The generator needed even less explanation. He had the blueprint, so he simply spent the resources to build it, then put it through Ascension, obtaining a device that could generate electricity just by burning wood and metal.
The environment inside the Planting Carriage was relatively humid. It contained six sections whose sizes could be freely adjusted, and the temperature and humidity in each could also be regulated.
Underfoot was not the train's steel floor, but rich black soil. He planted the White Forest Fruit Tree Seed right in the center, where sunlight shone down through the freely opening skylight overhead.
There was still plenty of space left, so Ye Qiyan simply planted the tomatoes he had obtained from Phantom Rain Mountain Villa. The Planting Carriage's growth acceleration was remarkably effective: soon after planting, they had already taken root and sprouted.
He estimated that the first batch of tomatoes would be ready in three days.
He had also bought watermelon seeds on the Trading Platform.
They were clearly leftovers from someone's meal, tossed onto the Trading Platform to see if they would sell. The price was quite low, yet nobody had bought them.
That had worked out perfectly for him.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Ye Qiyan looked at his handiwork with satisfaction.
There was still plenty of empty space. In the future, he could keep an eye out for seeds and plants at the stops and transplant any useful ones here.
There was basically nothing he needed on the Trading Platform right now, but there was no rush. The sectors were about to merge.
The Train Conductors in other sectors were bound to bring new goods to trade.
[9:30:00]
The moment the three hours were up.
The announcement sounded right on time.
["Beginning Block Merge."] [D-56, D-119--E-3, E-19, E-28, E-103, totaling 10,000 people. Beginning merger.] [Merger complete.] [Current population: 10000/10000]
There were no earth-shattering changes. Only the number of people in the chatroom kept climbing until it returned to the original 10,000.
The lines of text scrolling across the public chat made it feel as though they had returned to when they first arrived in this world.
["Holy shit, we really merged? Hello, hello, can you guys from the other sectors see this?"]
["We can, we can! Haha, finally, more people to chat with. We only had three hundred-something left over here. Almost everyone was dead. What about you?"]
["A little over a thousand. But just how many sectors are there in this world? Good lord, the numbers after the letters have hit three digits."]
["A little over a thousand? Then doesn't that mean our D-119 had the most, with nineteen hundred?"]
["Of course. With Zhao around, at least we won't starve to death."]
["Who's Zhao? Is he that awesome?"]
["Of course! Zhao is the most awesome expert in our D-119. He started growing vegetables at the very first stop. A lot of what we eat now was bought from him, and he even has a level 3 train!"]
["So what if it's level 3? So what if he grows vegetables? You make it sound like we don't have someone like that here. Our Li must have been the first to reach level 3."]
["Exactly. We've even got someone selling guns in our sector. Do you?"]
Arguments, laughter, boasting.
As people from different sectors continued to mingle, they also attached different labels to themselves.
Even if the survivors within a sector had no particular feelings for one another, the letters and numbers preceding their individual IDs still gave them a tiny sense of identity.
They boasted about someone else's excellence even though it had nothing to do with them, as though everyone in a sector shared in one another's glory and losses.
"He started growing vegetables at the first stop. There really are some capable survivors out there. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Sigh, I'm still too weak. It's almost the Eighth Station, and I've only just started growing vegetables. I'm so far behind."
Ye Qiyan shook his head with a sigh, took a bite of Whiteforest Fruit, and opened the Trading Platform, which interested him most.
Since the sectors had merged, the Trading Platform should have merged too.
Sure enough, the Trading Platform now had a considerable number of items and supplies that had never appeared before.
Each sector had its own circumstances. That D-119 from earlier, for instance, seemed more inclined to sell food, but had no seeds or anything of the sort.
That was normal. After all, with someone who had started farming at the first stop, most of D-119's seeds would presumably have ended up in that fellow's hands.
"Quite a lot of stuff. Let's take a look."
After browsing the Trading Platform for quite a while, Ye Qiyan bought a few changes of clothes, a bar of soap, a toothbrush, and some toothpaste.
The prices of these things were neither high nor low, and few people would buy them. After all, most people still struggled to survive, and very few would spend resources on improving their quality of life.
With these things in hand, Ye Qiyan decided to indulge himself.
He bought a large wooden tub as well, filled it with clean water, stripped naked, and jumped in.
"Hiss... phew..."
The water was cold, but very comfortable.
Ye Qiyan narrowed his eyes in enjoyment, his body steadily relaxing in the water.
All his fatigue melted away at that moment.
After bathing, he changed into clean clothes and lay down on the soft, large bed. If not for the rumble of wheels in his ears, at that moment, none of this train survival business would have mattered.
[12:30:00]
Thirty minutes before arriving at the Eighth Station.
[Fork in Destiny triggered. Please choose one of the following two stops.] [Stop one: Train Maze (level 4 escape stop)] [Stop two: Knight's Plains (level 4 Quest Platform)]
Yet another new type of stop.
Escape-judging by the word alone, it was hardly a good place, and this stop even had "maze" in its name.
By comparison, the second option was a Quest Platform, which Ye Qiyan had experienced many times already. His gains there would not be too poor, at any rate.
"I choose stop two."
[Stop selection complete.] [Please sit tight and hold on. The Eighth Station the train will arrive at is...] [Knight's Plains]
The train moved forward, gradually accelerating as time passed.
A distortion appeared ahead of the train.
When the hour hand on the pocket watch pointed to one, the entire train passed through the void.
The world outside the windows changed in an instant.
[Current stop: Knight's Plains] [Remaining stopover time: 09:59:59] [Good luck.] [This stop: dangerous]
"Huh? What the hell is this stopover time?"
Ye Qiyan rubbed his eyes, thinking he had misread it, but the countdown displayed on the light screen told him it was real.
"System, wasn't my stopover time only five hours?"
The Train System's response soon came over the speakers.
["A Train Conductor's stopover time is fixed. Once increased, it will not be changed again. Train Conductor Ye Qiyan, ID E-3-1102, had his stopover time interfered with by ??, and his stopover time has therefore been increased."]
["Furthermore, because Train Conductor Ye Qiyan's stopover time exceeds the upper limit for novice Train Conductors, the option to increase the train's stopover time will not appear among the train upgrade options before he reaches the tenth stop."]
Before you continue