While cursing the creator of the trial in his head, Zephyr let out a sigh of relief that he had completed the trial without needing to put in much effort.

"I guess struggling through the sea of ash and surviving in extreme situations did help improve my self-confidence and determination..."

’Perhaps that’s also one of the reasons why my spirit stat is so high compared to other base stats...’

Whatever the reason, completing the trial was more important at the moment, so Zephyr was happy that his stats were helping a lot in making quick work of the trials.

"How many more of your trials are left, by the way?"

Hearing Zephyr’s question, the magical sparrow tilted its head side to side for a few times and then replied,

"One."

With that said, the bird disappeared into thin air once again.

’Is this bird some kind of magical hologram or manifestation? It seems to be able to appear anywhere anytime...’

’Well, thankfully there’s only one more trial left and I would finally be done with it!’

Seeing that the end of this exhausting task was now quite close, Zephyr felt even more motivated and hurried downstairs at a faster pace.

After a minute of descending down the stairs, Zephyr arrived at a dilapidated and old-looking underground railway station!

Zephyr could see old newspapers scattered across the platform made up of bluish-black marble.

The railway station looked something straight out of an old horror movie.

The entire station was painted dark red, and the scratch marks etched on the walls of the station stood out as a stark reminder that this place had a history of its own.

There were old-style lamps hanging all around the station, likely for illuminating it, but they were all either broken or out of fuel, and thus the station was covered in darkness.

Zephyr walked over with his torch and tried to pick up a piece of newspaper, but the yellowed paper crumbled upon touch; even the content printed on the newspapers was mostly erased by time.

Moreover, as Zephyr didn’t know the language and was completely dependent on the game’s hidden power to translate the words, he could not attempt to guess the words written on the newspaper on his own either.

In disappointment, Zephyr walked over to the front door of the station and found something written all over the glass door in dried blood.

{DO NOT OPEN THIS NO MATTER WHAT!!}

Seeing that message written in blood over the glass door, Zephyr’s extraordinary perception activated instantly, and his footsteps halted immediately.

For some reason, even with his powerful perception ability, Zephyr could not sense what was behind that glass door and what the writer of this message was trying to warn others about.

But one thing was sure, whatever was locked inside the station was locked for a reason.

"Errr... I don’t have a good feeling about this. It’s better not to stick my nose into something that has nothing to do with; let’s just avoid the station for now and explore the rest of the platform..."

While muttering to himself, Zephyr turned back and started walking away from the station’s main entrance, but before he could get too far, he heard a very quiet and distant whisper from behind.

*How Clever of you... hehe~*

The whisper was barely audible and hard to distinguish; if it was an ordinary person, they wouldn’t have even heard it, but Zephyr had extraordinary hearing capabilities; he heard it all loud and clear.

’I need to keep moving. Don’t turn back. Don’t look at it. Don’t listen to it.’

Zephyr’s powerful intuition reacted almost instantly and stopped him from doing anything wrong, and he hurriedly left the place without looking back even once! 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Once Zephyr walked toward the edge of the platform, he noticed a small mining cart parked on the train tracks with nothing inside of it.

The cart was big and spacious enough for an adult man like himself to sit inside comfortably, and Zephyr had a feeling that there was likely a reason for it to be parked in this eerie place, so he walked over to the cart.

’I have seen enough movies to know that a thrilling ride is the next trial is related to this cart!’

Ignoring the strangeness of the train station, Zephyr walked over to the cart, and once he reached near it, the stupid sparrow suddenly appeared again!

"Welcome, Challenger! It seems you do have amazing wits; you resisted your urge and curiosity to enter and investigate the train station, and that shows your commendable mental fortitude!"

"You are now eligible to take the final trial; enter the cart and clear the trial of ’Broken Dreams’! Good luck! Take care, challenger!"

With that said, the bird disappeared again, but a look of confusion and wariness appeared on Zephyr’s face.

"Why is that stupid bird acting so friendly all of a sudden? With how strange its creator’s personality is and how weirdly it was acting before... there’s no way that the stupid bird had a change of heart all of sudden..."

"There’s definitely something wrong with that bird... it’s just that I can’t put a finger on it and exactly point out what it is..."

While shaking his head in dismay, Zephyr sighed and jumped inside the mine cart.

The train station was pretty small in size, and Zephyr had already looked around; there was no other way out of this place aside from walking on the track on foot or taking this mine cart.

There was only one direction the train tracks were heading to, and the other directions were all blocked with thick stone walls; Zephyr had no choice but to keep moving on this same path even if he didn’t want to.

So, it was better to just take the cart and follow the rules of the trial for now than to walk on his own feet and waste more energy.

As Zephyr sat down inside the mining cart, the cart started moving on its own.

’I can sense mana fluctuations on it... it’s enchanted with magic it seems...’

Zephyr leaned his back against the cart’s inner wall and took a deep sigh as the cart slowly moved forward and left the eerie train station behind.