"Let's go, we need to pick up the pace. It's best to be the first to reach the bottom of the tower!"
Ethan Wells waved his hands to clear the lingering smoke and stepped through the hole to the other side.
Lisa, who had retreated to a safe distance, quickly followed. As she passed through the opening, she caught Ethan's words, and a thought struck her.
"You mean...?" she asked tentatively.
"Yes, exactly!" Ethan nodded in confirmation.
To an outsider, this exchange might seem cryptic, but Lisa understood immediately and felt a surge of excitement.
She knew that Ethan's other 'Nen' ability had likely issued a new mission, and it was to be the first to reach the bottom of the tower.
After a brief exchange, they immediately set off, not walking but sprinting down the passage.
.....
Inside the Trap Tower's surveillance room:
"Warden, isn't this a violation of the rules?" the Trap Tower's deputy exclaimed, looking at the enlarged screen before him.
The screen displayed the passage the Hunter exam candidates entered, with one image enlarged at the center showing the hole Ethan had punched through the wall.
Sitting directly in front of the screen was Liber, the examiner of the third exam and warden of the Trap Tower.
He had been enjoying some snacks while monitoring the candidates' progress but paused at Ethan's unexpected maneuver.
"Breaking through the wall to take the easy route is certainly unorthodox. I didn't expect such an intriguing candidate this year," Liber remarked, shifting from initial shock to excitement over Ethan's actions.
"Humph, he's just an opportunist. People like him shouldn't even be in the Hunter exam. I say we eliminate him immediately!" declared a man with a scarred face, clad in a fur jacket, with clear disdain for Ethan's tactics.
"Elimination is too harsh. I didn't set explicit rules against this method in the exam guidelines. At most, he exploited a loophole," Liber replied, casting a sideways glance at the scarred man.
Liber didn't particularly like this man, who had leveraged powerful connections to be present and seek personal revenge.
Yes, the scarred man was the examiner whom Hisoka had nearly killed in the previous Hunter exam.
Now, he aimed to use the current exam to settle scores with Hisoka during the third exam.
"Are we just going to let this slide?" the deputy hesitated.
Hearing this, Liber returned his focus to the exam, a playful expression on his face. "We can't eliminate them, but we can up the ante. Go to the first basement level and swap out two prisoners for the originally scheduled ones."
"Isn't that overkill? Even on the first basement level, the prisoners are all Nen users!" the deputy exclaimed, his expression shifting.
The Trap Tower imprisons serious criminals from around the world, many serving hundreds of years, including Nen criminals.
The underground prison houses Nen criminals, with lower levels holding increasingly powerful and dangerous inmates.
"Hahaha... It adds excitement, doesn't it? Breaking the rules is surprising, but it comes with a cost," Liber chuckled, speaking with a dismissive air.
The Hunter exam is never a safety test. As long as it's not excessive, the examiners have full discretion over arrangements and decisions.
For Liber, overseeing the Hunter exam was a chance to inject some fun into his otherwise mundane life.
Whether the candidates survived or failed depended on their luck and abilities.
...
Though labeled "easy," the route was not without obstacles.
However, compared to the difficult path, it was safer and faster to reach the bottom of the Trap Tower.
As they dashed through the passage, Ethan and Lisa encountered various traps.
Sometimes the floor would collapse, revealing spikes below, while at other times, arrows shot from the walls.
An ordinary person would likely fall at the first hurdle.
But these mechanisms posed little challenge to Ethan and Lisa.
Without losing speed, they charged through the traps with a forceful approach.
"An exit?!"
After what felt like an endless run, a change in the passage caught Lisa's eye, and her face lit up.
Ethan also focused, though he doubted it was the true exit.
Despite running for a while, the passage wasn't a straight descent. It had frequent turns and even ascended at times.
Ethan estimated they were only halfway down the Trap Tower.
Swish!
With a rush of air, Ethan and Lisa burst through the 'exit' without slowing, then came to an abrupt halt.
Their sudden stop was because the 'exit' led to an empty room with a raised platform in the center.
Most notably, on the other side of the platform stood two figures, cloaked and tightly wrapped.
"Is this an arena?" Lisa's gaze fixed on the figures, then scanned the room with interest.
"It looks like it," Ethan replied, casually surveying the room before focusing on the figures opposite the platform.
DROP SOME POWER STONE BREAK 250 STONES I UPLOAD EXTRA 2 CHAPTER ⚓💠🎉🍻😅,