"The buildings have become smaller. The change isn't significant, but it proves that we should be getting closer to the city centre," Kurapika agreed with Ronin's conclusion.
"The key is whether the location where we were teleported earlier—that spot over there—can serve as a teleportation point again," Ging directly identified the crucial issue. "If it can, then reaching the city centre shouldn't take us too long. But if it can't, the next teleportation point might be hundreds of kilometres away!"
Ronin immediately understood what Ging meant.
"That assumes the teleportation points are arranged according to a fixed pattern. If they aren't, surely we can't randomly test every location within a ring spanning hundreds of kilometres!"
"According to my understanding, ever since we entered the city, we've been moving around its outermost layer," Kurapika analysed. "The teleportation brought us into the city's second layer.
"But the key question is whether the teleportation point appeared because we happened to reach the correct location. I don't think so.
"It couldn't have been that much of a coincidence. My judgment is that we fulfilled some condition that caused the teleportation point to appear. The key lies in identifying that condition."
Ronin and Ging simultaneously began thinking back over everything they had done that day.
"The possibility I can think of is that the distance we travelled exceeded the total circumference of the outer district. After that, teleportation could be triggered at any location," Ronin quickly offered his hypothesis.
He also believed that this was the most likely condition.
"I've thought of another possibility," Veronica said, putting her mind to work as well. "The bronze armour. All of us were wearing bronze armour."
"No. The first shadow clone that was teleported wasn't wearing it," Ronin immediately rejected her answer.
"We killed enough green-faced giants," Ging proposed from a different angle. "We barely attacked the Gold and Silver Ingots, and the number of ghosts we killed was also insufficient. As for moving the fountain and similar actions, the probability seems low. After considering everything, the condition may still be connected to the green-faced giants."
Ronin and Kurapika nodded in agreement.
However, Ronin had already sent a shadow clone back to the location from which they had arrived.
If teleportation could be triggered there again, all their speculation would become meaningless.
If it could not, then the theories proposed by Ronin and Ging would both deserve consideration.
The answer soon became obvious.
When the shadow clone rose above the height of the buildings, no teleportation occurred.
The only thing waiting for it was the flash of the Gold and Silver Ingots.
Poof!
The shadow clone exploded beneath the sunlight.
Ronin sighed, though he could accept this result.
"Next, we simply need to conduct various experiments. We'll eventually discover the correct way to advance," Kurapika said optimistically. "The fact that we found a safe place so quickly after entering the ancient city—and even uncovered part of the labyrinth's secret—already means things have gone far more smoothly than expected."
"True," Ging agreed.
He sincerely believed that as well.
"You don't need to console me. I'm quite satisfied too." Ronin smiled faintly. "Let's rest. We'll continue exploring tomorrow. If we truly need to eliminate a sufficient number of green-faced giants, that wouldn't be so bad either."
Ronin was quite interested in the bronze armour.
If they collected enough of it, bringing the suits back to Lake Mobius might earn them a considerable fortune.
Especially since the armour allowed its wearer to move through the ancient city without being attacked by the Gold and Silver Ingots. V5 would probably pursue it eagerly.
Ronin took the lead and opened the door of their current building.
An enraged ghost was waiting inside!
Night had already fallen, and the city was once again under the ghosts' control.
Ronin did not intend to cause any more chaos that night.
Of course, if they failed to find a new teleportation point the following day, he would not mind stirring up trouble again after dark.
As for the ghost inside the building, Ronin casually destroyed it with a Rasengan the instant it approached.
When the group continued advancing through the city the next day, they soon encountered another giant.
This one, however, was no longer green-faced and fanged.
Instead, it was a cyclops resembling the creatures from Greed Island.
Unlike the monsters in the game, which could be defeated simply by striking their eyes, when Ronin's attack landed on the giant's single eye, it unleashed an unparalleled shock wave.
Blinking seemed to be the cyclops's most powerful attack.
The impact sent Ronin flying, but Kurapika's chains had already wrapped around the creature.
Even more terrifyingly, a vacuum cleaner with a mouth plunged directly into the cyclops's eye at the exact moment Ronin was knocked away.
It was the momentary opening caused by recovery lag!
The instant the cyclops blinked and sent Ronin flying, the Nen surrounding its eye briefly disappeared.
Shizuku had perfectly seized that opening to attack.
As long as a wound was torn open somewhere on the cyclops's body, Blinky's blood-sucking ability was enough to make the giant experience true fear.
Its shrivelled corpse collapsed onto the ground, and the token controlling its bronze armour fell out.
The armour shrank and was directly stored away by Shizuku.
"Interesting." Excitement appeared in Ging's eyes. "These beings wearing bronze armour may be the key to the city."
Ronin had the same premonition.
Over the course of the morning, the team found three cyclopes within the city.
When the shadow clone testing the teleportation mechanism leapt high enough into the air, it suddenly vanished from everyone's sight.
Looking at the spot where the shadow clone had disappeared, an idea occurred to Ronin.
"Perhaps we don't need a specific location. We may only need an area that is open enough!"
Both the shadow clone teleported this time and the one teleported previously shared one characteristic.
The places where they disappeared had both been extremely spacious and open.
"Provided that we first kill enough bronze warriors," Kurapika added, summarising their discovery.
He classified both the green-faced giants and the cyclopes as bronze warriors.
Kurapika even suspected that as they continued advancing, they would encounter more varieties of bronze warriors.
These bronze warriors were both guardians protecting the city and secret keys that activated its teleportation mechanism.
After all, once Ronin's group obtained bronze armour, the only beings remaining in the city that would actively attack them were giants wearing the same bronze armour.
For now, although the cyclopes were stronger than the green-faced giants, the difference was limited.
They were still nowhere near powerful enough to stop Ronin's group.
What followed became much simpler.
After confirming that killing three bronze warriors activated a teleportation point, Ronin's group accelerated their progress considerably.
By the time night fell, they had already undergone three teleportations.
Even the house they chose for the night was visibly smaller than the one they had stayed in the day before.
They truly were advancing toward the city centre, little by little.