Chapter 874: A Good Environment for Making Friends
The square looked no different from before. After Gan Yi retreated, Xu Huo and Shaga also maintained a certain distance.
More perceptive players had already noticed the confrontation here, and most chose to avoid it—if someone among them died, it might implicate those nearby. No one wanted to be piranha food.
The three of them, Xu Huo, were still locked in a standoff.
The game Gan Yi had proactively brought up was actually using an item to plant a psychological suggestion. It wasn't hard to see through, but Xu Huo was somewhat surprised that his own psychological suggestion, also delivered through an item, had actually succeeded.
During their clash in District 011, he had felt that the other party was a Mental Super Evolver on par with himself.
Had he misjudged?
"I didn't expect the three of us to be kindred spirits," Shaga said. "We're just passing acquaintances with no grudges between us. How about we keep to ourselves and avoid unnecessary casualties? What do you say?"
Starting a fight now would benefit no one, unless they didn't want to clear the instance.
After a few seconds, Gan Yi took the initiative to leave.
The instance was still on its first day; giving up was premature.
With someone backing out, this probing came to nothing.
"Do you know Gan Yi?" Shaga turned back and asked. "It seemed like that move of his was aimed at you."
Judging by Gan Yi's attitude, the possibility of mistaken identity was slim. Xu Huo raised his hand. "Maybe because I gave him an extra look in the crowd."
Shaga smiled and shook his head. "Then be careful."
Xu Huo nodded.
Just then, You Si returned. He wasn't interested in their grudges, only reminding Xu Huo that Gan Yi had teamed up with that female player, Zhuang Mengtian.
"Honestly, I suspect she was the one who cut off heads on the train," You Si said.
Xu Huo looked over. "The one controlling the entire train probably wasn't her."
"She doesn't have that kind of skill, but fishing in troubled waters is possible." You Si curled his lip, then jerked his chin toward the cabin that had just returned. "The guy in the raincoat is back."
The man in the raincoat was soaked through, with multiple flesh wounds. Blood and seawater mixed as they dripped down, but instead of taking a self-healing agent first, he pulled out a small battery-powered hair dryer and a tiny comb, lowered his head, and started blow-drying his bangs. Only when his hair was flowing and perfectly covering his eyes did he begin treating his wounds.
"I told you he's a social phobic," You Si laughed, then proactively went over and asked, "Need a hand?"
The raincoat man stepped back quickly but steadily, maintaining distance. He threw a ring onto the ground, which released a light barrier separating him from the outside world. He also placed a handwritten sign on the floor as a warning: Danger, Keep Away.
At this point, the only way for You Si to get closer was to start a fight. But he wasn't an ordinary person either. He just sat down outside, following the raincoat man as he shifted positions, and kept talking: "Have you ever cooperated with anyone like this? Do you not talk during cooperation either?"
"From what I can see, you've got all your limbs and a decent face. You shouldn't be in this state. Are you a stutterer?"
The raincoat man, seeing he couldn't shake him off, simply put on headphones.
You Si couldn't see his eyes, so he waved his hand outside the barrier. Only when he got no response did he give up in disappointment.
"This guy's no fun," he said, coming back to Xu Huo.
"Has no one ever wanted to hit you before?" Xu Huo felt his talkativeness might not be due to quitting alcohol.
You Si let out a cold laugh. "How could they not? Plenty. But they all died by my hand."
"Someone who can't even stand a few idle words from a stranger and wants to kill—they're probably no good anyway. Killing them is doing the world a favor!"
Xu Huo gave him a thumbs up.
"What time is it?" Shaga suddenly asked.
"It should be late at night," Xu Huo replied. They had arrived at noon, and the first round of the Three-Color Competition was nearing its end, taking about ten hours.
However, the lights in the Friendship Garden hadn't changed, and the host hadn't announced the game's end.
"Has it been this long? Don't the audience outside need rest?" You Si frowned. "Does the Sea World have a habit of watching shows all night?"
Ordinary people who had taken evolution potions, though not as strong as players, had increased energy and stamina. Staying up all night wasn't hard, but this show wasn't an all-nighter.
"When the Three-Color Competition was about a third of the way through, the audience's side probably wasn't broadcasting in real-time anymore," Xu Huo said. The reactions of the audience outside had become regular from that point, and their frequency had decreased.
"Besides picking ball colors, the highlight of this show is the participants completing their tasks," Shaga said calmly. "The task completion part should be the main event."
What the audience wanted to see was the process of slaughter.
"Do you think this Friendship Garden is actually inside the Sea World?" You Si lowered his voice and asked.
"The task area is quite large and has many dangerous animals, so it should be far from the city center," Shaga said.
When they had ridden over, they had only seen a white city. But judging by the number and scope of the current task areas, at least the places they had seen outside were likely all part of the show's venue. How far this place was from the real Sea World was hard to say.
Xu Huo paid attention to the pattern of task randomization. It was rare for two consecutive tasks to be in the same venue. The ball-color selection phase of the Three-Color Competition was set at three minutes. The host's stalling and some participants shortening their selection time roughly balanced out, averaging three minutes per venue. So far, at least eight venues had appeared. This meant that, aside from the game's start, participants would need nearly half an hour before a venue repeated.
Of course, some venues appeared more frequently, like the botanical garden and the zoo, but these two places also had very high death rates.
Thus, it wasn't hard to see a fact: the show "You're Good, I'm Good" was controlling the number of participants in each venue.
From this perspective, the show's venues might not be as large as others imagined. For example, the desert shown in the holographic projection certainly wasn't as vast as it appeared.
To deal with players entering the task venues, the Sea World must have other effective measures.
Xu Huo's gaze fell to the ground.
Beneath the floor, besides the operation tunnels for the entry and exit cabins, there was also the task venue of the aquarium. If this Friendship Garden existed independently, then it was highly likely that the entire area below the venue was a large mutant fish breeding zone.
After midnight, the first round of the Three-Color Competition was nearly over. Fewer than a third of those who had gone on task adventures returned. In the square, the number of people who had stayed for ball-color selection and those who had returned from completing tasks totaled about two hundred and thirty.
"Unknowingly, it's already this late. Of the three hundred and eighty-one guests participating in the show, two hundred and ninety-seven remain. That's quite a number! Our guests from afar have shown their sincerity. Now, the Sea World will also show ours. Please look forward to it. We will spare no effort in creating a good environment for making friends. Perhaps tomorrow, you will gain a friend, a sincere friendship!"