MDT Chapter 244 (Patreon)

Chapter 244: To Say It's a Behemoth Is No Exaggeration!

Soon, by the time all the residents had left the train, the half-hour countdown was nearly finished.

The moment the countdown ended—

Clank!

A crisp, heavy sound rang from the front of the train. Then, as countless white points of light drifted from Carriage #2 and seeped into the Stellar, the entire train, in the eyes of all the residents, suddenly began to… transform.

Or perhaps mutate.

It was as if the steel had been given life and soul. It began to grow with wild abandon. The armor, usually incomparably thick, now seemed to melt into viscous liquid, constantly extending and climbing through empty air.

The entire Stellar was expanding at a rate visible to the naked eye. Complete expansion. Wider, longer, taller. Even the Windfire Wheels were rapidly spreading outwards, increasing their size.

The entire process lasted a full three minutes.

Three minutes later, under the stunned gazes of all the residents, the Stellar had been completely transformed. It had grown several times larger. Each carriage was now 10 meters wide, 30 meters long, and 10 meters high. The locomotive was now 10 meters wide and 21 meters long.

The entire Stellar, with its 14 carriages and 1 locomotive, now reached a total length of 441 meters. The connections between each carriage weren't welded solid but had a certain amount of give, ensuring the train remained flexible. Thus, the Stellar's actual length was slightly greater than this number.

Most importantly—it was tall. Each carriage stood 10 meters high, equivalent to a three-story building.

One look was all it took. This was a true mechanical dragon, a dragon coiled in the wasteland. The 10 Level 20 Doomsday Autocannons, which had once looked so menacing, now appeared like miniature toys on the train, lacking much of their former deterrent power.

"…"

Chen Mang watched this scene with a satisfied smile, his sense of accomplishment peaking in this moment. This was the doomsday train he'd built in just a few months since transmigrating to this world. This was his foundation in this world.

He immediately gripped his cane, controlling the train remotely. In the custom carriage options, he spent 60,000 units of Iron Ore to spray three large characters onto the pitch-black train.

恒星号 (The Stellar).

The character 恒 (Héng) was on Carriage #3, 星 (Xīng) was on Carriage #6, and 号 (Hào) was on Carriage #9. Each character was enormous. Even from a great distance, anyone could clearly see those three characters: 恒星号.

There was one on each side of the train. The price was steep—sixty thousand units of Iron Ore just for a spray-painted name. No wonder he'd almost never seen anyone use this function. But at this moment, he wanted to use it. He wanted to spend 60,000 units of Iron Ore to truly give his train its name.

He wanted the name of the Stellar to one day resound throughout heaven and earth. He wanted everyone to have heard the name of his Stellar. This was his dream. It was also the goal he strived for.

Behind him, the crowd of residents finally snapped back to reality, letting out excited roars, their eyes filled with excitement as they gazed at the completely transformed train—a train that now truly fit the image of a steel dragon.

In the apocalypse, who wouldn't want to follow someone strong enough?

Especially the group of children standing behind Teacher Qiu. They were constantly on their tiptoes, trying to see Boss Mang, who was sitting in a chair in front of the crowd. But because they were short and there were many obstacles in front of them, they couldn't see him at all, and they were practically scratching their heads in frustration.

Although they'd seen Boss Mang on screen many times, they'd never truly seen him with their own eyes.

"All aboard."

Chen Mang, holding Xiao Lu, stood up and strode toward the control car. He wanted to feel what his expanded train was like. The residents behind him also received the command through their Iris Chips and began to line up in an orderly fashion to return to the train.

Entering the control car, the most direct feeling was… big. Much bigger than before. His single bed, in the corner, looked as cute as a dog bed.

The once-cramped control car now only had a control console in the very center, two refrigerators next to it, and a portal on the carriage wall. The heavy machine guns on the ceiling, which had once been densely packed, were now spread out with space between each one, looking much more aesthetically pleasing.

It felt a bit empty.

"I need to find something to fill up the control car..."

Chen Mang frowned as he looked around. Although the original control car had been crowded, he'd felt very secure. He liked small spaces. Every time he stayed in the control car, he felt safe—a real sense of security.

