Chapter 2037: Visiting Huahan Werner
After a good night's sleep, Xu Huo felt refreshed and clear-headed.
When he came downstairs, Mr. Dong had already set out breakfast, and Yan Jiayu was already seated at the table. She raised her hand to greet him and asked if he had slept well last night.
"Thank you for your help," Xu Huo said. If his shadow personality hadn't found it difficult to influence her, it probably wouldn't have appeared on its own.
"It was nothing." Yan Jiayu waved her hand dismissively, then added, "I've talked to Qi Cong. He also thinks District 011 is nice and can stay here to find a job."
Xu Huo reciprocated the kindness. "I can have Mr. Dong help him apply for a Paused Player status. That way, it's convenient for both sides."
Yan Jiayu had no problem with that, and Qi Cong had no right to voice an opinion, so the matter was happily settled.
After breakfast, Yan Jiayu's plan was still to go out and have fun with the Painting Woman. Not only was the Base City convenient, but nearby cities were also quick to travel to and from. They planned to go on a little trip. "There are plenty of interesting things in District 011 too."
"If you run out of money, just tell me." Xu Huo transferred a sum of money into the Painting Woman's account. "Don't hold back if you want to buy something."
Although the Painting Woman didn't usually care much about money, this was the first time she had received such a large amount from Xu Huo. She nodded happily, linked her arm through Yan Jiayu's, and urged her to hurry up and leave.
Qi Cong had originally wanted to go too, but unfortunately, he had spent several hours walking up and down stairs the night before. Although he had drunk a restorative potion, the muscle memory of extreme fatigue seemed to linger. So he could only give up resentfully, leaning against the front door as he reluctantly watched Yan Jiayu and the others leave, waving his hand and saying, "Little Fish, come back soon. I'll be waiting for you here."
No one bothered to acknowledge him. His only response was a stone thrown back from outside by Yan Jiayu, which accurately hit him right on the nose.
As two streams of nosebleed flowed down, he said with a face full of deep emotion, "Bleeding for love."
"Do you know the difference between being persistent and being a nuisance?" Xu Huo looked at him.
Qi Cong wiped the blood from under his nose, a subtle smile appearing on his face. "People often develop a strange feeling towards their admirers. Even if they absolutely hate that person, they become especially tolerant of them because of that admiration. They might even feel pity for them after repeatedly rejecting them."
Xu Huo was quite surprised. "That logic might work on someone else, but Yan Jiayu..."
"What? You look down on my Little Fish?" Qi Cong instantly transformed into a warrior of love, fiercely defending Yan Jiayu even though she wasn't present.
Xu Huo leaned back on the sofa, his right hand resting on the back of the chair as he propped up his temple, smiling slightly at him. "Full of energy. Perfect for using you in an experiment."
Under Qi Cong's terrified gaze, he was once again pulled into the spiritual realm.
After resolving the knot with his shadow personality, Xu Huo's spiritual power ceiling had increased by at least half. This meant the range of his spiritual realm could continue to expand. Of course, at this level, simply spreading his spiritual power flat out to its maximum extent could no longer be considered efficient use. Now that a new spiritual space had appeared, he also needed to divert some of his energy to control this deeper layer within the spiritual realm.
The Mirror Space, or rather the Mirror Spiritual Realm, was stronger than the Library Tower space. It was harder to escape and more difficult to leave than the Library Tower space. What made it more ingenious than the Library Tower space was that it blurred the trapped person's own sense of existence, allowing for stronger control within a small area without the risk of easily breaking free from the spiritual realm's range.
Furthermore, the effect of spiritual interference-type jamming devices would be discounted within the Mirror Space. However, this didn't mean Xu Huo could directly withstand the powerful interference of instruments or items; it mainly restricted the player's usage.
Additionally, the range of his materialization power had expanded to two hundred meters. This was now a completely absolute spiritual range belonging to him. Within this range, he could interfere with everyone equally. With the help of his doubled spiritual power, there would no longer be situations where he couldn't manage everyone at once.
Xu Huo and his shadow personality hadn't completely merged. To be precise, the shadow personality had filled in the missing power from his childhood. The shadow personality remained independent. And although he felt as if he had broken through a shackle, he sensed that he hadn't actually reached the shadow personality's upper limit. This was because he still couldn't sense what the shadow personality had stolen from Dou Shengnan's spiritual realm back in District 017. He didn't know where the shadow personality had hidden it.
This wasn't a big deal. Xu Huo was very tolerant of his childhood self. Now that his childhood memories were fully recovered, it was fine for him to keep a little secret of his own.
"Click." A sound came from the Library Tower. Xu Huo, standing on the spiral staircase, looked up and saw his childhood self walking out of a room, peeking at him from behind a pillar.
Xu Huo waved for him to come down and play, but the childhood personality shook his head, turned around, and went back into his room. Then, the floors and rooms of the Library Tower began to rotate and shift, drawing him deeper into the spiritual realm.
Xu Huo didn't force it. After throwing Qi Cong out of the Mirror Spiritual Realm, he fully released his own spiritual realm to confirm its boundaries. However, this range had already exceeded the scope his spatial power could control, so he couldn't build a "Confusion Barrier" at the edge to seal off the entire spiritual realm.
This was a bit of a pity.
Of course, with his current power, supplemented by the "Cube Space," the barrier he could establish wasn't actually very solid. It couldn't withstand high-level players or high-level items and would require further evolution.
District 011 didn't have publicly placed instruments for detecting spiritual power throughout the city, and the castle's location was also relatively remote. Rose Castle occupied a large area, and the surrounding buildings were similar, so testing his spiritual realm didn't attract much attention, nor were there any Black Epaulets to disturb him.
Along with the growth of his spiritual power came an increase in his actual control over the spiritual realm. It was another feeling of peeling away the fog to glimpse the truth. This feeling was different from the tangible reach of spatial power; it gave him a sense of transparency overlooking this spatial range, as if it existed, and as if it didn't.
Once he had a clear understanding, Xu Huo completely closed off his spiritual realm.
Qi Cong was still standing by the door. In a daze, he saw Xu Huo appear in front of him and asked, somewhat lost, "Am I back or not?"
Xu Huo went upstairs. Before leaving, he called for Mr. Dong and told him in the study to prepare a gift. He was going to visit the Werner family.
A formal visit, especially to a large family, required sending a letter of introduction in advance to be polite. This way, the other party could arrange whether they had time to meet, where to meet, who to accompany, and what food and drink to prepare. So Mr. Dong had to write a letter first and send it to the Werner family.
"A formal visit requires a specific recipient," Mr. Dong said. "Who do you intend to visit?"
"Huahan Werner."