Chapter 1955: Mission and Personal Goals Do Not Conflict
Before leaving, Xu Huo had already used tracking items and tracking traits on both Lin Guang and that rebel soldier. He anticipated that the East District would have targeted countermeasures, so he applied the Target Lock trait to the rebel soldier. If he could infiltrate the training ground, there should be preventive measures, which would also avoid the possibility of the trait used on him being cleansed.
The road blockade had caused some delay, and they were still moving now.
While keeping an eye on their movements, he opened the Under Dimension.
Sure enough, the rebel army contacted him, agreeing to cooperate with him.
However, their cooperation was online. The rebel side wouldn't show their faces. Whatever information he needed, the rebel army would do their best to find it. To show sincerity, they could provide information first. After confirming the truth of the information, Xu Huo could then tell them the weaknesses of the East District players.
There was no foundation of trust between the two sides; the cooperation relied entirely on conscience. The rebel army's method sounded very sincere, even a bit disadvantageous, because if Xu Huo went back on his word afterward, they would gain nothing.
But this was actually the rebel army testing his clearance mission while also keeping him steady.
The key to clearing the instance for Outer Zone players might not necessarily lie with the Agor Corporation; it could also be related to the rebel army. Therefore, before providing information, the rebel army would prioritize ensuring their own safety. Not meeting in person was also for this reason.
Additionally, whether he was a genuine Outer Zone player or an East District impostor, seeking cooperation without receiving timely feedback could potentially cause some trouble for the rebel army. After all, he had intercepted the Mask Player before and was a Mental Super Evolver. Regardless of whether the rebel army would ultimately provide useful clearance information, stalling for time cost them nothing.
After a moment's hesitation, Xu Huo wrote down two lines: "East District Player Modification Plan" and "Agor Corporation's Psychotherapist."
The two East District players he encountered at the rebel member's stronghold both carried mutant plant seeds that could detect spiritual power. Since this ticket came from Dr. Zhang's Intelligence Ball, whether placed there by Dr. Zhang himself or by Chang Beishou, he judged that the East District placed more importance on and had a deeper understanding of Mental Super Evolution than other districts. However, the subsequent massacre by East District players slightly changed his thinking.
From the Mask Player's words, he could glean a bit—that they believed East District players had once used the same method to frame the rebel army.
But based on the information Xu Huo had gathered in the West District, the crime-ridden West District rarely saw incidents of players going on mad killing sprees. Things like attacking factories, promoting ideologies, or exposing the true face of the East District—while rebel players did engage in such activities, they were mostly done under the slogan "Will Never Fade," meaning they believed they had just cause.
Last night's massacre by East District players was merely a massacre.
The few East District players who arrived later, along with what happened at Gate 3 today, were somewhat interesting. When they discovered a colleague exhibiting uncontrollable behavior, their first step was to observe and record, then decide on the spot whether to execute them. This indicated they had a set of methods to deal with such situations. From the way these people acted as if it were nothing unusual, such incidents were not extreme outliers.
Therefore, the focus was not on the sudden incident itself, but on the players.
East District players had a potential tendency to lose control. The mutant plants they carried to detect spiritual power might not be for guarding against others, but for self-checking.
Combining these two situations, Xu Huo's first thought was mental modification.
He himself had undergone Dr. Zhang's drug modification as a child. He couldn't be sure that the other party wouldn't choose to experiment on large numbers of adults. It was normal for experiments to have side effects.
So he set his sights on player modification. The Agor Corporation needed to mass-produce high-level players to consolidate its position, but the company itself lacked the cohesion of a nation or race. Therefore, they had to have a means to control players. If Dr. Zhang was involved in this, the entire process wasn't hard to imagine.
The rebel army was more familiar with the East District's situation. Whether investigating player modification or the possible existence of a "Psychotherapist," they were more convenient than him.
As for the rebel leader "Pigeon" and the "White Blood" needed for clearance, they didn't conflict with his personal goals.
However, thinking that East District player modification could produce such major flaws, Xu Huo felt a faint disappointment. Dr. Zhang himself probably wasn't here anymore.
After sending the message, the rebel army didn't reply immediately. After a while, they said they needed some time and asked him to be patient.
Xu Huo exited the interface and sent the identity card and access card of the still-living East District player from the painting frame to Bai Kou, asking her to forge a fake one.
Although the person was alive, his colleague who acted with him was dead, and the log instrument had self-destructed. It was expected that the East District would closely monitor this player. Using his identity card again would definitely cause trouble, so he could only try to forge a new one.
After doing this, Xu Huo planned to go out for a walk.
Since Sister Yan had told him not to go out casually, he "accidentally" knocked over a shelf placed by the window of the family upstairs while opening his window to ventilate. That family was doing indoor painting, and several buckets of paint tipped over, affecting several households below. Those with closed windows fared better, but people like Xu Huo, who "happened" to have their windows open, even had their carpets ruined.
The people downstairs angrily came up to cause trouble, while the people upstairs hurried down to apologize and negotiate compensation.
Xu Huo had no choice but to open the door and go out. However, regarding the window cleaning fee and item contamination fee, the upstairs and downstairs couldn't reach an agreement. The upstairs's instrument detected the affected items as semi-new, while the downstairs insisted on being compensated with new ones. Amidst the bickering, those negotiating and those watching somehow started fighting.
Xu Huo, caught up in it, had to follow them downstairs to the neighborhood's security management office, asking him to give a fair price.
Xu Huo wasn't suitable to appear at the security management office, so after going downstairs, he quietly slipped away from the crowd when no one was looking. Going back wasn't a good choice, so he took a city bus and left.
The person monitoring him followed.
The transportation he took happened to pass through the previously blocked street. Vehicles weren't allowed through, so they had to take a detour near the city center.
At this point, that rebel member got off the bus, leaving only Xu Huo slowly approaching the city's heart with the vehicle.
Unlike the city's edge, this area not only had more patrol aircraft and armed robots but also fixed player patrol points. When passing through these places, the players' gazes were like knives, scraping over everyone.
(End of Chapter)