Chapter 17: Ticket Scam

Summing up the information, he now had an official player ID, one additional trait, two props, four types of potions, one gift pack, three train tickets, and two thousand in prize money.

He pulled back his collar, and sure enough, there was a string of numbers behind his shoulder similar to the "Courier Girl's," only the color and digits were different. Every official player who passed the preliminary screening should have such a number; red players had red ones, and killer players had black ones.

It didn't look like a normal tattoo, and whether it could be damaged or modified remained to be seen.

He looked at the props first.

The "Super Running Shoes" looked no different from ordinary shoes and felt very light on his feet. His original speed was already more than twice that of an ordinary person, so a thirty percent increase on top of that was quite considerable.

He couldn't put his old shoes into the prop slot, so he discarded them on the spot.

The "Arsonist's Tool" was a solid brass lighter. It didn't look as distinctive as the one the tattooed man had given him, but judging by the description, it was a very interesting prop. It possessed long-range attack capabilities and was quite convenient; unless someone was naked, it was an absolute surefire weapon.

Of course, that was assuming the target didn't have other defensive props.

Stowing the lighter in his pocket, Xu Huo moved on to his trait.

"Insider's Perspective" was an enhancement of vision. Once selected, it felt as if a magnifying glass had been placed over his eyes; tiny details were magnified, making it truly worthy of the name "meticulous observation."

Similar in nature to "Fatigue-Free Legs," it was essentially an evolution of the body, just linked to his profession from a tricky angle.

This meant that the choice of game profession was not meaningless. The traits a player could develop were more or less linked to their profession. The higher the completion rate of the professional role in a game instance, the more traits one might develop.

Although in the long run, ordinary players definitely had more potential for development than red players, for new players, red players who could gain strength by eating had a greater advantage, especially in terms of vitality.

The Courier Girl's powerful self-healing ability and the "playing dead" method used by the player in first class were both manifestations of strong vitality.

He had been injured as well, and the wound on his palm was still throbbing with pain, no different from before the evolution.

"To bridge this gap..."

Xu Huo shifted his gaze to the evolution agents. He took a bottle and downed it; the taste wasn't bad—strawberry flavored. He waited for half a minute, feeling nothing in his body, but his evolution level jumped to 9%.

He downed two more bottles, and the evolution level jumped to 10%, accompanied by a new note

【Congratulations to player "Passerby A" for completing 10% evolution. Please note, player: once the evolution level exceeds 10%, the efficacy of P0 potions will become increasingly lower. Please strive to find P1 potions; perhaps they are hidden within the game!】

He flexed his fingers and punched the air, producing a clear sonic boom. Both his strength and speed were incomparable to what they had been two minutes ago.

However, if the efficacy of the potions diminished with evolution, their utility would become increasingly limited as he progressed. Beyond P0 and P1, there might be P2, P3, and so on in the future, but physical fitness would not increase without limit.

"So, the key is the growth of traits."

Xu Huo rubbed the stubble on his chin and took out the three train tickets.

Game tickets were not paper tickets like those in real life, but rectangular glass blocks three fingers wide and half a finger thick. They looked a bit like transparent mobile phones. The name of the station floated on the front, while the back listed the train times, with both game time and real-world time marked. They could be swiped to select.

The train closest to the next instance was in thirty minutes.

【Player has selected Train 134. This train will depart in twenty-nine minutes. Players must arrive at the station five minutes before departure. Transfer now?】

Xu Huo didn't rush to select "Yes," and instead continued to test the potions one by one.

The healing agent perfectly demonstrated what an obsolete product should look like; applied to his wound, it barely dulled the pain, which was basically negligible.

The cleaning agent, however, was useful. A swipe on his clothes and the dried bloodstains vanished instantly. Aside from the torn parts, it looked as if they had been washed. No wonder the red players on the train didn't have a single mark on them.

Ordinary players might possess one or two traits or props when boarding, but on the preliminary train, this wasn't an advantage. On the contrary, red players had astonishing physical strength and props to destroy evidence... It seemed the game was not very friendly to ordinary players.

He casually rubbed some hair growth agent on his head, and after waiting a while with no reaction, he clicked 【Yes】.

A few seconds later, he stood in a station constructed of glass.

It was called a station, but aside from the glass windows blocking the wind on all four sides and the projection screen floating in the center, it lacked everything a station should have. The empty glass room seemed to float in mid-air, neither touching the sky nor the ground, as if sandwiched between two mirrors made of blue sky and white clouds. It was endless, completely devoid of any sense of substance.

There were five strangers in the station. Two men in suits began staring at him the moment he appeared.

"We are the station attendants. We need to check your ticket," the tall, thin one said as he walked over.

Xu Huo glanced at the two of them, leisurely took out his lighter to light a cigarette, and exhaled a puff of smoke.

The tall, thin man had expected him to obediently produce a ticket. He didn't expect Xu Huo to disregard him entirely and even dare to provoke him to his face. His expression darkened immediately: "Refusing a station attendant's inspection—do you want to be banished?"

"Of course not." The lighter in Xu Huo's hand flickered on and off, accompanied by the sound of the brass lid opening and closing. He said, "But I don't have a ticket. Do you have one? Can I borrow it?"

The two exchanged glances. The tall, thin man continued, "Take out your ticket. You must have it checked before you can board. Every player here has been checked."

Xu Huo looked at the other three players who were silently watching from the side and said with a smile, "But I really don't have a ticket."

"How could you not have a ticket!" the other, shorter man shouted angrily. "When you arrived, a train schedule appeared on the floating screen!"

Xu Huo had already seen that there was only one train schedule on the floating screen, and he nodded. "So, the schedule only appears when a player holding a ticket arrives. In that case, none of you have tickets either. How pitiful."

"If you can't get a ticket in the next ten minutes or so, I wonder what will happen. You can't board the train, and you can't leave. You might starve to death in the station. Red players might be able to hold out for a few days, waiting for the next batch of players with tickets."

"But the game didn't say ticketless players could stay in the station forever. Perhaps when the time is up, you'll be cleared away like trash. Maybe you'll be thrown into some desolate place, or directly become fodder for humanoid monsters. The unluckiest outcome would be being teleported into a high-risk instance. Do you know what would happen then?"

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