Recaps

Xu Huo left District 009 with Liu Yi, then returned to District 011, where his new wealth and influence had brought him extensive assets and free repairs to Rose Castle. The next morning, curious birds showered him with flowers, and Mr. Dong noted that they had never treated him that way.

• Xu Huo shared dinner with Liu Yi and Dai Si, then urged Liu Yi to leave District 009 with him so they could see whether her prophecy came true.
• Xu Huo used a Return Ticket to reach District 011 and learned from Mr. Dong that the District Government was paying to repair the streets and Rose Castle.
• Mr. Dong explained that families and businesses had given Xu Huo assets and money to secure his favor, making him extremely wealthy.
• Xu Huo reviewed the business accounts with Mr. Dong and asked him to arrange a visit with Huahan Werner.
• The next morning, Xu Huo entered the garden, where miniature birds perched on him and dropped flowers over his head.

Xu Huo reviewed Dr. Deng’s proposed medicines and toxins, approving continued work on the medicines while rejecting the toxins as too dangerous to test. Dr. Deng said his old colleagues might join the project, and Xu Huo offered them reduced salaries while allowing Dr. Deng to seek funding from Mr. Dong.

• Mr. Dong told Xu Huo that he had raised large mutant spiders for the Castle, and Xu Huo accepted them on the condition that they would not scare anyone.
• The butler reported that Hua Han had left the sub-district but promised to return within three days.
• Dr. Deng presented Xu Huo with plans for medicines and fungal toxins developed with several former colleagues, claiming they wanted to work in District 011.
• Xu Huo asked Dr. Deng to continue producing the medicines and provide experimental data, but refused to serve as a test subject for the toxins.
• Xu Huo told Dr. Deng to request funding from Mr. Dong and offered the prospective hires eighty percent of their salary, with bonuses calculated separately.
• Dr. Deng stopped Xu Huo from dismissing him, saying he had not finished speaking.

Xu Huo bought leaked materials from Bookworm about Stellar Pharmaceutical’s robbed secret Laboratory and agreed to deliver an item in exchange for more information about its location. The records suggested the Laboratory was in a high-risk sub-district with unusually long nights, and Xu Huo asked Bookworm whether he knew a still-operating Laboratory’s address.

• Dr. Deng told Xu Huo that Stellar Pharmaceutical’s secret Laboratory might have been robbed and gave him contacts who traded in leaked information.
• Xu Huo bypassed the brokers and asked Bookworm to sell him the Laboratory’s leaked materials.
• Bookworm offered unfinished potion formulas for a task involving a Player family leader, or information about the Laboratory’s location in exchange for delivering an item to a ticketless sub-district.
• Xu Huo agreed to the delivery arrangement, received half the materials, and coordinated a time to collect the item from a sub-district under an A-class wormhole point.
• Xu Huo studied the incomplete records and found weather data showing eight hours of daylight followed by more than twenty hours of darkness, suggesting the Laboratory might be in a high-risk sub-district outside the Ticket system.
• Xu Huo asked Bookworm whether he had the address of a Stellar Pharmaceutical secret Laboratory that was still operating normally.

Xu Huo asked Bookworm about locating an A-class Ticketless Sub-district, then met Huahan Werner to discuss whether the future could be changed and what had happened to Carmen Field. Huahan warned that the future was an endless cycle and shared a rumor that Carmen might have a place waiting for him in a Ticketless Sub-district.

• Bookworm told Xu Huo he was looking in the wrong direction and that locating a Ticketless Sub-district’s precise position would be meaningless.
• After three days at home, Xu Huo went to a Werner family estate to meet Huahan Werner on the anniversary of Huahan’s wife’s death.
• Xu Huo asked Huahan whether a foreseen future could be changed, and Huahan recalled accelerating time on himself before stopping as his body aged uncontrollably.
• Huahan warned Xu Huo not to pursue changing the future because it was an endless cycle, and said no Artificer had truly created a Time Rewind item.
• Huahan shared a rumor that Carmen Field’s mother came from a Ticketless Sub-district and that Carmen might have someone there to receive him.

