MDT Chapter 241 (Patreon)

Chapter 241: A Good Product is One That the People Can Afford!

"Correct."

Chen Mang stated flatly, his face expressionless. "28.371 million meters minus 280,000 meters equals 28.091 million meters, not 371,000."

"It was a humorous joke, Train Captain."

"Not humorous in the slightest."

"Understood. I will continue my studies."

The brilliant plan died moments after its conception. A Level 100 Drill could penetrate a maximum depth of 280,000 meters, and there was no telling how long that would take—its speed would decay constantly. To reach the Earth's core, even a Level 1000 Drill probably wouldn't cut it.

And that was just the drill.

It didn't account for other factors—whether the train could withstand such intense pressure, or the temperature of the core.

The idea was a non-starter.

He'd have to wait for this transaction to finish, then hunt for Level 4 Iron Ore or follow the Train Tunnel to Mechanical City and see what opportunities waited there.

…..

"Hmm."

In the Steel Dragon parked beside the Stellar, the man with the black dragon tattoo stroked his arm, his expression complicated as he stared at the distant train.

Getting too personal with new acquaintances was a major taboo.

Boss Mang had been vague about many things, so naturally, they wouldn't reveal details about their own assets.

Like his tattoo.

It wasn't something he'd gotten before the apocalypse, but after. A special item.

His ace in the hole—something he couldn't tell anyone. He was currently mining that Level 1 Iron Ore mine, but in reality, he'd completed that S-rank Encounter Mission long ago and already received the reward. He'd vaguely hinted as much to Boss Mang. The only reason he was still buying a mine was to show support.

After all, he'd seen that not many people were buying and worried Boss Mang would be embarrassed, so he'd bought one.

But just now, he'd watched Boss Mang carry a fuzzy toy off the train, set it aside, and after a round of autocannon fire, the plush doll remained completely unscathed.

If he wasn't mistaken, it was definitely another special item.

The Stellar was hiding a lot more than he was.

At the very least, the white gloves Boss Mang wore, the cane in his hand, the badge on his chest—those had to be special items. The man was practically stuffed with them. How many encounter maps did he have to clear to get that many things?

Did he not mine at all?

And this method of creating Level 1 Iron Ore—where did that come from? Was it the effect of an accessory?

If he could create Level 1 Iron Ore, he should be able to create higher-level ore, right?

A strange light flickered in his eyes. To be honest, if reason hadn't held him back, he really wanted to try a sneak attack to see if he could instantly kill Boss Mang and take over the Stellar.

But reason told him that if he made a move, he'd most likely be the one to die.

…..

At that moment, inside the control car, Chen Mang's eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the message still pinned to the top of the Train Radio.

“Level 10 Mechanical Train, The Stellar”: Selling mining rights for Level 1 Iron Ore.. Complete mines, clear title. Only 3 mines are available. First-come, first-served, highest bidder wins!

There was nothing wrong with the sentence itself.

There was nothing wrong with his business either, but there just weren't many customers.

He'd thought of two ideas at the time.

First: directly sell the special item "Drill Sizing Order," which would lock in a portion of the customer base. Customers who needed it would definitely buy, but most wouldn't.

Second: directly sell an unknown S-rank reward, using the S-rank difficulty mission as an endorsement to sell the expectation, which would attract more customers.

But just now, a third idea had hit him—inspiration from seeing the upgrade conditions for a Level 11 train.

He still remembered that one of the conditions for upgrading to a Level 10 train was completing a B-rank difficulty mission. Any mission would do—encounter map, class change, whatever. But that one condition alone had stopped many people.

After all, B-rank difficulty wasn't easy to complete.

A Level 10 train was a watershed, holding back all those high-level but shallow-foundation trains.

His third idea? Create demand.

Who knew if future train upgrades would require completing an S-rank difficulty mission?

With precedent set, it wasn't impossible.

And S-rank difficulty missions, whether in encounter maps or class changes, were brutally hard to complete. Few people could do it.

But here, for just 1.5 million units of Iron Ore, you could complete an S-rank difficulty mission, securing a future guarantee to avoid getting stuck, plus get the reward from an S-rank Encounter Mission.

