MDT Chapter 242 (Patreon)

Chapter 242: The Merit of an Original Follower

If he could have Level 14 Armor, he'd feel even safer.

But he'd forget about it for now. He didn't have that much Iron Ore. Once the train's expansion was complete, though, he still planned to upgrade the Armor first.

Back in the green region, everyone's firepower accessories were blue or yellow, capable of being upgraded to Level 5 or 8 at most. His armor had been more than enough. Now, in Crisis Valley, everyone had red-grade accessories that could be upgraded to Level 10 or higher.

It made him feel completely exposed.

The cost of upgrading those firepower accessories was much lower than the cost of upgrading his defensive ones.

He glanced at his Iron Ore balance—9.01 million units. He'd see if he could find a Level 4 Iron Ore mine tonight. The Cosmic Receiver had already begun producing Level 4 Iron Ore.

As for the few ordinary carriages that had been manufactured, he'd already devoured them. The Level 100 Carriage Blade Fragments that came with them were also collected and stored in a Refrigerator in the control car.

They'd serve as ammunition for the next Myriad Swords.

This thing—setting aside its power, its effect was just plain cool. More importantly, it was a unique method that other Train Captains couldn't replicate.

As for the 1,200 survivors, with the new additions, the train's population had shot up to over 6,500.

Another surge.

In truth, the train no longer had a shortage of miners. Not at all. As the level of iron ore increased, a single mine no longer required many people to excavate a significant amount of ore.

At this point, the number of mines determined the train's acquisition of iron ore, not the number of survivors.

But he still took these people in. After all, according to the plan in his mind, he'd need many employees in the future to maintain his Neon City.

Same old rules: starve them in a Refrigerator for three days.

For the train, feeding an extra thousand-plus mouths wasn't a significant burden, but for the people below, it meant the path to promotion had narrowed considerably.

The initial batch of residents with numbers in the 1000s had their status promoted incredibly fast. They woke up, mined, and were extremely content. Their promotions came at lightning speed.

For the batch of residents after number 4000, it was truly a case of too many wolves and not enough meat. There simply weren't that many mines for them to dig.

The good news? They had more rest time. The bad news? The promotion channel seemed to be closed.

"Time for sleep."

Chen Mang stood up and stretched. After washing up in the adjacent Refrigerator-bathroom, he wrapped himself in a towel and walked to the bed, ready to sleep. The little guy was already asleep on the chair.

He hadn't slept in a long time. His body was really starting to feel it.

Before sleeping, he gave Xiao Ai one last instruction.

"If you really can't find a Level 4 Iron Ore mine, Level 3 is fine too. We have to start work at dawn."

"Understood."

……

Arriving at Carriage #10, the Entertainment Carriage, Lao Zhu looked at the brightly lit and crowded Film and Television Base, from which occasional clamor could be heard. After a moment's hesitation, he pushed the door open and entered.

It was already late at night, but they were still filming inside.

Many people were wearing suits and the like—it seemed they'd started filming modern movies.

"Vice-Captain Zhu, you're here!"

Zhang Yiren saw him and rushed over excitedly. "Your suggestion last time was a huge help. This time, I'm shooting a movie with no R-rated scenes at all. It's plot-driven."

"It's about a rich second-generation kid who kills someone in a car accident. But because of his family's immense power and influence, he successfully gets acquitted. For the final trial, his family finds him a lawyer with a 100% success rate."

"Then, a family member of the victim pretends to be the lawyer, goes in, and gets the protagonist to confess to all the details of the crime."

"After the family member leaves, the protagonist hears the doorbell ring, opens the door, and finds the person outside claiming to be his lawyer."

"The whole thing is full of twists and turns, one climax after another! And it tells the story of how the common people at the bottom can still rise up and resist when facing the all-powerful upper class, ultimately achieving victory and trampling those so-called powerful elites underfoot. The entire film is filled with positive energy themes of resistance, struggle, and defying the powerful!"

"Stop."

Lao Zhu spat on the ground expressionlessly before slapping Zhang Yiren on the back of the head. "Resistance! Struggle! Defying the powerful! You've got some fucking nerve to film this!"

"Resist who? Struggle against whom? Should we get Boss Mang to play the villainous protagonist in it, too?"