Xu Huo discussed the Game Government, the future, and time control with Hua Han, then agreed to help oversee the memorial ceremony for Hua Han’s wife. After noticing odd details and the Werner family’s hostility, Xu Huo concluded that something was wrong with Hua Han’s memory.

• Hua Han told Xu Huo that the game was temporary and advised him to make gradual progress rather than pursue changing the future at all costs.
• Hua Han demonstrated different flows of time power, and Xu Huo learned to control several at different speeds over a reduced area.
• Hua Han admitted that he had visited the Ticketless Sub-district but told Xu Huo to focus on completing A-class instances and strengthening himself first.
• Xu Huo agreed to help Butler Luo prepare for and oversee Hua Han’s wife’s memorial ceremony in the estate garden.
• Kuintu Werner and his family attended the ceremony, then displayed hostility toward Xu Huo after leaving the garden.
• Xu Huo noticed odd details in Butler Luo’s account and suspected that something was wrong with Hua Han’s memory.

Xu Huo questioned Hua Han about inheriting his super dungeon and learned that Hua Han would not simply hand it over. The Werner family recognized how close Xu Huo was to becoming a super player, while Hua Han returned to his study and Xu Huo prepared to meet Bookworm.

• Xu Huo asked Butler Luo whether Hua Han had suddenly aged after his wife died, and she said he had already looked that way at the funeral.
• At dinner, Xu Huo asked Hua Han whether he would give him his super dungeon, and Hua Han told him to seize one himself.
• The Werner family left dinner realizing Xu Huo was advancing toward super-player status far sooner than they had expected.
• Two young Werner women offered to escort Xu Huo, but he refused and returned to Rose Castle.
• Hua Han stroked his wife's photograph and murmured that he was almost forgetting what she looked like.
• Xu Huo put away Mr. Carmen's Love Letter Collection and contacted Bookworm for the exact pickup location.

Xu Huo entered the untimed A-class instance Dream Factory in Qingzhang Town, where newcomers had to become outstanding employees to qualify for an assignment outside town. He learned that residents traded red-eye fruits for lodging and that damaging a house could lead to punishment by the factory director.

• Xu Huo traveled to the Harper United Region, where he saw two player families settle an instance dispute through an adjudicator's dice roll.
• Xu Huo learned that eye-shaped badges were associated with the Feng Family and bought dry rations before heading to Qingzhang Street.
• Two players guarding the entrance demanded a fee, but Xu Huo entered the instance without paying and vanished from the street.
• The instance identified itself as Dream Factory and set becoming an outstanding employee as its clear condition.
• A child at a Wooden Cabin told Xu Huo that three red-eye fruits could buy food and lodging for a day, and warned him that damaging a house would bring punishment from the factory director.

Xu Huo explored a starving town where residents traded Red-Eye Fruits for food and lodging, then entered the dangerous woods to gather fruit and Mutated Plants. As he collected samples, vines dragged a Player into a tree.

• Xu Huo learned from Feng Jiawen that the town required three Red-Eye Fruits for food and lodging, and gave him food in exchange for information.
• Feng Jiawen warned Xu Huo to gather fruit where there were fewer snakes, while his parents refused him lodging unless he worked at the factory or brought fruit.
• A Player told Xu Huo that the factory’s rules were strict, several Players had vanished, and the woods disrupted mental energy.
• Xu Huo entered the foggy woods, used his mental power to protect himself, and gathered Red-Eye Fruits, other fruit, and Mutated Plants.
• Vines dragged one of the Players who had entered the woods after Xu Huo up into a tree, leaving his eyes blank.

Xu Huo learned that Feng Lanni had died months ago, complicating his attempt to collect the goods Bookworm had sent him to retrieve. After the Factory’s workers finished their shift, Xu Huo heard footsteps outside and discovered that his terminal’s time had jumped to 2:12 a.m.

