Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo could not sense anyone nearby.

The possibility of a D-level player being taken by mutated plants in the forest without any chance to resist was lower than the possibility of her leaving on her own accord, so he did not linger long. He stuck a note on a tree and continued toward the mountaintop.

Every so often he would leave the ground and go up to take a look, confirming he was headed in the right direction, but as he neared the summit, the entire mountain suddenly changed appearance.

It was not simply getting lost, but the entire mountain’s orientation had changed.

When Xu Huo had climbed up, the mountain was due east. He and Zhuang Mengtian had climbed with their backs to the sun. The ground had shifted several times during the climb, but judging by the sun, the overall direction had not changed.

Now the sun was completely invisible, and the direction needle on his watch was not wrong either, yet the mountain had moved from the east to the south.

The direction of the afterglow and the orientation of plant growth had not changed, but he could feel that the mountain had changed position.

Without further delay, Xu Huo grabbed the piano wire and went straight through the air to the mountaintop.

Looking down from the high vantage point, the scenery in every direction around this mountain was identical. The markers he had left in the forest earlier had all disappeared.

Plants could move, so markers shifting or disappearing was normal, but that absolutely could not cause an entire mountain to change orientation.

Xu Huo was certain he had not been carried to the other side of the mountain by moving plants, which made the changing sun direction and plant growth orientation all the more strange.

If one was not paying attention, one might not notice, but since he had noticed... was the external environment fake, or was this mountain fake?

Whether from the perspective of cost or possibility, constructing a fake sky above the botanical garden was easier. That way, the sun could rise from any direction, and similarly, every direction could be east.

But what Xu Huo genuinely felt was that the mountain’s position had changed.

”Could it be that the botanical garden is moving?”

Thinking of the deep valley he had seen when he entered, if the entire botanical garden was on an operable platform, then movement in direction was not necessarily impossible.

Xu Huo withdrew his gaze first and completed a simple landscape painting as required, then submitted the task.

”According to the detection results, there is only one Entry-Exit Pod near Number 313 Guest. Please proceed as quickly as possible.”

Xu Huo glanced at the map. If he looked at it according to the normal direction, the Entry-Exit Pod’s location should be where he and Zhuang Mengtian had entered.

So the single Entry-Exit Pod was the one they had used earlier. To return to the Plaza, he would have to go back.

Even though the entire mountain might have shifted orientation, if the entire botanical garden was moving together, then returning along the wrong direction would still let him find that Entry-Exit Pod.

Reasoning that a yellow ball task completed by two players together could not possibly be as simple as painting a picture, and to verify his hypothesis, Xu Huo first headed west down the mountain in his current direction.

He returned to the place where he had entered at top speed, but the electronic screen let out a ”bzzt” sound. After the screen glitched, the map updated again, but the marked location had changed to due north, which was due east before the mountain had shifted orientation.

The Entry-Exit Pod’s location had gone from due west before the orientation change to due east.

So he headed due north. When he had circled halfway around the mountain and was about to reach the destination, the electronic screen’s map updated once more, this time to due east.

The directions Xu Huo was comparing were from before he climbed the mountain and after he came down. Both times he reached the Entry-Exit Pod’s location, the map had been revised. Judging by time and direction, it was roughly one hour for a ninety-degree clockwise rotation. After another two hours, the orientation would return to the sequence from when he had entered.

To make sure the direction was not wrong, he still followed the current direction and headed due east. Sure enough, as he neared the destination, the Entry-Exit Pod’s location updated again.

After this update, Xu Huo put on the Invisibility Cloak and directly used the piano wire to travel through the air, arriving at the due west position an hour earlier, which was where he and Zhuang Mengtian had actually entered. According to his deduction, this time he should have been able to encounter it, but what he had not expected was that the map updated once again, still indicating another direction.

He stopped in place and did not move.

If the entire botanical garden was moving, then the Entry-Exit Pod’s location should be constant. If the electronic screen’s map was not wrong, then the first time he should have been able to find the Entry-Exit Pod by following the changed due west direction.

But he had not. There were two possible explanations.

The electronic screen’s map and the botanical garden’s orientation did not completely overlap. The electronic screen’s map orientation had only updated once, while the botanical garden, or only the Entry-Exit Pod, was still continuously rotating, which was why the Entry-Exit Pod had moved clockwise multiple times.

But he had followed it, chased it here, and still had not caught up to the Entry-Exit Pod. Whether the electronic screen’s map was the problem or the botanical garden was moving, he had searched all four directions and still had not found the Entry-Exit Pod... unless the Entry-Exit Pod was hiding from people.

Unfortunately, the greenery here was far too dense. Forget finding the tree from when they had entered, even the traces of the daytime battle had completely disappeared.

Xu Huo found a quiet tree and climbed up, then pulled out the Similarity Seeker. The screen indeed displayed ”1 item,” which meant he was currently inside a large item.

The botanical garden was inside a large item. He re-examined the electronic screen’s map. The Entry-Exit Pod was still due west. If the electronic screen’s map was not wrong, then the thing causing the orientation change should be the item.

The botanical garden, could there be a venue item this large?

The thought flashed through his mind, and Xu Huo suddenly realized a problem. Was the botanical garden really this big?

Leaving the aquarium aside for now, other than the botanical garden and the Zoo, other types like plastic surgery, operations, or other tasks were mostly in small scenes. If the guests who needed to complete tasks were not teleported to other spaces, building such a large island in the middle of the sea would probably be very difficult, let alone making the entire botanical garden move.

He extended certain distances in four different directions. With the central mountain as the center point, the area he had traversed lengthwise and crosswise was already more than twice that of the Zoo.

Was everything he saw and sensed before his eyes really real?

Releasing his Mental World, Xu Huo opened a door in the tree and walked in. Behind the door was another door. He opened three doors in succession, and when he walked out, he found he had only moved from the tree to the ground below it.

The range of movement within the Mental World depended on how large a mental space the mover could create, or how large a space suited for mental power to act in one was in. Xu Huo’s Mental World in the Seventeenth Hospital could cover every building in the hospital, while the range of independent coverage outside was reduced to within fifty meters. However, mental power could create illusions, so from the perspective of someone entering the Mental World, his Mental World was infinitely large, but in reality it was not.

Still, going from the tree to below the tree clearly showed that his power was being suppressed.