There must be no shortage of players in the game who clear every instance with high ratings. Out of the fifty thousand people on the Level-E Wormhole Point ranking, Xu Huo was probably already off the list.

"Even though the Special Defense Department didn’t say it out loud, anyone who knows Ting City should know it’s Brother Xu," Liu Jia said. "They can’t make it public, of course. They’ll definitely just leak it quietly."

Tan Yang and Huang Junjie exchanged a glance. Even leaving the Special Defense Department aside, the Player Organization members present today definitely wouldn’t keep their mouths shut, and news like this worked best as a kind of mysterious rumor; spread that way, it would have the greatest effect.

From now on, Players entering Ting City would think twice before doing anything, wondering if they’d end up on the wanted list.

Xu Huo had no objections; achieving his goal at the smallest cost was naturally ideal.

After dealing with what was at hand, Xu Huo planned to find a suitable spot near Ting City to set down the "Time Tower."

The Girl in the painting was busy playing with new friends and wasn’t going with them for the moment, so in the afternoon, Xu Huo and the others set off toward the mountain forest area closest to Ting City.

"All the surrounding mountains and forests should be under the Special Defense Department’s surveillance," Liu Jia said from the back seat. "It’d be best to give the Special Defense Department a heads-up first and have them pull their people back."

"Are there any special Evolution resources near Ting City?" Xu Huo asked.

"Not really," Liu Jia answered honestly. "Ting City and the nearby cities aren’t exactly wealthy—there aren’t many resources. It’s just that Ting City is under special care right now, so the basic infrastructure around it has been built up."

"On that point the Special Defense Department’s fairly decent," Yuan Yao said. "They didn’t wait around for Xu Huo to bring his own money back to renovate the city."

Liu Jia neither agreed nor disagreed, and continued, "To avoid conflict, it’s still better to contact them in advance."

Xu Huo nodded. "Then give Chief Wu a call."

After getting in touch with Chief Wu, they also settled on a patch of forest—trees lush and dense, blocking out the sky, a good cover against prying eyes from outside.

Space-Time Class Props interfered with each other, so space block-type Props weren’t convenient to use. The "Time Tower" was too large; once it came out, it was basically exposing the target directly. Any extra cover was better than none.

"When do we start?" Following instructions, Yuan Yao had gone to find a valley. He rushed back, impatiently pressing for an answer.

"We’ll see; not yet, it’s not time." Xu Huo checked the time—the "Time Tower" could only be used after nine in the evening. "I called a couple more people. Let’s see if they can make it here."

It was just waiting a bit; everyone said they had no problem. They had nothing else to do anyway, and the area was spacious. Yuan Yao simply took the chance to show off his newly developed Characteristics.

He’d originally been a programmer by trade. Probably because he wasn’t good at fighting, his trait evolution had a certain bias. The trait he’d recently obtained, "Sudden Blackout," lived up to its name—it could literally make someone’s vision go black. The range of attack wasn’t small either: roughly everyone within five hundred meters of him, as long as they were staring at a computer, communicator, or some other terminal. This Offense Trait could blind them for five seconds.

"This Characteristic is way too useful," Yuan Yao said. "To maximize its effect, I even bought an oversized projection terminal out of my own pocket, to make sure everyone within five hundred meters of me goes blind together!"

Liu Jia blinked in confusion, then a few seconds later rubbed at her eye sockets hard. "It really is powerful. If someone who relies on their eyes suddenly can’t see, they’ll definitely panic."

"This is nothing," Yuan Yao said modestly, waving his hand. "There are all kinds of Characteristics. Ones like mine that need a medium won’t have many upgrades later on. It’s the traits you can use by just saying a word, a phrase, or even directly, that have the real potential. The more they evolve, the more powerful they become; not only is the range huge, the limitations are fewer."

"If I remember right, you evolved Night Vision pretty early, didn’t you? Got any Characteristics in that direction?"

Liu Jia nodded. "I’m a white Player; I have an edge when it comes to Characteristic development. One of my frequently used traits is a bit similar to Brother Yuan’s."

"It’s hard to describe. I’ll just show you."

As she spoke, she closed her eyes. "Walking in the Gloom."

As soon as her voice fell, the vision of everyone around Xu Huo went completely black—not only could their eyes no longer see, but even their senses were being limited. It felt as if the darkness had turned into something solid, and they were soaking in it. Everything they sensed was dulled and discounted, while Liu Jia, standing in the middle of it, was unaffected.

Blocking the hand reaching toward him, Xu Huo silently pointed toward Yuan Yao.

Liu Jia pressed her lips together in a smile, then walked over to Yuan Yao, and just as the trait’s effect wore off, she suddenly lunged right up to his face.

Yuan Yao was so startled he almost fell over backwards. Once he recovered, he said, "I’ve got the weakest nerves here, don’t pick on me! Go mess with Brother Xu!"

Liu Jia laughed. "This Characteristic is probably similar to Spirit Evolution. It can interfere with people’s senses and judgment and has a certain degree of compulsion—but it’s not actually Spirit Evolution. Brother Xu is strong in Spirit Evolution, so I can’t affect him."

Yuan Yao heaved an exaggerated sigh. "I bear too much..."

Then it was Zhou Ning’s turn.

Zhou Ning’s trait had improved a lot. Her original Characteristic, "Ancient Medusa," had now upgraded to "Middle-aged Medusa." Previously she could only use Potion to stimulate hair growth to cause some interference, but after the Characteristic upgrade, her hair had started a special evolution as well—it could grow like crazy when she used her trait, and was very flexible. In addition, using the trait could make people hallucinate, seeing her hair as a head full of snakes—and now that hallucination effect was even stronger.

When she activated her Characteristic and that mass of flying hair turned into red-eyed Giant Pythons, almost covering the entire grove, everyone finally got a real sense of how terrifying "Medusa" was.

"It is hair, right..." Yuan Yao couldn’t help reaching out to touch one of the giant snakes, and the next second he was wrapped up in hair, his whole body rolling continuously in midair, and in the blink of an eye he was cocooned into a ball of hair.

"...Help!" He instinctively looked toward Zhou Ning, but all he could see in every direction were lantern-like red eyes. He couldn’t even tell where Zhou Ning was anymore, so he could only switch to begging for mercy.

Zhou Ning let him down. As her hair retracted, Xu Huo noticed that her pupils had taken on a different color, so he asked, "Any changes with your eyes?"

"It started along with the mutation in my hair. For now, it doesn’t do much, it just makes it easier to distinguish living things."

"It should be related to my Characteristics. Sometimes when my hair grows too much, I even accidentally trap myself in it."

As she spoke, her hair continued to shrink back; the scene was a little eerie.

Yuan Yao’s body was covered in fine scratches. As he rubbed Potion onto himself, he said, "Your Characteristic is on a completely different track from ours. If you ever stop being a Player, you could just go into an instance and be a boss. Using it just to clear instances or kill people is selling it short."