He spent a long time calming down, arriving at a rational explanation for what had just happened. He believed that the guy named Woody was likely no ordinary game administrator, and his level was far higher than the previous Pan Feng and Hua Xiong.

Since he could arbitrarily add fake buttons in a player’s login space, then the image of him walking into the mirror wall when he left was very likely intentional.

And the identity he revealed, the nonsensical things he said, the questions he asked, etc., after careful consideration, had no meaning at all. Unless there really were supernatural forces in this world, he was just putting on an act.

Assuming that everything he had just seen wasn’t a hallucination, then the appearance of fear… perhaps meant his condition was improving. He was starting to be afraid, which should… be good news, right?

In any case, this was the most reasonable explanation that Feng Bujue could think of. As for unreasonable explanations, Woody’s words amounted to nothing more than that…

Having arrived at this “reasonable” conclusion, Feng Bujue stopped dwelling on it. In any case, that high-level game administrator hadn't warned him of any problems with playing the game in a “fearless” state, so Feng Bujue felt even more emboldened.

He temporarily put this little episode out of his mind, lest it affect his mood for experiencing the public beta.

Turning his attention back to the operating area next to the elevator door, the remaining four buttons seemed innocuous, and should all be normal buttons that were always there.

“Storage Room” undoubtedly referred to the metal room for claiming settlement rewards and storing equipment. Feng Bujue hadn't yet claimed the Fear Rating reward from his last scenario. He could enter now and get it, but he was being cautious. Since the Mall was now open, game coins should come in handy, so he wasn't in a rush to choose a reward. He intended to go to the other places first to observe the demand before deciding which one to claim.

Feng Bujue first clicked the Meeting Room button. After pressing it, he received a system prompt:

[Your Meeting Room has been created. You can invite friends, teammates, and players not on your blacklist to enter the Meeting Room for communication. The maximum number of people is ten.]

[When you are in the Meeting Room, Mall, or Surprise Box, you can use the newly added text chat function in the game menu to communicate with friends.]

After the prompt, the elevator doors opened, revealing a metal room larger than the Storage Room. It was very spacious and well-lit. In the middle of the Meeting Room was a long table, surrounded by ten black office chairs with rollers and backrests.

The surface of the long table was silver, seemingly a smooth, flat surface, but upon closer inspection, one could see ten slightly different colored circular planes around the edge.

After Feng Bujue stepped into the Meeting Room, the elevator doors behind him automatically closed, making him hesitate slightly, as this didn't happen when entering the Storage Room. Looking back, there was also a switch next to the door on this side of the Meeting Room, apparently for use when leaving.

[In front of the “Conference Table,” you can open a specific menu to browse items in your inventory and Storage Room. You can display their attributes on the table without actually taking the items out.]

He came to the table, read the prompt, and then casually displayed Mario's Wrench to test the effect. A 3D projection of the item's appearance immediately appeared on the table, rotating slowly. The item description was displayed in the “Conference Table” menu in front of him. If there were other people sitting at this long table at this moment, they could also read it from the menu.

“So that’s how it is… Besides allowing team members to communicate, prepare, exchange items, and so on, it can also be used to hold a private auction.” Feng Bujue murmured.

The Conference Table's item display function was mainly to facilitate one person displaying equipment to a group. Because in this game, to let others see an item that already belonged to you, you had to hand it over to the other party. In the closed beta, you could only give it to the other party unconditionally, but in the public beta, the party handing out the item could choose “Gift,” “Trade,” or “Display” according to the situation. Of course, this choice was just a thought-based operation. The player could send a neural signal to the system to complete it, so it wouldn't take a minute to hand over an item.

Feng Bujue moved away from the table, and the item display automatically stopped. He pressed the button next to the elevator door, and the door reopened. After he returned to his login space, it closed again.

Then, he reached out and pressed the “Mall” button. The system voice sounded: [Connecting you to the Mall, please wait… This partition number is: 17]

[The Mall is a large public area. To prevent spatial congestion, a partition generation system is adopted. You can set the default partition number you want to connect to in your login space. If you do not set it, the system will instantly assign you to a relatively free partition. Each partition can accommodate up to five thousand players. Partitions that are full require queuing to enter.]

After listening to the prompt, the elevator doors opened. The first impression of the scene outside was like an expanded version of the New York Stock Exchange, only this space was even more gigantic.

In the very center of the Mall was a cylindrical metal structure, surrounded by display screens in all directions, from two to eight meters high, constantly refreshing various data. The crowd surrounding this “Information Tower” was also the largest. The scene was quite similar to the Hong Kong stock market in the 1990s.

After Feng Bujue walked out of the elevator, the doors behind him closed after only a few seconds, then quickly reopened, at which point another player walked out of it. He turned his head and looked around, discovering a whole row of about a hundred such elevator doors on this side of the building, constantly opening and closing, with players entering or leaving every minute.

These doors were just hubs that separated and reconnected space. Each time they closed and reopened, they would lead to different places. When he needed to leave, Feng Bujue could enter any one of them and return to his login space.

Of course, some people had experimented with walking into a door side by side, but unfortunately, it didn't work. One person would inevitably be blocked by an invisible wall. The same principle applied to the Meeting Room. If a player accepted an invitation to enter someone else's Meeting Room, they would also have to enter through their own login space's elevator door. After entering, the door would close. That is to say, ten people would have to enter or leave one by one.

Feng Bujue walked towards the central area of the Mall, looking around at the surroundings. He found that the roof here was very high, so high that it was difficult to visually estimate its distance from the ground. The four walls of the building were curved. Overall, the space was like an overturned bowl.

Around the information tower in the center were four passages, separated by four ninety-degree fan-shaped structures. Those four objects also had multiple display screens on them, also scrolling information. This central area was the focus of the Mall—the Auction House.

And a little further out, there were many shops arranged like stores. These were all system shops, and quite a few people patronized them. However, the items sold by the system were fixed, and even if you wanted to exchange goods, it would be a quarter later. Players usually left after browsing or buying what they needed, so there were fewer players lingering there than at the information tower.

There weren't a few players in this partition, bustling and bustling, shuttling back and forth. Feng Bujue had originally planned to go browse the official stores first, when suddenly someone shouted at him, “Eh? It's you!”