["What rotten luck. My first station was a ruined shack—nothing but trash and more trash. My second was a damn mud pit. The smell was enough to kill a man; I didn't even dare step outside!"]
["At least you didn't run into monsters. I was chased by a pack of wild boars the whole time. They almost flipped my train! Now I've got huge holes in the side; if the departure timer hadn't saved me, I'd be history."]
["Selling one piece of scavenger vulture leg meat. Trading for drinking water only!"]
["I was too scared to get off at the first stop, and too scared for the second... Hearing you guys talk, I don't think I'm ever getting off at the third..."]
["If you don't get off, aren't you just waiting to die? Do you even have food left?"]
Not everyone was like Ethan Ye—starting with an early Sublimation to upgrade the engine, followed by the "Crossroads of Fate" module that allowed him to choose his destiny based on station levels and suffixes to bypass the worst dangers.
After lurking in the chat for a while, Ethan noted his docking countdown was nearing its end. He suddenly remembered the External Waste Collector he had left running.
Four hours. He wondered if it had found anything at all. In Ethan's mind, if the little guy had managed to scrounge up even ten kilograms of timber from this White Forest, he'd consider it a win. He hadn't let his hopes get high.
[Level 3 Treasure Chest: Openable]
Wait, what?
He rubbed his eyes. Maybe he'd stood up too fast. He looked again.
"Holy crap!"
The other items in the recovery bin were, by all definitions, junk. But nestled among the refuse, a grey-white wooden square box was radiating a brilliance that outshone everything else.
A treasure chest! And a Level 3 one at that!
He had considered the possibility of a chest existing in the White Forest, but the area was massive. Aside from the path to the orchard, Ethan hadn't dared to venture too deep into the woods for fear of getting lost and missing his train. He had essentially written off the idea of finding one.
Who would have thought? This little cuboid robot he'd looked down on had actually dragged a regional treasure chest back to the train!
Ethan's gaze toward the clunky, boxy machine shifted instantly to one of deep appreciation. He reached out and patted its square head.
"That's my boy. Spending all those resources on the recovery station was clearly the right move."
If the little robot had a face, it would undoubtedly be wearing an expression of pure disdain. After all, its master had just spent the last few hours openly radiating disappointment toward it. Humans truly were the most fickle of creatures.
Suppressing the urge to open it immediately, Ethan pressed his hand against the lid. A Level 3 chest, after Sublimation, would become Level 4. By logic, that meant a guaranteed eight Train Coins plus other Level 4 rare items.
[Stamina: 45][Spirit: 92]
"Sublimation. Sublimation."
Ethan began the process with a grin. Stamina flowed out, followed closely by Spirit. When the invisible force dissipated, the wooden box—much like the folder before it—remained outwardly unchanged.
[Level 4 Treasure Chest: Openable]
[Stamina: 20][Spirit: 62]
His body felt heavy, but his Spirit was in a state of high-octane excitement. Ethan rubbed his hands together, his eyes burning with greed.
"Hehehe, let's see what's inside."
Creak—
[Opened Level 4 Treasure Chest] [Obtained Train Coins: 8] [Obtained: External Sentry Device (Level 4)] [Obtained: White Forest Fruit Tree Seeds] [Obtained: Train Paint (Ashen-White)] [Obtained: High-Grade Ceramic Plate Bulletproof Vest]
"A Level 4 construction? If the people in the chat room found out about this, they'd die of envy," Ethan muttered to himself. He had no intention of bragging, though. Showing off only invited jealousy and spite; he just needed to mind his own business.
However, he couldn't sublimate this Level 4 device yet. It wasn't a lack of potential, but rather that his total combined Stamina and Spirit didn't seem enough to meet the cost.
"It looks like Level 4 is a major threshold."
[External Sentry Lookout Device] [Can be installed on top of any carriage. Can be equipped with any ranged weapon.] [Post-Installation: Enables automatic sentry fire, attacking hostile threats within a 100-meter visual range. Automatically locks onto targets and pierces visual obstructions like camouflage, invisibility, or illusions.] [Note: If damaged, can be repaired using Machine Parts.]
"Incredible. Level 4 chests really are on a different level."
He installed the sentry tower atop the engine. From the outside, it appeared as a circular, tiered object. When the auto-sentry mode was toggled on, a red orb of light began to rotate 360 degrees within the tier. Ethan had six rifles left; excluding his own sublimated one, he slotted the remaining five into the sentry tower's weapon rack.
"Can you really grow trees inside a train car?"
He scratched his head while looking at the remaining rewards.
[White Forest Fruit Tree Seeds] (Level 3 Plant) [Requires specific ashen-white soil from the White Forest for planting.] [10 days to sprout, 10 days to mature, 10 days to bear fruit.] [Consumes 0.5kg of fresh water daily.]
Half a kilogram of water a day? Very few people would have the capacity to farm right now, but Ethan happened to be one of them. The thirty-day growth cycle was a bit long, though. Regardless of whether he could actually grow them, the seeds reminded him that the soil here was a resource in itself. He had no reason not to take some.
Besides, he could always sublimate the seeds once his Stamina recovered.
Docking Countdown: [0:03:21]
He filled several wooden crates with the ashen-white soil. In the final minutes before departure, Ethan deactivated the recovery station, patted the robot's head, and tossed the rest of the forest junk into the Processing Table. It wasn't much, but it netted him twelve kilograms of wood, some leaves, and stones.
To his surprise, even the leaves weren't entirely useless.
[White Leaves] (Level 1): Can be used to craft white pigment. [White Stones] (Level 1): Can be used to craft white pigment.
"Everything in this forest really is obsessed with the color white."
"Good job, little guy. Once I've rested, you're the next thing I'm sublimating."
He patted the robot again. The countdown hit zero.
The train lurched. A slight sensation of being pushed back into his seat hit Ethan as he watched the white forest recede through the window. After a brief passage through the void, the ashen light vanished, replaced by the familiar, endless wasteland.
"I'm back."
Ethan stretched his limbs and opened the chat room, noticing a faint glimmer on his private message tab. Someone had sent him a message. Private message alerts only triggered for added friends; regular DMs didn't ping.
That meant there was only one person it could be.
Shangguan Yingxue: ["Do you still need water?"]