Inside the firelit wooden house, the television mounted on the wall emitted a crackling hiss.
The stove fire had nearly gone out, with only faintly glowing embers remaining.
The wooden house was not large, yet it had been crammed full with seven or eight people. The petite Pi and Xiao Shanji had firmly claimed the best sofa in the house, while Bai Zhi, August Desolation, Shu Limiao, and the others could only obediently make do with bedrolls on the floor.
No matter what, everyone here was either an Elite or a Star Player, each of them battle-hardened. Bai Zhi had not doubted that the others would be able to emerge from that sort of Real Illusion; he had merely speculated about the order in which they would come out.
Ink-Stained Crystal had been the first to emerge, while Shu Limiao had only regained himself after the three of them had spent an hour playing cards.
When Shu Limiao abruptly appeared inside the wooden house and saw the three of them engrossed in a heated game of Fight the Landlord, the expression on his face was utterly magnificent.
...Then, with a grief-stricken look on his face, he joined them too.
As for the others, they emerged at roughly similar times, with at most half an hour separating them.
Three people played Fight the Landlord, four played Mahjong, five played Three Kingdoms Kill... Every one of them had a future of limitless radiance.
From the moment they fell into the Machine Realm Core until now, they had been descending through this dark space for nearly a full day and night.
That amount of time was not especially long, but the surrounding environment had remained utterly unchanged, making it difficult to get any concrete sense of things. Along with that came an unprecedented