Players, Please Board the Train

Chapter 476: Breaking News

When submitting the application, Director Sanyang clearly gave him a few extra glances, but didn't ask anything. He took Xu Huo to the third floor, and after the transaction, led him back down, saying, "There's nothing much going on these next few days, you don't need to report to the base."

Xu Huo glanced outside, "I just saw transport vehicles coming and going. Are those supplies ordered by the District 011 government?"

"No." Sanyang said casually, watching the numbers in the elevator, "The base is transferring a batch of items."

Xu Huo nodded, wisely not asking more, and didn't linger at the base either, driving straight back to the ancient castle.

The castle building had automatically repaired itself again, only the garden wasn't finished yet. Xu Huo first continued helping Mr. Dong plant the flowers, then purchased a train ticket for E27-001 on the game backend. There were no ready-made tickets available, so he increased the bounty a little.

Then he browsed some of the major news within the game.

The hottest topic was the battle between the super player Paper Artisan and the Suitcase Man. Previously, rumors had circulated that Paper Artisan had obtained the Super Item "Fielder's Battle Angel," so news about Paper Artisan had never stopped, though it was mostly minor skirmishes. This time, however, it was said the two of them destroyed an entire Game Partition.

The news included an extremely short clip of their fight. Paper Artisan wasn't shown, but the Suitcase Man was captured more clearly, allowing Xu Huo to finally see his appearance clearly.

He wore a top hat and a long coat, holding a black leather suitcase with a small wooden puppet handle. His face was half-covered by a mask, concealing only the upper left half.

The projection ended with him turning his head to look towards the camera. What was unsettling was that his eyes were obscured by a layer of black mist. Even with the pupils completely invisible, one could still feel the killing intent transmitted through the air."Suitcase Man." Xu Huo searched for information on his wanted status and found this man ranked third on the game-wide most-wanted list. Not only was the bounty amount staggering, but the game backend would automatically issue a Super Item as a reward to whoever was confirmed to have killed him.

Unlike "refined" types like Laurence Li, the Suitcase Man was infamous for his cruelty and bloodlust. It was said he enjoyed turning living people into puppets and owned a castle specifically for storing these puppets. Almost no player who entered ever came out alive.

This man also had no specific targets for his crimes. Whether players or the Game Government, he would strike on a whim. The Game Government often suffered heavy losses, as government institutions usually stored some decent items, potions, experimental samples, etc. After robbing a place, the Suitcase Man would kill everyone present. As for the scope of "everyone," that depended on his mood.

Based on his appearance and other characteristics, Xu Huo could basically match the "Suitcase Man" with the leather suitcase player he saw in the Block Fairy Tale City, and with the owner of the wooden puppet mentioned by Painting Woman.

He never expected that the person he brushed past back then was actually a super player. Using his wooden puppet to help shake off pursuers now seemed like an extremely high-risk gamble. Fortunately, the other party either didn't notice or didn't care about the tricks he played in the middle.

The battle between the Suitcase Man and Paper Artisan ultimately had no clear winner. An entire Game Partition was dismantled. Even if someone could glimpse the final outcome, they wouldn't casually leak the information.

After browsing a bit more, he moved on to other information.

There was some new progress regarding the previous arms shipment robbery case. Someone detected traces of the items used by the perpetrators from some of the damaged and abandoned transport ship wreckage. There was a high probability it was the work of the Phantom Sound Knights.

This organization was already notorious for robbery and smuggling. Hijacking arms shipments from Platinum Eye was definitely something they were capable of. Furthermore, more people were concerned about where they would deliver the arms. Some even publicly stated on the bounty platform that they were willing to purchase the supplies in their hands.

Xu Huo took a closer look at the information on related members of this organization. Besides Dou Shengnan, whom he had seen personally, there were two others he had seen on television. As for their leader, he was a handsome blonde man.

More than half of these people were Grade A players. The combat power of an entire knight order was enough to go head-to-head with a super player.

Thinking about their battle with Laurence Li in Harbor City, he felt even more that the previous player invasion incident was full of coincidences. However, it was also thanks to this that District 014 managed to survive from the cracks.

The light in the room suddenly dimmed. Xu Huo turned to look in the direction of Madame Butterfly's residence. "No need to test things out so late at night, right?"

An independent metal zipper, nearly three meters long, stood vertically in his room. The slider zipped down from top to bottom. Madame Butterfly stood on the other side, smiling as she said, "I see your evolution rate has increased quite a bit. I wanted to see if your Mental World has improved."

As she finished speaking, a zipper appeared behind Xu Huo, opening and moving forward to swallow him.

However, the next second, Xu Huo's figure vanished from the stool, replaced by a painting.

"Not bad, using a new portal symbol to replace the original door." Madame Butterfly commented before turning and disappearing behind the zipper.

In reality, Xu Huo hadn't left his room at all. After a moment's hesitation, he actively opened his own Mental World. While exploring Madame Butterfly's Mental World could indeed increase his practical experience in this area, what he needed more urgently right now was to master his own Mental World. This was because he had already externalized his mental power through an item, and he would have many future occasions to use his Mental World.

Within the pitch-black space, a door slowly moved in front of Madame Butterfly. She pushed it open and entered, only to find a staircase descending into bottomless depths below.

However, this time she didn't go straight down. Instead, she used her own portals to move rapidly within Xu Huo's Mental World. But after a minute, she stopped because she couldn't find the library.

Xu Huo had hidden the real library and all his materialized items.

His original Mental World was a very complex circular library, reachable directly by descending the stairs. Generally, a Mental World is mostly fixed upon formation, with subsequent changes only involving modifications or additions to increase complexity based on the original foundation.

Madame Butterfly entered his Mental World but found its atmosphere completely different from that of a library.

Pausing her steps, a silver zipper appeared before her. After passing through it several times consecutively, she finally arrived at the real staircase.

But this time, she still couldn't reach the bottom.

Not reaching the bottom meant this was still a fake Mental World.

Madame Butterfly utilized her golden zipper portal again. But after passing through, she found herself standing in a room of the library. The room had a door on each of its four sides. The moment she entered, all the doors opened. Similarly, the four newly appeared rooms each opened new doors in different directions.

The number of rooms and doors multiplied. Behind the doors were still more doors, and all the rooms were moving left, right, up, and down according to a certain pattern.