Players, Please Board the Train

Night arrived as scheduled. Xu Huo and Wei Da stood in the left and right corridors respectively, watching the exhibition hall. Before the lights went out, Xu Huo placed his opened phone beside a pillar, directly facing the sculpture’s position.

Under the light, the sculpture person’s head twisted, shedding its outer cloak like a shell, then slid out from the gap below. Propping up its slender head, it surveyed the entire library before heading toward the location where the new painting was hung. With a casual swing of its cane, it smashed the phone. After the light source disappeared, it stood still in front of the pillar, bent down, and brought its face close to the frame. After staring for a full half minute, it suddenly became enraged, swatted the painting to the ground, and stomped on it violently until both the frame and paper were completely destroyed.

”Looks like this method doesn’t work either!” Wei Da whispered.

”Maybe your drawing was just too ugly,” Xu Huo thought for a moment, then pulled Ni Tian out from the painting. ”You heard what was said during the day. Now you have a chance to try.”

Ni Tian tried to run as soon as she emerged, but after Xu Huo kicked her down and kept her pinned under his foot, she said, ”You’re dreaming! I’m not going to throw my life away!”

On the other side, Wei Da had already run out to attract the monster’s attention. Without another word, Xu Huo stuffed Ni Tian back into the painting and had the Painting Woman enter the painting to push Xie Man out.

Xie Man had already witnessed what just happened. Without waiting for Xu Huo to speak, she said, ”It’s just facing the monster head-on. At worst, I’ll turn back into a painting. If the oil painting wasn’t lying, maybe I’ll get lucky!”

After speaking, she actively entered the exhibition hall, charging straight to the monster’s back in one go: ”Hey! Are you the Curator of the Hundred-Person Art Gallery?”

The monster, which had been chasing Wei Da, stopped and slowly turned around, lowering its tall frame.

Xie Man swallowed twice before saying, ”Curator, can you give me a painting?”With a swing of the Curator’s cane, she turned into a new painting!

”It’s not working!” Though Wei Da couldn’t see clearly in the darkness, he noticed Xie Man’s sudden disappearance and said, ”I don’t think it matters what you say to the Curator. The Curator has poor eyesight and needs to get close to see clearly. Once it confirms it’s a living person, it turns them into paintings!”

Xu Huo also realized this. He quickly turned and sketched on white paper, producing a fresh drawing within minutes. He mounted it in a frame and hung it back on the pillar, then kicked the painting containing Ni Tian toward Wei Da. ”We can go now!”

Wei Da lunged over and grabbed the painting, vanishing from the spot the next second. Simultaneously, Xu Huo also left with the Painting Woman.

However, the art gallery didn’t return to peace after they left. The monster Curator wandering through the gallery found the newly hung painting by the pillar. After bending down to examine it for a while, it lightly tapped the painting with its cane. The sketched glasses in the painting transformed into a real pair of glasses that appeared in its hand.

After putting on the glasses, the monster Curator let out a satisfied low roar, and then the entire art gallery began to tremble. The floor cracked along the center seam, with continuously emerging black and white floor tiles pushing the ground and stone pillars apart. As the area expanded, the gallery’s doors and walls also crumbled and rebuilt themselves. Patterns and murals were completely refreshed, and even the paintings hanging on the walls gradually changed. Not only did their content become more profound, but the frames also gained an additional layer of glossy glass...

Xie Man and Lu Gang were spat out from the paintings. Seeing the dramatic changes in the art gallery, they exchanged glances and then successively exited the dungeon.

Xu Huo, who used the return ticket, didn’t return directly to Zone 014. Instead, just like when he first disembarked from the Preliminary Trial Train, he entered a blank space. Three-hundred-sixty-degree firework effects surrounded him for half a minute before his personal panel popped up in front of him:

[Congratulations Player Extra. As you have successfully completed three tasks in this dungeon and facilitated the dungeon location’s upgrade to a D-level dungeon, you have received an S super rating. In addition to the rewards due from this dungeon, plus the Hundred-Person Art Gallery Curator’s gift, you will also receive a special item gifted by the game.]

An S-level rating? This was beyond his expectations.

