Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 457 Wormhole Flower

Chapter 457: Chapter 457 Wormhole Flower

"After we landed on the island, we didn’t encounter any large animals, so what was making those strange roars we heard in the legends?" Miao Yu also asked Dr. Deng.

"Maybe the animals were taking shelter from the rain too," Chu Yuan said. "That rain was like hail, any animal with a bit of sense wouldn’t come out in it."

"That could be one reason," Dr. Deng said with a smile, "but it’s also possible that because we were in the middle of it, we failed to notice these marvels."

"Some things that seem mysterious from afar turn out to be quite ordinary when you look closer, with no high-tech content."

Dr. Deng, adopting the posture of a scholar, then explained to them some of these naturally occurring phenomena and pointed out which plants were particularly valuable or had unusual functions.

Xu Huo wasn’t interested in anything else but was very intrigued by a certain red flower, "This flower looks familiar; I think I’ve seen it somewhere before."

He thought hard and then said, "It was on a science popularization image online, but that flower wasn’t purely red, and it changed colors from time to time."

"You’re talking about the Wormhole Flower, right?" This was something Chu Yuan knew about, and he chimed in, "The Wormhole Flower looks similar to this, but is smaller and sometimes turns purple. Most of the time, it’s half-red, half-purple."

"Wormhole Flower?" Xu Huo vividly remembered the purple-red flower he had taken from the Xiaohua Honghong Building, a hybrid among same color-series mutated plants. After he took it home to plant, he noticed that the red faded quite a bit and the purple increased. The Girl in the painting had seen it, but she didn’t know what it was.

"The Wormhole Flower is a type of plant that allows one to directly observe the evolutionary level of a game zone," Dr. Deng explained. "The more red pigment in its roots, stems, and leaves, the higher the evolutionary level of the players in that game zone."

The other two, like Xu Huo, were hearing about the Wormhole Flower for the first time. Gan Qing expressed his bewilderment, "Can plants really be linked to player evolution?"

"You can think of it this way. The first Evolvers appeared due to a change in the environment, which produced certain special substances that led to changes in the adaptors. The better the environment, the better the evolution. It’s like plants; those facing the sun grow better than those in the shade. The better the environment of a game zone, the more suitable it is for players to evolve."

"The Wormhole Flower is a kind of mutant plant, and its value lies here," Dr. Deng said.

"Then for those Rank-A Wormhole Points that have been in the game for a long time, would the Wormhole Flowers turn completely red?" Miao Yu couldn’t help asking.

"Close enough," Dr. Deng replied.

"The Wormhole Flowers at the Level-E Wormhole Points definitely wouldn’t be that red, would they?" Gan Qing asked with some concern, "Will the Wormhole Flowers change?"

"Haven’t I said it before?" Dr. Deng said, "It changes according to the environment. If the game zone evolves overall, of course it will become redder."

"But there must also be game zones that regress," Xu Huo glanced at the similar mutated plant.

Dr. Deng nodded but seemed reluctant to elaborate on this issue, so he deflected the topic, "It would be good to have one of these flowers to grow. If a game zone becomes unsuitable for living, you could move to another zone."

"Then let’s start looking right now," Chu Yuan hurriedly turned around to search.

Xu Huo walked beside Dr. Deng, "Under what circumstances would the game give up on a new game zone?"

Dr. Deng appeared somewhat helpless, "I’m not very clear on that."

Xu Huo gave him a look, and Dr. Deng involuntarily shivered, swallowed hard when he met Xu Huo’s calm gaze, "A gap in new players, typically, a new zone’s players consist of two types: one is natural evolvers, and the other is artificially induced ordinary people to evolve. Many game zones take a long time to reach the second step. Questioning, exploring, experimenting - this stage delays much time. Although naturally evolving players keep emerging, if there’s a devastating blow at the beginning, it would be very difficult to reach the second step."

"Although there’s a considerable population in a game zone, only a very small minority are natural evolvers. If these people die or abandon their zone, the Game Government’s computational system will determine the zone is of little value."

"The consequences are just so: either the Game Government makes rational use of it, or it gets annexed by other zones or powers. The former is more common."

Dr. Deng’s even tone made the matter sound even more alarming, "It’s not anything new. It’s just that your levels aren’t high enough. I suppose your game zone is still quite young. After a while, maybe you’ll also want to explore new game zones."

"For what? To rob and pillage?" Gan Qing said disdainfully.

Dr. Deng glanced at him, "When a game zone’s player count and level reach a certain point, that zone’s tickets will be distributed to other wormhole points within the same zone, high-tier instance dungeons will no longer be sealed, and newly emerged instance dungeons often yield unexpected loot. No player doesn’t want to get a piece of that."

"If high-tier instances emerge and our zone doesn’t have many high-level players, won’t the good stuff all be taken by players from other zones!" Chu Yuan said.

"Other people take yours, you take other people’s, that’s how the game goes round and round," Dr. Deng counseled.

The group fell silent for a while, then Chu Yuan finally said, "Shit, it’s never going to end!"

That was the aspect of the game that was most despair-inducing.

Regrettably, what was even more despairing was still to come. Faulty Evolution Potions would sooner or later become the players’ time bomb.

"There are footprints here," Xu Huo stopped and said, looking at the trunk of a nearby tree.

"There are still other people on the island!" Chu Yuan immediately yelled into the forest, "If you have the guts, come out!"

The forest returned no response other than the chirping of birds and the sound of the wind.

"Could it be people from the Beren Clan?" Dr. Deng subconsciously walked towards Xu Huo but suddenly slipped and fell. Struggling to get up, he exclaimed, "There’s glue on the ground!"

Xu Huo turned back and saw that Dr. Deng’s hands and coat were coated with a sticky liquid that was connected to the ground and hidden beneath fallen leaves, revealed only by his scraping.

"There’s some here too!" Chu Yuan poked around nearby with a stick.

"And over here as well!" Miao Yu called out from another direction.

They realized that the glue had spread beneath the dry leaves, encircling them without their noticing.

"It must be that player who killed Wan Yunrong," Gan Qing said. "The glue in the elevator was probably his doing, too."

"The Kong Siblings called him Tong Jian," Miao Yu added.

"Should we leave?" Chu Yuan was ready to move, "It might be dangerous to head to the station, but it’s better than being surrounded by players from the Beren Clan."

"Give me a hand!" Dr. Deng called out, struggling.

Xu Huo went over to help him up and said, "We can hardly call it a surrounding. If there were many people, they wouldn’t need to set up traps in advance."