Chapter 1701: Bruce Wayne and the Magic Stone (Part 16)_1

The room's door, as expected, had been blasted down. After Harley enthusiastically barged in, Little Bruce turned to glance at the locked door handle. The lock hanging on it seemed ordinary, akin to the metal locks that hung on the gates outside a courtyard. It appeared to require a suitable key.

But the door wasn't even made of steel; it was just a common wooden door found in castles. Little Bruce had no doubt that a trained agent could burst the door open with a few full-force strikes.

This gave Little Bruce an understanding of the difficulty of this trial.

The tree man in the first phase seemed extremely dangerous but had too many vulnerabilities. It only attacked people who intended to barge in without a key, which meant that as long as one could find the key, they could skip the phase. The key seemed to be hidden somewhere in the school, and the process of obtaining it didn't appear to be dangerous.

Either one could brute force their way in and shatter the door with some object, or use an explosive like Harley did. Alternately, one could rely on agility and flexibility, taking advantage of the smaller physique of a child to crawl under the tree man's arms, lure him to attack the wooden door and thereby, get the door smashed.

As Little Bruce was contemplating and walking towards the interior, he heard Barry utter a cry of alarm. Turning his head, he saw Barry stopping the increasingly excited Harley from going further, and saying, "Keep your box of explosives away. This place is filled with glass vessels, if they explode, we're done for!"

When Little Bruce stepped over the remnants of the wooden door and finally entered the room, he found it to be filled with jars and vessels.

Tall shelves inset into the four walls reached up to the ceiling. The shelves were neatly arranged with glass jars of varying heights. Some were wide-mouth jars, while others were narrow-mouthed jars. Some resembled round-bottomed flasks, and some looked more like small pots; but in short, all were made from delicate and fragile glass.

Little Bruce quickly rushed over and stopped Harley from pulling out a hand grenade, because, other than the door they used to enter, there was no second door in this room.

"What if there's something behind the wall?" Harley insisted.

"What if there isn't?" Barry firmly held onto her to prevent this overly excited girl from using explosives to destroy everything inside the room.

"Looks like this is a puzzle." Little Bruce looked up at the full wall of glass vessels and said, "someone had already known that you would use explosives to barge in. If you really mess up this place, the door might never open again."

"Is this why you insisted that I put those plants in the glass jars?" Professor Pamela turned to Shiller from behind the screen and said, "you guessed one of them would certainly resort to violence, and you didn't want them to pass each level like this."

"I was hoping to save some school repair expenses." Shiller shook his head and said, "letting a true Gotham madman wreak havoc here, even if we were the richest in the world, we couldn't afford it."

"Actually, we can." Bruce spoke up, but soon shook his head saying, "it's just that the elves in the Maya World need to rest; otherwise, they would work themselves to death."

"So, what is this puzzle?" Constantine asked, "Do they need to identify the properties of these plants?"

"Yes, and the rest of the part is a simple arrangement puzzle." Pamela nodded and said calmly, "it's all knowledge I've taught in class. As long as there was one who listened carefully, they can surely solve it."

"It seems like a classification puzzle," Little Bruce said, after looking over all the glass jars on the shelves in the room, "If I recall correctly, all the plants in this room can be divided into four categories: magic potion ingredients, alchemy catalyst materials, ritual materials, and non-reactive materials."

"I remember it was mentioned in the Magic Botany class." Barry touched his cheek, looked around the room and said, "but this many kinds of plants were never mentioned. Maybe they were mentioned in the classes for higher grades."

He turned to look at Harley. Harley blinked, walked by the four walls, and said, "About half of these plants were mentioned in class, the other half wasn't."

"But we can infer." Little Bruce sighed lightly, "Professor Pamela once mentioned in class that plants growing in a certain world have similar properties and appearances, which can be regarded as plants of the same family."

"According to the shape, color, and magic manifestations of plants, we can probably discern their functions. Let's take down the jars first."

There were two ladders in the corner of the room, obviously additional convenience for the students to take down and inspect all the jars. The trio took all the glass jars down from the shelves one after another and placed them on the ground. Harley started the initial classification.

Harley was an upperclassman and had attended more classes. She had nearly two months of Magic Botany class, which taught students how to identify commonly seen plants in magic realm and understand their effects. Once all the plants she recognized were classified, the rest was simple.

When all the plants with determined attributes were grouped according to the four categories, anyone could see the similarities among them.

