Just when Zephyr was focused on the sparrow, the wall to his right disappeared, and a new staircase appeared, leading in a completely different direction.

’What-’

And before Zephyr could react to what was happening, more and more staircases started to appear in all directions, all leading downstairs but in different directions.

"Welcome, Challenger! Welcome to the Stairs of Despair!"

"I have been waiting for a new challenger to appear for a long while! For several decades, there’s been no one who has visited the trial!"

"I am pleased to see a new challenger finally appear! I am Jonathon! A friendly assistant designed to guide the challenger by the ’Hero’ Layla Jauregia!"

To Zephyr’s shock, the small sparrow started talking fluently all of a sudden!

Moreover, the sparrow’s voice carried a robot-like, emotionless tone, and its sound was distorted horribly as the sparrow’s screeches were mixed in a sound that made the listener uncomfortable!

’A talking sparrow! D*mn! I thought it would be a monster but it turned out to be something even more bizarre!’

’This world is really unpredictable! You never know what might happen all of a sudden!’

"Uh, you are Jonathon, you say? Is your surname ’Jo*ster’ by any chance?"

The little sparrow tilted its head in confusion.

"I am Jonathon, an assistant designed by ’Hero’ Layla Jauregia."

Seeing that machine-like reaction, Zephyr realized that the fellow was likely not equipped with any artificial intelligence and was just repeating pre-programmed lines.

"Ahem, so tell me, Jonathon, which of these stairs is the right one?"

Hearing Zephyr’s question, the sparrow tilted its head several times from side to side as if this was its data loading animation and after about ten head tilts, the sparrow finally replied,

"I am Jonathon, an assistant designed by ’Hero’ Layla Jauregia."

Zephyr shook his head in disappointment after hearing that same line again.

"Ugh, don’t tell me that after years of lack of maintenance, this sparrow has lost its screws and has gone stupid?..."

"Don’t you have any puzzles or riddles like in those anime and stories for me that I need to solve to move to the next stage of trial?"

Hearing Zephyr’s question, the bird tilted its head again and started doing its iconic head-tilting loading animation again.

"Loading data, please wait patiently.... Loading data... loading data..."

"Data confirmed... I am Jonathon, an assistant designed by ’Hero’ Layla Jauregia."

Zephyr facepalmed in disappointment and massaged his temples to stop the coming headache.

It took a great deal of restraint for Zephyr to stop himself from smashing the idiotic bird and not blurt out swear words at it.

"Urgh, No other choice; I would have to test all the stairs one by one, there are many stairs but they are clearly finite; I will find the real one sooner or later if I keep trying..."

With a look of determination, Zephyr took out some cotton and tissue paper from his package, made small balls of cotton, and tossed one of them on the staircase that was located right in front of him.

*BOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!*

The moment the cotton ball touched the staircase, the entire staircase blew apart in an explosion! 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

The explosion was so powerful that even Zephyr, who was like an immovable mountain, was pushed back several steps just by the shockwave created from that explosion!

The explosion was insanely powerful, but strangely enough, the effects didn’t spread to any of the other staircases at all, as if the explosion were confined by some kind of invisible walls.

"That was hilarious, keke..."

And as if putting salt on a wound, the stupid sparrow started giggling with a weirdly annoying tone after the explosion as if it were happy that the challenger got blown to oblivion.

"Crazy... this place is crazy!"

Zephyr couldn’t find words to describe his chaotic emotions at the moment and could only glare at the stupid sparrow in annoyance.

"Are you sure this place was designed by someone with the ’Hero’ title in their name?"

Zephyr expected the stupid bird to reply stupidly again, but to his surprise, the bird replied very quickly when the ’Hero’ was mentioned.

"Hero Layla Jauregia is a legendary figure who has saved the Jauregia empire from many calamities in the past."

"Her story is awe-inspiring and fills the heart of all people of the nation with hope and happiness!"

"This trial was personally hand-crafted by ’Hero’ Layla Jauregia to test the worthiness of those who seek to approach the ’Eternal Garden’!"

"Please refrain from insulting or speaking ill of that legendary figure, or I will be forced to take disciplinary actions against you."

Talking about the ’hero,’ the stupid bird suddenly gained an aura of wisdom; its eyes shone brightly as if they were radiating with awe towards the person it was preaching about.

’I see, this so called ’Hero’ is actually an arrogant, narcissistic, and weirdo type of person. Not only they created this weird assistant that only cares about praising its creator and mocks those who fail the trial.’

’To create such dangerous traps in this trial, the person creating it must be very sinister and weird...’

Zephyr didn’t want to waste his breath on a stupid bird, so he ignored its ramblings and tossed another cotton ball at the staircase located to his right.

’This staircase appeared earlier than the other; maybe this is the correct choice...’

Under Zephyr’s hopeful eyes, the cotton ball touched the staircase and suddenly vanished all of a sudden.

There was no sound or change in the staircase this time; instead, the cotton ball suddenly vanished out of existence.

"That was hilarious, keke..."

Hearing the same statement from the stupid bird once again, Zephyr became confused.

"What?"

"What happened just now?"

Confused, Zephyr threw another cotton ball, and this time he kept a close eye on it, but to his surprise, the cotton ball vanished once again the moment it touched the staircase.

"Is this some kind of illusion magic or some kind of space magic?"

Zephyr himself had quite a high affinity with space and wind elementals, and if it was something related to wind and space, he could have sensed the problem easily.

But to his dismay, despite keeping a close eye, Zephyr still couldn’t understand why the cotton ball vanished so suddenly, so he could only abandon the thought of using that staircase for now.

’There are plenty others; no need to risk going into the unknown, let’s try out all of them first.’