What witch? The Deadly Pharmacist!

From this perspective, his ability to create monsters as the master of the labyrinth is actually quite limited. If there are existing monster species, letting them reproduce on their own might be more efficient.

The advantage of this ability is that it allows him to create monsters that he doesn't already have, especially those monsters that are valuable on their own.

For example, if he has refined the magic essence of earth dragons, he can also create earth dragon eggs. The earth dragons raised from them can obey his commands, which would be equivalent to having an extra powerful guardian for this maze!

However, this can only remain speculation for now. Creating an earth dragon is undoubtedly risky and can only be attempted under certain conditions. Whether his magic power level is sufficient to do so is also unknown. At least in his current state, he cannot continue.

“Let’s stop the experiments here for now,” Leon said, looking towards the grooves in the wall at the deepest part of the maze. “Next, let’s see what’s in that secret chamber.”

"Is there really a room behind that?" Lena followed Leon and observed carefully, but still couldn't see any clues.

“Now that my identity as the master of the labyrinth has been verified, the secret chamber most likely exists.” Leon went to the groove and began to explore, preparing to find the switch for the secret chamber.

However, just as he touched the groove, a rumbling sound of a mechanism being activated suddenly came from the wall, and then the hidden door in the wall opened automatically, revealing a narrow passage in front of him.

"It's open?" Lena said, dumbfounded.

"Why did it open by itself?" Leon was also surprised. He felt that he hadn't even touched the mechanism; he had just touched the wall.

Is it because he possesses the witch's blessing? Or is it because he is the master of the labyrinth?

He concentrated on exploring the dark room at the other end of the passage, but still couldn't sense what was inside; he could only feel a dense flow of magic within.

However, if the rooms inside were prepared for the Lord of the Labyrinth or the Earth Mother Goddess Priestess who is a witch, then the possibility of danger would be greatly reduced.

“Leon, there are words here.” Lena suddenly pointed to a line of words on the wall near the entrance of the passage that Leon did not recognize. The words were somewhat similar to the runes on the Moirai altar. “The secret chamber here is called the ‘Ritual Chamber’.”

"You recognize these characters?" Leon asked, somewhat surprised.

“This is the ancient script used by the Moirai followers. My grandmother taught me some of it,” Lena said.

"There might be something good hidden in this room," Leon said, still not entirely at ease. "Let's send the dire wolf in to scout ahead."

Chapter 104 The Room Where You Can't Leave Without [XX]

Rena followed her instructions and guided the wolf into the dark room, making it circle around and sniff around. She even let the wolf paw at the walls of the secret chamber, but in the end, it did not trigger any mechanisms.

"I'll go in and take a look. You stay outside and keep watch," Leon instructed Lena before picking up the lantern and going inside.

The secret room wasn't large; once inside, a lantern could illuminate the general area.

On the innermost wall is a statue of a goddess, draped in thorns, with a thorn stuck in her chest. A carved veil covers the goddess's face, making her features indistinct. A huge pentagram emblem is carved on the back of the statue.

Although the details differ from the Moirai statues that Leon knew, there are still many similar elements. If this temple was indeed built by the ancient Elanders, then the Earth Mother Goddess they worshipped was probably the Moirai herself.

Besides the statue, the only other thing in the room was a square stone platform in the center. There were some characters engraved on the surface of the platform. Leon couldn't understand them at all after a few glances, but he could tell that they were the same characters as the "Ritual Chamber" that Lena had just deciphered at the door.

Leon circled the stone platform but found no openings or mechanisms. It was like a table or a stone bed, with nothing on it except for the words carved on it.

Is it really necessary to hide such a room like this?

"Leon, how is it?" Lena called out to Leon.

Leon looked around and, not sensing any obvious danger, called out to Lena, "Why don't you come in? There are some words here that I can't understand."

Upon hearing this, Lena cautiously entered the secret chamber, came to Leon's side, and carefully examined the writing on the stone platform.

"Can you understand it?" Leon asked.

"Offering a fertility ritual to the Mother Goddess?" Lena squinted, slowly deciphering the writing on the stone platform. "What...does this mean?"

"Procreation? Ritual?" Leon vaguely understood something after hearing this interpretation.

He quickly recalled the ancient Eland traditions Johnny had mentioned to him, where witches who served as the Earth Mother in ancient Eland would unite with a chosen tribal hero in the temple as a sacrifice to the Earth Mother.

