"Elemental fission device?" Upon hearing Big Senior Brother's words, Sain was shocked.
He immediately thought of the alchemy experiments he had assisted his mentor Mosido with over the past few years.
"That's right, it's the same as what we did in the lab."
"Now that there's a magic altar providing cover, we can't see what's going on inside."
"In fact, after we all go inside, you'll find that many of the devices for the Space-Time Rift entrance and exit were created in our alchemy lab," Big Senior Brother Zoro said in a low voice.
In addition to this insider information, Big Senior Brother Zoro also mentioned that it shouldn't take too long to reconfirm the safe path around the Space-Time Rift.
Perhaps in a few days, they could resume exploring the magic altar and Space-Time Rift as usual.
"I just hope that those novice and low-level apprentices can withstand the consumption," Sain sighed softly.
Sain's lament was not for the sake of those intermediate and low-level apprentices.
He was purely concerned that if those intermediate and low-level apprentices died, the next unlucky one would inevitably be an apprentice like himself.
Sain wasn't afraid of the uncertainty of exploring other dimensions and the Space-Time Rift.
After all, living in a place like the Shadowy Territory, where tomorrow is uncertain, has become the norm.
But if it was knowingly sending oneself to death, or simply relying on luck, Sain didn't want to participate.
This kind of death was too suffocating.
He had lived cautiously at the Dark Magic Academy for over a decade and did not want to become cannon fodder and be sent to die.
As Sain and Big Senior Brother Zoro whispered in the tent, some faint moans and the sounds of bodies being moved suddenly appeared in Shadow Valley.
The three in the tent couldn't help but look at each other.
It was Senior Sister Faye who reacted the fastest.
She quickly rushed to the tent opening, lifted a corner of the curtain, and looked outside quietly.
In the Shadow Valley, which was like daylight at this time, dozens of Minotaurs had already started to work busily.
There were constantly injured apprentices and some body parts being carried out of the magic altar by these Minotaurs.
Of course, many of these Minotaurs who entered the magic altar also came out with injuries.
In rare cases, even an arm could be abruptly cut off.
Unlike the severely injured apprentices who were still screaming and howling, these Minotaurs were almost all hardworking and tough, never flinching in the face of pain.
Under the direct command of the Dark Magician, they remained silent even if they were heavily wounded.
Seeing these injured apprentices, including Sain among the other apprentices in Shadow Valley who observed the situation, couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
As long as the death rate wasn't 100%, there was still hope for the survivors.
But after letting out a sigh of relief, many of these apprentices soon tensed up again.
Just look at those entry-level apprentices who were brought out of the magic altar! Hardly any of them were intact!
Most of the surviving apprentices were missing limbs or had broken bones.
As for the remains and body parts that were thrown out, some were so mangled that their original appearance couldn't even be recognized, they were just a pile of red flesh!
Sain, being a senior apprentice of many years, was considered lucky.
As more and more flesh and debris was brought out, many entry-level apprentices who had just joined the academy ran out of their tents with cries of panic and tried to escape Shadow Valley.
Their fate was naturally not going to be good.
Some of them stepped on the magic prohibitions set up by the Dark Magicians around Shadow Valley, and couldn't even scream before they turned into charred or dead bodies.
Others were driven back by the Minotaurs, dark creatures, and the Overseers of the Owl Academy scattered around Shadow Valley.
Those who were driven back were even deprived of the right to stay in their tents.
They were directly thrown in front of the magic altar, and tomorrow they would undoubtedly be the first group to explore the altar, facing the pungent smell of blood that the altar emitted!
Sain didn't pay much attention to the life or death of these cowardly apprentices.
It was obvious that they had not yet adapted to the rules of the underground world.
Even if they managed to escape the Space-Time Rift this time, they would definitely not survive long in the Shadowy Territory in the future.
Sain and Faye, senior apprentices at the Dark Magic Academy, are currently focused on the heavily injured apprentices who were thrown out of the magic altar.
Luckily for Sain and the others, the high and mighty Dark Magicians did not give these "heroes" a hard time.
Besides setting up a special tent area for these surviving apprentices, a few Dark Magicians personally visited them, seemingly trying to extract some information from the fledgling apprentices.
Apart from the novices, even the three almost-Magicians who first entered the magic altar managed to come back alive in the end.
However, this guy didn't come out unscathed.
His legs were completely severed from the base, and it's uncertain whether he could ever have them reattached with the almost-Magician's methods.
Master Dark Magician Colonso is an expert in this field and may have a way to give this almost-Magician a new pair of legs.
Different from the treatment of other novice apprentices, the almost-Magician who survived the magic altar was eventually sent to the magic tower next to Sain and the others' tent.
This almost-Magician, whom Senior Brother Zoro knows, is Andal, a student of a formal Dark Magician who is equally powerful as he is.
Even formal Dark Magician disciples have been sent on this dangerous Space-Time Rift exploration, which shows how crazy the Dark Magicians of Mosobla City are for the other side of the dimensional plane.
If even almost-Magician Andal's body was cut in half, what chance do weaker Dark Magic Apprentices like Sain have to come out unscathed?
...
On the afternoon of the second day, the exploration of the magic altar reopened.
The number of novice apprentices forced into it this time was not as many as yesterday, only about a few dozen people.
It seems that the Dark Magicians aren't planning to sacrifice all of their apprentices, or maybe they just can't afford to lose them all.
But just like yesterday, when these apprentices were thrown into the magic altar, screams and cries of agony soon followed.
It's as if there's some kind of man-eating monster lurking in the depths of the altar, and those apprentices who lost limbs and were dismembered yesterday were devoured by those terrifying creatures.
The screams lasted for what seemed like an eternity, and the atmosphere in Shadow Valley became even more oppressive.
After a long time, the screams gradually faded away.
The Dark Magicians continued to record the information they gathered, and the weak apprentices who were driven into the magic altar were carried out by some Minotaurs and dark creatures.
The overall mortality rate of these apprentices was actually slightly lower than yesterday.
But few apprentices paid attention to this, and the situation where limbs were frequently severed had really caused too many Dark Magic Apprentices to live in fear.
That night, another group of Dark Magic Apprentices tried to escape from Shadow Valley.
This time, the Dark Magicians didn't let them get away with it.
They were directly shot by dark creatures or overseers of the academy!
Half of their bodies were devoured by those grotesque dark creatures, while the other half were wrapped in spider silk and hung around Shadow Valley as a warning to others.
After two days and nights of investigation and the sacrifice of hundreds of apprentices, it seems that the Dark Magicians are not very concerned about the loss of these apprentices?