Chapter 2093: Who Holds the Initiative
Seeing that Xu Huo remained silent, Meng Wenguang said, "I'll go after him now."
"There's no need to be so hasty." Xu Huo raised his hand. "Nancheng City is only this big. Finding him will be easy."
He still had questions for Kong Ying and the others.
Kong Ying and his group were cooperative, answering everything Xu Huo asked in detail.
The five of them, plus Shen Liang, had all arrived at the abandoned city before noon. Kong Ying and Chen An arrived around 3:00 AM, while the others arrived at various times afterward. Shen Liang was the latest, arriving around 11:00 AM. Xu Huo and his team had opened the Time Tower at 11:33, just missing them.
However, according to them, aside from the period between 9:00 PM and midnight, players they had encountered appeared at almost all other times.
"It seems they avoided the window from 9:17 to 12:03," Meng Wenguang said. "That further proves there are still quite a few players who entered yesterday and haven't left yet."
If Xu Huo's guess was correct, players who arrived at the abandoned city after 11:33 had likely been lingering there since yesterday.
"Lu Miaomiao hasn't come looking for us. She probably already knows."
"Don't worry about her," Xu Huo said. Unless Lu Miaomiao possessed a Time Item or suddenly underwent Temporal Evolution, there was no way she could bypass the events and locations tied to 9:17 and escape Nancheng City on her own.
Having confirmed this, he told Meng Wenguang to stay there and continue trying to contact Wang Ling and Long Jianfeng, who had been unreachable. "I'll go find the person who was just here."
Although the man had deliberately kept his distance and was wary of tracking items, Nancheng City was small enough that finding one person wasn't difficult.
Following the address range Meng Wenguang had retrieved, Xu Huo first searched upward along 16th Street from the location of Little Star Company. With his current Spiritual Realm, he could cover the two adjacent streets without using any items. While searching, he also familiarized himself with the city, conducting a thorough sweep. He activated his Spiritual Realm and walked along the street all the way to the city's edge, then from the top of 12th Street downward to the other end of the city map—the southernmost part of the city. Unexpectedly, just as he was a short distance from the city's edge, the player who had left appeared at the edge of his Spiritual Realm.
He opened a door directly and appeared before the man, smiling slightly. "We meet again."
The man wasn't surprised either. Instead, he said, "I knew you'd find me sooner or later, but I didn't expect it to be this fast. What, do you want the Recorder I have?"
Whether it was Meng Wenguang, who had only been here a few days, or Kong Ying and the others, who had been here for over ten days, none of them had any records from after 9:17 PM. They had entered another space, but everything that happened in that other space might not be real. The only ones who could possibly have records were players carrying Time Items or Temporal Evolvers.
Furthermore, players who hadn't left the previous day were more likely to have records from both days, which could save a lot of time for those who had just entered today, especially in finding Dr. Wu's residence.
"You and I both know what this place is. Who wouldn't want to get Dr. Wu's Perfect Potion? Do you think I'd share clues selflessly?" The man, wearing a baseball cap, leaned back against a tree branch, squinting at Xu Huo. "But if you offered a Time-type item in exchange, that would be a different story."
"Forget about a Time Item." Xu Huo wasn't anxious. Instead, he said, "You came in a day earlier, so you think you hold the initiative. But think carefully—do you really have the initiative?"
Without being cryptic, he simply stated the answer. "Time Power."
The man's expression stiffened.
"Don't you find it strange?" Xu Huo continued. "This place has probably existed for quite a while. Even if there are very few people holding Time Items, a few would have entered here. For example, you ran into me, and I've run into others holding Time Items. With such a high frequency, if later arrivals could stay in Nancheng City indefinitely because of earlier arrivals, then where are those people now?"
"Let's say they've been here so long they might have died. But the rule of Nancheng City is that it resets every day. Do you think players holding Time Items have special privileges?"
"Since you understand the background here... if I were Dr. Wu, I would think that the longer a player holding a Time Item stays here, the more useless they become."
"Now we're back to the earlier question. Do you still have the initiative?"
If the man could stay in Nancheng City indefinitely because he arrived later, then Xu Huo, who arrived earlier, would certainly activate the Time Tower earlier multiple times. Staying here indefinitely could preserve records from the previous day, but the question was whether the venue of Nancheng City had corresponding cleanup rules. Time Power would deal with players who had been inside too long. So what about players who stayed in Nancheng City for an extended period?
"You have no evidence." The man's posture hadn't changed, but his expression was no longer as relaxed as before.
"Have you found any Time Items here?" Xu Huo asked.
Anyone who could activate the Time Tower would certainly realize the importance of Time Items. Whether entering Nancheng City or the abandoned city outside, they would definitely carry them. If a player was killed by Time Power, a Time Item should have been left behind. Of course, it was possible that later players had picked them up. But could such players really break through Nancheng City's time rules and leave?
If not all Time Items had been picked up by later players, there were two other possibilities. One was that the Instance cleared them out periodically. The other was that these items were destroyed when their holders died. How they were destroyed was unknown and untraceable. But as long as this possibility existed, players holding Time Items weren't safe. On the contrary, they might fall into unknown dangers because of their items.
"If time repeats and refreshes tonight, and no one remembers today's events, then tomorrow I'll still activate the Time Tower early and enter here. If you don't leave today, will you still be unable to leave tomorrow?"
The man was silent for a long time before letting out a laugh. "You're a smart person. You figured out all this just from meeting me. But there's one thing—everything you've said is just speculation. It's not enough for me to hand over my Recorder for free."
Since he was still unwilling to cooperate even after all this... Xu Huo said flatly, "Then I'll wait until tomorrow. If tomorrow doesn't work, then the day after. I hope you'll think it over someday. I've only been here for two or three days. I'm not in a hurry."
With that, he prepared to leave. The man remained sitting on the tree, making no move to stop him.
Xu Huo planned to look elsewhere. Maybe he'd get lucky and run into another person holding a Time Item.
(Chapter End)