her waist, which was also tied to Xiao Xuan's waist. At that moment, he felt a huge force pulling him back. Xiao Xuan quickly grabbed the rock wall beside him with both hands and managed to withstand the pull. Beth and Sarah rushed to pull the rope up, and Juno narrowly escaped death, successfully reaching this side.

  "Let's move forward."

  Ruo Nu spoke up, she said that although she had just narrowly escaped death, she knew she didn't have much time to calm her emotions down. Staying here for a longer period of time would only increase the risk, after all, there weren't many supplies to go around.

  Everyone picked up their things and continued to move forward. Ruo Nu walked to Xiao Xuan's side and said in a low voice, "In the rock crevices above, there is an old protruding wheel, did you see it?"

  Xiao Xuan couldn't have missed it, as he actually had a rope that went directly through the original old pulley, and when Ruo Nu asked him, Xiao Xuan nodded, indicating that he had seen it.

  "How do you see it?" asked Ruo Nuo as Xiao Xuan nodded.

  "We are not the first batch of people who came down, someone had come down long before us." Xiao Xuan replied.

  "What about them?"

  "Heh heh, how am I supposed to know that? Not every expedition team is so enthusiastic about naming caves."

  Xiao Xuan actually guessed it, and it's certain that an adventure team came in before, but unfortunately, they probably became the food of the man-eating demons. However, this kind of thing is not suitable to be talked about now.

  "Maybe." Zhūnō shrugged and continued walking to the front of the group, habitually taking on a leadership role.

  Xiao Xuan walked beside Sarah, Su Mo Ran walked behind Sarah, both of them subconsciously protecting Sarah, because if anything unexpected happened to Sarah, they would also die with her instantly.

  "Junuo, give me a flare stick. I think I've found something here." Beth suddenly stopped and shone her flashlight on the stone wall.

  "Our flares are running low, I don't think we should waste one here." Zuno clearly disagreed with wasting a flare here, in this dark cave, where the value of a single flare was immense.

  "Give it to me!" But Beth's demand was firm, she repeated: "Give it to me!"

  "Give it to her, Juno." Sarah chimed in from the side, not wanting things to escalate further with people waiting around at this moment, and besides, Beth and Juno were clearly like fire and water.

  Ruo Nu reluctantly pulled out a firework stick from her backpack and handed it to Beth, who lit it up. The entire alley was immediately illuminated, the lighting capability of the firework stick far surpassing that of the flashlight.

  "Wow, what is this?" Sarah exclaimed involuntarily. It turned out that on this rock wall, there was actually a mural, in which there were all kinds of colorful creatures, and something similar to a map.

  "Look, there's a map here. From here to here, it should be the passage we came in from. And then from here to there, that means there's another passage out on the other side. We can get out of here, and there must be a road over there!" Beth exclaimed excitedly.

  "Betty, you're great," Sarah exclaimed.

  "That's right," said Beth proudly, "I have good luck sometimes."

  Xiao Xuan leaned in closer to the rock wall, his gaze not mainly focused on the map, but rather at a corner of the mural, where something similar to a high platform was painted, and a strangely shaped creature sat on top of it, with a group of humanoid creatures kneeling below.

  Is this the altar and sacrifice mentioned in the branch mission? But why is there no sign of this place on the map?

  Xiao Xuan thought in his heart and involuntarily became slightly distracted. At this time, Sarah's voice rang out: "Xuan, hurry up."

  "Ah, here we are." Xiao Xuan finally gathered his thoughts and continued on with them.

  Knowing that there was a way out made Beth's mood exceptionally cheerful, this was the real narrow escape, this was the real thrill, so Beth kept walking in front, from time to time urging her companions to hurry up.

  About a minute later, Beth suddenly stopped in her tracks because she found herself at a fork in the road, with many small caves, completely unsure which one to head towards.

  Sarah and June also came over, seeing so many sinkholes, they were at a loss for what to do. It was impossible to try walking through each one, after all, some of the sinkholes were very long and extremely difficult to traverse. If they walked through and it turned out to be a dead end, no one knew if they would still have the ability to make their way back here.

  "Ruo Nuo, give me the lighter." Xiao Xuan stretched out his palm to Ruo Nuo, who was taken aback for a moment before hastily handing over the lighter she had with her.

  Xiao Xuan opened the lighter, lit a flame, and approached each cave entrance one by one. The first three entrances showed no change in the flame, but at the fourth entrance, the flame began to sway noticeably, indicating that there was air convection here, which meant that this cave should be the correct route.

  "Here!" Xiao Xuan pointed.

  "Xuan, you're amazing!" Beth hugged Xuan's face and kissed him, then eagerly rushed in first.

  Xiao Xuan wiped away the saliva left by Bai Si on his cheek, but a deep and profound light flashed in his eyes.

  "Hah, I see sunlight! I see sunlight! Found the exit! Found the exit...... Ah!!!!!!!!!!"