Recaps

Xu Huo shared his surplus items with his friends before the group headed to a restaurant for a meal hosted by the painted woman. The painted woman’s ordinary friends arrived with dozens of children and became frightened when they realized the gathering included prominent Players.

• Xu Huo laid out his extra items for Yuan Yao, Zhou Ning, and Liu Jia to choose from, and he gave Yuan Yao an A-class item.
• The painted woman invited her new ordinary friends to the meal, and Yuan Yao booked a private room at a members-only restaurant.
• Tan Yang, Sima Xiao Er, and Gu Yu joined the gathering, bringing more Players and associates to the restaurant.
• The painted woman’s friends arrived with dozens of children and grew uneasy when they recognized the Players at the tables.
• Liu Jia stood up to speak with the frightened guests.

Xu Huo used the painted woman’s ability to locate and kill wanted criminals hiding in Ting City, prompting the Special Defense Department to establish a public wanted list. Afterward, Gu Yu told Xu Huo she planned to move her family to a B-level District as District fusion approached.

• Liu Jia arranged for Yuan Yao to cover the children’s meal, and the group moved to a banquet hall to eat.
• Sima Xiao Er told Xu Huo that players often harmed ordinary people in Ting City and that the Special Defense Department struggled to arrest them.
• Xu Huo asked Team Leader Wu to prepare a wanted list of criminals who could be killed on sight, and the painted woman found nearly thirty of them.
• Xu Huo killed the wanted criminals he could locate and delivered their bodies to the Special Defense Department, while two escaped by entering a Dungeon.
• Xu Huo urged the Special Defense Department to publish a public wanted list, and Gu Yu showed him a B-level District she had chosen for her family.

Gu Yu told Xu Huo why she planned to leave Ting City for a safer B-level sub-district, and Xu Huo offered to lend her money and keep her house available. After the Special Defense Department announced the crimes of the murdered players, Yuan Yao asked whether Xu Huo had made the joint wormhole point leaderboard.

• Gu Yu explained that harassment and danger to her family had made life in District 014 unbearable, so she planned to settle in a B-level sub-district.
• Xu Huo offered to lend Gu Yu money and told her she could keep her Ting City house for the future.
• Yuan Yao and Liu Jia discussed why players like Gu Yu sought safer places to live, and Zhou Ning said that neither strange lands nor home were paradises.
• Tan Yang reported that the Special Defense Department had published the murdered players' crimes and photos while hinting that the Wanted Criminal List had been updated.
• Yuan Yao asked Xu Huo whether his abilities had earned him a place on the joint wormhole point leaderboard, and Xu Huo doubted that he had made it.

Xu Huo and his companions traveled to a forest near Ting City to prepare to use the Time Tower after nightfall, while they waited by demonstrating their evolved Abilities. The chapter ended with Zhou Ning showing the frightening power of her upgraded Medusa Ability.

• Xu Huo chose a densely forested area near Ting City for the Time Tower and asked Team Leader Wu to clear the area ahead of time.
• While they waited for night, Yuan Yao demonstrated Blackout, which blinded people using terminals within five hundred meters for five seconds.
• Liu Jia demonstrated Advance through the darkness, which suppressed the senses and judgment of everyone caught in its darkness except herself.
• Zhou Ning demonstrated her upgraded Middle-Aged Medusa Ability, transforming her hair into hallucination-inducing giant snakes that wrapped Yuan Yao in a cocoon.

Xu Huo helped Zhou Ning try mental support items and talked with her about her struggles before discussing Time Power with Nie Xuan. He explained that Time Power should be understood as a whole moving through time rather than as separable rays, leaving Nie Xuan to consider how this insight could affect Temporal Evolution.

• Xu Huo showed Zhou Ning his Spiritual World and gave her B- and C-grade mental support items to test as a possible aid against enemies.
• Xu Huo helped Zhou Ning work through her feelings and suggested finding something she cared about in District 014 to keep her grounded.
• Nie Xuan and Shen Xin arrived, and Xu Huo confirmed that Gu Yu and Wen Xue Lin were the only others expected.
• Xu Huo and Nie Xuan discussed whether Time Power existed as rays, and Xu Huo demonstrated its effect by making a flower bloom and fade.
• Xu Huo explained that time had no space beneath it and that a District was like a grain of sand in the current of time, prompting Nie Xuan to reconsider the direction of Temporal Evolution.

