Train Survival: You're really trying to survive!

After inspecting the new carriage, Su Li was very satisfied, except that the place was a bit small.

"Sigh, people, when they don't have a house, they think a hamster cage is fine, but once they have a hamster cage, they complain that it's too small. They don't know how to be content."

Zurich made a seemingly casual remark, which amused Sofia, who was maintaining her old-fashioned rifle.

Just then, Ivan ran over, "Brother Su, the blueprints are bought!"

As he spoke, he took out four blueprints.

[Basic Chemical Workbench Blueprint: 100 Survival Coins] [Battery Blueprint: 50 Survival Coins] [Basic Workbench: 100 Survival Coins] [Basic Enchanting Workbench: 200 Survival Coins]

These were all unlocked this time after I came back. The shop won't unlock the recipe selling privileges until the locomotive level is reached a certain level.

Su Li picked up the blueprints and learned all of them.

The [Basic Chemical Workbench Blueprint] requires a [Basic Workbench] to craft, and the material used is gold ingots, which cannot be crafted at the moment.

The [Basic Workbench] can be upgraded from the Basic Workbench, but it also requires gold ingots and cannot be made.

The basic workbench has an upgrade branch: the [Basic Enchanting Workbench]. The Enchanting Workbench is mainly used for crafting higher-level materials or dismantling lower-level materials. It's not essential, but it's very convenient.

The basic enchanting workbench requires 5 of each of the 5 elemental shards, more than the basic workbench. I need to stockpile these for now, and since I'm not in a rush to use them, I haven't built one in Zuli yet.

Batteries are materials used for upgrading trains.

[Consumables: 5 Iron Ingots, 1 Electrolyte, 2 Gold Ingots]

The electrolyte requires a chemical workbench, but no formula is needed; the workbench comes with it. All you need is some sulfur ore and water.

Plastics also require a chemical processing platform; all that's needed is resin to be processed into plastics.

"So now the progress is stuck, completely blocked by this chemical processing platform." Su Li pinched her brow in exasperation. "And the rifle bullets we bought earlier require general-purpose gunpowder, which requires saltpeter and cotton to make."

Gold ore, nitrate ore, and sulfur ore are the next three targets for collection.

As for iron ore and copper ore, we don't really need them for the time being. Several thousand units are enough for a while.

"We need to choose our world carefully," Su Li sighed.

But who can predict the choices this world will make? It all comes down to luck.

“I asked in the chat room, and someone said that in a world with an energy level of 0.7, they’ve found gold and nitrate mines.” Sophia suddenly said, “We’ve dug up so many ore deposits, but we haven’t seen a single gold mine, nitrate mine, or sulfur mine. I think it might be a limitation of the world’s energy level.”

“That makes sense,” Su Li nodded in agreement. “Many of the mines in this world look very unnatural. You encounter mines every few steps in the caves. In the normal world, apart from mines, where would you find such a dense concentration of mines? It’s clearly a resource point created by the system.”

"So you mean we have to choose a world with a relatively high energy level? Won't that be a bit dangerous?" Ivan asked.

"We have no choice but to give it our all. Take a look at the leaderboard."

Ivan opened the leaderboard. The top 5 were already level 8, and the sixth-ranked player was a little higher than their train level, at level 4.

"Who knows when this group of people will reach level 11 and enter a new era. If the game is updated again then, the random worlds might all be level 1 or higher, and every wild creature we encounter will be a monster. We might as well just wait to die."

Su Li muttered resentfully, "I wonder how many people are still alive on the entire planet Earth..."

Anyway, their chat channel originally had 10 members, but now it only has a little over 1 members, and they're about to merge servers again.

In this wave, Su Li also sold a lot of materials to exchange for survival coins.

Stone, wood, iron ingots, crystal shards, whole crystals, cracked crystal fragments, and copper ingots were all sold in quantities of 100 each. Even so, there's still a 300-point survival coin shortage.

Su Li had no choice but to reluctantly sell six of the gems she had been hoarding in order to finally balance her accounts.

After completing their enhancement efforts, they had consumed a significant amount of their supplies.

Currently, we have 1062 wood, 3739 iron ingots, 2632 copper ingots, 3538 stone, 294 silver ingots, and only 5 fire element fragments, 11 earth element fragments, and 9 gold element fragments left.

A lot of broken crystals were used up this time, and there are still 307 left. Because the plantation needs a lot of glass, and glass can only be made from quartz and crystal, Zuli is short of quartz. Fortunately, broken crystals can replace quartz.

Su Li had considered exchanging crystals at the trading market, but unfortunately, there were very few vendors selling them. Su Li also didn't have the time to camp out at the market and buy everything; she'd rather spend that time training or memorizing the crystal encyclopedia. Having fewer people meant having a smaller market.