Could it be that the so-called ritual wasn't performed on the altar, but rather specifically in this secret room?

Thinking of this, Leon couldn't help but laugh awkwardly. How was he going to explain this to Lena?

"Is this an ancient Moirai statue? So what is this room used for?" Lena asked, looking at the statue with confusion.

"Never mind, Lena, let's go out first..." Leon suggested.

No sooner had he finished speaking than a rumbling sound suddenly rang out.

Leon and Rena both looked towards the doorway, only to see it close without warning, just as the door had opened automatically.

"Ah!" Lena exclaimed.

Leon gasped, and without a word, grabbed Lena and ran toward the exit. However, the narrow passage between the room and the door slowed them down, and the door closed unusually fast. Before they could even touch it, the stone door slammed shut.

"Why did it suddenly close?" Lena panicked upon seeing this. "Are we trapped inside?"

"Don't rush," Leon said, groping around the stone door and passageway, but he didn't find anything that resembled a mechanism.

The door opened quite inexplicably when they came in, and now it has inexplicably closed again, trapping them inside.

Finding nothing in the passageway and near the door, Leon and Lena retreated back into the room. Lena was completely terrified by the situation: "Leon, what... what do we do? Have we fallen into a trap?"

“If this is a trap, something more deadly should be placed here. Let’s look for clues first. There must be a way to open this secret room…” Leon began to look around for clues.

He suddenly stopped when his gaze fell on the stone platform.

The words on the stone platform suddenly gathered magical power at this moment, emitting a faint light that was particularly conspicuous in the dimly lit secret room.

"..."

Leon suddenly fell silent.

The secret chamber, its opening condition: offering a fertility ritual to the Mother Goddess, a tradition of ancient Elander…

Does that mean I have to complete a ritual before I can leave this room?

He always felt that he had heard of something similar in some works from his previous life.

There really is such a thing!?

"Lena..." Leon called out hesitantly, while thinking to himself how to explain this to Lena.

Just then, Leon sensed an unusual shift in the dense magic that filled the room. Even though the lantern was still burning, he suddenly felt darkness envelop him.

"Ah!" Lena cried out in surprise, as she suddenly went blind as well.

"Lena, over here!" Leon quickly reached out in the direction where Lena had just been, trying to grab her hand first.

In the darkness, Lena responded to him in the same way, and Leon felt Lena grasp his two hands with her own.

Fortunately, the darkness lasted only a few seconds before suddenly disappearing, and the light of the lantern once again enveloped the entire space.

Then Leon froze on the spot.

Before him stood two Lena's side by side, each extending a hand to grasp his left and right hands respectively.

The two Lena's exchanged a glance and simultaneously gasped, as if looking in a mirror.

"This..." Leon was shocked to see that Lena had become two, and subconsciously let go of their hands.

"It's a shapeshifter!" Lena on the left suddenly shouted, pushing Leon away and distancing herself from her other self. "Leon, watch out, it's a shapeshifter!"

"No, you're the shapeshifter!" Lena on the right also stepped back, pointing at herself on the left and shouting at Leon, "Leon, don't believe her!"

"Shapeshifters...they really do exist?"

Leon recalled the legends about shapeshifters that circulated in the labyrinth.

Legend has it that there is a monster in the labyrinth that has no fixed form and can transform into the appearance of any creature. It can also read the shallow consciousness of humans, appear as a close friend or relative of the target to approach them, and then kill them when the target is off guard. It seems to be a dangerous monster designed specifically to target humans.

However, there is no definitive answer as to whether shapeshifters really exist, because it is said that shapeshifters disintegrate when they are killed, and the legends about shapeshifters only exist in the stories told by dungeon explorers.

It now appears that this thing truly exists; it can not only transform into someone else's appearance but also mimic their voice and speech.

The flow of magic just now was very similar to when he used the power of the Labyrinth Lord to create monsters.

Could it be that some setting in this secret room caused the magic gathered here to create this shapeshifter on the spot?

What is the purpose of this?

After a moment's thought, Leon first thought of the fastest way to distinguish between the real and the fake.

He took out a test tube containing his own blood sample and activated his ability.

The blood immediately turned a dangerous purplish-red, and both Lena's showed expressions of tension.

He first extended the test tube towards Lena on his left. The intimidating aura of the cursed blood made Lena on the left shudder, but she quickly regained her composure and did not react much.

Leon's sharp gaze swept over Lena on his right, then he turned and held the test tube towards her.

