Players, Please Board the Train

Only after Xu Huo returned did Yan Jiayu and the others bring out the collected items to distribute, aside from the items belonging to the players under Dai Wenqian and those who came to ambush them this time.

Although the bald man and the other surviving player were taken away by the Special Defense Department, all their items had been confiscated.

There were quite a few items obtained, but in Xu Huo’s view, they weren’t very practical. So after discussing, he took the bald man’s Golden Bell item, and the other items were divided among Yan Jiayu and the others.

”But the news of Brother Xu’s evolution has already spread. There will definitely be more people like Hou Song in the future. Being assassinated day and night isn’t a solution either,” Yuan Yao worried about his own life.

”So I plan to move near the Special Defense Department,” Xu Huo said. ”It’s safer than us living here.”

”That’s true,” Zhou Ning said. ”Although there are more players now, they haven’t reached the point where they can openly challenge the government yet. Living near the Special Defense Department, ordinary players wouldn’t dare to cause trouble, but it means being under the Special Defense Department’s surveillance all the time.”

”Surveillance is surveillance, so what?” Yuan Yao said indifferently. ”We’re being monitored living here anyway. Moving to the Special Defense Department’s doorstep is like having an extra security guard watching the door! I’ll go find a place right now!”

”It’s getting late, we’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Xu Huo said to everyone. ”My place and Yuan Yao’s are opposite each other, both sides can be used.”

He originally hadn’t prepared so many bed sheets and covers, but since Yu Qingqing had stayed over, she bought a lot of things, so there was ample supply.

Everyone settled down. Xu Huo returned to his room, took out the Sound-Muffling Figurine and placed it on the bed, then retrieved the item ”World Within the Painting.”As soon as he came out, Brother Tu couldn’t wait to open his mouth and take a deep breath.

Xu Huo waited for him for two seconds before saying, ”Only ten minutes of air time. Let’s chat again.”

Brother Tu also saw the Sound-Muffling Figurine and sneered, ”So they really all died by your hand.”

”Isn’t it normal that those who kill will one day be killed?” Xu Huo placed the painting on the cabinet and sat at the foot of the bed, interlocking his fingers. ”About Super Evolution, don’t you have anything else you want to say?”

”I don’t know much, I’ve said all I can,” Brother Tu said. ”The process of Super Evolution cannot be replicated. If you’re thinking of trying to trigger evolution yourself, you’d be better off finding a couple more bottles of evolution agent.”

After experiencing the Fog Zone hospital and getting answers from within the game, Xu Huo also understood that Super Evolution had a certain degree of randomness and extremely high risk, but what he wanted to know now wasn’t the principle.

The two major evolution directions the game gave regarding Super Evolution—he should be categorized under the self-control direction.

”Super Evolution involves the physical aspect, and there should also be a mental aspect,” he asked. ”What is the state after mental evolution?”

”Don’t know,” Brother Tu was also blunt.

Xu Huo raised an eyebrow, stood up, walked to the door, and lightly tapped on the door panel. The Painting Woman then drifted in from under the door crack, instantly transforming into human form.

Xu Huo pointed at the painting, and she eagerly squeezed into the painting.

The painting didn’t gain an extra person, but Brother Tu’s face became even more abstract, his mouth open without making a sound, his eyeballs rapidly rotating within the painting, desperately trying to struggle outward. But he couldn’t break free from the item’s power, let alone with the Painting Woman still inside. She could come and go freely, so she would occasionally reach out a hand to push him back in.

After a while, the Painting Woman came out, hanging her head dejectedly as she typed: ”I failed, the person can’t be rolled up.”

”Which way were you trying to roll him?” Xu Huo asked without changing his expression.

”From the back,” the Painting Woman said. ”But I saw on TV, some people can roll themselves up and roll around.”

”That requires exceptional talent to do well. Does he look like someone with exceptional talent to you?” Xu Huo pointed at Brother Tu’s abstract face. ”You should try rolling from the front, maybe his mouth can kiss his own butt.”

The Painting Woman’s eyes lit up, immediately ready to test this theory through practice.

”Are you fucking human or not!” Brother Tu couldn’t help but roar. ”I’m a person, not dough!”

The Painting Woman was startled by his roar, turned and threw herself onto the bedside, her eyes red as she sobbed pitifully, staring at Xu Huo.

”You can roll him first, as long as he doesn’t die,” Xu Huo said, then turned back to the person in the painting. ”See you in six hours.”

The Painting Woman wiped her tears and stood up.

”No! Don’t!” Brother Tu hurriedly said. ”You want to know if there’s mental Super Evolution, right? As far as I know, it’s extremely rare, and even if someone evolves, it doesn’t offer much help in actual combat, because unless one reaches a certain level, a person’s spirit simply cannot affect others.”

Xu Huo naturally knew this. Compared to before, after his Super Evolution, he could only apply a certain amount of mental pressure on others, not affect their mental state, let alone achieve the state of arbitrarily changing ”reality” like in the Fog Zone hospital.

”Is there no other way?” he asked.

”Of course there is,” Brother Tu said. ”If there’s evolution in this area, how could there not be corresponding items? As long as you can obtain an item that amplifies mental influence, you can affect reality.”

”Dou Shengnan of the Phantom Sound Knights uses this method, becoming a famous hypnotist at the E27 Wormhole Point.”

”Dou Shengnan... that high-level player who can command people to commit suicide,” Xu Huo remembered this person vividly.

”Didn’t expect you to know her too,” Brother Tu said. ”She’s the most successful case of mental Super Evolution. Legend has it she has a very powerful item, so the words she speaks can become reality. Making people slit their wrists or jump from buildings are just minor skills. She can command you to do things without your knowledge, and you yourself wouldn’t even know you were hypnotized, thinking it was your own idea.”

Xu Huo slightly frowned. ”Can blocking sight and hearing cut off the influence?”

Brother Tu sneered. ”At her level, you think not listening or looking means you won’t be affected? Absolutely impossible.”

During the battle in Harbor City, he had avoided Dou Shengnan’s hypnosis by blocking his sight and hearing. Now he had also undergone Super Evolution and had a tangible sense of mental influence. After mental strengthening, one should be able to influence others without using language or images. So why didn’t Dou Shengnan succeed back then?

Other high-level players might have methods to counter it, but he was merely an E-grade player at the time, without corresponding items, just gambling on a chance.

He also hadn’t undergone Secondary Evolution back then, so his mental strength probably wasn’t enough to resist hypnosis, yet Dou Shengnan truly didn’t affect him... There must be another reason for this.

”I don’t believe any player is completely helpless against her,” Xu Huo continued. ”There must be ways to counter her.”

”Maybe there are, but I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Brother Tu said. ”The Phantom Sound Knights travel between game partitions smuggling weapons and supplies. I heard about a rebel organization that tried to double-cross them, but within less than half a day, all members were dead, their heads taken to claim bounties. Among those people, one-third of the high-level players blew their own heads off with guns, and many others died from their comrades’ bullets.”