"This theme is so sensitive they could drag you out and shoot you right now."

"If you're going to make a movie, then make a movie. Stop trying to inject some kind of elevated meaning into it. Boss Mang told me not to interfere too much with the ideas of the people below. You just film what you want. You don't need my advice. Just go back to filming that grass-slaying stuff. Keep shooting."

"This one is definitely a no-go. Have some damn self-awareness. You're not a cat. Cherish your one life."

With that said, Lao Zhu strode out of the Film and Television Base, leaving a stunned Zhang Yiren standing there.

"Damn."

After a long while, Zhang Yiren looked at the script he'd just written. Vice-Captain Zhu's reminder made him realize that a movie with themes of class conflict really couldn't be filmed. The class structure on the train was very clear. Who would he be conflicting with…

He couldn't help but shiver. Luckily, he hadn't filmed it yet. If he had, and some idiot had shouted "Resistance, struggle!" then his head would be rolling along with that idiot's.

It was better to film the grass-slaying movies. Although they were a bit cliché, the people loved them, and there was no risk. No risk of losing your head.

"Ahem, CUT! We're changing the script! Come get the clothes from the last script. We're continuing with that one."

…..

"Uncle Li."

Lao Zhu stood inside Carriage #15, the Breeding Carriage, and looked at Uncle Li with a smile full of emotion. "Today, Boss Mang officially gave a positive response to your Zombie Spawner experiment, and he offered high praise and affirmation."

"From now on, the train will provide all the resources you need for your experiment. If you need anything in the future, just go to the resident store and ask for it. If they don't have it, contact me directly."

"And the person you asked for—I've brought him to you."

Zhang Yi, who was following behind, shook the Refrigerator, and a man with terror in his eyes tumbled out.

"And—" Lao Zhu looked at Uncle Li meaningfully and smiled. "Boss Mang made it clear that as long as the Zombie Spawner experiment succeeds, you will enjoy Tier 1 High-Level Talent Treatment. Currently, only three people on the Stellar have this treatment."

"I've put in a lot of good words for you with Boss Mang."

"Understood, understood!"

Uncle Li's face flushed with excitement, and he stood ramrod straight. "I will definitely not let down the expectations of Boss Mang and the Stellar! And I am very grateful to Vice-Captain Zhu for speaking well of me to Boss Mang. I won't say thank you for such a great kindness. Just watch my performance from now on!"

"Keep it up. I've had high hopes for you from the beginning. You know that. When I refused to let you be a teacher back then, it wasn't to give you a hard time. I just felt that being a teacher would be a waste of your talents."

"I understand, Vice-Captain Zhu!"

"Alright, you continue with your work. I'll be going now."

"Take care, Vice-Captain Zhu!"

"Phew…"

After Lao Zhu left, Uncle Li stood there, taking deep breaths. It took a while for his breathing to stabilize, but his hands trembled uncontrollably as he lit a cigarette and brought it to his lips, his voice hoarse and his eyes red.

"You see that? I've finally made it. Tier 1 High-Level Talent Treatment. Higher than Li Shiji."

"I've said it before—even if I'm just a pig farmer, I can become the best pig farmer there is. Just give me a platform, no matter what it is, and I can achieve results. This is my ability."

"Boss Mang has seen all our hard work these days."

"Um..." the young man who had been following Uncle Li whispered, "Boss Mang only promised. You haven't actually done it yet. It's a bit early to pop the champagne."

"You don't understand."

Uncle Li shook his head, his eyes still red. "At first, I had no clue what I was doing. I just felt I had to do something. As I worked, the idea for the Zombie Spawner came to me, but I didn't know if it was the right path, or if it would be useful to the train."

"I was just doing it on my own dime. And now—Boss Mang has affirmed my idea. Didn't you hear Vice-Captain Zhu? Boss Mang gave me high praise and affirmation. This means the path I'm on is the right one."

"In your eyes, it's just a promise. But in my eyes, this is Boss Mang acknowledging all my efforts from these past days and telling me that the path I'm on is correct, not wrong. Keep walking it with determination."

"These are two different things."

"Hmph."

Uncle Li took a deep breath and wiped the moisture from his eyes with his sleeve, then pointed to the man tied up on the ground. "Go, tie him to the pillar first. The experiment continues tonight."