• Xu Huo traded three red-eye fruits to a Player for an A-class instrument and picked more fruit before returning to town.
• Feng Jiawen told Xu Huo that Feng Lanni had died half a year earlier and given her belongings away, and explained that fruit could be traded for medicine or reduced work hours.
• Xu Huo learned that the factory director appeared to punish rule-breakers, while townspeople who died were buried in the woods without funerals.
• Xu Huo questioned Bookworm about the goods, and Bookworm said the transaction was made half a year ago and three previous Players had failed to collect them.
• After lying down, Xu Huo heard footsteps outside and found that his terminal showed 2:12 a.m.

After discovering that he had lost several hours of memory, Xu Huo questioned Feng Jiawen’s parents about the town, the Factory, and its workers. He learned that the Factory Director controlled the residents through harsh rules and that the memory gaps might be part of the instance’s mental interference.

• Xu Huo confirmed that several hours had passed and questioned Feng Jiawen’s parents about Feng Lanni, learning that she had died half a year earlier and that the Factory Director knew where she was buried.
• Feng Jiawen’s parents explained that players could exchange Red-Eye Fruit for only three hours of rest and that becoming an Outstanding Employee required years of uninterrupted work.
• Xu Huo learned that many town residents had been brought in from elsewhere and given the Feng surname, while only a few residents might truly have been born with it.
• Feng Jiawen’s parents described how the Factory confined workers, enforced quotas and movement restrictions, and made rule-breakers disappear.
• Xu Huo offered Feng Jiawen one Red-Eye Fruit to teach him instrument-making, then stayed awake through the night without another memory gap.

Xu Huo learned how Feng Jiawen assembled and filled instruments while discussing life beyond the Dungeon with him. Qian Han then arrived seeking more eye fruit, explained how he had been teleported into the Dungeon, and hinted that he had obtained information about it.

• Feng Jiawen taught Xu Huo how to assemble instruments and warned him that people who entered the factory could never leave.
• Xu Huo told Feng Jiawen stories about the outside world, and Feng Jiawen said he wanted his parents to stay with him and live without hardship.
• Qian Han came to Feng Jiawen's home to trade for three more eye fruits, explaining that a spring-loaded trap had teleported him into the Dungeon.
• Qian Han said Tickets had been waiting at the entrance and described how he had slept through the night despite suspecting mental interference.
• Qian Han told Xu Huo that he had traded instruments for information and offered to share what he had learned.

Xu Huo learned how the factory controlled its workers and explored the woods with Qian Han, whose second personality stayed awake during the town’s strange sleep episodes. Xu Huo questioned whether the other players had truly just arrived, leaving Qian Han unsettled by the possibility that their memories had been altered.

• Qian Han told Xu Huo that the factory accountant enforced work rules and the unseen factory director made violators disappear.
• Xu Huo asked about Qian Han’s plans, and Qian Han proposed searching the woods for clues about the missing players.
• Qian Han was caught by a mutated vine shortly after entering the woods, then woke and climbed down; Qian Han No. 2 apologized for Qian Han No. 1’s remarks.
• Qian Han No. 2 explained that he had stayed awake through the night while Qian Han No. 1 slept, and Xu Huo concluded that the sleep episode was likely caused by mental interference.
• Xu Huo suggested that the other players might have been in the Dungeon so long that they had gone mad, making Qian Han question the reliability of their memories.

Xu Huo and Qian Han investigated the forest’s Mutated Plants and considered how the dungeon’s recent upgrade might relate to the Feng family. They found a huge vine that had appeared around the time Feng Lanni died, but Xu Huo chose not to disturb it yet.

