Players, Please Board the Train

Something he could not detect was suppressing the range of his Mental World.

When using the item ”Concentrated Air,” the air could be compressed into a shield with defensive properties. Similarly, in the game world, space could also be compressed.

Assuming space had been compressed, and he was inside it without being able to directly feel it, then it was possible that the vast distance he had run had not actually been as large as it appeared from the outside. Therefore, the frequent changes in position of the Entry-Exit Pods he had observed might never have been far away at all.

Only he and the electronic instruments had been affected.

Taking out the Mechanical Glove Bai Kou had given him, Xu Huo covered the groove of the glove with mental power while opening the door. This was a power-amplifying device. Bai Kou had let him experience spatial refinement, and he was not sure if mental power would be effective, but he could only try now.

After opening the door several times in succession, Xu Huo once again saw those line-like things similar to when he had first projected his Mental World outward, radiating from him as the center toward the surroundings.

These lines spread across the ground and through the air. Some were separated, some intersected, and some wove together at the doors. As he pushed the doors, the lines moved as well. The lines were densest in the space between the opening doors, and passing through felt like a thin cloth draped over his body, carrying a heavy sense of obstruction.

Xu Huo reached out to grab them, but the lines passed directly through his body without any physical sensation.

Lines that could be seen but not touched. He immediately thought of how Bai Kou felt when she controlled space.

It was not that these lines truly existed in space, but that during his evolution he had resonated with the matter in space.

However, Bai Kou had been aided by external forces that time, while this time he had sensed it directly.

Xu Huo kept opening doors. When the lines became so dense they completely blocked his vision, he tried to grab them again. Though he still failed, he felt the obstruction within his body growing stronger and stronger, as if those lines were gradually condensing into something solid.

After he had opened the door more than a hundred times, the surface lines seemed to merge with the obstruction he felt after consuming the potion, connecting like synchronized frequencies. In an instant, the obstruction vanished, and not only could he see the lines in space, he could even touch them!

Stepping through the door, he reached into the dense lines ahead, casually plucking one. It was as if a single thin thread had been peeled away from the air. As the vibration along the thread extended outward, his range of perception rapidly expanded into the distance, quickly hitting bottom.

Closing his Mental World, Xu Huo’s vision returned to the jungle. Although he could not see the lines in the air, he could still sense them, and the thread that had hit bottom had not slipped from his grasp. To the naked eye, the forest ahead was still boundless, but the spatial lines clearly fed back the boundary.

Additionally, he sensed that he was currently in a ”crowded” space.

Following the direction of the lines, he walked two steps inward. Xu Huo squeezed through a narrow gap, and when he turned back, the scenery around him had completely changed. Judging by direction, he was at least five hundred meters from his previous position.

This of course did not mean he could freely move back and forth through space. Rather, a compressed space had always existed in this botanical garden, and he had happened to find the frequency of this compressed space and successfully traversed it.

Of course, this also meant his second Super Evolution had succeeded.

He had begun his Super Evolution in the direction of mastering spatial power!

However, spatial-direction Super Evolution had many subdivisions. Sensing the existence of space was only the foundation. Controlling object movement, synthesizing or decomposing objects were entirely different expressions.

Xu Huo flexed his finger, trying to pluck a leaf in the distance. It was not difficult. He accomplished it with ease, but applying force to it was somewhat harder. For now, he could not move objects as freely as Bai Kou.

So he switched to trying to borrow force from space.

These spatial lines were not substantial things. The end of his perception range did not represent the maximum range he could operate on. It was like a wave. The higher the peak from which it crashed down, the greater the force. The lower the position, the weaker the force. If it was just the surge at the water’s edge, it was not much different from a gentle breeze.

In other words, he could sense the end of this space, but he could not pluck the leaves at that end.

Doing his best to grasp space, Xu Huo squeezed through the spatial crevices twice more. The distance covered was nearly one hundred meters farther than the first time, and it took less than a second.

The botanical garden’s space had been compressed. Within it, he could reach a length of six hundred meters. He did not know what degree he could achieve outside.

But whether for better or worse, this trip today had not been a loss.

Xu Huo returned to the boundary of the botanical garden and smoothly found the Entry-Exit Pod to return to the Friendship Garden Plaza.

What surprised him was that Zhuang Mengtian had actually returned first.

She was talking with Gan Yi. Surprise flashed across both their faces. Xu Huo, in excellent spirits, smiled at the two of them. ”I hope we won’t run into each other next round.”

It was already late at night. The third round of the Three-Color Showdown had ended. Since the second and third rounds had come bundled together, the final number of remaining players was seventy-seven. That girl named Xiaoxiao had once again been lucky and received a bye.

However, You Si mentioned that someone had tried to kill her midway to free up the bye slot again, but Shajia had stopped them. Shortly after, that player died in the aquarium during the Tournament.

Poisoned to death.

Xu Huo had poisoned the water earlier. He did not know for what purpose the program crew had neither changed the water nor abandoned the task at this venue. They directly used the aquarium as a black ball task site.

”Xiao Xianglin didn’t come back. I don’t know if he cleared the dungeon or died.” You Si casually mentioned, then pointed at the player who had gone with him. ”This one’s still alive.”

”Did you ask him?” Xu Huo memorized the person’s appearance.

”He didn’t say.” You Si continued, ”Right now everyone still alive is on the Plaza. Seventy-seven people, only thirty-eight groups for the fourth round. Time is plentiful. Tomorrow the teams may not be recombined.”

”There will still be one person with a bye.”

After the day’s round of elimination, fewer than twenty ordinary people remained alive. These people were exhausted, and everyone wanted to get a bye.

After the Plaza lights dimmed, Xu Huo heard people discussing why Xiaoxiao was so lucky, getting a bye every time.

Xiaoxiao’s mind was no longer on the Tournament. She hugged her knees, curled up in a corner, staring blankly ahead.

Xu Huo closed his eyes, feeling the changes brought by Super Evolution. First, his perception of moving objects within the nearby space had become clearer. It was no longer limited to large movements. Everyone on the Plaza shifting, raising a hand, all of it he could still sense without looking.

The space separated by a wall was no longer as blank as before either. After his range expanded, he could also detect the tiny movements of electronic devices. Moreover, outside the wall truly was adjacent to the sea, though the distance was considerable.