At 6 o'clock, a constantly rotating vortex appeared in front of the train platform.

Zuli and the others boarded the train, and the train started moving.

"Woo~"

The whistle sounded, and the train chugged off the platform and into the vortex.

Su Li opened the control panel and began to view the five worlds she had drawn this time.

The first vortex, from the previous world: Howling Valley.

The second vortex contained a large amount of mist and towering buildings faintly visible within it.

The third vortex was a rotting claw with a bullet hole in it.

The fourth vortex emitted spores from numerous mushrooms.

The fifth vortex, with strangely shaped birds and clouds.

"Start the election! Start the election!"

The three of them examined the pattern of the vortex together.

Su Li said decisively, "First, let's rule out the third one. Someone chose something similar in the last world, a zombie world. Getting infected just by touching someone is too risky!"

"We have magical powers, making us stronger and more immune, but we're not immune to zombie infection yet. If we get caught, we'll have to search everywhere for antibiotics and special medicines, and in that constant running around, we won't be able to develop properly."

“Let’s rule out the fifth one too. What if birds and clouds are in the air?” Sofia said worriedly. “None of us can fly; being in the air would be too restrictive.”

“…If it’s in the air, then the energy level here must be very high. I think it’s worth considering.” Su Li carefully observed the strange bird in the vortex. After looking at it for a while, the more she looked, the more familiar it seemed. Finally, she cursed loudly, “Holy crap! A Light-Swept Bird! Pass, pass, this difficulty is too high!”

The Light-Glittering Bird—Zu Li had seen it in the encyclopedia. It's about the size of a hummingbird, a carnivorous bird that lives in flocks. It can spit light projectiles. There are many of them, they're not to be trifled with, and they even have some optical camouflage. It's like a flying, invisible piranha—sounds really sinister.

Importantly, this bird has a symbiotic relationship with a bird called the Mirror Bird. They live under the Mirror Bird's feathers, help the Mirror Bird attack other magical beasts, and eat the Mirror Bird's leftovers.

I won't go into too much detail, but in short, these two combined make them among the top 100 most difficult monsters to deal with in the beginner monster encyclopedia.

The monster encyclopedia contains tens of thousands of monsters!

Su Li and her group don't have the ability to inflict widespread damage, so when they encounter this kind of situation, they can just type "gg" amidst laughter and cheers.

Su Li concluded, "In short, listen to me, even if you choose the zombie world, don't choose this cloud world."

"So, the Mist World and the Spore World?" Ivan looked at the two small options, somewhat distressed. "The Mist, the Spore World... we don't know if they're poisonous. We don't have any protective gear like masks. Are we really going to choose Howling Valley again?"

Su Li pondered for a moment, then shook her head. "...No, we can't choose Howling Valley again. We won't get anything good from there. The nearest nest is more than we can reach in seven days."

"The most valuable thing in that world is the low-grade magic energy crystals in the lair. If we choose Howling Valley, we have to travel back and forth like crazy this week, and then choose this world again next week before we can come to another lair to kill monsters and mine."

"The most valuable thing we gained from the two opportunities to choose the world was a low-grade magic crystal. It's not worth it. We must speed up our development now. Those people are almost level 11."

Sofia said, "Since there's a possibility of poisoning anyway, let's think about where we can maximize our profits."

"One is a city shrouded in mist, the other is a spore jungle. The most valuable things in the spore jungle should be various herbs and food, right? Maybe there are also mines. We're relatively short of wood element fragments, and the jungle should have more of them."

"In the misty city, we might be able to directly obtain some modern products, such as refrigerators, generators, or even finished products like nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and batteries."

Su Li thought about it for a moment and felt it made a lot of sense. "Let's choose the Misty World. We can trade wood element fragments with others! If that doesn't work, we can just buy them from the store. Nitric acid and sulfuric acid should be easy to find in the factory. We should also be able to get some electronic components in the city world, which are also very rare resources."

Neither the siblings had any objections.

After Zuli chose the Mist, the remaining four worlds all disappeared. Only the Mist World remained, like a gaping maw, waiting for explorers to enter.

Su Li nervously swallowed, then moved forward.

The train plunged into the vortex. After a period of darkness, Zurich noticed a thin mist outside the window.

You have entered a new world.

【City of Mist】

Current global energy level: 0.8

Challenge Level: 1

Su Li leaned closer to the window and looked outside.

The train was traveling through a street shrouded in a layer of fog about two stories high. The fog wasn't too thick yet, and thanks to his excellent eyesight, Su Li could still see what was happening outside.

Su Li looked up, her eyes widened, and she blurted out "Holy crap!"