Xu Huo demonstrated Time Power to his companions, then reopened the Seventeenth Hospital and began upgrading it. The upgrade transformed the hospital on a massive scale, while its final changes remained underway.

• Xu Huo showed Gu Yu, Wen Xue Lin, and the others how Time Power affected space and explained his experience with Temporal Evolution.
• After the group failed to sense Time Power, they stayed together for a meal and went to sleep at Gu Yu's venue.
• Xu Huo entered the Seventeenth Hospital and brought out three stone statues and the special item Best Director in the Director's office.
• The statues hid in spatial rifts, tried to escape the hospital, and attacked Xu Huo before retreating when his water Rubik's Cube barrier blocked them.
• Xu Huo confirmed the Seventeenth Hospital's upgrade, which added buildings and altered its space before expanding the grounds to more than ten times their former size.

After the Seventeenth Hospital was upgraded to a C-class high-level Random Instance, Xu Huo inspected its new facilities and learned how its three rumors shaped the Dungeon. He set three completion tasks, and the game confirmed that Players only needed to complete one of them to clear it.

• The Seventeenth Hospital expanded to eight buildings around a lake, and the game announced its upgrade to a C-class high-level Random Instance.
• The game warned Xu Huo that he had to open the Dungeon regularly to maintain Gray Player status and provided its new background.
• Xu Huo identified the night-eating monster as the three stone statues, the inescapable morgue as a sealed space, and the invisible prison as a separate space reached through random portals.
• Xu Huo entered the morgue and confirmed that the only way out was to find its sole exit.
• Xu Huo submitted three tasks: solve the monster mystery, leave the morgue, or escape the invisible prison.
• The game accepted the tasks and stated that completing any one would clear the Dungeon, then asked whether Xu Huo wanted to add hints.

After upgrading the Seventeenth Hospital dungeon, Xu Huo discussed his experience with Time Power and a new offer from the Special Defense Department with Nie Xuan. He then searched for the Player called Diner, who might possess the Perfect Potion, and began reviewing the leads he had collected.

• Xu Huo warned players to distinguish their identities from their patients’ as he completed the Seventeenth Hospital’s dungeon upgrade.
• Xu Huo returned to the Space Artifacts area and spoke with Nie Xuan, who negotiated an offer of Artifacts and instruments from headquarters in exchange for Xu Huo’s help.
• Xu Huo declined to consider helping the Special Defense Department further unless it could offer a Super Artifact and a Super instrument.
• Xu Huo focused on finding Diner, a Player Dr. Wu had said possessed a Perfect Potion, and sent messages and a bounty seeking information.
• Xu Huo received nearly three hundred leads about people called Diner and brought out his other three personalities to help review them.

Xu Huo researched possible identities for the “Diner” while the group prepared a meal and traded stories about strange dungeons. By evening, Xu Huo had narrowed the search to four high-level players who called themselves “Diners,” as the group prepared for important business that night.

• Yuan Yao and the others returned from fishing, and the group cleaned fish and prepared vegetables together.
• Nie Xuan described a folk-horror dungeon where an enhanced hormone drug changed players’ bodies and made them eager to infect others.
• Xu Huo recounted the dungeon involving the Girl from Enbell, prompting the group to discuss how ordinary people suffered in dangerous dungeons.
• Nie Xuan encouraged Xu Huo to try to bring back a Super Dungeon, and Yuan Yao joked that they might be witnessing a historic moment.
• Xu Huo continued searching for the “Diner” and narrowed the candidates to four high-level players known by that name.

Xu Huo investigated four possible “diners” and focused on one connected to the Fish Feast. While he practiced with the Time Tower, intruders tried to approach and steal it, and he used its Time Power to kill two foreign Players.

• Xu Huo narrowed the diner candidates to four Players and decided to gather more information about them.
• He learned that one candidate had appeared at the Fish Feast, a gathering for which Xu Huo already had an invitation.
• Xu Huo let Zhou Ning experience the simulated Time Power while onlookers gathered outside the cordon.
• Xu Huo used a Mental Portal to eject Players who dug toward his location and warned them not to return.
• After the Special Defense Department expanded the cordon, two intruders slipped inside to steal the Time Tower.
• Xu Huo changed the Time Power affecting the intruders, causing them to develop osteoporosis and die, then handed their bodies to the Special Defense Department for identification.

