337: Chapter 337 Resource Overflow, Core Fusion!

"Go."

Lin Xiao nodded.

He wiped the remaining blood from the corner of his mouth with a towel. Just as he was about to walk forward, he happened to see Adjutant Li Yitong and two other adjutants being held by Fang Yuan and Sergei, standing at the edge of the pool for trial, with Sikong Xuanye and the others standing to the side.

That guy named Sikong Heng kept complaining, talking about the royal family and claiming they should be treated with courtesy.

Lin Xiao glanced at the Heze people, then looked at Yimu, who was standing not far away with her arms still trembling slightly.

He then turned to Octopus Xiaoba and Boss Crab, who were craning their necks to look from within the crowd, "Xiaoba, take those few over to Car 09 and treat them well!"

"You got it! Don't worry, Lord Sovereign, leave it to Xiaoba!"

Xiaoba extended a tentacle, performed an exaggerated hand-on-chest salute, and squeezed a brilliant smile onto his round face.

Lin Xiao's words were also meant for Yimu to hear.

"Yimu, they must still be hiding many secrets and methods to have survived until now... The legacy of the Heze Kingdom and the memes of the Insect Emperor's evolution are all very important to us."

Lin Xiao's tone was very calm.

This was neither an order nor comfort.

He was simply stating a fact.

"You understand that royal family better than anyone; you can see through what is true and what is an act at a glance. So, do not act rashly until you have extracted what we want!"

Yimu was silent for a few seconds.

Then she folded her hands in front of her, bowed slightly to him, turned, and walked in the direction of Xiaoba.

Her steps were light, as if walking on water.

Lin Xiao watched her disappear at the connection between the carriages before withdrawing his gaze.

He then turned around to look at the captains and passengers gathered around.

Everyone was waiting for him to say something.

A post-battle summary, a eulogy for the fallen, or at least a few inspiring words.

However, Lin Xiao just smiled and raised his hand, "Everyone, go rest up, count your supplies, and repair or replace what needs to be fixed."

Chen Pingan stepped forward, "Brother Lin, how should the supplies seized from the Silver-White Train be distributed? Do we need to turn them in?"

"Keep it all for yourselves; there is no need to turn in any share to me," Lin Xiao replied.

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone looked at each other.

Everyone had paid five thousand stardust to go to the Cloud Palace.

But that was the admission fee for killing bugs; the Silver-White Train that emerged later was not within the scope of the original discussion.

Furthermore, everyone had only defeated some soldiers during the battle.

Those seized equipment and supplies should rightfully go to the person who ended the Silver-White Train.

"Brother Lin is awesome!"

Fan Sinian shouted.

Cheers erupted belatedly, and the sounds of laughter and shoulder-patting rose and fell.

Someone from the direction of Car 09 shouted that all grilled corn at Xiaoba's stall was 20% off today, and the crowd surged toward the dining car like a tide.

Over the past two days, everyone had made a fortune, and they were quite generous with their spending.

In addition, the ores and materials explored from the ruins, the stardust and equipment dropped from farming Scarab Beetles, plus the supplies seized from the Silver-White Train soldiers, were all circulating at the stalls now.

Especially the seized canned goods and individual rations.

These were hard currency in this doomsday world, luxuries in every sense.

Bartering, stardust trading, and supply voucher settlements—shouts and haggling echoed in Car 09.

Some sat in the carriage gnawing on boiled corn and drinking coconut juice.

Some lay on the roof of the train, basking in the rare afternoon sun, sharing the canned goods they had obtained with their companions.

This wave of consuming the Silver-White Train did not just mean taking the life of Train Captain Baili Wuchen; it was the resources and foundation that an entire train had accumulated over two stages.

And now, all of this was theirs!

Lin Xiao did not go to Car 09 for the time being.

Exhausted physically and mentally, he returned to his territory, sat at the dining table, and ate plate after plate of food brought by Jiang Wanwan, drinking cup after cup of coconut juice brought by Tian Xiwei.

Wen Yiran lay on the opposite side of the table, pestering Jiang Wanwan to ask about the details of the battlefield.

"Wanwan, are you serious? Brother Lin fought against the train that turned into a giant snake, poked the train away with a trident, and then summoned a meteorite..."

This... is this even human?

