[Storage Unit Carriage]

Unlike the lively scene in the chatroom.

Ye Qiyan's attention was not on that at the moment.

[Third stop, Doomsday Town, concluded: mutant humanoid zombies killed: 11, zombie dogs: 28, zombie cats...]

[Kill rating: A]

[Congratulations on completing the hidden quest: Town Liberator]

[Quest reward obtained: one Carriage Exchange Ticket]

"So this was the quest for the quest platform?"

He looked at the words on the Light Screen before him, then at the filthy WALL-E.

"Good thing I had you, or I would've missed all this."

He patted WALL-E's iron head.

"A carriage, huh?"

He held the translucent ticket in his hand. An image of a carriage was printed on it.

After enjoying the Constant-Temperature Carriage for several days, Ye Qiyan was quite excited about a new carriage.

"Ascension."

[Carriage Exchange Ticket → Special Carriage Exchange Voucher]

[Can be exchanged for a level 2 special carriage.]

"Use."

The voucher burned in midair.

[Level 2 carriage obtained: Low-Level Storage Carriage]

[Storage carriage: contains 48 storage units. Each unit can hold an unlimited quantity of a single type of item. Cannot store living things.]

This was good stuff. Just think back to when he first started gathering resources: wood and metal had been piled everywhere, leaving him no room even to sleep in the locomotive.

With this carriage, he could free up a huge amount of space on the train.

"I can use Ascension again."

He could hardly wait to use his talent again.

He went to the rear of the second carriage.

Through the window, he saw a carriage descend from midair, landing precisely on the tracks and coupling with his train.

The connecting door opened.

He stepped inside. Forty-eight units resembling storage cabinets were arranged evenly along both sides of the carriage.

"Ascension."

[Stamina: 55 → 30][Spirit: 80 → 55]

Upgrading a level 1 ordinary carriage to a level 2 special carriage cost 20 stamina, while upgrading a level 2 special carriage to level 3 cost a total of fifty points.

More than twice as much.

Ye Qiyan's body sank into exhaustion again, but his eyes shone with a very different light.

[Storage Unit Carriage] (Level 3)

[Contains 51 storage units. Each unit has unlimited storage capacity. Items placed inside will not rot or suffer damage... Cannot store living things. The contents of 3 units in the storage carriage can be freely retrieved by the Train Conductor from any location.]

After Ascension, the storage carriage seemed to have gained only three extra units and the property of preventing decay.

But these three units were nothing like an ordinary increase!

The Train Conductor could retrieve their contents anywhere? Wasn't that basically portable storage?

He eagerly placed a few Whiteforest Fruits in one of those three units.

Ye Qiyan returned to the locomotive. With a thought and a brief feel around in the air, a plump, fresh Whiteforest Fruit appeared right in his hand!

Clearly, this use of Ascension had been a tremendous gain!

Eating Whiteforest Fruit to recover his stamina, Ye Qiyan tossed all the resources in the carriages into the ordinary units.

The train instantly became much cleaner and more spacious.

As for the three special units, one naturally held Whiteforest Fruit. Ye Qiyan put only some bullets and drinking water in the other two.

This way, he would have much less weight to carry when he left the train to explore a platform.

"Right, there's still the Treasure Chest."

Taking out the level 2 chest WALL-E had brought back for him, Ye Qiyan did a quick calculation.

Upgrading a level 3 Treasure Chest to level 4 required 55 points, and level 1 to level 2 took 37. So level 2 to level 3 should cost forty-something points at most.

If he pushed himself a little, he had enough.

"Ascension."

[Stamina: 30 → 20][Spirit: 55 → 20]

[Warning! Entering a state of physical exhaustion]

[Warning! Entering a state of Dissipation of Reason!!]

His guess had been right. The forty-five-point expenditure was complete.

Ye Qiyan panted heavily, his eyelids weighing down as he forced himself to muster his last strength and look at the Treasure Chest before him.

When he appraised the candy box before him again, it had already changed.

[Level 3 Treasure Chest] (Can be opened)

[Opening level 3 Treasure Chest]

[Obtained Train Coins: 6]

[Obtained: Zombie Killer (Level 3)]

[3 doses of Virus Serum]

[Windproof Lighter]

Three rewards, neither particularly good nor bad.

Zombie Killer was a chainsword modified from a chainsaw, with a threefold damage bonus against zombie-type monsters.

The other two did exactly what their names suggested.

The serum might come in handy.

As for a Windproof Lighter obtained from a level 3 Treasure Chest, in a sense, it was quite precious too.

But that did not matter.

He had obtained another six Train Coins from the level 3 Treasure Chest. Together with what he already had, that made a full ten Train Coins!

At this point, no one could possibly have more than him.

He was going to take every upgrade option that appeared the next time he upgraded the train.

But before using Ascension, he had something important to do.

And that was.

Sleep.

He was tired.

Ten points of stamina.

This was his first time pushing himself so hard.

He had truly experienced the discomfort of physical exhaustion.

As for the Dissipation of Reason mentioned in the warning, he felt nothing at all.

While Ye Qiyan rested, the chatroom remained bustling.

Countless people were buying materials for upgrading their trains from one another.

But how many actually had the means to buy them?

If upgrading was the only way to guarantee survival.

Then, of the few thousand people left, they would be lucky if even a tenth survived.

So someone soon noticed that the train announcement required a speed of only thirty kilometers per hour, while an upgraded train could reach a full forty.

Did that mean they could separately upgrade the parts related to speed-in other words, the wheels?

Someone tried it.

Using one-fifth of the metal and one-third of the Mechanical Parts required to upgrade the train, they actually managed to upgrade the wheels alone, bringing the speed up to the required thirty kilometers per hour.

The moment this news emerged, metal and Mechanical Parts immediately became the most sought-after resources.

Almost everyone wanted to buy these two materials.

Even if doing so meant spending more materials on upgrading the train as a whole.

But when it came to staying alive, who could afford to worry about that?

Meanwhile, Li Xiaosheng, who had just spoken of forming an alliance to collect Train Coins before all this, wore an extremely ugly expression.

Who exactly was the person who had upgraded their train before him?

"How could anyone gather the materials faster than me? I'm the chosen one!"

There was a talent listed on his personal interface.

[Resource Radar]: Before reaching the next platform, you must select one basic train resource. There is a high probability that gatherable resources of that type will appear at the next platform.

Metal, Mechanical Parts, wood.

Li Xiaosheng had spent three stops gathering all the resources needed for the upgrade.

He could not understand. Who could possibly have been faster than him?