The Special Defense Department and military moved to protect Xu Huo and his family after foreign Players plotted to kill him and seize the Time Tower. As Xu Huo and his companions trained in the tower, Zhou Ning’s Ability unexpectedly gained a Time Power-like effect, giving the group hope for further changes.

• Minister Ji and Director Du agreed that the military and Special Defense Department would protect Xu Huo and secretly arrest suspicious Players plotting against him.
• The military and Special Defense Department arrested or surrounded foreign infiltrators and local Players who had been bought off, uncovering long-running surveillance of Xu Huo and his family.
• Xu Huo told Nie Xuan he suspected the foreign Players had a Time Power Super Evolver, and asked him to remain while they continued training.
• After a week of training in the Time Tower, Zhou Ning discovered that her snake-like hair could stop anyone who met its eyes for two or three seconds.
• Xu Huo identified Zhou Ning’s new effect as similar to Time Power and asked Nie Xuan and the others to keep it secret from the Special Defense Department.

Xu Huo traveled to District 011 and asked to meet Huahan Werner, hoping he could explain the water Rubik's Cube. Huahan arrived at Rose Castle and demonstrated that the cube could be drawn out of Xu Huo’s chest, then returned to him, calling it a powerful defense at his current stage.

• Xu Huo prepared to leave District 014, called his family, planted mushrooms, and stored the Nuwa Stone and seed before using his Ticket to reach District 011.
• At the Ancient Castle, Xu Huo learned Dr. Deng was visiting a friend and left incoming social invitations to Mr. Dong while sending a Visit Card to the Werner family.
• The Werner family replied that Huahan Werner was away, but Huahan arrived at Rose Castle the following evening and revealed he had been nearby all along.
• Huahan examined Xu Huo’s Time Power, praised his progress, and advised that greater Evolution would help him perceive changes in time.
• Huahan used Time Power to draw the water Rubik’s Cube out of Xu Huo’s chest and make it return, then told Xu Huo it was better than any Defense Artifact at his current stage.

Xu Huo learned that the water Rubik’s Cube was a programmed instrument sealing his Space Power, and Huahan Werner advised him to evolve until he could control or remove it. After Huahan left, Xu Huo considered the favor he owed him, then woke and returned to waiting for news about the Diner.

• Xu Huo asked Huahan Werner whether the water Rubik’s Cube could be removed, and Huahan explained that forced destruction could kill him while further Evolution might let him dispel it naturally.
• Huahan told Xu Huo the instrument had no mind and would remain until damaged or its objective was complete, then offered to teach him about Time Power when he reached a breakthrough.
• Huahan encouraged Xu Huo to use the instrument’s protection to practice against powerful opponents and promised to teach him useful techniques later.
• Huahan vanished, and Xu Huo recognized that the guidance created a difficult favor to repay despite Mr. Dong’s advice to make Huahan a friend.
• Xu Huo slept, woke to the painted woman asking to go shopping, and gave her access to money in an account.
• Xu Huo went to the Study Room to await news about the Diner member from the Fish Feast whom he had targeted with several bounties.

Xu Huo bailed Dr. Deng out of the Enforcement Department after learning he had developed a Gene Potion that could slow Black Thorn Disease. He sent the potion supply to Chang Shoujie for testing and received a grateful reply, while Dr. Deng explained how a medical researchers’ gathering had ended in a brawl and arrests.

• Xu Huo contacted Shi Sanjiu for information about finding the Fish Feast and spent time pruning flowers with Mr. Dong at the Ancient Castle.
• The Enforcement Department asked Xu Huo to bail out Dr. Deng for affray and possession of contraband, but Xu Huo refused until Dr. Deng claimed he had developed a Potion for Black Thorn Disease.
• Xu Huo went to the Enforcement Department and collected the battered Dr. Deng, who admitted his potion could slow the disease and extend patients’ lives.
• Xu Huo sent Dr. Deng’s Gene Potions to Chang Shoujie for testing and included a container item for little Melissa.
• Chang Shoujie sent Xu Huo a grateful reply and a video of Melissa reading, while Dr. Deng explained that a dispute at a medical researchers’ gathering had led to a fight and their arrest.

Xu Huo warned Dr. Deng to stay cautious, approved a large budget for the Laboratory, and prepared to attend the Fish Banquet after Shi Sanjiu obtained an invitation. He left readying expensive defensive equipment, aware the private venue might give its hosts control over players.

