Chapter 1462: Traveling Together
"A small amount of pollutants will quickly lose activity after leaving their host, and are only contagious under specific conditions." The man said, adding specifically, "It won't affect you."
Xu Huo took out a petri dish. "Then you don't mind if I take a sample, do you?"
The man was speechless but quickly raised his hand to indicate he could help himself.
There weren't many players who used poison in the game. First, players had many defensive measures, making poisoning difficult. Second, poison itself was uncontrollable—unless one carried a corresponding antidote, they might not even know when they'd capsized.
However, poison and pollutants could sometimes produce unexpected effects, and if successful, the cost was very low, so they were still welcomed by a small number of people.
Seeing something of interest, some people would always try to get a bit of pollutant from the man, whether for research or use, intending to use it on someone else someday.
But some had also lost their lives because of it.
So regarding Xu Huo's actions, the man neither stopped nor discouraged him.
Xu Huo took a bit of the fungal spot and placed it in a petri dish. As the man had said, it quickly withered after leaving the host. In another petri dish with added culture fluid, the fungal spot remained alive.
Without suitable testing items on hand, he could only inject the antidote made from King Fungus into the petri dish. The King Fungus solution was effective—the fungal spot quickly withered, appearing dead on the surface.
But this type of fungal pollutant was most notorious for easily reigniting. Seemingly dead, given the right conditions, it could come back to life.
After a while, Xu Huo brought out the detection instrument he had bought when preparing the King Fungus antidote. This instrument could detect whether the pollutant had completely lost its infectivity. The final result showed that the pollutant's infectivity had been reduced to below one percent.
At this value, it was very difficult for the pollutant to regain full infectivity, and it could basically be judged as having lost its contagiousness.
This proved that King Fungus could suppress this pollutant.
The detoxifying solution made from King Fungus was diluted fungal juice. This seemingly terrifying pollutant was actually not as dangerous as the germs in Yu Guoduan's hands.
The man across from him hadn't expected Xu Huo to have real materials. He hesitated before asking if he could buy some antidote.
"You don't seem to need an antidote." Xu Huo wasn't mistaken—the man was actually accustomed to his current state. Being covered in poison seemed inconvenient, but it could intimidate many players unfamiliar with pollutants, thus avoiding some dangers.
Of course, everything had pros and cons. Entering an instance in this state might cause some trouble, but with so many disguise items available, compared to staying alive, these were minor issues.
And the man wouldn't die without taking the antidote. The flesh worms parasitic on the back of his hand should be a kind of antidote—swallowing them could alleviate the pollutant's toxicity. This could be seen from how successfully the flesh worms had parasitized and grown.
"I don't need it, but many children back home do." The man said slowly, "The antidotes bought from the game only work temporarily. Once you stop taking them, these things quickly grow back. Adults can endure repeated flare-ups, but children are often tortured to death due to weak bodies."
"You live in such an environment?" Xu Huo asked. "Why not move somewhere else?"
"The game doesn't sell Non-Player Tickets to people like us." The man said calmly. "And this pollutant doesn't just live on people. Wherever people go, they follow, until the environment is completely contaminated."
Xu Huo was silent for a moment. This was somewhat similar to Clown City.
"You can take some potion back to try. As a condition, collect some pollutants for me." He said.
But the man didn't agree readily. Instead, he asked, "Can I exchange it with items?"
No matter how nicely it was phrased, the ultimate fate of these pollutants would be use. Their lethality wasn't like a bullet hole—they would seep and erode everything around them starting from that hole.
"Think it over." Xu Huo didn't rush him.
Soon it was lights-out time.
After the carriage darkened, the other players in the car all went into their rooms to rest. Only that man sat outside. When the train announced they were about to pass through a dangerous area, he suddenly got up, opened the rear carriage door, and went out.
He never came back.
The mutant swarm soon boarded the train. The higher the train's level, the more dangerous the areas it passed through seemed to be, and the more dangerous the mutants that appeared. This time was more intense than before. The players sensed the anomaly, so that night the train was extremely quiet. No one took advantage of the chaos to make a move, and there was even very little movement.
After a tense but safe night, morning came. Seeing the claw marks left on the carriage walls, the short-haired female player couldn't help saying, "I don't understand why a train that can cross dimensions can't stop the claws and teeth of mutants."
"The train is said to travel between dimensions, but what real dimensional crossing is like is hard to say," the baby-faced player said. "Maybe it just opens a door in different spaces for the train to pass through."
The train could be damaged, meaning it wasn't made of absolutely safe materials. Otherwise, forget about defending against mutants—even a small dimensional storm might be survivable. Of course, with so many trains, the game couldn't possibly have enough good materials for all of them.
Besides, the train wasn't a safe haven for players. It was still a high-risk screening venue. Who knew how those mutants near the tracks survived?
This wasn't a question suitable for players to delve into. The two were just casually complaining.
The transition car showed signs of contamination. Looking at the poison man sitting in the corner, Xu Huo understood that he had politely declined yesterday's proposal, and fearing trouble, had slipped out of the carriage at night. If the people in the rear carriages hadn't completely blocked the door, he would have already gone far.
Xu Huo opened the door and went out, tossing him three doses of antidote. "Take these back and try them first."
The man was silent but still took the antidote.
Xu Huo told him the contact method under the dimension. "Contact me if you're interested."
After saying this, he closed the door and returned to his usual spot, continuing to read the robot-making manual.
"I didn't peg him as a good person." The short-haired female player shifted her gaze from the back and landed on Xu Huo, striking up a conversation casually. "Which station are you going to?"
Xu Huo named a station near the Platinum Eye. The short-haired female player immediately smiled. "What a coincidence, we're getting off there too. Are you going to the Platinum Eye? Have you been there before? What's it like?"
What followed was idle chat of little substance. During the conversation, the short-haired female player revealed that they were players from the E27 wormhole point, visiting the Platinum Eye out of admiration, wanting to see this famous precision weapon capital in the game.
(Chapter End)