Players, Please Board the Train

Shangguan Xi disagreed with Ding Wei’s view. “If the specimen really couldn’t be taken out of the laboratory, that means the situation is more complicated than we imagined. Just because the other players couldn’t get their hands on it doesn’t mean we can. In a dungeon, it’s best not to overestimate yourself. You can’t just scoop up a bargain that easily.”

“That’s one possibility. Another is that several players are locked in a standoff. Since the living specimen wasn’t taken out in the first place, the chances of it being brought out now are slim too.”

“He has a point,” Zhao Jiahuai added. “If the living specimen really hasn’t been moved, then either that place is dangerous, or they’ve given up on the specimen. It might even be dead.”

The group couldn’t agree, so Teacher Ai asked Xu Huo, “You decide.”

“Let’s go to the laboratory first.” Xu Huo glanced toward the south gate. There were quite a few people over there, so he wouldn’t join the commotion for now.

Shangguan Xi looked at him in puzzlement, but didn’t argue. Instead, he said, “We have to go to both places anyway, so going to the laboratory first is fine.”

The vehicle turned and headed toward the laboratory.

The closer they got to their destination, the more chaotic the signs of fighting around them became. Some buildings that had already been half-destroyed had been sliced clean through, and the collapsed structures blocked parts of the main road.

“Clearing the way with weapons will consume energy. We’ll take a detour.” Teacher Ai gave the order and changed course.

The two players following behind their vehicle slowed down, no longer insisting on keeping up with them.

“They’re not following us anymore?” Shangguan Xi asked in surprise. He had thought those people were after their vehicle.

“Look ahead,” Teacher Ai said.

They looked up and saw collapsed buildings slowly floating into the air not far down the road. Some architectural debris had already been drifting weightlessly in the air, but the collapsed sections rising now covered a much larger area.

The people in the vehicle all darkened their expressions at the sight. If a player could manipulate gravity, they would have an absolute advantage in this ruined city.

Three players appeared within Xu Huo’s sensory range. The changes in gravity around them were also quite noticeable. The force radiated outward from one of the players, covering an area that extended beyond the outermost floating debris. However, it weakened near the edge, which was probably the limit of the player’s range.

All three of them were outside the laboratory perimeter.

“Are we going to get crushed if we go over there?” Shangguan Xi tilted his head to look at the massive swaths of collapsed debris above. Some of it consisted of the floors of half a building, floating upside down in the air and directly covering the road.

“Beep, beep!” The vehicle suddenly sounded an alarm. Teacher Ai immediately slowed down, his expression changing. “It’s detected a contaminant up ahead.”

“No wonder those two players didn’t follow us!” Ding Wei said. “What grade is the contaminant?”

“At least Grade B,” Teacher Ai replied. “The vehicle only sounds an alarm when it reaches that level.”

“Maybe some experimental materials leaked,” Zhao Jiahuai said, watching the road ahead. “Are we still going in?”

“The other players all seem to be outside,” Shangguan Xi said. “They arrived so early and still haven’t gone in. The situation can’t be that simple.”

Xu Huo turned to the two people in the back seat. “We won’t know what’s going on until we get into the laboratory. Shangguan Xi, stay in the vehicle. The three of us will enter the laboratory.”

Zhao Jiahuai hesitated briefly before agreeing, but Ding Wei didn’t want to leave the vehicle. “Won’t Shangguan Xi be alone? What if a player takes the opportunity to steal the vehicle?”

“Brother Xu, I’ll go with you,” Shangguan Xi said immediately.

“You’re staying in the vehicle.” Xu Huo looked at him. “If necessary, you can abandon the vehicle and protect the people.”

“Understood.” Shangguan Xi nodded.

“We’ll enter the laboratory from different directions,” Xu Huo told Zhao Jiahuai. “That should distract the other players. We’ll allow ten minutes. Whether or not we make it into the laboratory, if we haven’t found the living specimen, we return promptly after ten minutes.”

Then he turned to Teacher Ai. “After we leave, drive the vehicle to the edge of the area with floating debris. Don’t get any closer to the laboratory.”

Teacher Ai nodded silently.

“I’ll go too,” Ding Wei said again. “I’ve spotted several players nearby. It’s better to have one more person.”

“Brother Xu, it’s up to you to find the living specimen.”

Xu Huo gave a slight nod. As soon as the window opened, he used Go to Destination to head straight to the laboratory.

One corner of the laboratory building had already been damaged. Black growths, resembling mold or clusters of damp fungi clinging to the ground, covered the outer walls and the surrounding area. From outside, every visible part of the interior was covered in the same growths. In some places, they bulged in piled-up mounds, with liquids of unknown colors trickling from them. Black particles, like dust, also floated in the air.

As soon as he reached the building, Xu Huo put on the Invisibility Cloak, but he was still stopped. A spatial barrier surrounded the laboratory building, presumably created by another player. The moment the barrier blocked him, one of the three players quickly moved in his direction.

The Invisibility Cloak could obscure his figure, but it wasn’t difficult for a high-level player to pinpoint his position. Xu Huo therefore also used the Sound-Muffling Figurine. After leaving footprints outside the spatial barrier, he forcibly broke through it and entered the laboratory building, then used the piano wire to reach the second floor.

As he entered, the pursuing player arrived. The other player looked precisely at the spot where he had entered the building and seemed eager to give chase for a moment, but ultimately didn’t follow him inside.

Once inside, Xu Huo quickly understood why the high-level players had been reluctant to approach the building. Even if he floated without directly touching the contaminants on the structure, the black dust in the air rapidly clung to him. In the blink of an eye, it was growing on both his Invisibility Cloak and his Protective Suit. The metal sections and special-material sections of the suit soon showed varying degrees of corrosion. This had taken only a few dozen seconds.

The walls and doors inside the laboratory building were all covered in contaminants. Finding the living specimen wouldn’t be easy, and certainly couldn’t be done in a very short time. The three player corpses lying in different places, their bodies already more than half covered by the growing contaminants, were clear proof of that.

But for Xu Huo, this wasn’t bad news.

He poured a little of the antidote made from King Fungus onto one of the corpses. The rapidly multiplying black substance quickly dissolved, but the person was already dead, so the antidote couldn’t take effect inside the body.

He cut off the part covered by the antidote and placed it in an airtight container, then put it away in his item storage before getting up to search the nearby rooms. The electronic instruments were all unusable. After rummaging around on the wall, he finally found a laboratory floor plan. The important test specimens were stored underground, but this specimen had been brought in from outside, so it might not be in the underground laboratory. Still, to survive among these contaminants, it would have to be in a well-sealed laboratory with an oxygen supply.

After identifying several key locations, he turned to face the contaminants, whose visual and tactile senses didn’t seem very good, and reached straight into them. He used the Life Core to melt the metal wall.

The bare skin of his hand touched the metal wall for only an instant, yet the entire wall melted. The falling contaminants buried his lower leg halfway. He looked at his blackened hand, sprayed it with a bottle of cleaning solution, and confirmed the toxins weren’t spreading from it before continuing onward.

He checked three locations in succession before finally discovering a living specimen inside one of the laboratories.