Chapter 2742: There Are Good People Everywhere in the World
Xu Huo hadn't finished posting his travel log when a faint light flickered within the grass waterfall beneath the Fairy Stone. Several players, both near and far, immediately employed their respective methods, scrambling to seize the glowing object. A player who was closer gained an advantage, blocking the others' props and grabbing the item. But just as he climbed up from the cliff, a force pulled at his foot, sending him uncontrollably crashing toward the ground. Before he could steady himself, the item in his hand vanished into thin air, reappearing in the hands of a player several hundred meters away.
That player stowed the item and prepared to leave, but his teleportation prop failed. Before he could even start running, he fell stiffly to the ground the next second, and the item he had taken naturally became someone else's prize.
However, the player who killed him didn't escape either. As soon as he made his move, he was surrounded by several people.
The player under siege tried his best not to involve the local zone people nearby. After several failed attempts to flee, he was forced to toss the item away.
From a distance, one could see it was a self-luminous ore. Two more groups of players rushed toward it, and under the influence of prop effects, the ore veered toward one side.
"Haha! It's mine!" The player in the lead laughed loudly, reaching for the ore. But out of nowhere, a hand extended from the side, a black glove flashing before his eyes as it effortlessly grasped the ore. Following the arm upward, he saw the person who had taken the item and showed no intention of leaving.
At such close range, no one would easily give up. But this player, along with more than a dozen others nearby, suddenly froze—because in an instant, space tangents filled the area around them. Though these space tangents weren't densely packed, high-speed movement within them was utterly impossible. The quickest reactors among them immediately pulled out jamming devices, but the instruments broke one after another as soon as they were taken out, while the space tangents closing in on them grew more numerous.
Everyone was held in place, unable to move.
"It's just a check-in souvenir, no need to risk your life over it," said the player closest to Xu Huo. "Besides, killing someone in Zone 022 marks you as a potential criminal. The local enforcement players will keep a relentless eye on you, and it'll be a real headache."
Xu Huo smiled slightly, taking out his route map. When he placed the ore on it, a small ore icon appeared next to the location, and the game notified him of a successful check-in.
"I didn't expect to run into a kind soul right after arriving, willing to give me the stone," he said. He pulled out a micro-terminal, switched to flight mode, turned around, and stood next to that player. "Come on, let's take a photo together."
"Hit the person but don't hit the face—that's a bit much..." The man didn't finish his sentence before feeling the tangents around his neck. He immediately changed his tune. "Be magnanimous, and you won't lose out. You're new around here; meeting like this is fate. We should look out for each other!"
After the two took their photo, Xu Huo called out to the others farther away. "Come on, all of you. Smile for the camera."
Most of them scowled and refused to cooperate, though a few forced stiff smiles to go along with it.
Xu Huo didn't care about their attitudes. After checking the results, he nodded in satisfaction and deactivated the space blockade of "Time-Space Hand."
The nearby players cautiously dispersed.
"That actually worked," Levi exclaimed in amazement.
Zhou Juanjuan's expression was complicated. Zhan Erliu, though outwardly calm, had eyes full of wariness and scrutiny. His own task was done, but the others' were not.
Xu Huo examined the ore in his hand. "A randomly generated token with special guidance? Is this a real token?"
"What do you mean?" Zhou Juanjuan asked. "Didn't you just verify it? Your first stop check-in was successful."
Xu Huo shook his head slightly. "The token I understand should be something that already exists in this place—a bottle of perfume or a wooden carving. One second it's just an ordinary object, the next it might become a token. Not something that suddenly pops up, as if someone placed it there."
His words made the three of them pause. Levi shrugged nonchalantly. "What you're saying makes sense, but it's also possible that local players specifically use tokens as bait to lure outer zone players into killing each other. Isn't that the whole point of a reality show? Besides, this zone doesn't care about outer zone players who don't register their identities. As long as they don't hurt anyone from Zone 022, the authorities basically turn a blind eye. If you break something, just pay compensation and you won't be wanted."
Xu Huo held up the ore and took another photo with the three of them, then uploaded it to his travel log with the title "There Are Good People Everywhere in the World."
"Aren't you afraid of provoking everyone?" Zhou Juanjuan said. "Even though most people are normal and won't risk killing over a trivial joke, you can never be sure some people aren't unstable. Especially with a large population, the unstable ones start to seem a bit numerous."
"Traveling means meeting all kinds of people—it's perfectly normal," Xu Huo said flatly. "You three haven't found your souvenirs yet. Go take another look around."
Zhou Juanjuan, Levi, and Zhan Erliu hadn't found anything that could be authenticated by the map, so they naturally had to stay a while longer.
Xu Huo, on the other hand, acted like a genuine tourist. Following the travel guide's recommendations, he ate local specialty foods, participated in unique local activities, received a leaf specimen as a gift, and even got a spontaneous photo with a few young men and women—mainly local small-time vendors.
"Sir, even though your appearance is ordinary, the way you spend money is exceptionally charming," a young girl said, her face full of infectious smiles. "We small-time vendors love customers like you. Both buyer and seller are happy."
Xu Huo casually pulled a fresh flower from his backpack and handed it to her.
"Thank you," she replied, giving him a small pastry in return.
He wandered back and forth, clearly enjoying himself, but Levi gradually lost patience. This was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Who knew what items would be useful? Did they have to try picking up everything?
From their observations, not all tokens appeared as suddenly and conspicuously as Xu Huo's ore. Some players simply disappeared without warning, and it wasn't hard to guess why.
Items that the route map would recognize as "check-in souvenirs" had no distinguishing features or hints—it was pure luck.
Levi bought a bottle of water. Just as he twisted off the cap, he froze. Then he placed the bottle cap on the route map, and a tiny icon appeared next to the location.
"Check-in successful?" He looked even more surprised than Zhou Juanjuan and Zhan Erliu. "A bottle cap? Isn't that a bit too perfunctory!"
"Not entirely," Zhou Juanjuan said. "You didn't read the strategy carefully. The items obtained earlier on the route map might be linked to items obtained later. Not every location is without hints. Some strategies mention that the route map will guide players to a specific place to obtain an item from a fixed person, similar to an NPC in a game."