Wen Yiran tried her best to imagine the scene of the battle, but the half-living, half-mechanical giant snake alone was hard for her to conceive.

"Ranran, your food is getting cold."

Lin Xiao put down his chopsticks, rubbed her head, and then stood up.

The [deep sea aria] on his body was severely damaged.

The chest armor was shattered, the shoulder armor was broken, and the arm armor was blown into just a few fragments.

This repair would require several thousand pleasure tokens, more than triple what it was before.

After all, the durability was at zero, and the equipment parts were in a damaged state.

It was already a good thing that it hadn't simply disappeared.

The tokens consumed this time were quite a lot.

Lin Xiao planned to gather some materials to reduce the amount of token deduction.

Tokens can be saved to refresh the Mysterious Shop, so saving some is better than nothing.

Lin Xiao opened his backpack, took out the Level 3 [treasure hunting lucky star] set, and put it on.

Golden patterns flowed in faint halos on the dark fabric.

After wearing high-level equipment for so long, putting on a lower-level set made the tactile feel and defensive capabilities seem much inferior.

However, the afternoon's task was mainly to explore the depths of the Cloud Palace ruins, and the characteristics of this set were actually more practical.

The four women were still discussing the battle.

Lin Xiao walked toward the control room on the first floor of the territory.

The airlock door closed behind him, shutting out the noise from the second floor.

In the groove in the center of the ceiling, the [tide core] emitted a faint blue light, and runes slowly circulated in the quiet air.

Lin Xiao took the [living mechanical core] out of his backpack and walked to the console, intending to take advantage of the time to fuse and upgrade the two cores.

However, he was not very clear about the situation regarding the Astral Express cores.

After all, it was his first time surviving on a doomsday train.

However, referring to the cycles he had experienced in the past, there were similar devices.

For example, main city hubs, base reactors, etc., could all fuse and evolve with each other.

Just as he was thinking about this, a prompt panel appeared before Lin Xiao:

[Please select the main core; it will be used as the basis for the upgrade later]

Main core?

Lin Xiao stood before the console, the living mechanical core in his palm pulsing slightly.

The silvery-white liquid metal flowing on its surface and the faint blue light emitted by the tide core on the ceiling probed each other in the air.

The two lights of different frequencies briefly intertwined above the console, then each retreated.

To be honest, Lin Xiao hesitated a bit.

The [tide core] was only Level 2, and it only had one characteristic.

But that sole characteristic was [stardust intensification].

It slowly converted stardust into energy to supply functional modules.

The two previous critical battles relied entirely on long-range support from the ship's cannons, so this characteristic was extremely important.

But...

He looked down at the [living mechanical core] in his hand.

It was a higher level, Level 3.

And it possessed 4 characteristics.

Train Captain Baili Wuchen had probably spent all his life's luck on this thing to be able to rely on these four characteristics to build that plunder legion that crushed countless trains.

Using a Level 3 core as a base to fuse a Level 2 core, from a purely numerical logic standpoint, there was almost no need to hesitate.

But [stardust intensification] was too important!

Lin Xiao closed his eyes and quickly searched his memory for similar cases he had seen in his past life.

Fusions of main city hubs, upgrades of base reactors, iterations of vehicle centers...

The rules had different appearances in different planes, but the underlying logic was always the same:

The main core determined the direction of fusion, and characteristics with the same name would be retained; characteristics of the secondary core had a probability of being absorbed, while cross-type characteristics were completely random.

In other words, if he used the [tide core] as the main core, [stardust intensification] would definitely be there;

but if he used the [living mechanical core] as the main core, whether [stardust intensification] could be kept depended entirely on luck.

His fingers tapped lightly on the edge of the console.

"Let's gamble!"

The silvery-white crystal core flew out of his palm and sank directly into the groove in the center of the ceiling.

Almost at the same instant, the faint blue tide core began to tremble violently.

The two crystals began to revolve at high speed within the groove.

The silvery-white and faint blue light trails intertwined in the air to form a dazzling two-colored ring of light.

A low-frequency mechanical hum came from above the ceiling, causing the air in the entire control room to vibrate slightly.

[Fusion in progress: 05:59:59]

The countdown was pulsing in the center of the panel.

It takes six hours?

Lin Xiao looked up for a moment.

With the rules in place, there shouldn't be any big problems, right...