Wasn't that tempting enough?

He immediately reposted the advertisement.

The effect was instantaneous.

In just minutes, four or five more Train Captains said they were heading to his coordinates, but it still wasn't the explosive response he'd imagined.

"Damn."

Chen Mang frowned. Wasn't this a good deal?

1.5 million units of Iron Ore for an unknown S-rank Encounter Mission and a future guarantee—wasn't it worth it? If it were him, he'd buy it in a heartbeat.

A few minutes later, he silently lit a cigarette. He understood now. The demand was there, but the market wasn't.

That Encounter Mission was public. Each train could only accept it once. Many trains had already accepted this mission long ago. Even if they wanted to buy, they weren't qualified.

Fine.

After these four or five Train Captains arrived and paid, he'd make about 10 million. Not bad.

10 million units of Iron Ore was actually a lot. Before coming to Crisis Valley, that amount would've crushed him. It was just that his deficit was too massive now. He needed Iron Ore in too many places, and it just wasn't enough.

Level 12 Armor didn't give him enough peace of mind. He needed Level 13 Armor to feel safe.

……

One day later, the Stellar was once again tearing across the wasteland of Crisis Valley. The transactions were complete. The five Train Captains who came later had all accepted the mission before arriving. Another 7.5 million units of Iron Ore sat in his account.

After all deliveries were done, he parted ways with them and began speeding across the wasteland, searching for Level 4 Iron Ore.

He was starting to look down on Level 3 Iron Ore. If he really couldn't find a Level 4 mine, he'd consider Level 3. After all, the output of a Level 3 mine was basically around two million.

Two million Iron Ore, for a train, could only be described as a drop in the bucket.

Not enough to quench his thirst, let alone fill his stomach.

The train drove on autopilot.

By now, the sky had darkened again. In the night, the Stellar sped along while Chen Mang leaned back in his chair, feet propped on the control console, examining the list in his hand.

Lao Zhu stood to the side, reporting.

"Boss Mang, this is all the information we confiscated from Lord Shen's train."

"Mm."

Chen Mang carefully studied the list.

5.634 million units of Iron Ore, 3.58 million units of Copper Ore, 120,000 units of Wood. Various living supplies. Over 1,200 survivors.

"Not bad."

The amount of Iron Ore wasn't small. Including this batch and the Iron Ore from the Solar Panel yesterday, the train now had a total of 25.01 million units.

He was finally back above the 20 million mark.

With this much Iron Ore, he could do a lot.

When he'd attacked Lord Shen's train, he'd used Level 13 shells.

Level 13 shells were expensive.

The manufacturing cost of one Level 9 shell for the Doomsday Autocannon was 700 units of Copper Ore. Level 10: 1,000 units. Level 11: 1,500 units. Level 12: 2,000 units. Level 13: 2,500 units.

One shell cost 2,500 units of Copper Ore, meaning a few shells could wipe out a Level 1 copper mine.

But he had the Advanced Effect that halved consumption three times.

So the price of one Level 13 shell was only 312.5 units of Copper Ore.

Acceptable.

His Doomsday Autocannon was Level 20 and had three Advanced Effects. Others basically only had two. If they upgraded to Level 13, the price of one Level 13 shell should be 625 units of Copper Ore.

That wasn't too expensive either.

This was why many people used Mofei Stones to upgrade their Doomsday Autocannons.

Because among all the firepower accessories, the Doomsday Autocannon was definitely not the most powerful, but it was definitely the one everyone could afford to use.

What makes a good product?

A good product is one that people can afford to use.

He'd fired more than two thousand shells at that time, directly burning through 750,000 units of Copper Ore in one go.

He'd had to show his power. There was no time to be stingy.

But he'd confiscated another 3.58 million units of Copper Ore, not only completely recouping his losses but also making a considerable profit. In these times, being frugal was good, but dying with money unspent? That was a bit tragic.

And so, the total resources on the train panel had reached a rather plump state.

25.01 million units of Iron Ore. 4.65 million units of Copper Ore. 2.57 million units of Wood. 4.48 million units of Crimson Heart Ore.