• Qian Han recorded his movements and questioned Xu Huo about leaving markers, while they discussed the dungeon’s upgrade and the Feng family.
• Xu Huo packed the eye fruits as he and Qian Han explored the forest’s edge and assessed the Mutated Plants.
• Qian Han’s eyes became swollen and bloodshot after he entered an area where eye fruits grew densely, so Xu Huo took him away.
• Xu Huo found an enormous mutated vine whose explosive growth had begun about half a year earlier, around the time Feng Lanni died.
• Qian Han suggested destroying the plants with robots, but Xu Huo argued that doing so might not affect the dungeon and could anger the Dungeon Boss.

Xu Huo and Qian Han learned more about the Factory’s workers and rules, then came to start work and investigate its floors. When Xu Huo asked to go to the second floor, the unseen accountant passed him another sheet of paper.

• Xu Huo learned from another Player that a worker had disappeared during Restroom time and that Red-Eye Fruit could be traded for rest time.
• Qian Han learned that the Factory’s posted schedule differed from reality, and he and Xu Huo discussed whether advancement to the second floor could help clear the instance.
• Xu Huo spent time with Feng Jiawen, then went with Qian Han and Luo Yu to observe the Factory and compare its floors.
• Xu Huo and Qian Han began work, learned that they had to complete five instruments a day and that the newbie period lasted one month, and received the Factory’s rules through a window.
• Xu Huo told the unseen accountant that he wanted to go to the second floor, and a hand passed him another sheet of paper.

Xu Huo learned that workers needed three months of premium instrument ratings to qualify as master craftsmen, but discovered he could submit his daily quota early and receive permission to reach the second floor. He kept working while watching the other Players, then waited outside the factory for the real members of the Feng family, who came down from the second floor and warned him away.

• Xu Huo and Qian Han entered the workroom, where Xu Huo completed five instruments and received four good ratings and one premium rating.
• Xu Huo exchanged an eye fruit for a two-hour break, submitted his instruments early, and learned that completing the required quantity ahead of time would let him go to the second floor.
• Qian Han questioned Xu Huo's decision to keep working, while other Players discussed trading instruments to speed up their own progress.
• Xu Huo declined a Player's offer to trade and noticed how the factory's demands seemed to consume the other Players.
• Xu Huo gave his food ration to Feng Jiawen's parents and waited outside the factory for the Feng family members.
• Two old men led a group down from the second floor and waved Xu Huo away when they saw him.

Xu Huo searched for Feng Lanni’s grave and belongings, uncovering a dangerous mental force in the forest and learning that the Factory Director had taken the town residents’ valuables. He kept trying to persuade two old men to tell him about Lanni, leaving them still unwilling to speak.

• Xu Huo asked two old men about Lanni, then accepted a middle-aged man’s directions to her grave in exchange for a Red-Eye Fruit.
• Xu Huo found shattered bones in the forest, where a powerful mental force and gateways attacked him, but he escaped back to town.
• The middle-aged man told Xu Huo that the Factory Director had taken the residents’ important belongings and lived on the Fourth Floor.
• Xu Huo questioned the two old men about Lanni’s remains and life, but they refused to help.
• After the night shift, Xu Huo followed the old men again and said he was curious about the Fengs.

Xu Huo heard the history of the Feng family, whose skill at making mental-type instruments led a powerful Player Family to persecute them and District 009 to impose hereditary life sentences. He suspected their destruction involved more than an ordinary feud, while the surviving Fengs remained imprisoned in the Dungeon.

• Xu Huo persuaded the two old men to tell him the Feng family's history in a sealed room.
• The mild-tempered old man explained that the Fengs had prospered by making mental-type instruments before a powerful Player Family forced them to produce a high-grade instrument and took the clanswoman who created it.
• Two years later, the clanswoman was killed to satisfy a child’s curiosity, and the Player Family massacred the Fengs after blaming them for the child’s illness without evidence.
• Escaped Fengs used a trapped instrument to exploit a flaw in their enemy’s brain chip, causing him to lose control and die.
• The Player Family retaliated with a law imposing life sentences on offenders who used mental-type instruments or Mutated Plants, along with their families and related clansmen.
• Xu Huo connected the law to District 009’s current Secretary and questioned the old man’s account of how the Fengs had been persecuted and their revenge had succeeded.

