The tenth minute of the stop.
In the bright sky, sunlight shone through the train window onto Ye Qiyan's face.
The dazzling light woke him.
He looked around in confusion.
Outside the window, vast stretches of forest filled his vision.
This wasn't the wilderness. Was it a station?
He came to his senses, and the memories from before he passed out flooded back...
He looked down. The treasure chest, like a lump of iron, lay quietly at his feet.
[Level 5 treasure chest] (Can be opened)
He had succeeded! He had really completed this Ascension!
That meant...!
He looked at the talent section of his personal interface.
[Ascension: Consume stamina or mental energy to ascend and evolve any existence, regardless of category, level, or condition, ignoring resistance.]
Only two words had been added to the description.
Ignoring resistance.
That was enough.
He had succeeded.
"It really was possible."
A smile appeared on Ye Qiyan's face.
He looked directly above the train, at the Guard Tower. The feeling that it could not undergo Ascension had vanished. There was no longer any barrier beyond level 4.
The constraints on his talent had been broken after he used Ascension on himself.
Amid his excitement, Ye Qiyan began examining his surroundings.
While unconscious, he had vaguely heard some sounds.
This randomly selected station was the kind he least wanted to enter.
The Slaughter Platform.
Slaughter and hunting-what was the difference between them? Ye Qiyan had no idea.
After all, he had never even entered a Hunting Station.
"What are these...?"
He opened the Train System's records. As he read the long string of entries, his good mood gradually disappeared, replaced by heaviness.
"Interference? Someone interfered with my station and stopping time? But then the Train System erased them? And this countdown? Holy shit! Ten hours?"
Ye Qiyan rubbed his eyes and confirmed that he hadn't misread it.
What the hell? The Train System was warning him that this station was extremely dangerous, yet he had to stop here for ten hours? He distinctly remembered that his train's stopping time was only five hours.
Without a doubt, this was also the result of that unknown existence's interference.
That existence had even wanted to keep him here forever, but in the end, the Train System had forcibly erased them.
From that perspective, the Train System was still relatively fair and trustworthy.
One fortunate thing was that the VIP Leave Station Privilege module still worked, but he would still have to remain here for seven hours.
Ye Qiyan took a deep breath, calming his emotions.
Although he didn't know why things had turned out this way, whatever the case, he would open the treasure chest first.
In theory, the contents of a level 5 treasure chest could overwhelm a level 4 station.
As long as the contents weren't too bad, there probably wouldn't be any problems.
[Opened level 5 treasure chest] [Received Train Coins: 10] [Received: System Binding Module] [Received: In-Station Startup Module] [Received: Golden Strike Card (Level 5)] [Received: Ever-Accurate Pocket Watch (Level 5)]
Apart from the Train Coins, there were four rewards: two modules and two level 5 items.
[System Binding Module] [After this module is used, the Train System will permanently change its bound target to the conductor rather than the train control base.] [In-Station Startup Module] [After this module is used, the train can be started within a station and driven to a target location, consuming one Train Coin per hour.]
He used both modules immediately.
They weren't cards. Once used in the system, they would appear directly on Ye Qiyan himself, with no tangible physical form, so they couldn't undergo Ascension.
This was different from his talent.
His talent itself represented him, so using Ascension on his talent was equivalent to completing an Ascension of himself.
Of these two modules, Ye Qiyan especially liked the first.
So many times, the fact that the train's control system could only be used at the front of the train had caused him trouble.
Now, even outside, he could use the system. Whether appraising items or checking his personal information, he no longer needed to run back and forth.
[Golden Strike Card (Level 5)] [After use, consume 20 mental energy. Your next attack of any kind will produce a golden strike effect, increasing its power fivefold.] [Uses: 3/3]
"Ascension."
[Stamina: 100 → 80] [Mental energy: 120 → 90]
After completing his own Ascension, the points consumed were also fewer than before.
[Golden Critical Hit Card! (Level 6)] [Consume 20 mental energy. Your next attack gains a golden critical hit effect, increasing its power fiftyfold.] [Uses: 3/3]
"It actually increased tenfold? Heh, hitting someone with this would definitely feel great."
Its potential was exhausted, so Ye Qiyan put it into his pocket.
With this, even if he had to face certain powerful monsters, he wouldn't be completely unable to fight back.
Unfortunately, it could only be used three times.
[Ever-Accurate Pocket Watch (Level 5)] [A pocket watch that never tells the wrong time. Regardless of the time or space you are in, it will provide the most accurate time.]
"Uh... never mind. It's not bad."
Although he really wanted to complain about how a watch could count as a level 5 item, this treasure chest's rewards weren't bad overall. He would just treat it as a bonus.
"It's quite pretty, too."
The pocket watch was white all over, with golden lines tracing intricate patterns he couldn't understand.
The dial and hands were each carved entirely from some kind of gemstone.
No matter how he looked at it, it was a beautiful pocket watch.
Ye Qiyan put it into his pocket as well. Having something to check the time with wasn't bad.
Bang-!
Suddenly, a gunshot shattered the silence.
He looked toward the sound.
In a clearing in the forest, crimson blood gathered into a puddle, and the corpse of a doglike monster with a dagger in its mouth slowly appeared.
That gunshot had come from the Guard Tower!
Its ability to reveal hidden targets had spotted the monster.
But the death of one monster wasn't the end.
The Guard Tower blazed with red light, and red targeting rings appeared on the ground.
Monster after monster charged out of the forest toward the train.
Bang-bang-!
Gunshots rang out without pause.
The Guard Tower operated at full power, continuously pouring out level 3 bullets as though they cost nothing.
Every shot accurately targeted these monsters' vital points, killing them.
Its hundred-meter surveillance radius became a forbidden zone for these monsters.
Ye Qiyan breathed a slight sigh of relief, but his heart grew heavier.
If he hadn't obtained the Guard Tower, if the Guard Tower couldn't reveal hidden targets, he would probably already have been caught by monsters that had sneaked onto the train, his head severed from his body.
"What exactly is going on with this station?"
Hunting... slaughter...
Only one word apart.
The former meant acting as the hunter, hunting down enemies.
But the latter, slaughter, could be interpreted in two ways.
The first was slaughtering enemies, but that clearly overlapped with hunting.
The second was being slaughtered by enemies, waiting in fear and despair, constantly hiding and struggling until the stopping time ended.
In other words, these monsters' encirclement and attacks were what made up the Slaughter Platform.
The existence that had interfered with his station selection had done so to trap him in this killing ground until he died.
Before you continue