Chapter 11 The Ultimate Discovery

Nina... turned out to be the stubborn girl who sparked the Legend of the Snow School?

Such an unexpected discovery left Ember somewhat dazed. Because Nina's performance from the very beginning had been far superior to Kalet's—she was resilient, brave, and possessed a strong sense of agency. Ember had never doubted her identity. Yet now, he was abruptly told that Nina was most likely the final boss. This felt like another willpower check, following right after resisting the mental shock.

However, this conversely explained why Anna had secretly left a note. She likely believed that the two of them lacked sufficient strength, and publicly exposing Kalet's disguise with Nina present would be tantamount to seeking death. Breaking them individually was the only righteous path to survival.

"It seems the boss of this dungeon really enjoys playing horror games. First, it gains the players' trust to lull them into complacency, and then launches a fatal strike from behind when their guard is down. My hidden quest is to protect Anna, after all; since she carries Maple Blood, she is precisely the target of Nina's curse."

At this point, Ember basically understood the true theme of the Snow School dungeon. When he previously read in the dungeon description that the process was short, he had simply assumed it would take less time, never imagining so many twists and turns were hidden within.

He pulled out the roster left by Anna and sure enough, discovered that Nina's name had also changed. With a light swipe of his finger, it turned pitch black, disappearing just like Kalet's.

"An exploration-type dungeon shouldn't feature many battles. Coupled with the fact that I still have the unknown ice water to lower the difficulty of the boss fight, taking down Nina practically announces a clear. Barring any accidents, finding the snow umbrella is just a matter of time."

The exceptionally smooth gameplay made Ember instantly feel much relieved. Making a concerted push, he advanced toward the third floor, where he immediately saw Nina continuously shaking the iron door leading to the fourth floor, producing a harsh clanging noise.

"Ember, you finished searching so quickly? Did you find anything?" Compared to Kalet's panic, Nina's demeanor was much more natural. She pointed at the iron door and asked in puzzlement, "Anna is acting a bit strange. As soon as she came upstairs, she double-bolted the iron door. No matter how much I call, she won't open it!"

"Is that so?"

Seeing that Nina was not ready to expose her identity, Ember decided to keep playing along with her act. He tried opening the iron door, only to find that it required either using a key or passing a rigid strength check of ten points. By allocating his remaining attribute points to strength and factoring in the charge bonus, he could just barely meet the condition. However, Ember had no desire to arouse Nina's suspicion prematurely, so he gave a feigned, regretful shake of his head.

"Anna! Anna! Please answer if you hear me!"

Nina shouted toward the upper floor, her performance utterly earnest. Seeing that Anna still gave no response, she sighed and said to Ember, "There's no help for it. Let's search the third-floor rooms first. Who knows, maybe Anna will come down on her own in a bit!"

"Alright."

"Hey! Wait, how come it's just you? Where is Kalet?" Nina looked behind Ember, her expression as usual, as if she were merely asking a casual question.

"He isn't finished searching yet. He was worried it wouldn't be safe for the two of you girls, so he asked me to come help first." Ember casually spun a lie, his acting skills equally impressive. His face was unblushing and his heart rate steady, failing to draw any suspicious glances from Nina.

"If he were really that kind-hearted, he wouldn't have abandoned us earlier, nor would he have been burned to that ghostly state! Once we all get out, I'll make sure every classmate knows his true colors!"

Nina let out a huff, shook the third-floor key in her hand, and took the lead in turning into the corridor. This time, it was Ember's turn to follow closely behind, plotting whether to make a move while the opportunity presented itself.

At this moment, the snow outside the building had just barely covered human ankles, still a long way from reaching the knee-high limit. Seeing Nina check each room door with "considerable interest" to see if it could be opened, Ember decided to hold his position and wait for developments. Strangely enough, the keyholes of these rooms were all completely blocked, rendering keys useless, nor were there any other unlocking conditions. The walls close to the corridor side had no windows, clearly making them non-interactive set pieces, until the two of them reached the archive room at the end of the hallway and finally made a discovery.

Click!

The key turned half a revolution, successfully unlocking the door. Nina pushed the door open, looked back at Ember who had stopped at the threshold, and said, "That scared me half to death! I thought none of the third-floor rooms could be entered. But this is good too, it saves us a lot of time. Let's finish searching quickly so we can go reunite with the other two!"

With that, Nina paid Ember no further mind and concentrated on searching the room. Ember, however, did not rashly step inside. Instead, he first cast Detection Eye to guard against any tricks; if Nina had set a trap, he would end up following in Kalet's footsteps.