Having experienced several dungeons, Xu Huo had a general understanding that successfully completing dungeon tasks typically only yielded B-level or A-level ratings. Originally, having completed only two tasks this time, he thought it unlikely he’d even get a B-level rating. Unexpectedly, the situation turned around—just a single sketch of glasses had caused such a significant impact.

When he told Wei Da in the gallery that his drawing was ugly, it wasn’t entirely teasing. The monster had poor eyesight but would carefully examine paintings. It only angrily smashed the frame after close inspection, indicating that the monster not only killed those who damaged paintings but also possessed some cognitive ability regarding the paintings themselves.

Of course, Xu Huo didn’t know from what perspective it viewed paintings or whether it would acknowledge players’ drawings, so he didn’t plan to waste more time in the dungeon. When leaving, he merely hung up the painting with a try-my-luck attitude... But now it seemed the Curator highly approved of his artistic skill.

Though facilitating the dungeon location’s upgrade exceeded his understanding of the game, upon careful consideration, clues could be detected. The monster Curator could turn people into paintings, so turning paintings into items wasn’t strange either. And it was clearly the core of the Hundred-Person Art Gallery dungeon—the reason for its upgrade from E to D likely lay here.

Before he could check this game’s items, another new prompt appeared:

[Based on Player Extra’s comprehensive dungeon ratings, congratulations on successfully upgrading to a D-level player. The game will activate D-level permissions for you. As you are the ninth player in Zone 014 to be promoted and the third to receive an S-level rating, the game will additionally gift you an upgrade package.]

[Upgrade permissions are as follows:]

[① Item Exchange: Monthly item exchange permission, limited to exchanging multiple items for higher-level items or replacing same-level items. The game will prompt players when exchangeable items are detected.]

[② Cross-Zone Bounty: Monthly bounty function usage. Players can independently input information they need to know or items they wish to trade (including train tickets and items), while providing valuable items (including train tickets and items) or White Bills, for the game to publish to other players and provide feedback, with a one-month feedback time limit.]

[③ Information Feedback: The game welcomes players to provide any relevant information. Based on your message, the game will determine its value and give corresponding rewards.]

[④ Ranking Function: D-level players can compete in the same-level ten-thousand-player ranking list jointly managed by five zones. This ranking only discloses player nicknames.]

[⑤ Broadcast Function: The game will broadcast important current events and hot news from the E27 Wormhole Point to players.]

After the upgrade, the personal panel became more complex with more functions than before. The electronic time changed from a single game time to game time plus real-world time. Additionally, there were weather, temperature, and air humidity indices for both Zone 014 and the current game dungeon.

The item column remained basically unchanged, except the images representing items became more vibrant. However, several additional slots for adding potions appeared in the potion column. Besides basic usage and information, existing potions now also provided formula lists.

On train tickets, besides departure information and destination stations, the zone where the dungeon location was situated was added. For example, Garden Castle Station’s address became E27-011-Garden Castle Station.

Additionally, a luggage compartment appeared, noted as capable of storing food, clothing, and possessing preservation functions.

Some minor changes weren’t worth mentioning, but the newly added five permissions deserved deeper consideration.

Xu Huo had already used the first function once, exchanging the ”Fearless Torch” and ”Arsonist’s Tools” for a D-grade item ”V. Fanxiao’s Tool of Crime.” Though this requires game prompts, with monthly usage and the ability to exchange for same-level items, players have some choice, since not every item obtained in the game is convenient to use.

As for cross-zone bounties—from Peng Fengnian, the Zone 009 player encountered in the Slaughterhouse dungeon who spent heavily to obtain information about the Skinner, to outer-zone players arriving in Zone 014 in an extremely short time after the game issued notifications...

Xu Huo thought for a moment, then wrote ”Zone 014 train ticket” and the bounty amount in the bounty column. Without waiting a month, the game gave feedback immediately after posting:

[Currently, seventy-two Zone 014 D-level dungeon train tickets are on the bounty platform. Among them, fifty-six are for White Bills transactions, and sixteen are for item and potion transactions. The minimum transaction amount is fifty thousand White Bills. Will the player proceed with the transaction?]