But the current control car was empty.

He rolled Xiao Lu onto the floor. When Xiao Lu woke up later, there would be a lot more space for it to play.

There was another troublesome point—the control car was now more than ten meters from the ground. Originally, there'd been a simple, retractable folding ladder for getting on and off the train. Now it was a climbing ladder. He wasn't afraid of heights, but having to climb a ten-plus-meter ladder every time he got on and off the train was indeed a bit inconvenient.

"Hmm…"

The train needed further modifications. Chen Mang silently made a plan. He needed an elevator to get on and off the train easily. He also needed to build a few slides and large, retractable escalators for the resident carriages to help the residents get on and off quickly.

Although there were some drawbacks, on the whole, the pros far outweighed the cons. Not bad. It just meant the train needed to be upgraded further.

Every time the train was upgraded, a new function was unlocked. The two functions unlocked after upgrading to a Level 10 train were Train Expansion and Mechanical Fortress.

The effect of Mechanical Fortress was… after pressing this button on the control console, the train would form a circle from head to tail, root itself to the ground, and last for 24 hours. During this period, all Defensive Accessories would automatically be upgraded by 1 level, and all Firepower Accessories would have their consumption halved.

The price was that during these 24 hours, the train couldn't move and could only remain rooted in place.

If he activated this effect, his Armor would become Level 14. It was just that he'd never had a situation where he needed to use this function. Lord Shen that day hadn't had time to use it either. But even if he had, it wouldn't have mattered—the Level 13 shells would have crushed him.

After this Train Expansion, the train's Iron Ore units were once again depleted. Almost completely empty. There were only 155,000 units of Iron Ore left. It was like being plunged back into poverty.

He clearly remembered earning a lot of Iron Ore during this period. How had it suddenly all disappeared…

"…"

Inside the control car, Chen Mang's brow furrowed slightly. He couldn't keep going the ordinary route. He'd searched the wasteland all last night and hadn't found a single Level 4 iron mine. If he searched all night tonight, the result would probably be the same.

Once a Level 4 iron mine was discovered by another train, it was almost certain to be mined. It couldn't be left for some fated person later on. To find a Level 4 iron mine that had just refreshed or was newly formed was a bit too difficult.

Although the Pickaxe Head Production Line was only a green-grade accessory and could only be upgraded to Level 3, this was the Blue Zone, after all. The trains here were considered high-level trains in the apocalypse. Obtaining a few Mofei Stones was not an impossible task.

He had to take an unconventional path. Tonight, he would go to the ruins of the Mechanical City in the Red Zone via the Train Tunnel. He had to take an unconventional path!

After all the residents had climbed the ladders to their carriages, the Stellar slowly started up. Chen Mang didn't activate the Drill right away. Instead, he slowly pushed the control stick, sitting in the driver's seat, looking down at the ground in front of him from his high vantage point, feeling the train's gradually increasing speed and the strong push-back. He gradually grew excited.

The feeling of controlling the Stellar now was completely different from before. A bird's-eye view. An extremely spacious control car, a train like a steel dragon. It made him feel like he was controlling a steel dragon, racing across the wasteland.

He slowly pushed the control stick all the way, heading toward the zombie horde thirty thousand meters away on the Search Radar.

Thirty thousand meters. Arrived in an instant.

Sitting in the control car, Chen Mang looked at the zombie horde with a maximum level of 9, and without slowing down at all, he controlled the train to ram straight into them.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Countless zombies were sent flying into the air, shattered to pieces. The Stellar, completely unreasonable, crushed the zombie horde that represented the apocalypse.

A few months ago, he'd almost died at the hands of a zombie horde several times. A few months later, the zombie horde was almost wiped out by his hands.

"Awesome!"

After ramming back and forth four or five times, the zombie horde was almost completely crushed to dust. The Windfire Wheels were now taller than a person. The carriages were 10 meters high, yes, but they were nearly two meters from the ground.

It was completely impossible for the wheels to get stuck by a zombie horde, rendering the train immobile, like before. It just drove right over the zombies' heads.

The current Stellar—calling it a behemoth wasn't an exaggeration.