• Xu Huo warned the injured Dr. Deng that the Werner family might target him and told him to avoid going out, while Dr. Deng asked for more Laboratory funding.
• Xu Huo told Mr. Dong to record Dr. Deng’s purchases and authorized spending up to half the Ancient Castle’s savings on the Laboratory.
• Shi Sanjiu sent Xu Huo an invitation and address for the Fish Banquet and warned that the private venue might restrict players’ abilities and exploit them.
• Xu Huo considered whether the Fish Banquet could interfere with Tickets and began preparing for the trip.
• Xu Huo bought two A-class mechanical suits, interference devices, and other equipment, while Mr. Dong complained that his spending kept draining the Ancient Castle’s funds.

Xu Huo and the painted woman traveled by train to District C01-001, where overcrowding caused by damaged trains tested the passengers’ patience. They arrived safely and found a desolate, neglected city filled with people eager to offer services to newcomers.

• Xu Huo brought the painted woman along to District C01-001 and bought information and a guide for a Dungeon there.
• On the train, the painted woman tipped a violin-playing Player but declined his invitation, and Xu Huo warned him not to approach further.
• The painted woman annoyed other passengers by eating noisily until Xu Huo used a soundproofing item.
• Passengers explained that many trains had been destroyed, likely by a large dimensional storm, leaving trains overcrowded for a day or two.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman arrived safely in C01-001 and were surrounded by residents offering lodging, errands, and other services.

Xu Huo and the painted woman traveled to Chunyi City to search for the Fish Banquet entrance, exploring the city and its food while keeping an eye out for suspicious Players. In a crowded commercial district, a woman deliberately bumped into Xu Huo and tried to pass it off as a romantic chance encounter.

• Xu Huo rejected people seeking to accompany him, bought a map, and chose the nearest circled city to search for the entrance.
• The painted woman chose Shi Sanjiu's Fish Banquet invitation, and Xu Huo used a teleportation item to take them to Chunyi City.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman explored Chunyi City, sampled local food, and shared snacks with children who recommended places to visit.
• After checking into a hotel, the painted woman told Xu Huo that several unfamiliar Players in the lobby had been watching them.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman went out to explore a commercial event, where a woman bumped into Xu Huo and flirted with him after he called out her repeated collisions.

Xu Huo and the painted woman encountered a thief who later survived a violent night after the painted woman intervened. The wounded woman refused to become the painted woman’s servant and instead offered herself to Xu Huo.

• A woman slipped an item into Xu Huo’s pocket as a pretext to escape pursuing Players, but Xu Huo returned it and avoided calling the enforcement team.
• Xu Huo saw the woman at a bar, where she flirted with a middle-aged Player before they left together.
• A fight broke out in the bar’s Restroom, and the woman emerged injured; two Players followed her after she left.
• The painted woman killed the two Players who ambushed the injured woman in an alley, while Xu Huo gave her Cleaning Agent.
• The woman thanked the painted woman, who demanded that she become her servant, but the woman refused and offered herself to Xu Huo instead.

Xu Huo sought information about the Fish Banquet and tracked down a middleman who could arrange entry. The middleman offered to help him and the painted woman get inside, but Xu Huo questioned the cost and risks.

• The painted woman demanded payment from a woman who had helped them, and Xu Huo learned the woman knew about the Fish Banquet and its likely entrance contact.
• The woman warned Xu Huo that the Fish Banquet was dangerous and gave him the code name Fortune and Prosperity.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman found Fortune and Prosperity, who agreed she could arrange entry despite the painted woman lacking an invitation.
• Fortune and Prosperity named a price for an invitation and offered to lend money against a high-level item as collateral.
• Xu Huo asked whether they could enter without an invitation and what risks that would involve.

Xu Huo and the painted woman entered the Fish Banquet through a hidden passage after being lured there by a middleman. Their masks changed to piranhas, revealing they had invitations, and the jellyfish-masked attendant died before Xu Huo could question him.

• The middleman agreed to bring the painted woman into the Fish Banquet and planned to get rid of Xu Huo, but Xu Huo recognized her scheme.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman waited two days, then rode with a Player who tried to warn them to leave before another Player forced him to go.
• The middleman led them beneath an ancient tree, where Xu Huo’s invitation reacted to a fish-shaped plaque and opened a hidden entrance.
• Inside, a jellyfish-masked attendant gave them masks, which changed the painted woman’s mermaid mask and Xu Huo’s clownfish mask into piranha masks.
• Xu Huo immobilized the attendant as he tried to flee, but the man convulsed, bled from his mouth and nose, and died.

