By studying this initial map, Lin Yu couldn't help but notice one thing...

The Taoist temple where the trio of Little Fire Dragon and the others started and the rendezvous point where he initially was, one was located southeast of Chen Family Fort and Five Springs Village, and the other was located northwest.

Although the distances were similar, the route from the temple to Chen Family Fort was smoother, with only a few locations marked as monster-infested along the way—judging by the symbols which were just a few bright red circles, this route, while dangerous, was limited in its threats.

As for his own route to Chen Family Fort... the Fuyuan Mountain they passed through was densely covered with red circles and crosses, even marked with a "skull" symbol and accompanied by a crude drawing of a Mountain Demon.

Clearly, his route was much more difficult to traverse—even though he had an escort team familiar with the roads leading the way, this escort team might even be a hindrance to making good time!

After all, the cargo the escort team was transporting, the inexplicably still-living severed torso, did indeed attract a large number of Mountain Demons from Fuyuan Mountain to attack, even drawing out the Mountain Demon Leader, Sanyang.

Although thanks to Li Nian and Lin Yu taking turns to act, the crisis was resolved without major incident... the time wasted was undeniably significant!

This led Lin Yu to a question.

"Our progress with the escort team was already slow, and we encountered abnormal monster attacks that severely delayed us. We barely made it to Chen Family Fort. Logically, you should have arrived earlier than us."

Li Nian had also been leaning in to look at the map and reacted when she heard Lin Yu's words. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"That's right, logically you should have been faster!"

"You're all 'Second Tier' players, so you should have some understanding of the Fire Hell in the Prison Mountain Realm. You wouldn't deliberately waste time on the road; you should even be rushing to reach human settlements as quickly as possible... But why did you still arrive exactly at noon?" Li Nian said warily. "It can't be that you deliberately wanted to experience how terrifying the three suns hanging in the sky at noon in the Fire Hell of Prison Mountain Realm are, wanting to challenge yourselves, right?"

After all, at noon in the Fire Hell, it's genuinely possible to die from the heat.

Especially since, although the native humans and most monsters of the Prison Mountain Realm can't withstand the scorching heat of the Fire Hell—even Sanyang, the Mountain Demon Leader, had to find a place to avoid the light and cool off...

However, a considerable number of monsters possess exceptional heat resistance and sun protection abilities, so they still roam outside at noon, looking for unlucky humans who haven't returned to settlements.

Once found by those monsters, fighting under this blazing sun, with combat effectiveness already greatly diminished, makes it easy to be killed outright.

Moreover, the Fire Hell monsters with heat resistance are often the more powerful ones.

Therefore, even 'high-level players' in the Fire Hell follow the principle of avoiding outdoor activities at noon as much as possible.

These three 'Second Tier' members of the 'Player Mutual Aid Association' are neither strong enough to ignore the Fire Hell's temperature nor are they greenhorns who just joined the game and don't understand the situation of the Ten Realms... The 'Player Mutual Aid Association', if nothing else, is arguably the best among major organizations when it comes to basic knowledge dissemination and information sharing among its members.

Thus, their late arrival seemed particularly bizarre.

Faced with Li Nian's inquiry, Little Fire Dragon began to explain: "We really didn't encounter anything too abnormal, but... on one hand, small-scale monster harassment was also constant; we fought off about five or six waves of monster attacks."

"On the other hand... uh, hmm... ha, how should I put it..."

A conflicted expression appeared on Little Fire Dragon's face.

Lin Yu urged, "Don't keep us in suspense, speak quickly... If you keep being evasive like this, I'll have to resort to direct action."

With the title of 'Psychological Society' member hanging over his head, Lin Yu's threat was particularly effective at this moment.

Little Fire Dragon immediately made up his mind and spoke: "It's like this—although we have the map, none of us three are particularly good at reading it."

Little Fire Dragon said somewhat sheepishly.

Making up his mind to say it immediately was one thing; feeling ashamed was another.

Squirtle also sighed: "No helping it. Usually, 'Bulbasaur' handles these things. Nowadays, electronic maps have navigation and one-click first-person views. Reading this kind of traditional map still has a certain learning curve."

Li Nian finally couldn't hold back: "But geography class teaches that—middle school geography teaches it!"

Little Fire Dragon looked innocent: "But I didn't choose geography as an elective... for the general exam, you don't need to master it that meticulously."

Squirtle also lowered his head somewhat self-consciously: "Sorry, my transition to middle school wasn't ideal; I was streamed out in eighth grade..."

Little Fire Dragon comforted him: "It's fine, academic qualifications don't mean everything... In the end, wasn't it thanks to you understanding the map that we found this Chen Family Fort?"

Li Nian then looked at Deadshot: "Alright, those two can be considered having unique 'skills'. Don't tell me you're illiterate too?"

Deadshot shook his head unhappily: "What are you talking about? I'm a genuine university student—and I studied geography too; it was even one of my strong subjects."

"Then why can't you read the map?"

Deadshot sneered: "Test-taking and practical application in real life are completely different. I'm not illiterate, but I have no sense of direction."

As he said this, Li Nian gave a thumbs-up: "Impressive. None of you three are simple."

Lin Yu pondered: "So you arrived so late just because you got lost and wasted time?"

"Part of the reason. Another part is because we not only got lost but also stumbled into the territory of some terrifying monster."

Little Fire Dragon pointed to an area on the map not far from Twin Saw Mountain marked with three skulls and a crude drawing of a python.

This area wasn't on their necessary route; they would have had to deviate significantly from the path to end up there.

"But it was also a blessing in disguise. After we mistakenly entered there, we finally figured out exactly where we were."

At this moment, Lin Yu could only feel deep respect for this trio.

"It's quite something that you managed to come out alive."

After all, Sanyang and its bunch of Mountain Demon underlings only warranted one skull. This area had three skull symbols, which in a sense indicated that the monsters here should be two levels stronger than the Mountain Demon tribe.

In other words...

The three of them survived, completely unscathed, from being pursued and intercepted by the equivalent of three Sanyangs—without even showing any signs of injury.

Little Fire Dragon, Squirtle, and Deadshot clearly didn't want to dwell on their recent experience. Faced with Lin Yu's praise, they just laughed it off vaguely.

Just as Lin Yu was growing somewhat curious and preparing to inquire further...

Suddenly, Old Zheng's voice rang out in his mind.

"Boss, be careful! Two more dart masters have just gone missing!"