Whiteforest Fruit

He followed the road deeper into the forest.

Along the way, he stayed alert for any danger that might appear.

Fortunately, nothing happened.

At the end of the road, deep within the Gray-White Forest, fruit trees bearing white fruit appeared before him.

Could these fruits be what he was meant to gather at this collection station?

He walked over to a fruit tree, cut through a stem with his dagger, and picked a fruit, holding it beneath his nose for a sniff.

A sweet scent with a hint of bitterness wafted toward him. This was a type of fruit he had never seen in his former world.

Gulp.

Looking at the fruit before him, Ye Qiyan swallowed.

"It smells so good."

For some reason, Ye Qiyan felt an urge to devour these fruits.

Just as he was about to take a bite, an intense sense of danger instantly snapped him out of it, and he hurled the fruit in his hand away.

"!!"

"Huff, huff... what the hell?"

[Stamina: 93][Mental energy: 72]

Ye Qiyan broke out in a cold sweat.

His mental energy had been full just a moment ago, yet it had dropped this much in the few seconds since he picked up that fruit.

He had no shortage of food or water right now, so why had he been so desperate to eat a fruit when he had not even determined whether it was poisonous?

And the rate at which his mental energy had fallen was far too terrifying. Even Ascension had not drained it this quickly.

There was something wrong with this fruit!

Ye Qiyan took a few steps back, frowning at the grayish-white fruit before him.

It was far too inconvenient that the Train System's appraisal function could only be used once he returned to the train.

But these fruits were clearly the collection items for this stop. Ye Qiyan even felt that the danger at this stop lay in the fruits themselves.

"Did I experience that hallucination because I smelled this fruit just now? If I don't smell it..."

After a moment's hesitation, he still decided to bring these fruits back. At the very least, he would use the train's appraisal function to find out exactly what they were before deciding.

Riiip-

He cut a piece of cloth from his clothes with the dagger and tied it over his face. He did not know whether it would work, but it counted as taking precautions.

He opened his backpack. Aside from the water and food inside, there was still plenty of empty space.

People died for wealth, and birds died for food. Even faced with hallucinogenic fruit that might threaten his life, Ye Qiyan really could not bear to give it up.

The forest remained as quiet as ever, only now there was a hardworking fruit farmer harvesting his fruit.

After filling his backpack, Ye Qiyan wiped the sweat from his head.

"Good thing I have this dagger. Otherwise, this really wouldn't be easy."

He carried his backpack back to the train, eagerly took out a fruit, and brought it to the control system for appraisal.

[Whiteforest Fruit] (Level 3)

[A fruit unique to the White Forest. When unprocessed, it releases a hallucinogenic fragrance that reduces mental energy. Consuming it will permanently reduce maximum mental energy.]

[Consuming it after processing can rapidly restore mental energy and slightly increase resistance to hallucinations.]

[Processing method: soak in cold water for five minutes.]

"So that's how it works. No wonder I wanted to eat it so badly just now. It really was because I smelled it. Good thing I snapped out of it."

Ye Qiyan patted his chest and let out a relieved breath, as though he had just escaped death.

Alarm bells rang in his mind. He had thought he was already cautious enough, but it was still not enough.

He eagerly dumped the entire batch of fruit he had brought back into water. After waiting patiently for five minutes and watching them turn from grayish-white to pure white, he could not wait to pick up a Whiteforest Fruit. With one bite, an exquisitely sweet juice burst in his mouth.

"Delicious! I've never eaten fruit this good!"

Ye Qiyan's eyes brimmed with delight. Compared with Whiteforest Fruit, that bread and those biscuits tasted almost impossible to swallow.

It was hard to imagine that such fruit grew in such an eerie place.

After dumping out the remaining contents of his backpack, Ye Qiyan set out again with his two guns and dagger.

A round trip took about twenty minutes, but filling an entire backpack took roughly half an hour.

With four hours at the stop, he could only make four round trips. He could not waste any time.

After stepping out of the train, Ye Qiyan suddenly thought of something and looked toward the carriage.

The Garbage Recycling Device he had installed there was working.

"So that's what garbage recycling means."

A small, cube-shaped robot, only about halfway up his shin in height, was traveling back and forth between the white forest and the train.

Every so often, it brought back things like leaves and put them into the recycling station.

"Somehow, it doesn't seem very useful?"

Ye Qiyan sighed. He had already built it anyway, so whatever.

In the Whiteforest Fruit Orchard, the dagger in Ye Qiyan's hand never stopped moving as he packed away fruit after fruit from the trees.

After several trips back and forth, the train's stop finally neared its end.

[0:32:16]

"What a shame. I wonder if I'll ever find fruit this delicious again."

In nearly three and a half hours, he had picked over fifty kilograms of Whiteforest Fruit in total.

If he disregarded spoilage, it was enough to feed him for quite a while.

He did not head out again. After all, departure time was approaching, and he did not want to miss the train out of greed.

Ye Qiyan sorted through the supplies he currently had on hand.

Aside from the Whiteforest Fruit, he still had seventy-nine compressed biscuits and twenty-one bottles of purified water he had bought.

This food was enough to keep him from worrying about survival for a while.

Leaning back in his chair, Ye Qiyan opened the chat room as he ate a fruit.

By now, everyone other than him should have left the second platform.

The instant he opened the chat room, a set of numbers caught his eye.

[8721/10000]

Over a thousand people had vanished forever.

And this was only the Second Station.

The number was still dropping, too.

Why?

["Does anyone have medicine? I only drank a mouthful of lake water, so why does my stomach hurt so much?!"]

["Serves you right. You dared to drink water without boiling it? Do you really think you're Superman?"]

["Fuck, those bison gored me through the lung. Brothers, I probably don't have much longer. If anyone meets my wife, remember to tell her that her husband killed a bison."]

["Go in peace, man above. I, Cao, shall care for your wife and children."]

["Sob... the bleeding spot hurts so much... Does any big shot have medicine? I remember someone got Golden Wound Medicine earlier, didn't they? Please save me."]

["I'm so hungry. That little bit of bread and water from the beginner's gift pack isn't nearly enough."]

In modern society, injured people received very good medical treatment. As long as their injuries were not left untreated, there was always a chance of saving them, however serious the injuries were.

But things were different now.

Even if they worked up the courage to get off the train and explore, the slightest carelessness could put them in danger.

Even if they were lucky enough to escape, they could very well still be injured. If the injury was a little more serious and they could not get treatment, could they do anything but wait to die?

Not to mention that many people still had no food or water, and the pressure of survival left them struggling to breathe.