Chapter 176: Chapter 128: "The area ahead is a Restricted Area, Heaven-Reaching Tower.
"This apocalypse seems to have been around for much longer than just a year."
He didn’t speak again, only fell silent once more.
He is human.
Made of flesh and blood, logically he shouldn’t empathize with those robots made of wires and energy, but... that scene just now still made his chest feel a bit suffocated.
The Mechanical City, completely devoid of human presence, reappeared in the green region of this planet, the "Shahe Plain", after who knows how many years.
Perhaps...
The train, vehicle accessories, these methods really resemble those of that Mechanical Civilization. Perhaps that train that fled back then truly survived and spread these techniques to resist other planets encountering monster attacks?
He thought again of the message he saw in the Doomsday Abyss.
Who exactly wrote that message?
Unconsciously, he thought a lot. When a stinging sensation came from his fingertips, Chen Mang was startled and threw the burnt-out cigarette out of the window, looking up at the countdown on the screen in front of him.
The countdown for the first few stages was ten minutes.
Only the fourth stage had a countdown of thirty minutes.
Even the adventure map Heaven-Reaching Tower might have thought the aftermath of the fourth stage was a bit too much, needing more time for people to catch their breath.
He couldn’t figure it out.
There were many things he couldn’t figure out, but that was because he stood too low. When in a low position, he shouldn’t think too far ahead, as that would distract him from the pebbles at his feet.
When he upgrades the train to Level 10 or even Level 20 in the future, when he goes to the highest region of this planet and faces the most terrifying monsters of this planet, perhaps many things will become clear.
No matter what the world has become.
Only one thing remains constant.
Make yourself strong enough, make the train strong enough, make your trump cards strong enough, make your foundation strong enough, only then... can you better survive in the apocalypse.
This is not just the apocalypse of this one planet.
Perhaps it is the apocalypse of the entire universe.
At this moment——
"Brother, brother!"
Er Dan’s urgent and anxious voice came from the train radio: "How are things on your side, what’s going on, are you still alive, are you dead?"
"Still alive, just cleared the stage."
Er Dan’s voice no longer sounded jittery. He glanced down at the train below the square, and sure enough, it was fully defrosted.
"Phew..."
Er Dan on the train radio took a long breath, then said with some lingering fear: "Gave me a scare, an hour ago all the spotlights on the rooftops of the high buildings in Mechanical City suddenly pointed at your square."
"Looks quite shocking."
"Then there was no movement at all, I didn’t dare disturb you at first either, I didn’t know what the fourth stage content was, but after more than forty minutes had passed and you still had no movement, I couldn’t help but call you a few times with no response, I thought something had happened."
"As long as you’re fine, by the way, what was the content of the fourth stage? Why does your train remain unmoved?"
After a moment of silence, Chen Mang softly said, "Watched an animation, looked pretty good, similar to the combat training virtual space animation. Let me ask you something, what was the name of the mecha chasing you in the first stage? Was it called Azure Dragon?"
"No, it was Fixed Star, I was surprised at the time that the name was exactly the same as your train, hey, what a coincidence."
"..."
Chen Mang didn’t speak again, just looked up at the countdown with five minutes remaining, his expression calm as he lit another cigarette, patiently waiting for the arrival of the fifth stage, which is the final stage.
The difficulty of the fourth stage wasn’t that hard.
Though it was A-level difficulty, it basically involved watching an animation, and he used the Spider Jump and Nitrogen Tail Spray supermodel effect to get through the little difficulty there.
Looking at it now...
The first three stages seemed more like a selection.
The first stage was speed, the second was memory, the third was flight skills.
Only by meeting these three points could one smoothly get through the fourth stage to watch that animation.
"Train Assistance AI" would observe the external world through "Target Detection Radar" and "Resource Detection Radar" before having a robotic body, which was a way of observing that was not through human eyes, like a god’s perspective, observing part of the information in a planar manner.
After acquiring the robot body, it could truly observe the world from a human perspective, but due to the low configuration of the robot’s image receiving equipment, it couldn’t quickly absorb information.
However, with the third stage’s reward of the "Mechanical Eye" accessory blueprint, such contradictions won’t exist anymore. This accessory is specially tailored for AI use.
"Wait..."
Chen Mang suddenly frowned, realizing that the speed of the first stage and the flight skills of the second stage were the means to determine if one could pass the fourth stage, so what role did the second stage’s memory play in the fourth stage?
Could it be that in that story, there were some hidden information points that needed to be remembered?
He had looked very closely.
But after all, he was a normal person, it was impossible to distinctly remember every anomaly.
However, fortunately, there was one abnormal person on the train.
The AI quickly connected with Li Shiji through cluster thinking and found the answer.
"Li Shiji said he remembered about seventy percent of the scenes he saw."
"Have him consolidate it at all times, don’t forget."
"Okay."
And at this moment, the countdown for the fifth stage was about to end, which would be the last stage and the highest S-level difficulty.
...
Chen Mang took a deep breath, faced the countdown about to end on the screen with a serious face, temporarily setting aside his thoughts, fully prepared to face this stage, as this stage’s reward was also the richest.
As the countdown ended.
A new screen emerged.
-
"Fifth Stage, S-Level Difficulty, Last Words of the Dying."
"Please state all the parting words said to you before dying in the fourth stage, Train Assistance AI will be temporarily blocked within the time limit."
"Time limit of one minute."
-
"Fixed Star... run, have to survive."
"You have to... you have to... you have to let them know."
"This hatred never dies."
"Even for billions of years.
"..."
"Run."
When Chen Mang saw this screen, he almost didn’t hesitate and quickly recited all the words those people said to him before dying in the fourth stage, word for word, needing no help from Li Shiji.
Perhaps he was too absorbed, or maybe the emotional involvement was too strong.
He clearly remembered every word they said before they died.
Several seconds after he finished speaking.
The screen slowly started to change.
-
"Fifth Stage, successfully completed."
"Reward for this stage: Special Tool ’Mechanical Heart’, the adventure map Heaven-Reaching Tower will close in ten minutes."
-
The highest S-level difficulty was... so easily cleared.
This plaza, always floating in the sky, slowly descended, and the constantly exhaling cold air nozzles around the plaza retracted again, slowly rotating the train head to face a street perfectly.
By driving down this street, you could reach the elevator entrance where you came from.
Through the elevator, you can leave this adventure map.
"Boom boom..."
The skyscrapers in the distance began to collapse one by one from the inside out as the screen appeared, clearly giving them time to evacuate. After ten minutes, this Mechanical City will collapse completely, disappearing from the world.
Back down on the ground, Chen Mang glanced at the Azure Dragon train parked beside and waved, indicating to discuss later.
Soon —
The two trains were almost driving side by side on the streets of the Mechanical City, and behind them, countless skyscrapers made of mechanical parts were continuously collapsing one after another.
When they drove onto the elevator again and descended to the ground through the elevator.
The Mechanical City at the top of Heaven-Reaching Tower had completely become ruins.
And the gears within Heaven-Reaching Tower, which were constantly rotating, slowly stopped at the same time. Meanwhile, a screen like a regional boundary reappeared above them.
"The area ahead is the Restricted Area, Heaven-Reaching Tower."
"Remaining over ten seconds will result in a fierce attack."