Players, Please Board the Train

Grabbing the hair flying out from the shadow, he forcibly pulled it out, only to find that what he ultimately dragged out was actually a player covered in pustules.

The person was already unconscious, with pustules growing from his neck all the way to his jawline, though his face wasn’t completely covered yet.

After bringing the person along, he continued upward. The bandaged monster and zombies he had seen earlier had swollen into giants, comically stuck between floors and moving with difficulty.

Xu Huo suddenly noticed the swollen giants stepping on a human-shaped object. He walked over and tried pulling the person out but couldn’t manage it with his strength. He couldn’t help looking up at the bandaged monster above. The moment the thought of moving it crossed his mind, the distance between floors rapidly increased, and the bandaged monster was carried away by the undulating ground, clearing the space beneath its feet.

”Save... save me...” The ”human-shaped object” at his feet suddenly reached out and grabbed his shoe—it was Little Gao, the Special Defense Department player who had ”turned into” a zombie.

He had actually regained consciousness.

Although these people and the products of mental pollution had chased them to the fourth floor, as the pollution density deepened, these players should have sunk even deeper.

Pulling the person out from the pus, he placed them together with the hair-wrapped individual against the wall, then continued climbing the stairs.

Besides those bizarre-looking things, the pustules underfoot were like mud—stepping into them sank half his leg, and hands below were forcefully dragging him down.

Before he could reach the fifth floor, pus and monsters surged from all directions, tightly wrapping around him until only his head remained exposed. Then a pustule mere inches away suddenly burst open, revealing a woman’s blood-covered head that extended out and spat a long tongue at him.Xu Huo’s hand, trapped in the pus, suddenly shot out, grabbing the tongue and yanking it down hard. ”This is getting a bit disgusting.”

The woman’s head was torn off, revealing a narrow passage where the blockage had been.

Shaking off the restraints, Xu Huo walked out from the pus. After just a dozen steps, the path ahead sealed shut again. Blood seeped from the pulsating flesh walls, quickly rising to knee level.

Turning to go back, he found the passage behind him had disappeared—he was trapped inside a flesh cavity.

Thrusting his hand into the flesh wall, Xu Huo felt around briefly before tearing outward forcefully. A door leading to the fifth floor appeared, and he immediately stepped through.

As the door closed, all the monsters, flesh walls, pus, and ghost-like things behind him vanished, leaving only complete darkness.

Unable to see anything meant he couldn’t distinguish directions. Xu Huo groped around in the darkness and found a staircase leading upward. He didn’t ascend but chose to continue walking instead. Soon his feet encountered a second staircase, and after a few more steps, a third one appeared.

The third floor originally had only one staircase, but now steps were everywhere beneath his feet.

Attempting to open a door in the air proved unsuccessful, so Xu Huo could only stop. Suddenly, a bright light appeared ahead, showing Tang Guangbo sitting in his office speaking: ”You think that’s reality, but actually that’s the illusion. However, the human brain is the most precise instrument in the world—reality and illusion are both relative.”

After these words, the light disappeared, and everything sank back into darkness.

Xu Huo stood in the darkness for a while. Soon, a spot of white began growing from beneath his feet, slowly forming a spiral staircase behind him.

Ascending the white spiral staircase, he opened the door at the top, which led directly to the sixth floor.

The sixth floor looked no different from before, except the medical staff had been replaced by Yu Qingqing, Zhou Ning, Dai Wenqian, and others, along with his family members, including Xu Zhi.

They stood in a row ahead, smiling at him.

Xu Huo walked past these people without pausing until he reached Xu Zhi.

Xu Zhi smiled without speaking, stepping aside and pointing to a scroll on the table behind him.

Xu Huo unrolled it and the first thing that caught his eye were the large characters: ”Dungeon Authorization Document.”

[Congratulations, Player Passerby, for obtaining one Dungeon Authorization Document. Since you facilitated the generation of this new dungeon and have high compatibility with it, you may choose whether to become the permission holder for this new dungeon.]

[Becoming a dungeon permission holder must follow these three rules.]

[1. The dungeon permission holder will suspend and retain their player status. While holding the dungeon, they are not required to complete monthly dungeon tasks but must follow the dungeon randomly into other game partitions, and cannot leave the dungeon venue arbitrarily when the dungeon is active. If the Dungeon Authorization Document or dungeon venue is lost, or if they leave the dungeon venue, they will revert to player status.]

[2. Since this newly generated dungeon is an E-grade Random Dungeon, the dungeon permission holder may write up to three dungeon tasks, but must comply with E-grade Random Dungeon content and logic. Tasks will only take effect officially after being judged and approved by the game.]

[3. The dungeon permission holder may or may not participate in the game, but during dungeon progression, the Dungeon Authorization Document must appear within the dungeon venue.]

[Dungeon authorization takes effect from the signing date. If the player does not need the dungeon authorization to take effect immediately, they may retain the authorization document. However, please note that any dungeon must open at least once within twelve natural months. If the Dungeon Authorization Document does not take effect within twelve natural months, it will permanently expire.]

[If you wish the Dungeon Authorization Document to take effect, please write your player nickname and number at the signature line.]

The dungeon name, background, and tasks on the semi-transparent scroll were all blank, but only the task section could be filled in.

Xu Huo hadn’t returned to rescue those trapped people—he wanted to test how far he could endure in the Mental Pollution Area. Saving people was merely incidental. He never expected the game to give him such a huge surprise.

The Dungeon Authorization Document—just by signing it and writing dungeon tasks, he could avoid monthly player tasks, evading death threats in dungeons to the greatest extent.

However, this was only an E-grade dungeon—not only was the level low, but there was also the rigid condition that the Dungeon Authorization Document must not be damaged.

The Dungeon Authorization Document must remain in the dungeon venue during dungeon progression. He finally understood why the Skinner’s dungeon had collapsed back then—the animal skin he accidentally burned probably contained the dungeon permission document. This was equivalent to an operating license; only with this item could the dungeon open.

While becoming a dungeon permission holder could indeed avoid monthly dungeon risks, there was another layer of risk.

That was the retention of player status. If the Dungeon Authorization Document or dungeon venue was lost, the holder would revert to player status. However, during dungeon periods, being unable to leave the dungeon venue made it difficult to improve one’s player level. The evolution agents and items obtained from players entering the dungeon were too low-level, so staying in a Random Dungeon was equivalent to evolutionary stagnation.

Therefore, this Dungeon Authorization Document was an unexpected surprise for Xu Huo. Although becoming a dungeon permission holder came with restrictions, it was indeed a valuable item whose usage rules deserved careful study.