Train Survival: You're really trying to survive!

If this were a world suitable for human habitation, Su Li would be wary of a potential explosion. The methane concentration in the air had already exceeded the explosive limit; even a tiny static spark could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction. He instinctively began to worry that the friction between the train wheels and the tracks might cause an explosion.

However, this was a world without oxygen, a realization that eased Su Li's tense nerves slightly. Without oxidants, these abundant hydrocarbons wouldn't pose any major problems for them, like a snake with its fangs removed—seemingly dangerous but actually harmless.

On the contrary, the energy gatherer inside the energy chamber enjoyed the meal, and the barnacle shells on the outside of the train opened, revealing the energy gatherer's organs exposed on the train's surface.

Its biomimetic gill-like structure, covering its surface, fully extends, greedily inhaling and exhaling high concentrations of methane. Large amounts of methane are absorbed into its body, where tens of thousands of nanoscale catalytic enzymes work efficiently to break down methane molecules and generate electricity. The surrounding energy storage batteries expand at a visible rate, and beneath the translucent shell, ionized helium gas emits a faint blue fluorescence under high pressure, much like a neon light.

After confirming that there was no threat from the outside air, Su Li led her team out of the train.

Su Li stepped onto the gel surface first, and the sensation from the soles of his boots made him frown slightly—the physical properties of the ground had changed significantly compared to three hours ago. Each step left a clear footprint on the semi-solid gel surface, and when he lifted his foot, he could feel a noticeable stickiness, like walking on jelly that had just been coated with glue.

“I saw bubbles rising on the ground, so I thought it would become very soft.” Sun Lili did a standard standing long jump on the gel, and when she landed, a ripple spread across the surface of the gel. “But it became more elastic.”

Zuli jumped onto the top of the train and surveyed the surrounding area. "The area bubbling isn't very wide. It's only about one hectare. Outside of that area, everything is normal."

Su Li took out a thermometer and recorded the temperature of the gel under her feet. "The temperature has reached 137 degrees Celsius. Let me record this. When the temperature reaches this standard, some terrain features will experience bubbling. This sun is too scorching. It's hotter than I expected."

This discovery made Su Li secretly wary. In the heat of battle, suddenly losing footing could severely disrupt the rhythm of the fight. He imagined the terrifying scenario of losing his balance while dodging a giant creature due to the liquefied ground.

Song Mingyu walked to the bubble, collected some gas from it, tested it, and then said, "There is some special magical energy in the bubble that can interact with the magical energy in the gel. That's why these bubbles can emerge from under the gel."

After thinking for a moment, Su Li asked Sophia, "Could you and Sister Mingyu study this special magical energy together?"

Sofia gave an OK sign.

After checking the bubbles, Su Li collected some flying insects from the sky. As for the few friendly burrowing insects, Su Li hesitated for a second before decisively wiping them all out.

Anyway, there's no animal rights movement in this other world.

After killing all the insects, we also learned their names.

The flying insect is called the crystal-winged beetle, and the burrowing insect is called the crystal-bone worm.

Back on the train, Zurich started the train.

The train traveled along the tracks, the resonance of which reached the ground, startling various animals hunting underground. Every now and then, strange creatures would emerge from the ground to take cover in the air. There were transparent manta rays with wingspans exceeding three meters, serpentine creatures with heads covered in crystal spikes, and unknown life forms that could change shape at will, like liquid metal. Together, they created a surreal ecological panorama.

After observing for a while, Zuli also discovered the evolutionary trend of the creatures in this world.

Their bodies are generally transparent, with a crystalline skeleton inside. Their shells are mostly streamlined, with very few sharp edges except for the head.

Furthermore, the creatures in these places are mostly insects.

The train continued its journey for over an hour and finally arrived at its destination, which was the dark landscape on the map.

I got off the bus again, and this time, the smell outside had changed again.

In the green gel area, Zurich smelled the stench of decaying organisms; here, the odor was even more pungent.

Su Li recalled the smell for a moment, then suddenly realized, "This familiar smell... isn't this asphalt?"

When he was in his senior year of high school, there was road construction outside the school, and his class smelled asphalt for a whole week. The dormitory was always filled with that smell when they slept, it was so familiar.

"I remember learning in school that asphalt is formed from organic matter in an oxygen-free, high-temperature and high-pressure environment."

Zuli gazed at the vast asphalt river. It was an endless ocean of asphalt, its surface constantly churning with viscous bubbles, shimmering with an oily, iridescent glow under the illumination of the binary star system.

"The material rising from underground carried a strong stench of decay, along with the large amounts of asphalt rivers that had appeared..."

Su Li thought for a moment, then shared her guess with everyone: "Do you think we're on a giant corpse? The gel plains of this world are decomposed soft tissue, and this asphalt is decaying fat and protein."

This conjecture immediately startled everyone.

Ivan's throat was a little dry. "Such a large area, and it even has a gravitational pull of 0.8g due to its own weight. What an enormous corpse that must be..."

Song Mingyu refuted this idea: "That's inaccurate. Perhaps this world was once a very prosperous world, and it took tens of millions of years to accumulate a large amount of biomass underground."

"For a planet, tens of millions of years is nothing. Earth also had a long period of time without oxygen, frozen for 7 million years."

The outdoor temperature had already exceeded 80 degrees Celsius. The sunlight from the two suns shone on the asphalt surface, making the temperature extremely high. A large amount of asphalt, which had been viscous, completely liquefied, forming a real river.

Sun Lili covered her forehead speechlessly, "I don't even know how to collect supplies in this world. There's asphalt and gel everywhere."

Su Li was also helpless. "Aren't there still patches of various colors? Let's go take a look over there. If there's really no other way, we'll find some monsters to fight. This was originally just rehabilitation, a warm-up for returning to the world of evil gods next time."

Ivan suddenly interjected, "We've detected a huge ripple underground. Something's coming!"