After a while, Chen Mang, still wanting more, finally stopped wasting time. He extended the Drill, and as the Drill spun at high speed, the Spider Legs also extended, lifting the carriages and lowering the front of the train, pressing the Drill against the ground and beginning to dig.

The Drill was extremely huge—as wide as the carriage, even slightly wider. And after the Train Expansion, he found that many accessories had also expanded, including the Spider Legs accessory. This accessory was already large, and after the expansion, it became even larger.

Looking out the window, the giant, sci-fi-filled mechanical Spider Legs were extremely intimidating and oppressive at a glance.

To be honest, if he'd had a train like this at the beginning of the apocalypse, his train would have looked more like the apocalypse than those zombies. He would have been the source of the apocalypse.

BZZZZZ

As the drill spun rapidly, the train quickly drove deep underground again, heading straight for the hole he'd drilled in the Train Tunnel last time. That hole was definitely too small now, but it didn't matter—he could just drill a bigger one.

Perhaps because the train was too large, he found that the train consumed more energy to move, and its speed, whether underground or on the surface, was a little slower—probably reduced by about a third. The reduction wasn't small.

Clearly, this was a fork in the road. He had to make a choice between speed and size.

He chose size. 

As for speed—a reduction was a reduction. It didn't matter. Who cared about that little reduction? As long as he got enough Iron Ore and upgraded the Windfire Wheels and those acceleration accessories all at once, the speed would be greatly increased again.

A numerical reduction didn't have much of an impact on him. As long as upgrading the accessory could increase the stat, it was equivalent to no reduction. A mechanical reduction, for him, would be the sky falling.

It was worth mentioning—the Carriage Blades accessory was now completely useless against ordinary zombies. It was nearly three meters from the ground. Monsters that weren't tall enough would only feel a cool breeze on their heads and wouldn't be affected at all.

Soon, the train had reached the entrance of the Train Tunnel and had once again found the hole he'd drilled in the tunnel. Without any hesitation, the huge Drill was once again pressed into the tunnel and began to spin rapidly.

The Stellar successfully entered the Train Tunnel again and switched to the Bunny Cloud wheels to float in mid-air.

"Looks like it's about to collapse..."

Inside the control car, Chen Mang looked at the large amount of soil falling like a waterfall behind him. A lot of soil had already piled up on the ground from when he'd drilled the hole a few days ago. But the hole wasn't very big then, and it was quickly plugged by the soil.

As for now, the hole seemed a little bigger, and it couldn't be plugged. It was like it had the runs.

After falling for a few minutes, a small mountain had already piled up in the Train Tunnel, but the hole was plugged again and was no longer falling.

It wasn't that the soil had plugged itself, but that the Stellar had solved it. The solution was simple—he'd manufactured seven or eight oversized Band-Aids, had Zhang Yi and Zhang Er fly out in their mechs, and used the Band-Aids to plug the hole.

Not bad. These Band-Aids were quite sturdy. They were indeed durable, as expected of Band-Aids made of Iron Ore. The Band-Aids naturally couldn't withstand the fall of so much soil, but as long as they provided a little force, the soil would plug the hole on its own. Although he didn't know how long it would last, he'd just leave it at that.

"See that?"

Uncle Li pointed to the several huge Band-Aids plugging the hole outside the window. "When I graduated and became a safety officer, I was sent for further training because of this kind of dogshit project."

After the Train Expansion, every carriage had windows—floor-to-ceiling windows, stretching from bottom to top. The sense of immersion was maxed out.

The train was actually gradually changing into a space train. At least, a normal train shouldn't have floor-to-ceiling windows. Well, never mind a normal train. To be perfectly honest, a normal train shouldn't have any of the accessories on the Stellar.

"The train has changed so much."

The boy who'd been following Uncle Li murmured as he looked at the scene before him. "It's only been a short time, and the train has already changed from what it was at the beginning. Uncle Li, do you still remember when the Stellar only had a bare locomotive?"

"Although the sense of immersion is stronger, it always feels a little dangerous."

"What are you afraid of? Boss Mang said these glasses and armor have the same defense level. It's black tech."

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