"I'll talk! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!!!"

Lord Shen, tied to the pillar with a face full of fear, watched as Uncle Li approached him with a sharp blade and shrieked hysterically, "Don't come near me! I'll talk! Can't I just talk?!"

"Uh…"

Uncle Li paused, slightly hesitant, and looked at Lord Shen tied to the pillar. "What are you going to talk about?"

"I don't know," Lord Shen said, on the verge of a breakdown. "You haven't asked me anything! Just ask, and I'll talk!"

"Wait." Uncle Li looked at the young man beside him. "Go and ask if Boss Mang needs to interrogate this person for any information."

"Yes."

A minute later, the young man returned and shook his head. "I asked Chief Ai. He said there's nothing. Boss Mang hasn't even seen this person. We can use him as we please."

"Understood."

Uncle Li looked at Lord Shen tied to the pillar with a strange expression. "And here I thought you knew some secret. Brace yourself—this might hurt a bit."

The next moment, a piercing scream echoed inside the Refrigerator.

"Quick, take it and attach it to that zombie."

"Got it, Uncle Li!"

"Damn."

Tied to the pillar, Lord Shen's body trembled violently from the excruciating pain. He desperately wanted to pass out, but the devil man before him had injected him with some kind of drug that kept his mind extremely clear. Fainting was impossible.

Intense pain tormented every one of his nerves.

At this moment, he was filled with extreme regret. He regretted why he had run over to be the one to stick his neck out. He regretted why he had pressed "Eject Immediately" instead of "Self-Destruct Immediately." He regretted why, when he self-destructed in the Refrigerator, he had only destroyed those special items instead of blowing himself up along with them.

He'd thought they'd captured him alive because they wanted to get some information out of him.

After all, he was the Train Captain of a Level 12 mechanical train. He surely knew some secret information that others didn't.

But from beginning to end, he never even saw Boss Mang. No one came to interrogate him.

He'd planned to act tough, reveal half of the information to bargain for his survival, but now the script seemed a bit different from what he'd imagined. Wasn't Boss Mang curious about the opportunities he'd encountered to reach a Level 12 mechanical train?

The entire Crisis Valley knew he'd been hunted down and fled to Crisis Valley when he had a low-level train. He'd risen up only after encountering a great opportunity. Wasn't Boss Mang curious what that great opportunity was?

Especially when he saw the few zombies bound by iron chains not far away, his face was filled with despair. It was the first time he'd seen someone raise zombies on a train. Compared to this, the 100-square-meter Refrigerator seemed rather ordinary.

Especially since his junk was…

"Mm."

Uncle Li's eyes narrowed slightly as he crossed his arms and looked at the few zombies before him. "Chief Ai just sent me some high-level intelligence the train has obtained. This means my research direction has been correct all along."

"Zombies can't reproduce normally. But the Planetary Consciousness can be deceived."

"This means we can use a method of reproduction to trick the Planetary Consciousness, causing Core Energy to overflow at a designated location and be recreated as zombies, born through a form of reproduction. The Core Energy within a zombie is far less than the amount contained in a single unit of Level 4 Iron Ore, which means… we need an assembly line, where a large number of zombies are created every moment!"

"Then we just connect the corresponding Zombie Crusher, Converter, and Container."

"No wonder Boss Mang values my plan so much. If my plan succeeds, then in the entire History of the Stellar's Development, there will definitely be a thick and heavy stroke of my, Uncle Li's, name for future generations to praise!"

"This is a great merit! No less than Vice-Captain Zhu's merit as an original follower!"

"Whether I can make a name for myself all depends on how this job goes."

"Kid, you're in luck. The train you're on is about to take off."

"You mean the Stellar?"

"I mean me."

"You?"

"Didn't you say last time that I was your train?"

"Oh, oh, right! Yes, go, Uncle Li! You're the best!"

The young man looked at Uncle Li with a serious and admiring expression, giving him a thumbs-up.

"Damn."

Tied to the pillar, Lord Shen looked at the two people before him with eyes full of despair and pain. He didn't quite understand what they were saying, something about Planetary Consciousness and Core Energy, but he could roughly make out that he was probably this plan's main experimental material.

The good news? He wouldn't die anytime soon. The bad news? He'd rather be fucking dead.

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