Xu Huo questioned two Feng Clan elders about their refusal to leave the Dungeon and learned that the clan’s plight was tied to an old political struggle. After discussing possible hostages and ways to end the Factory, he and the other Players were left uncertain about the elders’ motives.

• Xu Huo suggested the Feng Clan had been caught in a political struggle and asked the elders whether they would leave if he could get them out.
• The hot-tempered elder warned Xu Huo that the factory manager’s residence was the most dangerous place and that a first-floor worker could not go upstairs.
• Xu Huo offered to help the elders leave, then returned to Feng Jiawen’s home and met Qian Han, Luo Yu, and a Player with an earring to exchange information.
• The Players speculated that the Feng Clan might be staying because people outside the Dungeon were being held hostage, while Luo Yu noted that the clan’s past crimes had caused few deaths.
• Xu Huo joked that they could take the townspeople away or blow up the Factory, then confirmed the elders had told him nothing about the second floor.
• The Player with the earring questioned whether the elders had only been trying to gain sympathy.

Xu Huo and the other players struggled against a Dungeon that made them lose awareness while working, and their plan to destroy the factory fell apart when none of them dared act. After the man with the ear stud tried to destroy the town alone, a mysterious spatial rift swallowed him, leaving Xu Huo wondering how far the factory director’s control reached.

• Qian Han lost awareness while working but completed three instruments, warning the players that the Dungeon could affect them even while they were awake.
• Xu Huo agreed with the man with the ear stud, Luo Yu, and Qian Han to attack the factory after work, but none of them followed through and their alliance weakened.
• Xu Huo continued speaking with the two old men as the man with the ear stud and another veteran player began repeatedly losing awareness during work.
• Two days later, the man with the ear stud left town and tried to destroy it with an energy weapon.
• A lightning-shaped spatial rift broke through the man with the ear stud’s defensive barrier and swallowed him, prompting Xu Huo to question whether the factory director could control the forest.

The Players debated how to force the factory director to reveal himself, while Xu Huo rejected killing the town residents and suggested targeting the Mutated Plants instead. He then deduced that the middle-aged man was not truly part of the Feng family and suspected the instance had two factory directors, one of whom was connected to the District Government.

• After two Players disappeared, Luo Yu gathered the remaining eight Players and proposed controlling the town residents to force the factory director into a confrontation.
• The Players discussed the risks of killing the residents, but Xu Huo objected and suggested destroying the surrounding Mutated Plants to weaken the instance’s interference.
• Xu Huo returned to work with the two old men, who warned him that reaching the second floor would not make him an Outstanding Employee.
• Xu Huo questioned whether the middle-aged man belonged to the Feng family, and the old men were startled that he had seen through the deception.
• Xu Huo reasoned that the middle-aged man had tried to get him killed and suspected that two factory directors operated in the instance, with one managing the workers.

Xu Huo bribed the Factory accountant with Eye Fruits to reach the second floor, where the work was harder and the path to becoming an Outstanding Employee remained long. After discovering Qian Han had copied his method of gathering Eye Fruits, Xu Huo continued searching for what Bookworm had sent him to collect from Lanni.

• Xu Huo told the old men he had come to find Lanni and learn what happened to her belongings after her death.
• Xu Huo traded most of his Eye Fruits to the accountant and received permission to work on the second floor, where he learned that workers had to submit five thousand premium instruments consecutively to qualify as Outstanding Employees.
• Luo Yu and the long-haired man watched Xu Huo go upstairs, and Qian Han silently suspected that Xu Huo had a connection to the Feng Family.
• Xu Huo struggled with the second floor’s stronger mental interference, completed only two instruments that morning, and exchanged barbs with the hot-tempered old man.
• Xu Huo lost two hours of memory and used his Communicator to see Qian Han send robots into the forest to gather Eye Fruits, losing two robots to Mutated Plants.
• Xu Huo realized Qian Han had deduced that Eye Fruits could be used to bribe the accountant and reach the second floor.

