Chapter 37: 37. Three Divine Ways
While everyone contemplated what to do, Walric stepped forward and faced them.
"Now that you know about the rules and stuff, you can go to the first guardian if you want, but we suggest you don't hurry over this."
"Why?"
Runo felt confused. Since they had some confidence that they could defeat the first guardian, they should take their chances. That way, they could also max out their attributes if they hadn't done it till now.
Orion also felt that waiting here would do them nothing good and only waste their time since they only had about a week to finish this task.
Walric understood their hesitation as he explained.
"Have you heard of the Three Divine Paths?"
Orion blankly tilted his head as he heard those words. It sounded cool, but he didn't know what it meant.
Looking around, he saw that everyone else nodded at Walric aside from his group of transmigrators.
"You wouldn't want us to learn that, would you?"
At this time, Runo asked with suspicion.
Walric smiled, his teeth showing, as he replied.
"Indeed. That's what we want. It's the only way we could ever defeat the last guardian."
"What do you mean?"
Runo asked again.
Walric patiently explained.
"Think about it; the majority of people here are at the peak of bronze rank like you, but none have succeeded in defeating the last guardian. So, what makes you guys think you could do the same?"
Runo frowned. He felt that Walric's words held some weight, but he couldn't agree to his proposition. It wasn't that he didn't want to; it was just impossible to learn the Three Divine Paths in a week.
"But you should know it is almost impossible to do what you want in the time we have."
Walric sighed at his words, for he knew they were correct.
"I know, but we don't have any choice left if we want to kill the third guardian."
Runo didn't know what to do anymore. He felt that following Walric's path might increase their chances of defeating the last guardian but that was also a gamble. If any of them couldn't learn the Three Divine Ways, then they would only be wasting time here.
Gritting his teeth, he turned to his teammates.
"If you want to learn the Three Divine Ways, go for it. I will go straight for the first guardian."
At the time, he came up with this plan. He would try his best to defeat the guardians, while his teammates would try to learn the Three Divine Ways if they wanted to.
As for why he didn't go for learning the Three Divine Ways himself, it was because he had already tried learning this before he came to this dungeon, but he failed. So he knew the difficulty of learning such an advanced technique in the bronze rank in only a week.
"Do your best."
Rina held his hands as she saw Runo walk towards the portal.
Smiling, Runo patted her head.
"Don't worry, I will be back after defeating the first guardian. Keep a lookout for them while I am away, will you?"
Rina nodded.
Seeing that, Runo looked at his teammates one last time before entering the portal and vanishing from the hall.
At that time, Welric looked at the remaining ones.
"Anyone else want to join him?"
The captain of the pirates had his head down, his brows furrowed as he contemplated deeply.
"I will go."
In the end, he also decided to fight the guardians rather than waste his time here to learn something that he couldn't learn much when he was at the iron rank now that he was at the bronze rank.
Having decided what to do, he didn't waste his time and disappeared into the portal.
Seeing him gone, Walric turned his attention to the remaining individuals.
"It looks like you people are the only ones remaining. Now we shall start, shall we?"
At that moment, Orion raised his hand.
"I don't know what Three Divine Ways means. Can you explain a little?"
"We also don't know."
At that time, the other transmigrators also joined Orion.
Looking at the group of kids, Walric felt suspicious.
"How can you not know about this when it is known to almost every individual in every domain?"
Orion quickly thought of some excuses, not wanting to expose their identity as transmigrators, but nothing came to his mind after thinking for a moment.
'What should I say?'
He anxiously pondered over it; however, at that moment, someone else did his work.
"We actually didn't want to come to this dungeon; we lived in a village peacefully when these pirates came and kidnapped us and ultimately we found ourselves here. In our village, there is no mention of the Three Divine Ways or anything of this sort."
Turning around, Orion saw that it was a lady among their group of transmigrators who spoke just now.
Looking at her, he saw that she had white hair and jade-like skin, and her face appeared to be the epitome of beauty. She was the most beautiful girl Orion had ever seen. However, as he looked at her, a frown appeared on his face.
'Who is she?'
He couldn't recall seeing her when he first met with the group of transmigrators in Runo's team's hideout and when the pirates released some members of Runo's team along with some transmigrators, nor did he see her in the boat when he first transmigrated. It felt to him as though she appeared out of nowhere.
'Did I make a mistake? Is she with us the whole time, but because of all the tension here and there, I didn't notice her?'
He was convinced of this reason; otherwise, he couldn't explain her bizarre appearance out of nowhere.
Meanwhile, Walric nodded his head as he seemed to understand why they didn't know anything about the Three Divine Ways. Looking at the group of kids and their ragged, dirty attire, he felt assured by his reasoning, and from what that girl said, he was almost sure.
"You kids must have been a group of Zenithans who had been kidnapped by these pirates."
"Zenithans?"
Orion once again didn't understand anything. He felt that whatever they were talking about must be related to their society in this world; hence, everything he said went over his head.
Surprisingly, Walric expected this response from them.
"It seems I have to explain everything from the very beginning so that you can understand the Three Divine Ways."
He paused for a moment as he gathered his thoughts before continuing.
"You see these people over here."
Walric pointed at the group of soul forms in the temple.
"Look carefully; you will find three types of people among them. One group's attire is like mine, the second one looks similar to Agnar, and the last group of people appears similar to Feran based on their clothing and such."
Orion and the group of transmigrators observed carefully and saw that there appeared to be indeed three types of people among the soul forms in the temple.
One appeared to be donning the armor Runo's group wore, which, to Orion, looked more advanced than anything he had seen on earth.
They appeared to be wearing a shirt above their normal clothing, but he could tell it wasn't just any shirt. He could see light gleaming on those shirts they wore, which would be impossible if it were a normal shirt.
There was another group of people that had the same ancient look as that old man Feran, they appeared to be wearing taoist looking robes of different colors. They didn't wear any armor.
Lastly, there was a group of people clad in tunics, each adorned with armor pieces for various parts of their bodies, including shoulder and knee caps, chest plates, braces, and more.
This group of people reminded Orion of knights he had read about on Earth who wore armor all over their bodies.