37: Chapter 37 Instigating and Provoking, Using Someone Else to Kill?

A Level 3 accessory—forget the first week, it's rare even in the second week!

Moreover, its trait effects were top-tier.

A 100% increase in critical damage, plus health recovery on kill.

Wasn't this a perfect tool for sustain?

Paired with the skill book, which dealt true damage on attacks and reduced mental energy consumption...

It was a perfect synergy, forming a self-sustaining combat loop.

"Sustain, burst, mana saving... it has it all!" Lin Xiao murmured under his breath.

Without hesitation, he first used [Triple Moonlight] to mark these two hard-won items.

Then, he immediately equipped and used them.

The accessory was a necktie; just looking at the style and material, one could tell it was very expensive to make.

However, wearing it with his fireproof suit looked extremely bizarre.

But it didn't matter. Once he could craft a Magic Armor with invisibility, he could put on a suit to match.

The skill book turned into a stream of light and entered his forehead, and a subtle muscle memory spread through his limbs and bones.

Lin Xiao stood up and rolled his shoulders.

His mental energy recovered to 1 point, and the feeling of exhaustion faded significantly.

He delayed no longer.

He immediately set off to return to Carriage 7.

After the brick wall was damaged, there were no corresponding materials to repair it. If the zombies weren't cleared in time, it would cause big trouble.

As he passed through Carriage 8, over a dozen Gluttons that had recently respawned immediately lunged at him with roars.

Slender tentacles shot out one after another from their writhing mouthparts.

Lin Xiao quickly dodged to the side, the tentacles grazing past his ear.

In that instant, he felt the air around him ripple slightly, stirring up a sort of invisible aura.

[Poise +1]

He swung his axe backhandedly.

It cleaved into the Glutton's writhing, petal-like mouthparts.

Perhaps because an Elegant Strike was triggered, the Level 2 zombie—which originally required an axe swing followed by waiting for the bleed effect to finish it—now twitched and fell backward, dead.

Thick, black, foul blood sprayed all over the floor.

[Poise +1]

At the same time, his body felt warm; it was the kill recovery effect of [Social Etiquette].

Lin Xiao continued forward.

The more he killed, the faster the Poise stacks built up, and the more obvious the air ripples became.

The more obvious the ripples, the higher the bonus true damage, and the faster he killed.

It was a continuous cycle.

He was like a hot knife through butter, slaughtering his way from Carriage 8 to Carriage 7 without even blinking.

If he hadn't had to repair the double-bladed battle axe twice midway, he could have been even faster.

With the battle over, Lin Xiao straightened his tie.

He then pushed open the iron door and returned to his territory.

Inside the room, Jiang Wanwan and Wen Yiran stood up simultaneously.

"Xiao Lin, you're finally back!"

Jiang Wanwan stepped forward quickly and thoughtfully helped him take off the heavy fireproof suit.

Then she scanned him from head to toe, lifting his inner clothing to check carefully, only sighing in relief after confirming he wasn't injured.

"We saw the announcement on the channel about you killing an elite zombie. Did you almost have a conflict with the people from Carriage 14?"

Jiang Wanwan poked Lin Xiao's chest and asked with lingering fear.

"Just a friendly exchange, don't worry!" Lin Xiao smiled.

Wen Yiran brought a glass of water, her eyes shining as she stared at his neck: "Brother Lin, this tie... is so cool!"

"Dropped from the elite zombie."

Lin Xiao moistened his throat and briefly summarized the battle.

Then, wrapping his arms around the two women's waists, he sat on the bed. "If it weren't for the equipment and accessories you two gave me, it really would have been hard to deal with that elite-level Calamity!"

It was truly a coincidence.

After equipping the gear, the extra 5 points of Spirit were exactly at the threshold for releasing two key skills.

A single point less, and Zombie Xiao En, whose Berserk mechanic had been broken, would have fallen into someone else's hands.

And then... there might not even have been a then!

Thinking of this, he turned to look at Wen Yiran: "That ring, where did you get it? An accessory that adds 2 Spirit points isn't cheap."

"Oh, speaking of that, Wanwan actually saw it first!" Wen Yiran immediately perked up.

"Someone listed it on the chat channel wanting to trade for synthesis materials, but the price was too high and no one took it."

"Wanwan told me, and since I happened to have a lot of materials, I sent a private message to haggle. I got it for twenty percent off, hehe!"

She spoke rapidly with a hint of pride, "That person was probably desperate for materials to fix something; they agreed pretty quickly. I calculated it—based on the current average market price, we made at least a thirty percent profit!"

Jiang Wanwan pursed her lips and smiled beside them, her chin tilted up slightly with a "praise me" expression.

"Well done!"

Lin Xiao pulled them closer and leaned into their necks, leaving a noticeable hickey on each of them.

