["Just my rotten luck. The first stop was a wreck of a house, with nothing but garbage. Fuck, the second stop dumped me at a foul mud pit. The stench made me sick. I never even had a chance to get out!"]
["Don't get me started. At least you didn't run into monsters. A pack of wild boars chased me the whole way and nearly overturned my train. There are still several huge holes in it. If departure time hadn't come, I'd have died there."]
["Selling one piece of Carrion Vulture leg meat. Trading for drinking water!"]
["I didn't dare get off at the first stop. At the second stop, I knew there was danger, so I didn't dare get off either... Hearing you all talk, I'm not sure I dare get off at the third stop now..."]
["Aren't you just waiting to die if you don't get off? Do you still have food and water?"]
Not everyone could use Ascension to upgrade their train right at the start like Ye Qiyan, then obtain the "Fork in Destiny" module and avoid some dangers by choosing based on station levels and prefixes.
After he quietly lurked in the chatroom for a while, Ye Qiyan's stop countdown was nearly over.
Only then did he remember that he still had a Garbage Recycling Device running in the first carriage.
Four hours. He wondered what it might have collected.
In Ye Qiyan's mind, he would count himself lucky if the little fellow managed to collect a dozen or so kilograms of wood in this White Forest. He hadn't held out much hope.
[Level 3 treasure chest: ready to open]
Wait, what was this?
He rubbed his eyes. He must have gotten up too fast. He looked again.
"Holy shit!"
Everything else in the recycling station was garbage in every sense of the word.
But among all that trash, a gray-white wooden box completely outshone everything else.
A treasure chest! And a level 3 one at that!
It wasn't that he hadn't considered the possibility of treasure chests in the White Forest, but this place was too vast. Aside from the path leading to the Orchard, Ye Qiyan hadn't dared venture too far into the forest. If he got lost, he might never make it back to the train, so he had simply given up on trying to find a treasure chest.
He had never, ever expected this.
The little garbage-collecting robot he had looked down on had actually brought back a treasure chest from this forest!?
Now Ye Qiyan looked at the goofy-looking block-shaped robot with eyes full of appreciation. He raised a hand and patted its square head.
"Just what I'd expect from myself. Spending all those resources to build the recycling station really was the right call."
If the little robot had an expression, it would definitely have been one of contempt.
After all, its owner had been openly expressing his disdain for it just moments ago.
Humans really were the most fickle creatures~!
Suppressing the urge to open the treasure chest, Ye Qiyan reached out and pressed his hand against it.
A level 3 treasure chest would become level 4 after Ascension.
In theory, that meant a guaranteed eight Train Coins, plus other rare level 4 items.
[Stamina: 45] [Spirit: 92]
"Ascension, Ascension."
In high spirits, Ye Qiyan began the Ascension.
His stamina drained away, followed closely by his spirit.
When the invisible power dispersed, the wooden box remained completely unchanged, just like the document envelope before it.
[Level 4 treasure chest: ready to open]
[Stamina: 20] [Spirit: 62]
His body was exhausted, but his mind was buzzing with excitement.
Ye Qiyan rubbed his hands together, his gaze burning.
"Hehehe, let's have a look-see at what's inside."
Creak-
[Opened level 4 treasure chest]
[Obtained Train Coins: 8]
[Obtained: External Warning Device (level 4)]
[Obtained: White Forest Fruit Tree Seed]
[Obtained: Train Gray-White Paint]
[Obtained: Advanced Ceramic Plate Bulletproof Vest]
"A level 4 structure? Would those people in the chatroom die of envy if they found out?"
Ye Qiyan murmured to himself, though he had no intention of showing off.
Showing off would only invite others' jealousy or even resentment. He only needed to take care of his own business. Why bother worrying about anyone else?
However, he couldn't use Ascension on this level 4 structure for now. It wasn't that it lacked potential, but even his stamina and spirit combined didn't seem sufficient to cover the cost of Ascension.
"Looks like level 4 is a dividing line."
[External Warning Watchtower Device]
[Can be installed on top of any carriage and equipped with any ranged weapon]
[Once installed, automatic surveillance and attacks will activate, attacking hostile threats within a visible range of 100 meters and locking onto targets to negate camouflage/invisibility/illusions and any other vision-obscuring effects.]
[Note: if damaged, it can be repaired using mechanical parts]
"Good stuff. Just what you'd expect from a level 4 treasure chest. It really is different."
He placed the warning watchtower on top of the locomotive.
From outside, it looked like nothing more than a round object with an interlayer added to the top of the locomotive.
When automatic surveillance was activated, a red orb of light appeared in the interlayer and rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees within it.
Ye Qiyan still had six rifles. Apart from the one that had already undergone Ascension, he equipped all five remaining rifles on the watchtower.
"Can I really grow trees inside a carriage?"
Looking at the three remaining rewards, Ye Qiyan scratched his head.
[White Forest Fruit Tree Seed] (level 3 plant)
[Must be planted in the gray-white soil unique to the White Forest]
[Ten days to sprout, ten days to become a tree, ten days to bear ripe fruit]
[Consumes half a kilogram of fresh water daily]
Half a kilogram of fresh water for each seed. There probably weren't many people capable of growing one at this point, and Ye Qiyan happened to be one of them.
But a full thirty-day growth period was rather long.
Whether he could grow it or not, these seeds had reminded him that the soil in this white forest also counted as a special resource. There was no reason not to take some with him.
Besides, he could wait until his stamina recovered and then use Ascension on this seed.
Stop countdown [0:3:21]
After filling several wooden crates with gray-white soil, Ye Qiyan shut down the garbage recycling station in the last few minutes before departure, patted the little robot's head, and tossed all the garbage it had collected from the forest into the workbench for recycling.
There wasn't much, but it still provided him with twelve kilograms of wood, along with some leaves and stones.
What Ye Qiyan hadn't quite expected was that those leaves weren't entirely garbage either.
[White leaves] (level 1)
[Can be used to make white pigment]
[White stone] (level 1)
[Can be used to make white pigment]
"Everything in this forest really does have something to do with white."
"Good work, little guy. Once I've rested up, you'll be next for Ascension."
He patted the little robot's head.
The countdown ended.
The train started.
A faint push pressed him back, and Ye Qiyan looked out the window as the white forest receded before his eyes.
After a stretch of nothingness, the gray and white disappeared, replaced by that endless wilderness.
"Back again."
Only then did Ye Qiyan stretch and open the chatroom, where he noticed a faint light flashing in his private message interface.
Someone had sent him a message.
Private message notifications between conductors only appeared after they added each other as friends.
Ordinary private messages wouldn't trigger a notification.
In other words, there was only one person who could have sent the message.
Shangguan Yingxue: ["Do you still need water?"]
Before you continue