A day passed in the blink of an eye.
Except for being punched by Gauss, Serdur indeed had no other physical abnormalities. After careful consideration and a discussion, Gauss and the others decided to open the door to the fifth floor of the maze today.
To be precise, it had been almost a week since the battle with the Demon Frog Lord ended.
The number of people entering the fourth floor of the maze was also increasing.
Now the fame of the Red Dragon Team and Gauss was widely spreading throughout the Timbel Maze. Even newcomers to the maze knew they had slain the lord creature on the fourth floor and were about to open the exploration of the fifth floor.
"Are you ready?"
Gauss looked at his teammates around him.
Although the past week wasn’t pure rest—besides those in cultivation breakthroughs, others were doing some logistical work—compared to combat and traveling, this workload was undoubtedly just a warm-up for the battle-hardened veteran adventurers.
Looking at the attentive and energetic faces of his teammates, Gauss understood their meaning.
He quickly nodded.
As he exerted force with his right hand, the transparent opening stone instantly turned into powder.
"Boom!!"
A mysterious vortex-like attraction rose from the open ground in front of Gauss.
The vortex gradually strengthened, and under the watchful eyes of Gauss and the others, it continued to extend downward.
First, a door formed, followed by steps slowly descending, neatly arranged, leading straight to the depths below.
Everyone knew these were the steps to the fifth floor.
Gauss took the lead and walked in.
In fact, this was the first time Gauss was heading to a maze floor that no one had ever reached before.
Before, he was always a follower.
Following the footsteps of other maze explorers, but this time, as he was the first to defeat the lord, the responsibility of the pioneer naturally fell on him and his companions.
Perhaps due to the nature of the fifth floor, Gauss felt the passage this time was particularly long compared to other floors.
"Tap, tap, tap—"
And it was very quiet; besides the sound of his and his companions’ footsteps, there was no other sound.
But if you listened carefully, there was actually a slight sound of water droplets hitting the steps.
As they advanced, the air seemed to become increasingly humid.
Especially based on Gauss’s perception attribute of 16 points, he could be very certain that this feeling was accurate. The humidity in the air was indeed rising rapidly.
As the group silently advanced for over ten minutes,
they finally arrived at the end of the passage.
A touch of blue-green greeted their eyes.
Gauss stepped out of the exit, arriving at this unexplored fifth floor of the maze.
"Light Spell!"
Gauss cast magic, summoning several floating, blazing white orbs, completely illuminating the relatively dim surroundings.
The place they emerged was an extremely spacious cave; the air temperature was low, and water droplets constantly dripped down from the stalactite pillars overhead.
"Plop! Plop!"
The water droplets splashed as they hit the ground.
Suddenly, Gauss noticed something unusual about those water droplets; they contained a subtle magical force.
"Watch out!"
He warned aloud.
Meanwhile, looking up at the ceiling.
Clusters of multicolored slimes were descending from above.
Some were large, others small.
They were falling towards the group that just emerged, opening their wide mouths.
Had they arrived at a slime nest?
Gauss felt calm inside; he had long prepared himself mentally for the attack that would follow their emergence.
The spell Bigby’s Hand, which he had been holding ready in the passage, was instantly released.
"Bigby’s Hand!"
The current Bigby’s Hand had, through a few days of practice by Gauss, rapidly increased in proficiency, reaching Level 2 (7/10).
With Gauss’s casting, an immense amount of magic power gathered above their heads, and in a very short time, a pair of hands over ten meters long formed, covering the exit above.
The multitude of slimes hadn’t yet fallen on the Red Dragon Team members, instead landing in the giant silver energy palms.
"Capture Palm!"
Before the slimes could react, Gauss immediately controlled Bigby’s Hand to firmly squeeze.
"Splat!!!"
The numerous slimes burst like fruit.
The sticky liquid dripped through the gaps of the giant hand.
Gauss took a glance at the Monster Atlas.
Just that single squeeze had killed dozens of slimes.
Under the effect of the Level 5 spell released by Gauss, they appeared to be too weak indeed.
At this moment, the other Red Dragon Team members also reacted, gripping their weapons and launching attacks on the slimes hidden around the cave.
Arrows and magic were shot towards the ceiling.
The slimes hiding in the rock cracks and grass piles were also found and pierced with a single arrow.
Gauss’s gaze was fixed on the largest slime at the rear.
It was about two meters in diameter.
It was the largest slime Gauss had seen since becoming an adventurer.
Slimes, as creatures, are commonly found lower-tier monsters.
But compared to goblins, they don’t usually form organized attacks on villages and caravans, so their presence isn’t strong.
In fact, most slimes don’t have a challenge level, and spotting a Level 1 or 2 slime is a rare occurrence.
The slime leader before him, in Gauss’s judgment, should be around Level 4 or 5 in strength.