Chapter 17: Ticket Scam
After summing up all the information, he now had an official player ID, gained one trait, two items, four potions, one gift pack, and three tickets, plus two thousand in bonus money.
He flipped open his collar and found a string of numbers on his shoulder, similar to the delivery woman's, though the color and digits were different. Every formally registered player after the initial review should have such a number—cannibal players had red, and killer players had black.
This didn't seem like an ordinary tattoo; whether it could be destroyed or altered remained to be seen.
He first looked at the items.
"Super Running Shoes" looked no different from ordinary shoes. They were light on his feet. His original speed was already more than double that of an average person, and a thirty percent boost on top of that was quite substantial.
His old shoes couldn't be placed in the item slot, so he discarded them on the spot.
"The Arsonist's Tool" was a plain brass lighter, not as distinctive as the one the tattooed big brother had given him. But from the description, it was an interesting item with ranged attack capabilities, yet more convenient. Unless someone went without clothes, it was definitely a surefire weapon.
Of course, if there were other defensive items, that was another story.
He tucked the lighter into his pocket and moved on to the traits.
"Insider's Perspective" enhanced his vision. After selecting it, his eyes felt like they had a magnifying glass over them, zooming in on tiny details—truly seeing the minute.
Similar in nature to "Legs That Never Tire," it was essentially a physical evolution, just cleverly tied to a profession.
This meant that game profession choices weren't meaningless. The traits a player could develop were more or less linked to their profession. The higher the completion of a professional role in a game instance, the more traits they might unlock.
Though in the long run, ordinary players had more development potential than cannibal players, for new players, cannibal players who could gain power by eating had an advantage, especially in terms of vitality.
The delivery woman's strong self-healing ability and the first-class passenger's feigning death method were both signs of robust vitality.
Similarly injured, the wound on his palm still ached faintly, no different from before evolution.
"To close that gap..."
Xu Huo shifted his gaze to the evolution potions, grabbed a bottle, and downed it. The taste wasn't bad—strawberry flavor. After waiting half a minute, he felt no physical change, but his evolution rate jumped to 9%.
He chugged two more bottles, and the rate hit 10%, along with a new note:
[Congratulations, player Passerby A, on achieving 10% evolution! Please note: after exceeding 10% evolution, the effectiveness of P0 potions will diminish. Strive to find P1 potions—they might be hidden in the game!]
He squeezed his fingers and punched the air, producing a clear whoosh. Both his strength and speed were incomparable to what they were two minutes ago.
But if potion effectiveness decreased with evolution, the further he went, the more limited they'd become. Beyond P0 and P1, there might be P2, P3 later, but physical ability wouldn't grow indefinitely.
"So the key is still trait growth."
Xu Huo rubbed the stubble on his chin and took out the three tickets.
Game tickets weren't paper like in real life; they were rectangular glass blocks, three fingers wide and half a finger thick, resembling transparent phones. On the front floated the station name, while the back listed train times, marking both game time and real time, allowing scrolling and selection.
The next train to the nearest instance was in thirty minutes.
[Player has selected Train 134. This train will depart in twenty-nine minutes. Player must arrive at the station five minutes before departure. Teleport?]
Xu Huo didn't rush to select "Yes." Instead, he tested the potions one by one.
The Self-Healing Agent performed exactly like an outdated product should—applied to the wound, it barely dulled the pain, essentially negligible.
The Cleaning Agent was handy, though. Wiped on his clothes, the dried bloodstains vanished instantly, leaving the torn areas looking washed clean. No wonder on the train, the cannibal players had no traces on them.
Ordinary players might have one or two traits or items when boarding, but on the initial review train, that wasn't an advantage. Cannibal players, on the other hand, had astonishing physical strength and items for disposing of bodies... It seemed the game wasn't friendly to ordinary players.
He casually dabbed some Hair Growth Agent on his head, waited a moment with no reaction, then selected [Yes].
Seconds later, he stood in a station made entirely of glass.
Calling it a station, aside from the glass windows blocking the wind and a projection screen floating in the center, it had none of the usual station features. The empty glass room seemed to float midair, touching neither sky nor ground, like being sandwiched between two mirrors of blue sky and white clouds—endless, completely lacking a sense of reality.
There were five strangers in the station. Two men in suits stared at him from the moment he appeared.
"We're station staff. We need to check your ticket." The tall, thin one walked over.
Xu Huo glanced at the two, then leisurely pulled out the lighter, lit a cigarette for himself, and blew out a puff of smoke.
The tall, thin man expected Xu Huo to obediently produce his ticket, but instead, Xu Huo ignored him and even dared to provoke him openly. His face darkened. "Refusing a staff inspection—do you want to be exiled?"
"Of course not." Xu Huo's lighter flickered on and off, accompanied by the clink of the brass lid opening and closing. He said, "But I don't have a ticket. Do you have one to lend me?"
The two exchanged glances. The tall, thin one continued, "Show your ticket. You need to be checked before boarding. All players here have been inspected."
Xu Huo looked at the other three players silently watching him and said with a grin, "But I really don't have a ticket."
"How could you not have a ticket!" the shorter one snapped. "The train appeared on the projection screen when you arrived!"
Xu Huo had already noticed only one train on the screen. He nodded. "So the train only shows up when a ticket-holding player arrives. That means none of you have tickets either. How pitiful."
"If you don't get a ticket in the next ten-plus minutes, who knows what'll happen. Can't board, can't leave—maybe you'll starve to death in the station. Cannibal players might last a few days, waiting for the next batch of ticket holders."
"But the game hasn't said ticketless players can stay in the station forever. Maybe when time's up, you'll be cleaned out like trash, thrown to some remote place, or turned into rations for humanoid monsters. Worst case, you'll be teleported into a high-risk instance. Know what that means?"