079 CaveXTraps

"There is a cave 85 meters from here." Silver breaking the silence.

"There. Not visible from here, but if we walk just behind those large stalagmites." Silver pointed behind the largest group of stalagmites. "Careful though, there are probably snakes and other crawlers in the land."

As soon the group landed, Marco spread fire to the ground. "That should work."

~~~

The group stand at the entrance of the cave with flashlights on hand.

"This is man-made. Good job Silver." Lara commended. "What do you 'see' ahead?"

"It is deep. There is a left turn 50 meters in. No sound of movement." Silver answered. "I can only see up to the next turn."

Silver can only see up to the next turn with his Echolocation in this deep undergound cave. Although it sometimes work like and/or better than En, it is not En after all.

"Bradford you're up." -Marco.

*crack* *crack* Bradford cracked his own neck by tilting left and right. "It's finally my turn."

The group entered the cave with Bradford on the lead. Bradford is different when he's in his element. He would move his head left and right for any signs of traps and would command the group to stop every once in a while if he sees something unusual.

<30 minutes later a human silhouette entered the man-made cave>

"Stop." Commanded Bradford.

"Is it those markings again? We've passed through multiple of them already." Asked annoyedly by Grylls.

Bradford carefully knock on the wall a few times and then a few times on the floor. The sound they created are similar to the ones they heard multiple times already passing through this passage. On the ears of Bradford and Silver however they are different. Bradford had trained his right ear for years to be pitch perfect and unconsciously opened his right ear's aura node. Silver on the other hand already opened each node of the ears and adding his bat ears has been an overkill.

Everytime Bradford tries to listen intently he unknowingly focuses a small amount of aura to his right ear to extend its sensitivity to sound. Bradford is one of those humans who have practiced and perfected their craft that they are at the boundary of using Aura without actually learning Nen. Maybe another year of training would have pushed him to finally learn it.

Bradford asked everyone to back away. He then pick up a stone lying conveniently on the ground and threw it in the platform. Spikes suddenly came from the left and right wall as a pincer attack.

"Slade, break them." Bradford commanded before they could retract back to place.

With his katana, Slade skillfully sliced the wooden spikes.

"And that's why I'm the trap master and not you." Smuggedlly said Bradford to Grylls face. Bradford knocked a few times all over the place just to be sure. He reactivated the trap but due to them being cut by Slade, they posed no threat.

Silver already saw the traps way ahead of Bradford with his echolocation but he wants to see how the trap master in action. Those hollow spots and spikes stands out compared to just a deep and thick tunnel.

I I

I I <---    Spikes here

I I

I I

Silver picked up one of the spikes and asked. "You know, if the Xian was really last seen thousands of years ago, how come the traps are still working and in such a pristine condition to even activate?"

"Don't ask such a silly question, Silver. Everyone knows that a trap is always in a pristine condition no matter when it was made." Explained Lara. "No matter when!" She added while sticking his face forward to Silver's face just inches apart.

Silver looked at the others in the group only to be met with weird eyes and furrowed brows.

"He is too young, too much imagination." Grylls shook his head.

"This is why I told you not to bring the kid, he'll be the death of us." Marco said to Lara.

"Amateur." Slade rolled his eyes.

"You should just watch and learn how the master works, Silver. Then you can get rid of such similar notions in the future." Bradford patted Silver in the shoulder.

"I- I guess I read too much fiction then." Silver answered backing away from the creepy faces.

"Good, now let's continue." Bradford commanded as an interim leader.

They activated/deactivated a few more traps. There are similar spikes that Slade cut off in a similar manner. There is pendulum blade that cuts anyone who crosses it path.

The team had to learn the timing Bradford said to avoid being cut. Grylls had a few cuts himself and had to apply healing salves to hasten the healing. Although healing salve is a miracle worker, it cannot work effectively on heavy wounds. It uses the owner's stamina and vitality to fasten the healing so the person will fatigue faster if he keeps on using the salve. A heavy wounded one, might just die on stamina and vitality consumption.

A few poisonous darts here and there which Bradford fully disabled by cutting a wire almost invisible to the naked eye. 'These traps really last! I wonder why I even doubted it in the first place?' Thought Silver as he observed Bradford with his Scarlet eyes. He was able to learn what to look for and how to disable multiple types of traps.

The basic is that there is a trigger, a switch and the trap. First one has to learn identify a trap by looking for inconsistency on the surroundings. Second identify how the trigger works and the mechanism that switched the trap.

One can either activate the trap to render it useless. One can disable the switch so no matter how much you 'press' trigger, the trap will not activate. Destroy the trap entirely before it activates and lastly evade the trap entirely.

Knowing when to use which one is the crux and he has been observing Bradford how to decide, even asking his decisions on times he could not understand the reason for.