"By the way, Brother Lin!"

Wen Yiran's ears turned red. Seeing him lean in again lingeringly, she hurriedly changed the subject.

"The chat channel is full of news about you right now. Everyone's saying you repelled Liu Bi's entire team alone and snatched the elite mob. Quite a few people are stirring the pot!"

Lin Xiao frowned and opened the channel.

Sure enough, messages were flying by:

[10-03 Zhou Kai: Boss Lin Xiao is awesome! Liu Bi's gang was so arrogant before, but now they've chickened out!]

[13-07 Zhao Manman: I support Boss Lin unifying the train. Some people only know how to bully the weak; they should have been dealt with long ago!]

[Resident of Compartment 11-05: If you ask me, we should take this chance to wipe out Carriage 14. Leaving them is just asking for trouble later!]

[12-09 Sun Hao: If Brother Lin leads the team, those of us from Carriages 10 to 13 will definitely follow!]

...

Glancing through, most of the speakers were passengers from Carriages 10 to 13.

They were the ones who had been robbed of supplies and suppressed by Liu Bi before.

Stirring the pot, instigating.

They wanted to use Lin Xiao's hand to get their revenge.

Although Lin Xiao and Liu Bi hadn't had a direct confrontation in the previous fight, they had already made an enemy of each other.

If the other party didn't do anything suicidal, then for a period, the two sides would use the dining car as a boundary to divide and rule the train.

During this time, he didn't want internal strife to cause a major reduction in passengers again.

After all, the fifth round of Calamity hadn't even arrived yet!

According to the pattern, in the next round, two hundred zombies would spawn in a single carriage alone.

Among them, Level 3 zombies might even appear.

If there was no one to help share the heat, the difficulty of survival would be immense!

Thus, Lin Xiao, who rarely spoke in the channel, replied with a couple of brief sentences:

[Car 07-01: If you have time to chat here, why aren't you out killing zombies?]

[Car 07-01: Is it because you're trash?]

The channel went silent instantly.

A minute later, someone finally responded:

[05-05 Fang Yuan: Brother Lin is right. Hurry up and develop; stop the yapping.]

[08-09: Exactly. There are so many zombies in the corridor we can't even clear them fast enough!]

Closing the chat channel.

Lin Xiao looked at the two women beside him: "Keep a close eye on Liu Bi's group lately, especially on the network trading. The source of the equipment in their hands isn't quite right!"

"Understood," Jiang Wanwan and Wen Yiran nodded.

After resting for about half an hour while holding their soft bodies,

Lin Xiao headed out again.

There were already passengers killing zombies in Carriage 7. Although their speed was slow, at least they were making progress compared to before.

He took a quick glance, then swung his axe to clear some of the clusters gathered at the doors.

However, the direction of Carriage 6 was still filled with constant roars.

Lin Xiao grabbed his axe and charged over.

The passengers in Carriage 6 had never had much cohesion to begin with.

After Long Tao's death, they had lost all combat power, to the point where only two of the ten rooms were still struggling to hold on.

The rest were either breached or their sliding doors were tightly shut, with no sound coming from within.

Lin Xiao cleared the path as he went, also drawing away the zombie horde blocking the junction between Carriages 07 and 05.

Taking care of three carriages alone was indeed exhausting, rapidly consuming his stamina and mental energy.

But the constant kill notifications popping up in his vision and the skyrocketing stardust numbers

still made him show a satisfied smile.

Sigh, it's tiring, but more work means more gain...

Around noon, as the broadcast announced, the fourth round of Calamity was cleared.

The leaderboard refreshed simultaneously, and the rankings changed once again.

>>> Leaderboard, Phase One, Round Four <<<

[1st Place: Car 07-01, Points: 6650]

[2nd Place: Liu Bi, Points: 2540]

[3rd Place: Chang Siyuan, Points: 2040 (↑)]

[4th Place: Resident of Compartment 11-05, Points: 1680 (↑)]

[5th Place: Lu Fei, Points: 1670 (New)]

[6th Place: 08-09, Points: 1250 (New)]

...

Lin Xiao had killed 327 Gluttons this time, plus Zombie Xiao En, earning a total of 3570 points and 3770 stardust.

Combined with the accumulation from the first three rounds, this number wasn't surprising.

But he really couldn't bring himself to be happy.

With Chen Pingan heavily injured and dropping off the board, among the top ten, passengers from Carriages 08 to 02—excluding Lin Xiao—only occupied three spots!

Although from a certain perspective, the development of passengers in the front half of the train was very balanced,

the ranking rewards on the leaderboard were the key to snowballing.

Blindly pursuing balanced development would only allow top-tier resources to flow into the hands of those ruthless people in the back half of the train for nothing.

It seemed he needed to cultivate a few high-combat-power characters!