The expression on Lena's face on the right instantly changed from tension to terror. Under the control of instinctive fear, her body became noticeably distorted.

"Fake!" Leon immediately drew his gun.

"Hiss!!" The shapeshifter let out a sharp shriek, its features suddenly fading away, turning into a black humanoid shape like a three-dimensional shadow, before quickly darting towards the wall.

At this moment, Lena controlled the demon wolf to pounce and pinned down the humanoid shapeshifter. The shapeshifter did not struggle because it was controlled by Lena's will.

When Lena discovered that she had been copied by the shapeshifter, she tried to control it, but was met with resistance. The shapeshifter seemed to be as difficult to control as the dire wolf.

However, the moment Leon used the cursed blood to expose its weakness, Lena felt her magic successfully resonate with the shapeshifter.

But she was still a little worried, so she manipulated the wolf to suppress the shapeshifter.

"What on earth happened in this room?" Lena patted her chest, still shaken. "First they locked people in here, and then a shapeshifter appeared?"

This shapeshifter appeared out of thin air, clearly generated automatically by the maze, seemingly based on some mechanism of this secret room.

Leon observed the shapeshifter in silence for a while before speaking: "I might know what's going on. This shapeshifter is probably used to assist in the ritual."

If the so-called ritual to open the secret room is really as Leon thinks, then how can the ritual be completed if someone enters the secret room and is locked inside?

The answer is this shapeshifting monster generated by the maze. It automatically reads a person's surface consciousness, transforms into the appearance of the person's admired object in their memory, and completes the ritual with the person entering the secret room.

"What ceremony?" Lena asked, puzzled.

“It’s just…” After thinking it over, Leon finally sighed and laid out his speculation.

However, before he could finish speaking, Lena froze completely in place.

Chapter 105 I have abundant theoretical knowledge

"Lena?" Leon noticed Lena's frozen reaction as he finished speaking, and waved his hand in front of her. "Miss Lena?"

Lena finally snapped out of her daze, blinked twice, ran her hand through her hair, and said calmly, "Stop joking around at a time like this, let's find a way out quickly!"

“I’m not joking.” Leon spread his hands, speaking very seriously. “Otherwise, how would you explain this? And what role does that shapeshifter play here?”

"I've never heard of this kind of ritual since I became a witch!" Lena shook her head frantically.

"Do you think your grandmother would have told you these things even if she knew?" Leon retorted.

Lena was speechless for a moment. Admittedly, when her grandmother taught her how to become a witch, even if she knew such useless knowledge, she would never have told her.

“Actually, church art and folk legends have mentioned this aspect. The prototype should be the ancient Eland tradition, but there are definitely exaggerations and smears involved,” Leon said.

In stories created by the church and in folk tales, witches are always associated with various forms of lewdness.

The witches in the story always take pleasure in tempting people to depravity. Even the noblest knight will fall into the clutches of heresy once he succumbs to lust in front of the witch.

Folklore says that witches would lure people to pagan territory and hold grand carnivals to recruit Moirai followers.

Even Johnny, a former church knight, believed that the Earth Mother priests of ancient Elander would hold a revelry with the tribal heroes on the outer altar, but now, based on Leon's investigation, the actual place where such a sacrifice was held should be this small sacrificial chamber.

Judging from the layout, this place can only accommodate two people at most. It's unrealistic to imagine any large-scale orgies here. It's more likely that only priestesses and their chosen partners can engage in dual cultivation rituals here.

However, if that shapeshifter was intended for solo rituals, then the idea of ​​dual cultivation with a monster seems a bit ahead of its time.

"But...this...but..." Lena's face turned red, her eyes darting around, completely lost in confusion.

"Calm down, Lena, we need to find a way out!" Leon said, pressing down on Lena's shoulder with a burning gaze.

"You...you mean finding a way out, could it be..." Lena's voice trembled with nervousness.

“We have to find a way out of this mess, right? If there’s a way, we should at least try it, shouldn’t we?” Leon carefully chose his words.

Lena stared at Leon, and as she looked, a hint of suspicion suddenly appeared on her face: "Are you really just thinking about escaping?"

“Of course! This is a matter of life and death, I don’t think this is the time to worry about trivial matters!” Leon said righteously.

But the suspicion on Lena's face did not disappear; on the contrary, it grew even stronger.

After a while, she threw a probing question at Leon: "Then what are you laughing at?"