Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 352: The Master of the Ancient Castle (Reward and Additional Updates)

Chapter 352: Chapter 352: The Master of the Ancient Castle (Reward and Additional Updates)

The third floor of the ancient castle had nearly twenty rooms, besides He Pu’s bedroom, lounge, and music room. There were more than ten other rooms, but Hu Shan only showed the players a mere four of them and sternly warned them that, unless He Pu or she allowed it, guests were not to enter rooms on the third floor at will.

Xu Huo heard her mention that there was also a study on the third floor and wanted to take a look.

Hu Shan refused with a stern face, but at this moment He Pu came out and said directly, "Apart from the rooms I use, open the other rooms for the guests to see."

When He Pu spoke, even if Hu Shan was unwilling, she had no choice but to do as told, taking out the keys to unlock each of the third floor’s rooms one by one.

Having quickly glanced through these rooms, the players all understood why Hu Shan looked at them as if they were thieves—He Pu’s family had too much wealth!

The art collections they had seen earlier were simply child’s play compared to entire rooms filled with precious jewelry, antiques and paintings, weaponry, and even storage rooms specially for potions, prop rooms, as well as a room with rare animal specimens from other game zones and an underground pool for raising mutant crocodiles.

Seeing the potions and props, all the players’ eyes turned red with desire, but their hearts sank halfway upon seeing the pool. The missing guests were probably fed to the crocodiles, right? Where would one even begin to look for them?

"There are so many great things, just looking at them is not enough," Li Chao said passionately, his eyes glued to the doors of those rooms and not moving away.

Although the other players didn’t voice it, their thoughts were much the same.

Even if they couldn’t get through the challenge, they thought that stealing some items to take out would get them tickets!

Xu Huo went to the study on the third floor; the collection of books there was obviously much larger than on the second floor, involving the histories and languages of different worlds.

After entering the game, there were no barriers to communication or writing between players; it was as though mastering one language meant that all other languages and scripts would be converted to that same language.

Of course, before this, Xu Huo had rarely encountered people of different nationalities. Most of the players looked similar to him.

He looked carefully at the section about history.

The historical records of Rose Castle were particularly detailed. E27-011 began evolving twenty years ago, but this was not the evolution result of a single game zone; it was the collective term for the fusion of seven game zones.

Starting with Zone 008, Zone 007 sequentially annexed 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. Later, Zone 011 launched a coup, replacing the original Zone 007 Government, and after forming cooperation with the Game Government, established the current Zone 011 Government Base. This transformed the original regions like Zone 7 and Zone 8 into subregions under the much larger game zone of Zone 011.

That is to say, Garden Castle Station was just one station within a specific region of Zone 011, with other parallel spaces that ground transport couldn’t reach directly; travel was only possible via the dimensional train.

The original codes for zones such as Zone 007 were inherited by newly formed game zones. Therefore, the game zones are generally ordered according to the chronological sequence of evolution, but there are exceptions. This has made Zone 011 an important hub under the E27 Wormhole Points.

It is worth mentioning that the Game Government does not establish bases in every zone; in other words, they don’t bother with the smaller areas. Power struggles within the game zones are mostly initiated by local humans, albeit with coveting from other zone forces.

Zone 011 is a rather special place; it is not entirely controlled by the Game Government, but is on par with the alliance regime established with local players, which has granted considerable rights to ordinary people.

Indeed, the affairs of most areas are still managed by ordinary people, or rather, ordinary people who have taken potions.

Apart from the Evolution Potion, many other potions have effects such as strengthening the body and extending lifespan, so after forming partnerships with the Game Government, the Zone 011 Alliance Regime began to altogether improve the basic quality of all humans in the zone. It was said that offspring born to healthier people had a higher chance of growing into high-quality Evolvers.

They now have sophisticated testing facilities that can determine from infancy whether an individual is suitable for evolution.

Reading this, Xu Huo couldn’t help but silently praise the far-sightedness of the Zone 011 players in his mind.

Whether there is a solution to the trap of the Evolution Potion is not yet clear, but keeping a certain number of ordinary people to preserve the spark of humanity ensures they are not completely overwhelmed by the game.

And the urban area of Rose Castle is good proof of that; although players have infiltrated the lives of ordinary people, it hasn’t led to polarization.

However, no records were found about the more detailed process of annexation.

Looking for books with annotations, Xu Huo discovered that He Pu was self-learning about potion-making.

He was a deeply knowledgeable scholar, using nothing but complex chemical formulas in his notes—all of which should come from different people, but each had his comments, indicating the results of experiments.

Most comments were from five years ago. In the past five years, there were sporadic ones, but very few.

As his gaze lingered on these notes for a moment, Xu Huo suddenly sighed.

"These are the notes I wrote before. What about you, are you also interested in making potions?" He Pu entered the study silently.

Xu Huo closed the book and put it down, smiling as he said, "I am just lamenting that I didn’t get to know Mr. He earlier."

Fluent in potion studies, skilled in sculpture and painting, proficient in multiple languages, a historical scholar—he was an erudite elder.

A smile appeared on He Pu’s grizzled face, "Mr. Xu is too polite. I have dropped all my hobbies since I became ill."

"I haven’t added new books in recent years, but you are welcome to read any of the existing ones," He Pu said.

Xu Huo expressed his thanks and added, "I hear from Hu Shan that Mr. He is also good at playing musical instruments."

"Not at all, just dabbling," He Pu said. "Do you play as well?"

"I’m embarrassed to say I have no talent for the arts," Xu Huo replied hastily. "I came here to pay homage and managed to get an invitation from someone else."

He Pu had already sat down behind his desk, staring at him for a few seconds before gently ringing a small bell on his desk. Hu Shan came quickly afterward.

"Take Mr. Xu downstairs for some afternoon tea. He’s been reading for a long time, but with dinner approaching, prepare just a little," He Pu instructed.

Hu Shan nodded and gestured for Xu Huo to leave.

Xu Huo bowed and exited the study, but his gaze slightly darkened; He Pu didn’t care whether he had an unnamed invitation or not.

This meant that the existence of non-replica players wasn’t that important, it didn’t matter to figure out the exact numbers or who the unnamed invitations corresponded to.

Was it purely to watch the players kill each other?

"Mr. Xu?" Hu Shan stopped when she saw him pause.

"It’s nothing. I just remembered seeing a beautiful ceramic vase in the studio earlier, and I’d like to borrow one for arranging flowers," Xu Huo said.

Hu Shan’s hands were folded in front of her, "I’ll fetch one for you later."