It was worth mentioning that he had cast Detection Eye on Nina three times previously, yet none of them yielded any results. This indicated that Nina was either a normal human being or possessed a perception level far exceeding Ember's. This scan was no exception; the room contained only rows of archive cabinets, neatly storing numerous books and documents with nothing worth noting.

"Hurry up and come over! What are you daydreaming about?" Nina peeked half her face out from between the archive cabinets, urging Ember with an unhappy expression. "Why do you boys always drop the ball the moment it counts?"

"Oh, coming!"

Once again marveling at Nina's flawless, high-level acting, Ember stepped into the room, walking past the uniform archive cabinets to search for anything of note. Of course, Ember did not lower his guard, ensuring at all times that Nina remained within his field of vision. After a not-so-difficult search, he actually did make a special discovery!

The label of an archive cabinet clearly read "Elevator-Related," and in the most prominent spot lay a maintenance manual. Remembering the alarmingly hot, damaged elevator, Ember immediately raised his vigilance to the maximum and carefully perused the manual's contents.

[Hint: Your 5-point Perception allows you to notice that a certain page of the maintenance manual has been frequently flipped through.]

The prompt appeared, prompting Ember to let his hands follow his mind as he flipped directly to the page titled "Routine Repairs." The very beginning stated that there was a problem with the school's elevator; only the fourth floor could be opened using the elevator key, while malfunctions on the first through third floors required a crowbar to force open. Both the key and the crowbar were stored in the fourth-floor storage room.

"It seems a trip to the fourth floor is unavoidable!" Ember had long since concluded that something was fishy about the elevator. Uncovering the elevator's secret would undoubtedly bring him one step closer to clearing the dungeon. The question now was how to deal with...

Wait!

Where was Nina?

Ember looked up. Where was there any sign of Nina before him?

"Are you looking for me?"

A lingering whisper sounded from behind him, instantly making Ember's hair stand on end. He involuntarily leaped far away. Within seconds, Nina had somehow moved like a ghost, arriving silently right behind him—and his 5-point Perception hadn't given any reaction whatsoever!

Could it be that Perception's effect for predicting danger was also influenced by the level disparity between the two parties?

His Detection Eye couldn't even see through Nina's flaws, let alone predict danger!

Regardless of the truth, Nina had finally revealed an unnatural side, prompting Ember to finally make up his mind to take her out preemptively. However, when Ember used successive leaps to put distance between them and entered a battle stance, Nina merely stood in place, except for the addition of a black snow umbrella in her hand!

"Leaping three yards in a single bound—you really are quite strong! I was just making a joke though, is there any need to make such a big fuss?"

The corners of Nina's mouth curled into a mysterious smile as she opened the black umbrella and looked at Ember. "Look, hard work pays off—I've found the real snow umbrella. Let's hurry up and call the other two so we can leave!"

She was still acting even at this point?

Ember was somewhat baffled by Nina's playbook. Watching her spin the black umbrella with enthusiastic interest, he prepared himself to make a move at any moment.

"How do you know this is the real snow umbrella?"

"Of course... because I've seen it before!" Nina tilted her head and smiled, her expression innocent yet her gaze icy.

Was this the moment the dagger was revealed from the map's wrapping?

Ember's pupils flickered. He suddenly felt the temperature in the archive room rise drastically, and only then noticed that all the windows had been opened at some point. The snow outside drifted into the room along with the spinning black umbrella, swirling wildly around Nina. The flame energy contained within the snow ignited the surrounding books and documents, creating a sea of fire before Ember's eyes in the blink of an eye.

Immersed in the sea of fire, Nina's appearance also underwent a transformation. Flames ignited at the tips of her hair and then spread to her clothes. The spinning black umbrella whipped up a firestorm, changing her into a scorching dress blazing with fiery light.

Seeing that the situation was turning south, Ember made a decisive run for it. Because by this point, his Detection Eye was still completely ineffective against Nina. Aside from a string of question marks, only the two words "Legendary" held any reference value. This made Ember secretly rejoice that he hadn't rashly triggered the boss earlier; otherwise, even with the unknown ice water, he would have met certain death.

Kalet had only lasted a few minutes buried in the sea of snow before having the qualifications to challenge the shackles of life, let alone this ancient monster who had died who-knows-how-many years ago and personally created the Legend of the Snow School!

Ember realized that to deal with this Legendary boss who clearly exceeded conventional parameters, besides using the unknown ice water, he also had to enlist Anna's help. Therefore, his top priority was to reunite with Anna as quickly as possible.

"Haven't you seen me at my most wretched? You must have been frightened out of your wits, right? Well, how do I look now?" Flames ignited along Nina's eyebrows as well, rendering her smile exceptionally bewitching. "Don't run away. Stay and keep me company. The fire seed inside you feels exceptionally intimate to me—otherwise, I wouldn't have the idle time to play with you!"

