Chapter 2216: Fourteen Days to Clear
"Are you guys missing the point?" Xu Huo, standing behind the group, spoke up. "Shouldn't the most important thing right now be figuring out how to clear the instance?"
That was true. Regardless of whether Xu Huo had butted in or not, they all had to enter and clear the instance anyway, unless they didn't want to leave this district. On top of that, there was another advantage—more non-ticket players had entered, making it much safer compared to an instance with only ticket players.
"That's right." The yellow-haired man clapped his hands. "Besides, the other guy might not have actually come in. Why waste time on someone irrelevant?"
The A-rank player had nothing to say. He just sneered coldly and pointed at the group of local district players already fighting inside the temple.
They were at a numerical disadvantage.
"No problem, the temple is huge anyway." Zhong Zhi called out to Xu Huo and his own companions, entering the temple first.
The inside of the temple wasn't much different from the outside. The group skirted around the first side hall and headed straight for the rear.
"Those guys took a hit before coming in, so they might start a war with the local players. We won't join the fun, no need to get dragged into it," Zhong Zhi said to everyone.
The others naturally had no objections. But after entering, they carefully looked around and found that the temple wasn't much different from the one in the satellite city—just bigger. It also wasn't like they had imagined, where they'd be hit with mental attacks the moment they stepped inside.
"Stay for fourteen days and clear it?" a female player asked. "That doesn't seem too hard. If you're worried about being attacked by others, just hide inside a location item."
Among the group were several stranded players. On the way here, the other clearance players had already questioned them repeatedly, but these few couldn't explain anything clearly. In their memories, they had only lived in the temple for about ten days—they couldn't even recall the exact time. Anyway, aside from sleeping and eating, they spent the rest of their time wandering around the temple without encountering any danger. They muddled through, failed to clear the instance, became stranded players, then muddled their way out of the temple and started living in this district.
"Their memories are messed up," Zhong Zhi said. "And it happened without them noticing. If they really spent fourteen days in peace, they should have cleared successfully."
The surrounding buildings didn't seem to have any strange changes. After observing for a while, everyone equipped more anti-interference items and devices. Those with location items took them out, picked a spot to set them up, and decided not to wander around, planning to just hunker down for half a month.
There was a very subtle mental power inside the temple. Unlike the aggressive display when the Goddess had acted earlier, the mental power now was so faint that ordinary players couldn't detect it at all—like dust mixed into the air.
But Xu Huo still noticed something strange: the distribution of mental power inside the temple was uneven.
Take himself as an example. Normally, once a mental realm was opened, the intensity of mental power within a certain range should be fairly consistent. For instance, if everything was within the range of materialized space, there wasn't much difference between being close to him or at the edge. As you moved toward the boundary of the mental realm, the interference ability of the mental power would decrease, but the state remained relatively uniform—like a gradually fading color. It wouldn't appear as scattered, condensed points like in this temple.
The mental power in the temple was very weak, but there were some relatively concentrated points scattered within it. This state was already strange enough, but what was even stranger was that the interference ability of these relatively concentrated mental points should have been extremely strong. Yet, after such a long time, almost no player had noticed them, and even detection-type items hadn't sensed them.
Xu Huo tried passing an anti-interference device with monitoring functions through one of these concentrated mental power points. The next moment, the numbers on the device started jumping, and the anti-interference ability activated simultaneously. But in just a few seconds, the numbers representing mental power intensity flipped rapidly before showing an error, and the entire device was destroyed!
That worked?
Xu Huo had been through many districts. Even when facing Zheng Yuci or Dou Shengnan, he had never seen a device get destroyed like this. Were these concentrated mental points stronger than the mental intensity of those two?
Or was the instance using some special method?
"Brother, hurry up," Zhong Zhi called from inside his location item. He had already set up defensive items around it and was about to seal it off.
Xu Huo casually put away the device in his hand and took out "Storm in a Cabin" before walking inside.
These concentrated mental power points could pass through not only devices but also people. On the way here, more than half of their group had already come into contact with these mental points.
Scanning the various location items of different sizes, Xu Huo sat down behind the door. If the holder of an item was hypnotized, even defensive items inside and out would be useless. It was already dark now; by late night, the truth should reveal itself.
But before that, the yellow-haired man and the A-rank player's group, along with the temple players and the local stranded players, had started fighting over territory.
The overall area of the temple was large, but there were many buildings and decorative structures. Truly open spaces were scarce. Plus, many players had bulky location items. With so many people crammed in and no trust between them, a fight over territory was inevitable.
Of course, not everyone had a location item, and there were definitely some people stirring up trouble to deliberately drain the players. In short, after everyone had fully entered the temple, sounds of fighting could be heard everywhere. But they held back, afraid of damaging the temple too much, so no one went all out.
"There's never been a precedent of stranded players entering a second time," a ticket player said to the three players he was fighting. "It doesn't matter where you are in the instance. Why fight me for a spot? Wouldn't it be safer outside the temple?"
The stranded players wanted to go outside, but they didn't dare. They had muddled through last time and survived. What if they weren't so lucky this time?
Outside the temple? Who knew what it was like at night? Sometimes, the instance rules also protected the players. At least within the temple—the clearance venue—the instance boss had to be restrained.
"Less talk, get lost!" A stranded player charged forward and punched the ticket player's shield. With overwhelming force, the ticket player was sent flying over ten meters, crashing directly into a Goddess statue in a side hall. He didn't break the statue, but everyone present clearly heard the sound of his arm and ribs breaking.
(End of Chapter)