Players, Please Board the Train

All the elevators had closed after they came out, and since there were lights inside the elevators, reopening them would be very conspicuous. If someone had been dragged away during the chaos, the players present shouldn’t have been completely unaware.

Therefore, the most likely possibility was that those fifteen people never got off the elevator in the first place.

”Um, if you’re not going to drink that beverage, could you give it to me?” The Flower Basket Girl walked over to Xu Huo’s side, interrupting his train of thought as she spoke with an apologetic smile.

Xu Huo glanced back at the Burly Man slumped weakly in the corner, then casually handed over the drink from his pocket.

The Flower Basket Girl hadn’t expected him to give it up so readily. After repeatedly thanking him, she hurried back to her companion, had him drink it, whispered a few words to the Burly Man, then returned to Xu Huo’s side and gave him three capsule-like objects. ”I really didn’t mean you any harm when I approached you earlier. Consider this my apology.”

Xu Huo took them, and the game immediately provided a prompt:

[Energy Capsule: Legend says that on a looping path, travelers may encounter a girl selling flowers (or possibly a boy). If you don’t buy her flowers, you’ll walk that path endlessly.]

[Note: Restores 1% energy. Limited to one per day.]

Xu Huo stored the capsules and nodded to the Flower Basket Girl.

Outside, the sky was growing dark. Since this floor couldn’t be charged, everyone took turns using flashlights, leaving the interior poorly lit.After resting, Kang Hong spoke to Xu Huo, ”Are we really going to the thirteenth floor later? Since all the spiders on this floor have been killed by someone, shouldn’t staying here be the safest option?”

The Flower Basket Girl stared at a small spider crawling near her feet and suddenly said, ”It seems to have grown a bit bigger.”

Xu Huo smashed the spider dead with his sword and calmly said, ”Besides the cultivation tanks, the abdomens of those large spiders are also full of eggs. They’ll probably hatch soon. If the elevator comes, it’s best to go down.”

He didn’t mention another reason - this dungeon clearly wasn’t just about fighting monsters floor by floor. Ninety hours, fifteen floors, fifteen elevators, a capacity of thirteen people, and a total of one hundred ninety-five people must correspond according to some hidden rule.

The fifteenth floor hadn’t presented any danger, so logically it should be the safest. But there was bloodstains on the elevator door facing outward, indicating that in previous dungeon runs, someone had returned to the fifteenth floor. Though the reason was unclear, both the elevator and the fifteenth floor were definitely not safe.

Staying on one particular floor might trigger a dungeon trap.

He glanced toward the elevator, walked over, pried open a gap in the door with his sword, then borrowed two phones from Kang Hong and the others. After turning on the flashlights and starting video recording, he taped them together and lowered them through the gap, while keeping some distance from the elevator himself.

”Bang! Bang!” The Man-eating Flowers in the elevator shaft slammed against the elevator door. The tape shook but didn’t break.

Xu Huo continued lowering it, but around the eleventh floor, he suddenly encountered a strange force and immediately cut the tape.

”Is there something else down there?” Kang Hong asked nervously. ”Should we try again?”

”Let’s try again.” Xu Huo nodded.

Kang Hong and the Tall Woman offered him another phone. Xu Huo took only one, attaching some spider silk to both the phone and tape, then only turning on the recording function before lowering the phone again.

This time the phone safely passed the eleventh floor. Xu Huo continued lowering it, estimating it reached the tenth floor before retrieving the phone.

After removing the tape, he opened the recording.

There were no lights in the elevator shaft, making it almost impossible to see anything in the darkness. But when passing the eleventh floor, a red dot suddenly flashed in front of the camera.

”Something just passed by, right?” Kang Hong said hesitantly.

Xu Huo rewound the recording, pausing on that red dot, his brow slightly furrowing. This wasn’t a Man-eating Flower, but a mutated animal. Though its form was unclear, it appeared to be quite small.

It was moving around in the elevator shaft, yet the video captured no sound, indicating extremely agile movements.

Such a creature couldn’t stay in the elevator shaft indefinitely, so when the elevators weren’t running, the elevator doors on other floors might not necessarily remain closed.

If elevator doors on other floors could open, then the mutated animals should be able to move between floors via the building’s exterior walls.

The movement of over two hundred people from the fifteenth to the fourteenth floor hadn’t attracted any mutated animals.

”That mutated beast has very high energy value,” the Flower Basket Girl said quietly. ”Normal people’s energy values generally range between sixty and eighty, while Evolvers can reach three hundred. Those two Man-eating Flowers earlier only had about twenty energy per flower, but the thing in the video reached five hundred.”

Xu Huo turned to look at her.

The Flower Basket Girl smiled awkwardly. ”Yours is quite high too.”

So taking a little energy from him shouldn’t matter much - too bad he hadn’t taken the bait.

Xu Huo didn’t press about the earlier matter, instead asking, ”Is this your characteristic? Can it be used on animals and plants?”

The Flower Basket Girl was momentarily stunned. ”Animals and plants can’t understand human speech, how could they buy...”

Before finishing, she realized she’d been tricked into revealing information and stopped mid-sentence, changing tack instead. ”Mr. Xu, I’ve already apologized for what happened earlier, and you accepted my apology gift. Can we let this matter rest?”

Xu Huo waved his hand. ”I was just wondering whether forced buying and selling counts as a transaction.”

The Flower Basket Girl fell silent, seemingly contemplating this question.

”Creak!” At that moment, Gu Yu’s group had similarly pried open a gap in an elevator door to check the elevator shaft’s situation, though their method was smarter than Xu Huo’s - one player used a handkerchief item to suspend a high-powered flashlight above the elevator shaft, then used a phone to record video.

The Man-eating Flowers weren’t sensitive to light. After banging against the door a couple of times when it first opened, they retreated.

”There’s nothing there,” Zhang Biao said while watching the video. Modern phone pixels were quite good - even zoomed in, they could roughly make out the Man-eating Flowers below.

Being on the same floor, they could hear each other. After speaking with her companions, Gu Yu walked over to Xu Huo with her phone. ”Let’s exchange information.”

”Agreed.” Xu Huo handed her his phone and took hers.

From the video, the Man-eating Flowers appeared to be about ten meters tall, with slender vase-like bodies. Their flowers, stems, and leaves were all flesh-colored, with thin tubes connected beneath the flowers that twitched occasionally.

He paused the video, zooming in on a particular section of the shaft wall where he saw a row of dotted marks.

After a moment’s thought, he handed the phone to the Flower Basket Girl. ”How much energy does this Man-eating Flower have?”

”About one hundred fifty,” the Flower Basket Girl said.

”Equivalent to two adults.” Xu Huo nodded slightly.

Gu Yu and the others also watched the video Xu Huo had recorded. Though they couldn’t clearly see what the flashing red dot was, it confirmed that more than one mutated species was active in the elevator shaft.

”Since there’s something there, let’s record again,” Zheng Liang said.

The other players didn’t object. Dai Wenqian said, ”Hang the flashlight up high and place the phone outside to record.”