Hearing this, Ember ran even harder. He knew that players harbored fire seeds within them, and the direct cause of Nina's suicide was inextricably linked to the First Flame. If he were to really fall into Nina's hands, the outcome would be self-evident—he might end up even worse off than Kalet.

Ignoring the threat of the flames, he bolted out of the room, grabbed the door frame, and swung his body violently in a new direction. Like an arrow loosed from a bow, he shot ten meters away in a flash.

The problem was, no matter how fast his speed was, it couldn't surpass Nina, who ignored terrain altogether. The firestorm swirling around her forcefully destroyed the non-interactive enclosed rooms, actually matching Ember stride for stride. As the black umbrella spun, the hallway glass shattered one after another. Every step Ember took forced him to endure the splash damage from the shattering glass and the health checks from touching the snowflakes.

Fortunately, Ember himself was an anomalous existence within this dungeon, so running all the way here, though he failed to shake off Nina, kept his health bar at a very safe level.

Four evolution potions meant four additional attribute points. For this exploration dungeon, which was primarily experiential in nature, their utility was glaringly obvious—especially for the two core attributes of Health and Willpower. Even with balanced point distribution, he could effectively resist various types of damage, meaning that choosing the Hard difficulty directly would at least prevent him from stumbling over attribute points.

"Ember, it turns out you don't just have divine strength!"

Following Ember to the end of the corridor, Nina grew increasingly satisfied with his performance. "It was worth me acting for so long. I feel that devouring the fire seed inside you, even if it doesn't cause a qualitative change, will boost my strength quite a bit! Don't you want this umbrella? Then come try and catch it!"

With that, Nina hurled the black umbrella directly at Ember. The next moment, the black umbrella transformed into a ferocious dragon of fire that tore through the void toward him. Even though Ember used an early-stage charge to slam against the fourth-floor iron door, he still struggled to shake off the relentless fire dragon.

Seeing this, Ember had no choice but to use successive leaps to vault over two flights of stairs, narrowly shaking off the flaming dragon and setting foot on the school's fourth floor. At the same time, he saw Anna anxiously poking her head out of a certain room, cautiously surveying the outside anomalies.

In this split second, their eyes met. Anna immediately spotted the ferocious fire dragon that had suddenly appeared behind Ember. Its momentum surged violently, its speed increasing by more than twofold as it looked ready to swallow Ember whole.

At the critical moment, Anna spread her five fingers and extended them outward toward where Ember was. Then, with a virtual grasp in mid-air, she used her telekinetic power to shield Ember.

Ember, who had been planning to use a healing potion to forcibly withstand the fire dragon's impact, suddenly discovered that the raging flames did not inflict direct impact on him. Instead, they met an invisible barrier and automatically split to both sides. The rampaging energy was vented into nothingness in an instant, failing to harm a single hair on Ember's head!

[Hint: You have received "Anna's" telekinetic protection, successfully resisting the dragon breath of the Legendary boss "???".]

The sudden game prompt precisely corroborated Ember's view: if he and Anna joined forces, they would possess the strength to contend with Nina, and the key to victory was that flask of unknown ice water.

The two exchanged virtually no words before instantly reaching a consensus on cooperation. Before Nina could appear, Anna took the initiative to run forward and said to Ember, "I'm not very good at combat and can't handle her alone. Can you do it? I can feel a terrifying aura hidden inside her, but this aura is also extremely erratic, as if every time she uses her abilities, she falls into a brief state of weakness—like right now."

"Is that so?"

Anna's discovery made Ember even more pleasantly surprised. The final boss had gained yet another fatal weakness; this was truly fantastic news.

It was just that Nina was hiding downstairs recovering her strength and could violently erupt at any moment, preventing the two of them from acting rashly. Ember seized the time to recover his stamina and asked Anna what she had found.

"The rooms on the fourth floor are mostly quite empty. I only found a key in the storage room. Do you think it's useful?"

"Useful! Of course it's useful!"

Ember's eyes lit up. Snatching the key, he sprinted toward the elevator, successfully unlocking the damaged elevator and instantly seeing snowflakes falling slowly down the elevator shaft!

This...

Poking half his head out, Ember was shocked to discover that this elevator shaft had no roof. Snowflakes fell unhindered onto the elevator car parked on the second floor. Though they didn't burn, they emitted a massive amount of heat, making Ember suddenly realize why the first-floor elevator doors had become boiling hot.

"The elevator's parked location is confirmed! The only thing left is to defeat Nina and use the crowbar to force open the elevator. If this dungeon truly lives up to its short characteristic, the real snow umbrella should be hidden inside the elevator."

Ember made his final judgment. At the very same time, Nina's figure slowly emerged...