Players, Please Board the Train

Someone posted a message claiming to have seen the Suitcase Man in Zone 009 and District 004 separately, with no discrepancy in his appearance, but the man was injured.

As an infamous super player, many people found it hard to believe that the Suitcase Man would be wounded and shuffling between different game partitions, but soon someone added a fact: someone had seen him exchange blows with the Paper Artisan, and it seemed both sides had suffered damage, though why they fought was still unclear.

Many players were interested in this news and began asking about the location of the incident.

”A showdown between super players is usually a big scene. If you don’t destroy a city or two, you’re embarrassed to say you’ve fought,” someone replied below. ”But the Suitcase Man is different. He holds a dungeon in his hand and can fight inside it. Few who enter his dungeon come out alive. Probably only players of the same level.”

”Isn’t the Suitcase Man a wanted criminal? Can wanted criminals hold dungeons?” another person asked.

”That I don’t know, but look at those dungeon holders, how many haven’t killed or burned? The game hasn’t publicly stated it supports these people, but could those underground industry chains really get going without the game letting things slide?”

”Do the people above think everyone in the

 Game Government is a saint? Never mind letting wanted criminals hold dungeons, some can even become grey players and work in the Game Government. There are wanted criminals running chain stores. Just switch a wormhole point, or get a temporary pass.”

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”Where do you get a temporary pass?”

”Stop dreaming. Whether you can get a temporary pass is all up to luck. Even A-rank players don’t necessarily have one.”

”As long as the return ticket is enough, it’s the same with or without a temporary pass. Last time I went to a dungeon at E12 wormhole point and almost couldn’t get out!”

”Some dungeons are brutal, like random dungeons with no time limit. If you can clear it, you clear it. If you can’t, you either die inside or wait three months for a random high-risk. Plenty of high-level players have been screwed to death like that.”

”Dungeons with a small time difference are fine. If the time difference is big, you could damn well get married and have kids inside the dungeon, and when you come out, not even a month has passed. One time my mentality almost collapsed!”

”What’s that compared to this? There’s a player on the B-rank leaderboard who had a kid inside a dungeon. He went out for a spin and came back, and the kid was almost as old as him... If I didn’t know such dungeon spaces really existed, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Time difference.

Xu Huo went to search for related information. It was actually quite simple, connected to the curved time he had seen when he encountered the Dimensional Storm. If each space had to be given a unit of length for material evolution, then this ”time” was not necessarily the same, so it was possible for less than a month to pass outside a dungeon while the time inside was a long several months or even years.

However, dungeons generally didn’t require several years to complete, and time on a person only moved forward. Staying in a dungeon for a month or two might mean only a few years passed in the original space, but that didn’t mean players came back rejuvenated. The calculation unit of time was different, but the degree to which a player’s body aged did not change because of it.

He continued reading below, but the topic had already drifted from time difference to ”how to use time difference rules to raise more descendants within a limited lifespan.”

Closing this interface, Xu Huo went to the D-level player message board and published the walkthrough for the ”Shared Eyes” dungeon in Zone 009.

Back then, he had dropped the Paper Artisan’s aircraft to provoke a fight. The Suitcase Man and the Paper Artisan running into each other was naturally a pleasant surprise, though it was a pity they hadn’t blasted each other apart in a dungeon.

No matter. He could post a free walkthrough.

After posting, he found information about District 007 at E21 wormhole point and browsed it carefully.

”Dear passenger, your lunch is ready. Please choose to dine in your carriage or the dining car.” Projection text appeared directly before his eyes.

Xu Huo chose the dining car. After washing his face, he put on his glasses and attached ”Shared Positioning,” then pinned ”Heartbeat Discount,” ”Thick Protective Coloration,” and ”Magic Escape” inside his clothes. He wrapped ”Balloon String” around his wrist. ”This Road Is Blocked” was a plain ring, very convenient to wear. He then changed into ”Gentleman’s Bearing” and replaced the button on his sleeve with ”Go to Destination.”

Only after his basic defenses were set did he walk out of the room.

One-Eye and the short-haired female player were already sitting on the sofa. On the surface, it seemed the short-haired female player had suffered some external injuries, but since they were able to let things settle, both sides must have taken losses.

”You’re going to the dining car to eat?” The player who had gotten on the train with Xu Huo stood up and hurried two steps to catch up with him. ”Let’s go together.”

Xu Huo didn’t refuse, and on the way to the dining car, the two exchanged basic information.

”Exchanging nicknames makes it easier to check the leaderboards later.” This was said by the player nicknamed ”Lord of All Gods.”

Xu Huo gave him a deep look, but the other man didn’t notice that this nickname might make anyone who called it out socially die on the spot. Instead, he went on by himself, ”Maybe we’ll run into people on the leaderboards in the future. We’re all people of some standing. What rank are you now?”

D-level players could already make the leaderboards. It was usually a ten-thousand-person leaderboard combining five partitions. The C-level player leaderboard expanded to the entire wormhole point, and the number increased to twenty thousand.

Twenty thousand seemed like a huge number, but a single district could have a population of several billion. Even if some partitions were small, one wormhole point combined was still considerable.

Such a twenty-thousand-person leaderboard was even more fiercely competitive than the ten-thousand-person sub-leaderboard of five partitions.

”I just leveled up. I probably won’t make the leaderboard.” Xu Huo didn’t care much about this.

”Who says you can’t rank just after leveling up?” the other man said quickly. ”Dungeon results accumulated at D-level count too. It’s all based on overall rating. Only after you do two or three C-level dungeons will your ranking possibly rise.”

”If your rating at D-level was high and you did few dungeons, you’ll definitely make the leaderboard,” he said with some pride. ”I’m currently ranked nineteenth thousand eight hundred and eighty-eighth!”

Leveling up to C-level meant you could make the leaderboard, representing that your D-level dungeon ratings were good. It wasn’t that the more dungeons you did, the higher your rank. If every dungeon gave a very low rating, your rank would actually drop.

”What’s your nickname? I’ll look you up,” ”Lord of All Gods” said.

”Passerby.” Xu Huo stepped into the dining car.

Only a few people had come to the dining car to eat. A young man and woman sat facing each other by the right window, chatting happily while enjoying the scenery. On the left, a middle-aged man whose upper body was wrapped in bandages was eating frantically, with quite a few empty plates beside his hand.

At a table in the middle, a woman was reading a book.

The four showed not the slightest interest in the people entering. Xu Huo chose a table in the middle and sat down. A floating robot quickly came to serve food. Just as he picked up the utensils, ”Lord of All Gods” rushed over and sat down across from him, staring at him with shining eyes.