Fortune favors fools?

Elsewhere.

The bus led the way, with three off-road vehicles close behind.

The convoy raced madly onward, covering over a hundred kilometers in one go.

Only after confirming that no pursuers were behind them and that the giant treant had not followed them out did they slowly come to a stop.

The moment the vehicles stopped, Yang Yong leaped out and charged furiously toward Cao Xianming's off-road vehicle, dragging him out of the passenger seat.

"Old Cao! Get your ass out here! I was about to die back there! Why didn't you let Wang Ying act? Tell me!"

Cao Xianming was held by his collar, but he looked utterly unconcerned as he raised a hand to adjust his gold-rimmed glasses.

"Calm down, calm down. Didn't things turn out pretty well? Everyone made it out alive."

"Alive, my ass!"

Yang Yong glared at him, itching to punch him in the face.

But on second thought, everyone really had escaped in the end.

At the time, those survivors who had died seemingly did not count as "their own kind" in this apocalypse anyway.

The apocalypse had long since divided people into ranks.

Sequence transcendents and ordinary people had never been on the same level.

It simply went unspoken in the Survival Convoy, but that subconscious distinction had long since taken root.

Cao Xianming adjusted his glasses again and changed the subject. "Let's leave that aside for now and check on Zheng Xiaofeng. When he rushed out at the end, he took a punch from the treant head-on. He's probably badly hurt."

Yang Yong froze.

He had been dazed earlier, and the bus had been moving so fast that he had not seen that at all.

What a badass!

That was the only thought left in his mind, and he could not help giving a thumbs-up toward Zheng Xiaofeng's off-road vehicle.

He would never have dared clash head-on with that treant himself.

He thought Zheng Xiaofeng would be half-crippled if not dead, but Cao Xianming excitedly held out a hand. A data model appeared in his palm, rapidly running calculations.

"Perhaps, for Zheng Xiaofeng, this is a case of fortune favoring fools."

"What?"

Yang Yong looked baffled. "This counts as fortune favoring fools?"

The two walked over to the last off-road vehicle, where a horrifying sight greeted them.

The rear windshield was completely shattered, and the trunk was badly caved in. Zheng Xiaofeng was embedded in the sheet metal, covered in blood, a gruesome sight.

With that much blood loss, an ordinary Sequence transcendent would already have died.

Yet Zheng Xiaofeng's eyes were still darting around as he groaned, all but crying out in pain.

Yang Yong was shocked. The armor sequence's defense was actually this absurd?

Sequence One stone armor could actually withstand a punch from the treant?

Cao Xianming raised his hand and swept the data model in his palm over Zheng Xiaofeng. Pale blue light enveloped him, seemingly collecting samples.

Yang Yong was surprised.

He had not expected Cao Xianming to gain a scanning function after advancing to Sequence Two Analyst.

Sure enough, every kind of Sequence Transcendence had something incredible about it.

This data analyst sequence would probably evolve into a supercomputer in the end.

Of course, that was only how things appeared on the surface.

That sneaky bastard Cao Xianming was definitely hiding plenty of secrets.

Yang Yong could not be bothered to ask, either.

Everyone had their own trump cards, just as he would never let everyone know about his Thousand-Hammer, Hundred-Refinement Furnace.

Thirty seconds later, Cao Xianming withdrew his hand and said mildly, "A comminuted fracture in his right arm and three broken ribs. Everything else is superficial. Nothing serious."

He waggled his eyebrows at Zheng Xiaofeng. "The armorer sequence really is absurd. Sequence One stone armor actually withstood a punch from that treant. Still, this really is a blessing in disguise for you. Heh heh."

Zheng Xiaofeng forced an ugly smile and groaned out a question. "Wh-what do you mean, fortune favors fools?"

Cao Xianming raised his hand, and the data model in his palm transformed into a panel displaying several lines of text.

Zheng Xiaofeng lay there unable to move and could not see it at all.

"Never mind. I'll read it to you."

Cao Xianming cleared his throat and spoke slowly. "I've worked out how to advance the armorer sequence. Find someone to break your armor, layer by layer. Each time it's broken, the armor you form next time will be stronger."

He gave a devilish smile and patted Zheng Xiaofeng's shoulder. "You'd better prepare yourself mentally. From now on, you're our team's dedicated punching bag. Even when there's no danger, you'll have to seek it out yourself and take a beating. The more beatings you take, the faster your armor evolves. This ability has no other path of advancement. You can only keep taking hits and pushing past your limits until you forge the strongest armor."

Cao Xianming continued explaining. "According to my deductions, the core of the armorer sequence is a mass of life-bound liquid. This liquid can form armor corresponding to your level. Every time the armor breaks, that liquid is being tempered. The armor you form next time will have greatly increased hardness and defensive power."

Zheng Xiaofeng had awakened the armorer sequence without understanding how, and he knew nothing about how to advance it.

Now, after hearing Cao Xianming's explanation, he could not help feeling excited, even though he only half understood.

Old Cao was incredible. He could actually deduce the secrets of my sequence!

Cao Xianming instructed the survivor driving the vehicle, "Don't disturb him. Armorsmiths have extremely strong self-healing abilities. Give him some time, and he'll recover on his own."

The survivor nodded in acknowledgment and stood guard beside the vehicle.

The two then walked over to Wang Ying's off-road vehicle. Wang Ying was still slumped on the roof, her face pale. Clearly, that slash had drained almost all her strength.

But the power of that slash had been truly terrifying.

It had actually sliced a chunk of "flesh" off the treant's calf!

Sequence Transcendence was terrifying indeed!

Yang Yong thought to himself.

With Wang Ying's strength, she was probably firmly in Sequence Two already, right?

She had been the convoy's strongest fighter before, and now she deserved that title all the more.

Cao Xianming raised his hand to scan her as well. After the pale blue light faded, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"She's not injured, just exhausted. She'll be fine after some rest."

This was wonderful news.

Breaking out of that Small World did not mean they were out of danger. They were merely rid of that sort of overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

Back in the real world, Eerie and Sequence transcendents still roamed. Having Wang Ying's combat strength gave the team another layer of protection.

The convoy's manager, Lao Zhang, and his assistant, Xiao Ma, were busy counting heads-or, more precisely, counting the survivors on the bus.

There had originally been around fifty people on the bus. After this ordeal, especially the two battles at Coffin Village and Coffin Temple, a dozen or so had died, leaving only thirty-four.

The entire convoy had only forty people left.

Compared with losing the entire convoy in the Small World, this outcome was already extraordinarily fortunate.

Soon, Xiao Ma finished taking stock of the supplies as well and hurried over to Cao Xianming with a grave expression.

"Captain Cao, the convoy is critically short on fuel. The fuel in all our vehicles will last another two days at most. We need to find somewhere to collect fuel as soon as possible."

Apart from Yang Yong's bus, which could run on the One-Yang God-Sealing Banner, every vehicle needed fuel.

Cao Xianming looked at Yang Yong with a hint of anticipation in his eyes.

"That thing you use to power your vehicle-could you make a few more?"

He meant the metal token from before, which was now the One-Yang God-Sealing Banner.