Painting Woman ran upstairs, holding the communicator Mr. Dong had temporarily given her, and pointed at the several outfit combinations projected on the display, indicating she wanted all of them.
Xu Huo was truly generous this time, directly nodding for her to buy them.
Painting Woman silently cheered, her fingers quickly swiping, then brought up some jewelry and shoes she had spotted.
Xu Huo glanced at the prices and nodded again.
Under his subtle influence, Painting Woman had also learned to be frugal. Once she had enough, she stopped browsing and instead opened the food channel, selecting quite a bit of food in one go.
Compared to the cost of clothes and jewelry, these weren’t much. Xu Huo didn’t say anything to dampen the mood and let her choose as she pleased.
The high-end restaurants in District 011 not only offered delivery but could also send the chefs over to cook on the spot. So, before long, aside from the delivered meals, four chefs arrived at the ancient castle, bringing fresh ingredients to prepare a live cooking show.
Sitting at the newly replaced dining table, Xu Huo wasn’t interested in the performance, but Painting Woman enthusiastically kept clapping. Mr. Dong, considerate as ever, suggested, “We could hire the chefs to work at the castle permanently. The salary is generally one and a half times what the restaurant pays.”
Having just obtained his title, according to the standard setup for nobility, the castle now required a certain number of servants, including kitchen helpers and gardeners.
“We don’t need too many people,” Xu Huo said, not opposed to the idea.
Painting Woman was even more proactive than Mr. Dong and immediately decided to keep all four chefs, leaving the specifics for Mr. Dong to negotiate.
After a night of rest, early the next morning, Xu Huo contacted several trading venues, stating he wanted to purchase a batch of train tickets and items. After finalizing the deals, he prepared to visit them one by one.
As luck would have it, at the very first place he went, he ran into two familiar faces.
One was the recently widowed Duchess, and the other was the missionary player Serin, whom he had met on the hunting cruise ship.
The other man was still wearing his black robe, but his ambiguous attitude toward the Duchess drew quite a bit of attention.
However, neither of them seemed concerned about what others thought. The Duchess showed no sign of grief for her late husband, and Serin not only comforted her but also occasionally struck up conversations with the noblewoman she was speaking to, both of them thoroughly enjoying themselves.
Because of the “Noblewoman’s Folding Fan,” the Duchess held favorable feelings toward Xu Huo. Upon seeing him, she took the initiative to introduce him to Serin.
Xu Huo and Serin both expressed that it was their first time meeting each other. While selecting wine and desserts for the Duchess, Serin spoke first: “I’ve heard the Duchess mention the heir of Rose Castle more than once. I never imagined it would be Mr. Xu.”
“I didn’t expect you to return to District 011 either. Is your followers’ business that widespread?” Xu Huo said meaningfully, glancing at the Duchess.
Serin smiled politely. “As a man of faith, how could I refuse a believer’s plea for help? I’m merely responding to the Duchess’s innermost desires.”
Xu Huo gave him a look. “That’s a refreshingly unique way to put it.”
Serin’s smile deepened. “I knew you’d be a kindred spirit, Mr. Xu.”
Xu Huo didn’t commit to that, returning to his seat once the manager brought over the selection catalog.
With the security deposit in place, he could now view the B-grade item catalog. There were some decent items, but nothing he truly wanted.
Meanwhile, the Duchess picked out two items for Serin and mentioned that Xu Huo could have anything he liked charged to her account.
Xu Huo wasn’t short on money now. He paid for two sets of item dresses for Little Pink Hat—this was something they had agreed on earlier.
“Did you go on the ship this time too?” the Duchess asked. “Or did you go with Ran Ying?”
“The Black Epaulets are becoming more and more outrageous.” She showed some disgust. “Using nobles for their amusement.”
All three present knew the inside story, so they didn’t bring up the official news version. Instead, Serin talked about the impending expansion of the Black Epaulets.
The White Epaulets had been suppressed, and the Black Epaulets were shouldering the main responsibility. It was natural that they needed more personnel, but this expansion was unusually large. Other government departments were also transferring in elite players, as if something big was brewing.
“A new game partition is about to fuse into the game,” the Duchess revealed. “When that happens, a large number of dungeons will be born.”
For a new partition to fuse with the game, there were two steps. First, the partition entered the game system, during which players would continuously appear. At this stage, the new partition and the game were still semi-isolated. Players in that partition could use train tickets and return tickets to travel between the partition and dungeons, but players from other partitions couldn’t enter the new partition’s real world through its dungeons.
Of course, this barrier wasn’t absolute. Players could purchase spatial items to enter the new partition’s territory from within a dungeon. However, such spatial items were prohibitively expensive and had significant restrictions—basically single-use. So under normal circumstances, players wouldn’t bother entering a new partition that offered no profit.
The Super Item incident in Zone 014 was an exception.
As for other major forces from other partitions carving up new game partitions, that was another matter.
Once the players reached a certain number and level, the new partition would fully fuse with the game. At that point, besides the previous dungeons, a large number of new dungeons would emerge. Dungeons of D-grade and above would no longer be isolated from the new partition; instead, like District 011 and Rose Castle, people could freely come and go when the dungeons were closed.
However, exactly how many dungeons a new partition would produce and how high their grades would be depended on the specifics. Because the number of dungeons could increase or decrease, this data was hard to track.
But if a partition had a super dungeon at its core, then that partition would no longer have Random Dungeons. Just like District 011, aside from the fixed dungeons requiring train tickets, residents didn’t have to worry about stepping into a Random Dungeon when walking out the door.
Items in the game weren’t entirely crafted by Artificers. Some items were born naturally and had no owner—whoever found them owned them. These often appeared at the very beginning of a dungeon’s opening. Entering a dungeon at that time might net some great items, but the later you arrived, the less chance you had of snatching up bargains.
If someone could find out in advance when a game partition was about to fuse and prepare train tickets, it was practically a free ride.
“When dungeons first appear, there might be ready-made high-grade items just waiting to be picked up. That’s much simpler than clearing dungeons for rewards,” Serin said. “I’m almost jealous.”
The Duchess’s gaze flickered between the two men. “You’re players too. You could give it a try. As for train tickets, you probably can’t buy any in District 011 right now, but I have a few I can let you use.”
“Which game partition is it?” Xu Huo asked.
“Zone 009.”
Partitions were generally numbered in order, but District 011 had absorbed several partitions from the original Zones 07 to 13, keeping only the 011 designation. As a result, the original designations 07, 08, 09, 10, 12, and 13 were released and taken over by later new partitions, leading to situations where a partition with an early number was weaker in strength.
Of course, the degree of fusion ultimately depended on the evolution of the partition itself. Just because a partition appeared earlier didn’t mean it was stronger or would fuse with the game faster.