Chapter 590 Going Further

Chapter 590: A Step Further

Going by the Headless Receptionist's attitude, the two sitting in the waiting area were definitely players too.

And if the numbers on their left wrists really represented their strength, then the strongest of the ten players in this game wasn't Pei Zhan, the so-called Candlelight Association big shot, but the cloaked man named Wu Hang.

But at the same time, the person Wu Hang was holding had zero points. Even Zhou Shirong and Bai Qi, who'd only done the newbie game, had at least 10 points.

"Mr. Wu," Xiong Yi hesitated a moment before asking what everyone else was wondering, "the one you're holding... is he really sick? Is he hurt? Is that why his points are zero?"

Considering how many points Wu Hang had, Xiong Yi's tone was pretty polite.

Yeah, even Lu Jinyan figured the guy in Wu Hang's arms had zero points was probably because he was a newbie too—one who was badly hurt and passed out, but still got pulled into the nightmare game.

"Is this guy your..." Xiong Yi tried to press further.

Lu Jinyan looked around and figured everyone else was just as curious as him about what was up with Wu Hang and the guy he was holding.

Lu Jinyan was a newbie. He didn't know if players who knew each other could get into the same game, but Wu Hang and the guy he was holding definitely weren't strangers who'd just met.

"The one I'll stay with."

This guy named Wu Hang was weird. You could say he was antisocial, but he answered every question people asked. You could say he was social, but he just sat there holding that person, and every answer was so short he wouldn't add a single extra word.

"Next up, I'll show you the five vending machines on this floor." The Headless Receptionist got up and walked over to the hallway. "Follow me. As new hires, you'll run into a lot of tough problems on the job, and the answers might be in these vending machines."

Earlier, when the admin went over the onboarding stuff, Lu Jinyan had heard there were vending machines in this game.

But in Lu Jinyan's mind, vending machines sold snacks and drinks. They could fill your belly at best—how were they supposed to fix work problems?

"Follow me," the receptionist said, walking all graceful-like toward the hallway.

"Better to stick with the group early in the game," Shen Guanlan muttered, then followed.

Lu Jinyan brought up the rear. He glanced back at Wu Hang and the guy in his arms, still on the couch, and saw Wu Hang didn't look like he planned to come along.

But he couldn't meddle in other people's business, so he just kept following the others.

Only after the others had left did Wu Hang, still on the couch, suddenly say quietly—

"Pretty interesting, isn't it?"

"You're gonna like this game."

Soon, Wu Hang felt the guy in his arms twitch a finger. Even though his body still couldn't move for some reason, he'd clearly woken up.

"Two months?" You couldn't see his face under the cloak, so there was no telling what expression Wu Hang had. "Might still be too short."

The only person who could keep Wu Hang around was, of course, Su Bai, who was dealing with some side effects after having too much new power crammed into his body.

But this time, the side effects weren't as bad as before.

Whether it was the Fog City Lord's power or the Eerie Tree's power, no matter what those powers had touched before, the Mist Shop, which swallowed everything, worked like a relay station to filter them, then sent the purest power to Su Bai, the shop owner.

So the reason Su Bai felt like crap was just that his human body couldn't handle that much power.

If Wu Hang hadn't helped ease it this time, Su Bai would probably have been tormented by full-body pain and high fever for a long time.

The "Evil Ghost Puzzle" ability originated from Su Bai's puzzle talent mutation. But unlike Feng Ling and the others, who could release power at will, Su Bai and the puzzles seemed to exist in two completely different spaces. To use the puzzles' power, he had to connect the doors between the two spaces, and keeping that door open consumed a large amount of Su Bai's own strength.

During this period of adapting his body to the power, Su Bai had been in a half-asleep, half-awake state, which also gave him quiet space to think.

When he first came back to life, Su Bai's power was minuscule, so he could only open a crack in the door of the Evil Ghost Puzzle, borrowing the puzzles' abilities to fight.

Back then, even though the puzzles worried about Su Bai's safety and left that door, they didn't dare use too much power, because it was still Su Bai himself who kept the door open.

After devouring the Fog City Lord's power, Su Bai reached the peak state of his previous life. He could easily borrow the puzzles' power and could also keep that door open for a period of time, allowing the puzzles to come out and fight in the outside world.

But this time...

When Su Bai involuntarily entered a state of meditation while half-asleep, feeling the new power in his body, feeling that vast power flowing through him...

He felt that his relationship with the puzzles could change once again.

Before, the puzzles were always inside the door, while Su Bai stood outside. It had been like that for over a decade.

But after Su Bai saw the huge door of light that Wu Hang opened, he suddenly had a new epiphany about his own power.

Players could use "epiphanies" to enhance their abilities or even mutate them in new directions. Su Bai had never heard of a player having a new epiphany after more than a decade of mature abilities.

But now, he could indeed feel himself walking step by step into the door, becoming part of it. That feeling wasn't unpleasant; in fact, it made Su Bai feel very relaxed all over.

The Evil Ghost Puzzle truly seemed to show signs of another transformation.

...

Su Bai came out of his meditative sleep because of the nightmare game. After entering the nightmare game, although Wu Hang was still by his side, the shell of Xiao Wu, which had helped him sleep, was left behind in the Mist Shop.

Without Xiao Wu's help, Su Bai could only endure the pain that began to resurface, desperately trying to suppress the too-powerful forces in his body, unable to focus on anything else.

But he still clearly heard the administrator's voice and the conversations of the other players. In this game, the power they possessed as players seemed to be materialized into numbers. Wu Hang's score was 1000, while his was 0.

This didn't surprise Su Bai at all.

Since Wu Hang had found a way to blend in among human players, the number on his wrist couldn't be the score of Lord Ghost Witch, but only the score of this puppet body he was using.

As for the number on his own wrist, Su Bai thought it had to do with the still-chaotic state of his body. Either those chaotic forces couldn't be measured, or they had exceeded the scope of what could be measured.

Su Bai could only sigh inwardly. It really wasn't that he was trying to hide anything on purpose.

Also...

"The one I'll stay with," huh?

Su Bai lay there comfortably, a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, as if he were having a wonderful dream.