Chapter 1635: In the Water
As time passed, the three sleeping individuals woke up one after another. Xu Huo briefly explained the situation to the two players and told them to find another place to hide. After a moment of hesitation, they thanked him and left.
The other person from Zone 013 had nowhere to go and just sat there in a daze.
Xu Huo gave him some food. "The mall is the most dangerous place. Players could come at any time. Find somewhere else to rest."
The man's eyes could only see the food. It was unclear if he even heard Xu Huo's words as he frantically shoved the food into his mouth.
Xu Huo didn't say anything more. He continued sitting in place, working on the puzzle ball. But before long, the Zone 013 man started vomiting. First, he threw up the food he had just eaten, then some bloody chunks, with strands hanging from his mouth. However, the man seemed accustomed to it. He wiped his mouth and grabbed the undigested vomited food, stuffing it back into his mouth.
"Stop eating," Xu Huo interrupted, tossing him two more bags of bread.
Only then did the Zone 013 man stop. He wiped his hands on his clothes, picked up the two packaged bread bags, tucked them into his clothes, and stood up to leave. But after a few steps, he turned back, knelt stiffly before Xu Huo, placed the two bags of bread in front of him, bowed low, and knocked his head on the ground. "I won't make it. You're a good person. Could you please give these two loaves of bread to my children? They live on the outskirts of Brown Skin City. The older one is called Mu Er, the younger one Shan Yao... They're both under ten years old. Without an adult to take care of them, they'll definitely die. I can't go back... I want them to taste something they've never had before they die... I beg you! I beg you!"
With that, he kept kowtowing, his head thumping loudly against the floor.
Xu Huo used a Space Ray to stop him. "Are you from Brown Skin City too?"
The man lifted his head, dazed. "I'm not... I walked from Hope City to Brown Skin City... There are many cannibal players there. They don't just eat passersby; they eat the locals too. I had no choice but to flee with my children..."
"I have a friend in Brown Skin City. I don't know how he's doing now." Xu Huo gestured for him to come closer and handed him an antidote. "Use this. How long it lasts depends on your luck. If you die, and I happen to go to Brown Skin City, I'll look after your children for you."
"Thank you... thank you..." The man wept bitterly, his face a mess of sores, then injected the antidote into himself.
After the antidote took effect, his condition improved somewhat. The King Fungus mycelium was working, but the fungi inside Zone 013 people were often alive and required continuous detoxification. A single antidote might not kill all the fungi. Moreover, as long as he lived in this environment, no amount of antidote would be enough.
He wondered if the glowing fungi in the Star River pool really existed. They could eliminate the fungi on Brown Skin City people so quickly, which in some ways was even more effective than the King Fungus.
This Zone 013 man didn't stay in the mall because of the antidote or Xu Huo's promise. After his condition improved, he still slipped away into the night.
By the late hours, the puzzle ball in Xu Huo's hands had been reduced to the size of a ping-pong ball.
He stopped to rest for a while and woke up Young Master Mo.
Young Master Mo's mental state was still poor, but he was no longer as agitated as before. He also realized something was wrong with him and couldn't help saying, "This instance is really something. I've already used a device to defend against mental interference."
Xu Huo glanced at him. "Oh?"
Young Master Mo paused, then added, "I used it while sleeping."
"But this is an instance, and no one is controlling it. It must be a problem with the instance's magnetic field."
Xu Huo nodded slightly. Besides that reason, it was also possible that Dr. Wu had placed something inside, like the overlapping space where items were hidden in the Sphinx's Riddle instance.
"The mall can't be a long-term stay. Where are you planning to go after dawn?" Young Master Mo asked.
Xu Huo stretched his arms. "Just wander around."
In his current state, unless the instance deliberately created a loophole, he couldn't enter another space like other players.
He still had three days. He could try his luck at a nearby park and maybe find one or two detox fungi that had been accidentally brought out.
Young Master Mo nodded without saying anything.
The next morning, Scarface Glasses woke up. His spirits were slightly better, but his eyes were bloodshot. He was still a bit distracted when Young Master Mo spoke to him.
Regardless of whether their family bond remained as strong as iron, Xu Huo packed up his items and walked out of the mall.
Outside, it was still foggy, but there were few people on the road. He could walk a long distance without encountering an active player. Using his map, he first went to the nearest residential area, which had a man-made lake of considerable size.
Putting on the "Do-As-You-Please Ball," he controlled his body and slowly sank into the water.
The "Do-As-You-Please Ball" was a bubble ball shaped like a cloud. It could hold one or two people and was usable at high altitudes or in deep seas. It had some pressure resistance and was an A-grade item. Using it to stroll around a man-made lake was overkill, but it was transparent, making it convenient to observe underwater conditions.
There were more fungi underwater than on the surface. Xu Huo also found two types of faintly glowing fungi, but their appearance didn't match what he had seen in the Star River dream. After bringing them out for testing, they weren't detox fungi either.
Instead, he discovered a type of fungus that looked like small fish. Pulled by mycelium, they swayed in the water, looking like real fish.
He scooped up a few of these, but this small fish fungus seemed to only survive underwater. Once out of the water, it quickly dried up and died.
Oh, and he also found a few skeletons.
With no results at this location, he got up, put away his item, and headed to the next place.
Next was a wetland park with a natural lake. The park entrance had detailed rules for sightseeing, and warning signs near the water indicated deep water with undercurrents.
Xu Huo went down and discovered a natural stone cave at the bottom. It was filled with aquatic plants and some mutated fish he had never seen before. These fish were aggressive and, upon spotting him, swarmed to ram the "Do-As-You-Please Ball."
The gaps in the stone cave weren't large enough for the "Do-As-You-Please Ball" to enter. But after shaking off the fish, he noticed they were all swimming toward a specific direction in the cave.
Putting on a protective mask, he put away the ball and followed the fish, crawling into the cave. The cave was winding and narrow, but the fish entered and didn't return, indicating a clear waterway inside.
After a brief pause, he crouched and crawled in. After two turns, a large fish with a mouth full of sharp teeth suddenly rushed out from ahead. He casually sliced it and was about to move on when a round stone emitting a faint fluorescent glow unexpectedly fell out of the fish's belly.