The ingredients for magic potions are usually closer to the stems of herbaceous plants. For example, the spiral grass that Barry and others saw in the first lecture is one of the most typical potion ingredients. It is characterized by its tender and small structure, and a not so strong magic glow.

The ingredients for alchemical catalysts usually display strong magical powers, with the magic glow filling the entire bottle. The form is mostly flowers and soft leaves, appearing more similar to ordinary plants outside the magical realm.

The shapes of materials for rituals are extremely weird, either like withered fingers, eye-balls, or animal claws. The surface is often covered with lumps and pus, much like the plants that appear in horror novels in the dark marshes.

Non-reacting ingredients refer to those plants that do not react with anything produced by the above plants. They can be used to make implements such as containers and stir sticks that come into frequent contact with the potion. Naturally, most of them are block cuts or branches of woody plants, they are hard enough, dry, and dark in color.

"There's only one question left." Harley looked at the sorted bottles and asked, "Which wall should we put the four types of plants on?"

"The one with the least quantity must be placed on the wall with the door because that wall has the least number of shelves." Barry proposed.

Little Bruce snorted and said, "Your brain rarely makes an effort."

Among the four types of materials, the one with the least quantity is the non-reacting ingredients. Hence, the three of them used a ladder to place these plants on the wall near the door. After finishing, Barry sighed and looked at Harley and said, "Thank goodness you didn't blow up the shelves on this wall, otherwise we would have failed before we started."

Harley, however, revealed a smile, shook her head and said, "It's not that simple. Clearly, there is another solution to the puzzle in this room."

Harley crossed her arms, turned her head to look at the bottles on the ground, and said, "If I'm not mistaken, some of the plant ingredients here can be combined into a special potion. This potion should also reveal the exit."

"But the risk is high," Little Bruce interjected."Because you do not know whether the ingredients can return to the bottle after being poured out and trigger the arrangement puzzle. Therefore, unless there are absolutely no clues or the shelf is damaged, we don't need to use this method."

Harley nodded and said, "Although I do like to make a big commotion, I'm not completely reckless. I guessed that there might be some important things in the room, so I deliberately avoided the walls when throwing grenades. It worked. If we were making a potion here, all of our clothing would have picked up a peculiar smell."

After that, the three of them started to study the remaining three walls. Harley found a rune in the corner of each shelf, there was no puzzle to solve. The meaning of the rune is the type of plant.

After spending some time sorting all the bottles, a magical glow bloomed in the middle of the floor and a door slowly opened. Below was a dark tunnel, leading to unknown destinations.

"Well, it seems I can't carry all these babies down there." Harley looked at her cart full of weaponry, somewhat regretfully, "We can't throw all these things tumbling down blindly under the uncertain depth. If it triggers a chain reaction, it would cause a series of explosions. It's a pity if they break."

Harley singled out three handguns from the small cart, handed two to the others, took out a few grenades to put in her pocket, finally picked up a shotgun to carry on her back, and tipped her head towards the door in the middle of the floor.

Little Bruce glanced down, but at this moment Barry said, "I'll jump first. If there is any danger below, I can give you a warning."

Little Bruce opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to object, but Barry interrupted him, "At least you are right about one thing, your brains are precious assets, and it won't be good if they get damaged."

Barry jumped directly down, Harley turned to Little Bruce with a slightly neurotic smile and said, "These dummies are like this, aren't they? They always feel guilty for not being able to contribute to the team, soft yet hard, like a sponge soaked with tears."

"I reserve my opinion, They are like stones, stubborn, dumb, and useless. It's just that this Mr. Allen has just been washed onto the river beach. He doesn't know that his life will continue to be stubborn, until it becomes as annoying as those stubborn adults.", stated Little Bruce as he jumped down.

Harley shrugged her shoulders, glanced at the vacant air, then said, "I wonder who will eventually become a stubborn adult."

As Harley's figure disappeared into the door on the floor, Constantine chuckled and said to Bruce, "Yeah, who could it be? I'm voting, with both hands, that it's definitely not Batman."

And Bruce turned his head to look at Shiller, who tilted his head slightly to look back at Bruce and said, "But then, too much ingenuity may not necessarily be better."

"Some people's ingenuity is easy to spot, while others quietly proceed, revealing nothing to anyone, save themselves. No one can tell where the real joy lies, isn't that right, Professor?"