Qian Han struggled with the stronger mental interference on the second floor, while Xu Huo quietly pressured a fellow player and spoke with the two old men about the Anderson Family. Xu Huo revealed that he had met the factory director and planned to visit the Anderson Family after leaving the dungeon.

• Qian Han sent a combat robot to search for the mutated giant plant, but the Mutated Plants buried it before it could escape.
• Qian Han returned to work on the second floor, where stronger interference kept him from meeting the outstanding employee standard and the accountant warned he might be sent back to the first floor.
• Two more players moved to the second floor, and Xu Huo's intermittent pressure drove a middle-aged player to lose his temper and storm out of the workshop.
• Xu Huo discussed instrument-making with the two old men and asked what they knew about the Anderson Family.
• Xu Huo said he planned to visit the Anderson Family after leaving and implied that he had met the factory director.

Xu Huo pressured the factory accountant and coerced a middle-aged town resident to reveal what happened to Feng Lanni’s belongings. The man revealed that the Zhu Nuo Family took her Curse Box, while Feng Lanni’s remains were placed in the bone pit.

• Xu Huo tried to bribe the accountant for a game employee and permission for external assignment, then unsettled nearby Players by hinting at his mental abilities.
• Xu Huo followed the middle-aged man home and questioned him about Feng Lanni’s belongings.
• Xu Huo used an unknown force to make the man approach and sit beside him despite his resistance.
• The middle-aged man revealed that the Zhu Nuo Family took Feng Lanni’s Curse Box because it resembled instruments used to assassinate their family heads.
• The middle-aged man said Feng Lanni’s remains were in the bone pit, and Xu Huo asked him to tell another version of the story.

A middle-aged man explained the Feng Family’s history of revenge and the origins of the Cursed Box to Xu Huo. After Xu Huo connected the tale to his delivery mission for Feng Lanni, the man attacked him but was dragged into a spatial rift, which Xu Huo reached into with his Glove.

• The middle-aged man recounted how a Feng Family member used instruments to mentally harm District 009’s elite, leading to the family’s arrest and persecution.
• He explained that a Feng-surnamed woman created the Cursed Box to kill the Zhu Nuo Family head who had taken her in, and that similar boxes later appeared repeatedly.
• Xu Huo recognized that the box in his Storage Compartment might be a Cursed Box and reasoned that Feng Lanni’s entrusted item was likely meant for her family.
• The middle-aged man admitted that the Feng Family had destroyed his own family and urged Xu Huo to avoid getting involved.
• The middle-aged man suddenly attacked Xu Huo with a teapot, but a spatial rift sucked him backward as Xu Huo reached into it with his Glove.

Xu Huo investigated the Fengs’ connection to a Cursed Box and tested the Factory director’s reach by destroying parts of the forest. After fighting his way through spatial rifts to the Bone Pit, he received a note offering an Outstanding Employee title, and reconsidered his plan to destroy the pit and dismantle the Factory.

• Xu Huo found that a fierce-looking old man had replaced the missing middle-aged man at the Factory, while the old man cursed the Fengs and provoked the other workers.
• Xu Huo asked the two old men whether the Fengs had made a Cursed Box, explaining that he had entered the Dungeon to retrieve an item and would leave within three days.
• Xu Huo bombed the mutated giant plant in the forest, but detected no mental power response like the one at the Bone Pit.
• After telling the Factory that he planned to destroy the Bone Pit, Xu Huo evaded the Players who tried to follow him and confronted powerful mental force and spatial rifts on the way there.
• Xu Huo used Kaleidoscope Threads, Space Power, and My Heart is Gloomy's Dark Space to withstand a huge spatial rift and reach the Bone Pit.
• A hand tossed Xu Huo a note promising an Outstanding Employee title for significant contributions, so he said he might not need to bury the pit or dismantle the Factory.