Players, Please Board the Train

”Wanted criminals can re-enter the game?” Xu Huo asked casually.

”The only way to avoid being teleported into a high-risk dungeon is to leave your original wormhole point. If you re-enter a dungeon from a new wormhole point, your player identity will be recorded in the game,” Madame Butterfly explained. ”This applies whether you’re a wanted criminal or just fleeing to another wormhole point to avoid a high-risk dungeon.”

”There are still ways to avoid high-risk dungeons,” Xu Huo thought for a moment before adding, ”Can’t you hide inside an item?”

”You’re talking about container items. Players can temporarily detach from the game using container items, but there’s a price to pay,” Madame Butterfly glanced up at him. ”If you don’t want to do dungeons, you could also hide in the gaps of this ancient castle.”

”What price?” Xu Huo pressed, appearing genuinely interested.

”Why don’t you try it and find out?” Madame Butterfly smiled.

Their eyes met, and neither continued the topic. After a while, Xu Huo spoke up, ”Do you really intend to rob Rongxin Group’s arms shipment?”

”Have you come up with an idea?” Madame Butterfly raised an eyebrow.

”No,” Xu Huo said. ”But you should have more information than I do. Besides, you managed to get into the Enforcement Department to kill. Robbing a batch of weapons should be child’s play in comparison, right?”

”Testing me?” Madame Butterfly tossed the gem she was playing with back into its box. ”The transaction site will definitely have spatial lockdowns nearby. If Rongxin brings enough players, what difference is there between walking in and climbing into a jar yourself?””Similarly, once that batch of weapons is stored in a warehouse, it will be very difficult to get near them again.”

”The only window to strike is between when they exit the station and when the transaction parties complete the handover,” Xu Huo continued her train of thought. ”Your map marks a sea station. Rongxin Group has placed a large number of warehouses at the nearest dock, and a batch of supplies will be transported in within a week. Perhaps that’s the weapons you have your eyes on.”

Madame Butterfly didn’t even look at him, getting up and heading upstairs.

Her attitude made it quite clear—the supplies arriving at the dock within a week definitely wouldn’t be the weapons. So, the logistical personnel under Rongxin Group’s branch hastily rearranging storage room locations was itself a decoy.

As she stepped onto the stairs, Xu Huo suddenly said, ”Another sparring match?”

Madame Butterfly turned on the spot, narrowing her eyes as she assessed him. ”Your spirit is quite resilient.”

Expanding one’s Mental World to launch mental attacks against outsiders also consumes a tremendous amount of energy from the user herself. Having engaged him with absolute advantage, he should have been struggling to cope. Yet, after just one day, he dared to suggest a second round.

”Alright,” Madame Butterfly raised her right hand vertically. A golden zipper stretching to the roof appeared behind her. As the teeth parted, golden light burst forth, instantly flooding the first floor.

Yesterday, she had entered Xu Huo’s Mental World. Today, she opened her own Mental World and drew Xu Huo inside.

Xu Huo stood in the vast white space, reached out a hand, and as he moved, a door appeared ahead. He turned the handle and walked through.

The scenery beyond the door remained unchanged, but without even furrowing his brow, he opened seven doors in succession.

Madame Butterfly watched him nearby. Seeing him act without apparent thought, she assumed he was just trying his luck. However, when he entered the seventh door, she suddenly felt a force invading her Mental World.

A massive frame appeared before Xu Huo. The thick, viscous colors within the painting stirred on their own, swirling like a vortex to form a new portal.

His materialized portal was a door in the conventional sense, while Madame Butterfly’s was a zipper. Moreover, the book tower contained only books, no paintings. So when this painting appeared, both of them paused momentarily.

Madame Butterfly sent forth a zipper that swallowed the painting, denying Xu Huo the chance to enter it. But the next second, more paintings appeared behind the door Xu Huo had opened, floating and arrayed within the blank space she had created.

Seeing him about to step into one of the paintings, Madame Butterfly again used a zipper to swallow it. This way, the painting’s location was completely replaced by the zipper. Xu Huo’s portal was supplanted by her portal.

”You’ve opened so many doors. Aren’t you afraid I’ll find your mental materialized item?” Xu Huo slightly raised his head, looking at the vertical, mouth-like thing ahead.

”Give it a try,” a zipper opened and closed twice, emitting Madame Butterfly’s voice.

Xu Huo smiled, raised his hand, and waved. Countless doors and paintings appeared in the space beyond the zippers. He quickly chose the nearest door, stepped through, and closed it behind him. Facing the countless repeating zippers that appeared beyond the door, he showed no surprise. With a light tap of his foot, layers of steps grew from the ground, spiraling upward to carry him high into the air.

The spiral staircase was an important symbol in his Mental World. Its appearance meant his mental power had successfully invaded Madame Butterfly’s Mental World, just as she had summoned portals within his book tower. The difference was that Madame Butterfly hadn’t exposed her true Mental World, while Xu Huo didn’t mind showing his to her a second time.

The appearance of the spiral staircase seemed to tear an opening in Madame Butterfly’s Mental World. After the white staircase appeared, a milky-white liquid, like emulsion, covered the original blank space, and signs of the book tower began to manifest.

Madame Butterfly looked at the man being lifted ever higher by the staircase and said solemnly, ”I just told you not to casually expose your mental materialized items. What does bringing your book tower in accomplish? If the materialized item cannot be hidden, I can easily inflict serious damage on you!”

Xu Huo didn’t respond to her. Madame Butterfly then looked beneath the staircase. Once the book tower formed, the table on the first floor and the items on it should appear. Unexpectedly, even though the book tower had already built five or six floors, the table at the center of the first floor still hadn’t materialized.

”You’re quite clever,” Madame Butterfly said with a hint of amusement. ”But the book tower is only so big. Where can you hide your materialized item?”

As she spoke, six zippers appeared around them, and her figure abruptly split into six, each stepping into a different zipper to search for Xu Huo’s mental materialized item within the spiraling book tower.

Xu Huo’s book tower was complex. It itself reached a hundred floors, and each floor contained at least ten doors. Beyond those doors were overlapping rooms. If one considered the central staircase and the book tower as a complete circle, then countless other circles encircled this one. These circles could rotate on their own and were connected through doors, invisibly turning the book tower into a massive maze.

Entering the maze was easy; leaving was difficult. Madame Butterfly had learned this yesterday. Yet she still entered without hesitation for a simple reason: by expanding his Mental World within hers, Xu Huo wouldn’t stray too far from his own world. And she didn’t need to exit the maze; she only needed to detach from his world.

However, what she never expected was that in just one day, Xu Huo’s Mental World had changed again.