The only pity? There were no Mofei Stones or Blueprints on that guy's train. He didn't seem stupid—he'd use such things as soon as he got them and had no intention of saving them. So Chen Mang got nothing.

"There were some special items," Lao Zhu explained. "But right before he ejected, he took all those special items with him, then self-destructed in the Refrigerator, blowing them all to bits."

"And the man himself died?"

"No, he got away. He's fine. Uncle Li requested to have him, said he wanted to recycle the waste and use him for some experiments—that Zombie Spawner I mentioned to you last time, Boss Mang."

"Mm."

Chen Mang's eyes narrowed. Lao Zhu had mentioned this before. "Keep an eye on Uncle Li's work. If he can really make that thing, and the refresh rate isn't low, give him Tier 1 High-Level Talent Treatment."

"What?"

Shock flickered across Lao Zhu's eyes, and he almost blurted out, "Is that thing really that useful to the train?"

Currently, only three people on the train enjoyed Tier 1 High-Level Talent Treatment: himself, Biaozi, and Mundo.

He'd always thought Uncle Li's idea was impressive, but he hadn't expected it to be worth Tier 1 High-Level Talent Treatment. Back when Mundo brought back so much Iron Ore, and it was clear he could earn much more in the future, Boss Mang had only given him Tier 1 High-Level Talent Treatment.

Was the Zombie Spawner worth it?

"Very useful," Chen Mang said, looking at Lao Zhu with a smile. "But I don't think there's much hope of it succeeding. The formation of zombies is more complicated than you think. Xiao Ai, go tell Uncle Li about what we discovered in the laboratory later."

"Yes."

Zombies were divided into three types.

One was the zombies from the insectoid monsters. One was the zombies formed from Core Energy. One was the ancient zombies.

The first two were more common, the latter rarer and often appeared as a boss.

The first type wasn't worth mentioning—it didn't have much significance.

But if the zombies formed from Core Energy could be mass-produced, what would that be equivalent to? Equivalent to if you put a Juicer and a Converter after this Zombie Spawner, then wasn't that a Cosmic Receiver?

Was there any difference between absorbing Core Energy from the universe and extracting Core Energy from zombies?

No difference at all.

Both were three steps: absorb, compress, convert.

It was just that, although the zombies formed from Core Energy had gender distinctions, strictly speaking, they couldn't even be considered living beings. Making them reproduce was a bit of a fantasy. But he'd discovered that Uncle Li's progress wasn't bad—he'd even managed to make a zombie feel something for the opposite sex.

That was a breakthrough.

Worth a shot.

"Keep an eye on Uncle Li from now on. If he needs any materials or other things for his experiments, the train will pay for it. Don't let him pay out of his own pocket. The train can afford it."

"Although the probability of success isn't high, the train is developing. This thriving atmosphere is what I hope to see. At least everyone has drive, their own goals, and wants the train to become better. If everyone on the train were lifeless, then the train would be on the verge of collapse, which means everyone is extremely pessimistic about the future."

"Having ideas is a good thing."

"Try not to restrain the ideas of those below you too much. In the apocalypse, there are no absolutely correct answers. Too much restraint will only suppress the birth of imagination."

"Whether it succeeds or not, try more, encourage more."

"Understand?"

"Understood." Lao Zhu nodded with a serious expression. "Boss Mang, don't worry. I know what to do."

"Mm, alright, you can go."

Only after Lao Zhu left did Chen Mang look at the screen on the control console. Since he had enough Iron Ore, he'd upgrade first. Armor first.

The next moment, in Carriage #3, countless pieces of Iron Ore stored in the Refrigerators instantly shattered into white points of light and merged into the carriage. In an instant, the Iron Ore stored in several Refrigerators was emptied.

16 million units of Iron Ore vanished in an instant.

After consuming 16 million units of Iron Ore, the train's Armor finally reached Level 13.

Level 13 Armor.

In the entire Crisis Valley, it was absolutely one of a kind.

"Good."

Chen Mang nodded with satisfaction. He felt much safer now, but if he could have Level 14 Armor, that would be even better.

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