Chapter 68

It took Feng Buju a long time to calm down and come up with a reasonable explanation for what had just happened. He believed that the guy named Woody was likely not an ordinary game administrator and that his rank was much higher than that of the two previous administrators, Pan Feng and Hua Xiong.

Since he could add fake buttons and such in the player's login space at will, it was highly possible that his disappearance into the mirror wall was also intentional.

The identity he revealed, the strange things he said, and the questions he asked, when thought about carefully, seemed to have no real meaning. Unless there were truly some supernatural forces at play, it was all just a show of mystique.

Assuming that what he saw was not an illusion, the appearance of fear... perhaps indicated that his condition was improving, and he was starting to feel afraid again. This should... be considered good news, right?

In short, the reasonable explanation Feng Buju could think of was just that. As for the unreasonable explanation, Woody's words were essentially unreasonable...

Having reached this "reasonable" conclusion, Feng Buju stopped thinking about it. After all, the high-ranking game administrator had not warned him about the dangers of playing the game in a "fearless" state, which made him feel more confident and fearless.

He put this little episode aside to avoid affecting his mood for the public beta test.

Returning his gaze to the control area next to the elevator doors, the remaining four buttons seemed to be normal and not suspicious.

"Storage Room" undoubtedly referred to the metal room where rewards and equipment were collected. Feng Buju had not yet claimed his fear rating reward from the previous script, and he could do so now. However, he was cautious because the mall was already open, and game currency would be useful. So he did not rush to choose a reward and decided to observe the needs in other areas first before making a decision.

Feng Buju first clicked on the button for the meeting room. After pressing it, he received a system prompt:

[Your meeting room has been created. You can invite friends, teammates, and players not on your blacklist to enter the meeting room for communication. The maximum number of people is ten.]

[When you are in the meeting room, mall, or Scare Box, you can use the new text chat function in the game menu to communicate with friends.]

After the prompt ended, the elevator doors opened, revealing a larger metal room than the storage room, very spacious and brightly lit. In the middle of the meeting room was a long table, surrounded by ten black office chairs with wheels and backrests.

The surface of the long table was silver, appearing to be a smooth and flat surface. However, upon closer inspection, a circle near the edge revealed ten slightly different colored circular surfaces.

After stepping into the meeting room, the elevator doors behind Feng Buju automatically closed. He hesitated for a moment because this did not happen when entering the storage room. Looking back, he saw a switch next to the door on the meeting room side, which was used to exit.

[In front of the "conference table," you can open a specific menu to browse items in your inventory and storage room. You can display the attributes of items on the table without actually taking them out.]

He went to the table, read the prompt, and then displayed the [Mario's Plumber's Wrench] to test the effect. A 3D projection of the item immediately appeared on the table, slowly rotating. The item description was displayed in the "conference table" menu in front of him. If there were other people sitting at the table, they could also read the description from the menu.

"Ah, I see... Besides being a place for team members to communicate, prepare, and exchange items, it can also be used for private auctions or something like that," Feng Buju mused.

The item display function of the conference table was mainly to facilitate one person showing equipment to a group. In this game, to let others view an item that already belongs to you, you would have to hand it over to them. During the closed beta, you could only unconditionally hand it over, but in the public beta, the person handing over the item could choose to "gift," "trade," or "display" it based on the situation. Of course, this choice was a mental operation, and the player could send a neural signal to the system to complete it, avoiding the situation where handing over an item would take a minute.

When Feng Buju moved away from the table, the item display automatically stopped. He pressed the button next to the elevator door, and the doors opened again. After he returned to the login space, the doors closed once more.

Next, he pressed the "Mall" button, and the system voice said: [Connecting you to the mall, please wait... This section's number is: 17]

[The mall is a large public area. To prevent overcrowding, it is divided into sections. You can set a default section number in the login space. If not set, the system will assign you to a less crowded section. Each section can accommodate up to 5,000 players, and if a section is full, you will need to queue to enter.]

After listening to the prompt, the elevator doors opened, and the scene outside gave the first impression of an expanded version of the New York Stock Exchange, but this space was even larger.

In the center of the mall was a cylindrical metal structure. Around it, from two meters to eight meters high, were display screens showing various data in real-time. The crowd surrounding this "information tower" was the largest, reminiscent of the Hong Kong stock market in the 1990s.

After stepping out of the elevator, the doors behind Feng Buju closed after a few seconds and quickly opened again. Another player emerged from inside. He turned to look and saw a row of about a hundred such elevator doors on this side of the building, constantly opening and closing, with players entering and leaving every minute.

These doors were just portals for space disconnection and reconnection. Each time they closed and opened, they would lead to different places. To leave, Feng Buju could enter any door and return to his login space.

Of course, some players had tried entering a door side by side, but it did not work. One person would inevitably be blocked by an invisible wall. The same applied to the meeting room. If a player accepted an invitation to enter someone else's meeting room, they had to go through their own login space's elevator door, and the door would close after entering. This meant that ten people had to enter or leave one by one.

Feng Buju walked towards the central area of the mall, looking around. The ceiling was very high, so high that it was difficult to estimate its distance from the ground. The four walls were curved, making the space look like an inverted bowl.

Around the central information tower were four pathways, divided by four 90-degree sector-shaped structures. These structures also had multiple display screens showing information. This central area was the focal point of the mall—the auction house.

Further out, there were many shops arranged like stalls, all system stores. They were also well-visited, but the items sold were fixed, and any changes would only occur after a quarter. Players generally left after browsing or buying what they needed, so there were fewer players lingering there compared to around the information tower.

This section was not short of players, bustling with activity and constant movement. Feng Buju had planned to visit the official stores first, but suddenly someone shouted at him: "Hey? It's you!"

{Piaotian Literature}