Chapter 1309: Abandoned Items
Xu Huo naturally wouldn't be polite, stowing it in his luggage compartment. "I'll return it to you later!"
Xin Rong waved his hand to show he didn't mind. "My family makes weapons; we have plenty of this stuff. It's the special items that are truly precious."
Xu Huo watched him fiddle with the items on the table and then asked, "When we came out, you mentioned you could open several layers of space within the spiritual realm. Why were you trapped in that spiritual space instead?"
Xin Rong scratched his head. "Different evolution paths. My spiritual evolution is a bit different from most people's. Others mainly use spiritual power to interfere with reality—I'm not great at that. But I'm better at developing things within the spiritual realm, especially in places like Fresh Flower City. Entering spaces inside the spiritual realm is very easy. I just didn't expect the spiritual-type instance venue set up by a Super Player to be so powerful. I underestimated this district. I thought the Super Players had been dead for years, so the control over the instance venue would have weakened. I nearly lost my life."
Xu Huo found it strange. "So you can't even do the basics?"
Xin Rong argued confidently, "What basics? Don't forget, the strongest aspect of spiritual interference is making people unable to distinguish between illusion and reality. Especially for Super Evolvers like us, we're more prone to falling into traps and trusting our own judgment. How is that easy?"
Xu Huo had no retort; he could tell Xin Rong was speaking from the heart.
"Besides, creating a spiritual space isn't that hard," Xin Rong added. "It just depends on what kind of space you want to create. The bigger and more complex it is, the harder it is to create and control. But if you're just making a single-person room, that doesn't take much effort—it's just not very useful."
Seeing that Xin Rong was open about the topic, Xu Huo sincerely sought his advice. In the end, he concluded that using specially customized items made it easier to control evolution power.
"What's the biggest difference between humans and animals if not the use of tools?" Xin Rong laid out the Platinum Eye's core philosophy clearly. "Why exert effort when tools can get the job done?"
Xu Huo gave him a meaningful look.
Xin Rong probably felt that saying such bold words after nearly starving to death was a bit embarrassing, so he changed his tune. "Of course, each has its own advantages. Ahem, let's look at these items."
He took out high-level items, including several A-grade items with decent effects, as well as two special items that assisted in using spiritual power.
"You're just asking me to help you open a door, right? Nothing else?" Xin Rong confirmed repeatedly before saying, "If that's the case, I can lend you all these items. But I really like two of them, so you'll have to return them afterward."
Xu Huo was testing the two special items and replied, "I'll do what I can. Leave me a contact method. If I leave first, I'll return the items to you through the game later."
Xin Rong only gave him his in-game nickname. "The game platform isn't safe; codes and such are easy to crack. If you can't make it, come find me at Platinum Eye. My family has some standing there; it won't be hard to find me."
Xu Huo was about to leave an address, but Xin Rong waved it off. "I hate looking for people. Just return them when you get a chance. If you really don't want to, it's fine—you'll be the one losing out."
Xu Huo smiled. "True. Where would I find such a generous friend?"
"Making friends with someone from Platinum Eye never hurts." Xin Rong was about to boast more about his hometown when a white light suddenly burst from the sky outside the window. The rising white mass exploded in the sky, forming a semi-transparent barrier that enveloped the entire directly administered district.
"That's a single-layer protective barrier," Xin Rong said after a glance. "Something must have happened in the directly administered district... Does your business have anything to do with it?"
They exchanged looks, and Xin Rong directly opened a door in the room, pointing his chin inward. "Let's go, let's go check out the excitement."
The barrier didn't completely cut off the inside from the outside of the directly administered district. Thanks to Xin Rong's spiritual space, the two entered an underground passage, passed through an instance venue twice, and entered the directly administered district. As they entered, a shell exploded right in front of them—the fire from the blast didn't fully penetrate the spiritual space, but its powerful shockwave caused some damage. Xu Huo and Xin Rong were thrown several meters back. When they landed and looked again, the building that had been hit was already reduced to rubble. Then a player landed on the ruins, glanced around, and gestured to distant companions, moving toward a certain direction within the directly administered district.
These were players from Fresh Flower City.
Through the instance venue, Xu Huo's field of vision greatly expanded. About a kilometer ahead, six players were chasing two players in black. The six kept using items, but the two in black had defensive and nullifying items equipped. Under the mutual effects, neither side's items clearly gained the upper hand, but each item's effective time was never very long. Moreover, high-level players had sharper senses; if they sensed something wrong, they would dodge items in advance.
At times like this, the importance of a player's combat ability became evident. The two black-clad players were very fast. With the chasing players' items not taking effect, the distance between them grew larger. One of them even shook off the pursuers and disappeared into a building. As a firework-like flash of light shot out from the building's floors, the black-clad player emerged again, followed by more than a dozen people.
Those were also players, but not battle-hardened ones. As they fell, most were frantically fumbling for items. However, the black-clad player walking ahead of them turned back and said, "Abandon your items."
The moment the words fell, everyone involuntarily dropped the items in their hands!
"Help!!!" these people screamed. Several of them flailed their limbs, struggled, and fell to their deaths!
It wasn't that they couldn't move, but they were overly dependent on items. Once they lost their items, they even forgot the physical strength of an Evolver... More than half of the dozen or so people cracked their heads open on the ground. The rest were either rescued by arriving Fresh Flower City players or barely managed to cushion themselves with surrounding objects, ending up severely injured.
The two black-clad players, one ahead and one behind, regrouped. They didn't care about the fate of these people. Seeing more players gathering around, the player who had broken into the building and killed shouted again to the surroundings, "Abandon your items!"
Over two-thirds of the nearly twenty nearby players dropped the items in their hands. And in the moment they were distracted, the other black-clad player, like an ethereal shadow, passed through them from behind. Immediately, a dozen heads flew into the air!
(Chapter End)