Xu Huo and the painted woman entered the Fish Banquet and learned that the daily lot had selected Mermaid Masks as prey. A female Player wearing a Mermaid Mask approached them and began explaining the banquet’s rules, revealing that they were on its lowest floor.

• Xu Huo took a dead Server’s Mask, exchanged invitations with the painted woman to test how they determined identity, then left before the Server’s disappearance drew attention.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman followed guests to the banquet hall, where he identified jellyfish as Servers and sharks as security.
• A Whale announced that the Mermaid had been chosen as the Lucky One, prompting the guests to focus on everyone wearing a Mermaid Mask.
• Xu Huo led the painted woman out of the hall, and another Mermaid-Masked Player followed, offering to cooperate and explain the rules.
• The female Player said Mermaid-Masked guests were usually allies and targets of the night’s hunt, then revealed that the Fish Banquet had one hundred floors and they were on the first.

Xu Huo and the painted woman searched the hotel floors for a safe room before two octopus-mask players cornered them. They fought back, and Xu Huo took one attacker’s invitation card, causing the pattern on his mask to blur.

• The female player explained that the daily draw selected a fish mask who could open an empty safe room, while other players hunted for the thrill.
• Xu Huo, the female player, and the painted woman searched the first four floors but found no open rooms.
• A Mermaid-mask player fled down the stairs as three pursuers attacked, and the female player and another Mermaid split off from Xu Huo and the painted woman.
• On the fifth floor, two octopus-mask players blocked the corridor and attacked Xu Huo and the painted woman.
• The painted woman drew one attacker’s invitation card out from behind his clothes, and Xu Huo caught it and stored it, blurring the pattern on the attacker’s mask.

Xu Huo and the painted woman defeated two octopus-mask Players, and Xu Huo discovered how invitations and masks changed when combined or exchanged. He returned toward the first floor, intending to learn more about the banquet’s room rules, but doubted that the Servers would provide reliable information.

• When an octopus-mask Player attacked after losing his invitation, Xu Huo used his mechanical suit to protect himself from weapons and poison while the painted woman and the Manifestation attacked their opponents.
• The painted woman and the Manifestation wounded one Player until he fled upstairs, while the other octopus-mask Player escaped; Xu Huo told the painted woman not to pursue them.
• Xu Huo opened the stolen invitation and found ten piranha invitations, which merged with his own into two invitations; he concluded that ten piranha invitations formed an octopus-mask invitation.
• Xu Huo tested how invitations affected masks by taking and returning invitations, learning that an invitation changed a mask’s pattern but did not create a mask for someone who had none.
• Xu Huo left the piranha invitation with a clownfish-mask Player and returned toward the first floor, where he considered how to verify the rules governing the rooms.

Xu Huo and the painted woman explored a room at the fish feast after seeing four players dragged inside another room by tentacle-like shadows. They found a vast, shifting space filled with unclaimed items, and the painted woman uncovered a strange shadow-like item called "Face-Plant on Flat Ground."

• Xu Huo and the painted woman watched tentacles drag four players into a room, while the fifth escaped.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman opened the same door and found an empty, lavish room with a pool and garden.
• Xu Huo concluded that the rooms likely changed whenever their doors were opened, making risk-predicting items unreliable.
• Xu Huo searched the room and collected several unclaimed items, including a floating board and a poison-detecting teacup.
• The painted woman found a black, rubbery shadow in a wall crack, an item named "Face-Plant on Flat Ground."

Xu Huo and the painted woman searched the building for clues and stronger items, then reached the eighth floor, where two players ambushed them for their invitations. Xu Huo revealed the high-level device "Seal Gate" and killed one attacker, while the fight with the other remained unresolved.

• Xu Huo gave up his room to three players, then continued upstairs with the painted woman as a piranha-masked player mocked them and fled when they calmly confronted him.
• Xu Huo and the painted woman traveled up to the eighth floor, where two octopus-masked players attacked them to steal their invitations.
• The attackers focused on the painted woman, but Xu Huo intercepted one and used his items to break through the player's defenses.
• Xu Huo used "Seal Gate" to pierce the player's barriers and heart, then restrained him with Cutting Line.
• The wounded player offered his invitation and items, then attacked Xu Huo with a short knife; Xu Huo's barrier stopped the blade, and Cutting Line cut off the player's head.