When Rong Hui woke up again, she was already mentally prepared. She slowly opened her eyes and found herself lying on the same train sleeper berth.
Her eyes stared blankly at the wooden board above her. The rumbling sound of the train grinding against the rails echoed continuously. Only now did Rong Hui truly feel that she had survived.
She checked the condition of her body and was astonished to discover that the burns on her hands and calves had completely disappeared. When she touched her head, even the singed hair had been restored. She almost thought the terrifying ordeal earlier had been nothing more than her imagination.
People around her continued waking up. Some were ecstatic, others were sorrowful.
Overall, nearly a quarter of the people in the train had disappeared.
“I actually survived!”
“Mom, it was so scary. I want to go home, sob…”
“I’m amazing! A mere fire couldn’t stop me!”
The carriage was filled with noise. Some people had already gathered together and begun exchanging their own experiences of clearing the instance. Humans truly deserved their reputation as the most adaptable species.
Rong Hui rubbed her forehead. She was not in a hurry to talk with anyone else. Instead, she carefully observed the empty berths.
She saw streaks of white light flash by one after another. Those beds, together with the items left on them, silently disappeared.
Those people must have been the ones who failed to clear the instance.
No one knew where they had gone now, or whether they had simply died.
Thinking of that possibility, Rong Hui’s face grew unpleasantly pale. If she had stayed in the bathroom waiting for rescue the entire time, she might have died inside the instance.
Suddenly, a mechanical voice appeared in her mind, and the system’s transparent panel popped up.
[Survivor Rong Hui,
Congratulations on passing the beginner instance: Survive the High Rise Fire.
You have obtained survival qualifications.
All functions of your personal system have been activated.
Your personal safe house has been activated.
Initial safe house configuration: train hard sleeper berth + one square meter washing space.
Note: The safe house is absolutely safe.]
[The system has detected that you escaped the instance with minor injuries.
Instance completion evaluation: A+.
Instance reward settlement: Points 20, Survivor Basic Supply Pack ×1.
Note:
1. Points can be used in the system shop. Points are obtained by completing instances. Please complete instances with the highest quality possible.
2. As long as the player survives and clears the instance, all injuries received within the instance will be fully healed upon leaving.]
[Doomsday Train operation rules are as follows. They may be viewed repeatedly:
The train will stop at every station.
Passengers must disembark when the train arrives at a station.
A station preview broadcast will begin 10 minutes before arrival.
During train travel time, please do not forcibly disembark.
Otherwise the monsters outside will gladly thank you for the flesh and blood you offer.
Death inside an instance equals real death. Items obtained inside an instance can be brought out through the System Backpack.
There are three days of rest time between two stations.
Please rest well, survivors.]
Rong Hui absorbed the large amount of information and decided she would examine the deeper meaning later when she had time.
She studied the brand new system panel in front of her. Many new options had appeared: Personal Information, System Backpack, System Shop, Points Balance, Personal Mailbox, Public Channel, Friend List.
She opened Personal Information.
[Survivor: Rong Hui
Age: 23
Stamina: 980/1000
Cleanliness: 90/100
Satiety: 80/100
Health: 98/100
(Values below 60 percent turn orange, below 20 percent turn red.)]
Rong Hui then opened the System Shop. She remembered that the instance reward earlier included 20 points, and she wondered what these 20 points could buy.
The moment she entered the System Shop, it felt as if she had entered an online marketplace like Taobao or JD. The items in front of her ranged from food and medicine to daily necessities, even cars and ships. She scrolled downward for a long time without reaching the end.
However, rare items such as ships were priced at 50,000 points. Her 20 points were completely insignificant here.
Rong Hui continued browsing and noticed a Currency section and a Precious Metals section.
In the Currency section, 1 point could be exchanged for 10,000 units of instance currency. Rong Hui took note of where the currency section was located. Since the system placed it there, it must serve some purpose.
As for the Precious Metals section, it mainly contained gold and platinum. One point could be exchanged for five grams of gold or ten grams of platinum.
Aside from these two sections, the most distinctive category was the System Special Items section. The moment she opened it, Rong Hui’s attention was drawn to the System Backpack slots.
One point could be exchanged for one System Backpack slot.
Was this not exactly the “portable storage space” often described in fantasy novels?
Suppressing the excitement in her heart, Rong Hui first exchanged for ten System Backpack slots. Her backpack was already occupied by the mountain bike and the cycling bag, so she urgently needed more storage space.
She did not feel any obvious change. Rong Hui opened the System Backpack and was satisfied to see that the original three slots had become thirteen, with ten empty slots waiting to be filled.
Although she had the photo box that could convert images into real objects, the items converted from the photos could not turn back into photos again. She needed sufficient space to store supplies.
Half of her points had been spent just like that. Feeling a bit pained, Rong Hui calmed herself and decided she would return to the shop after learning what the next station’s instance world would be.
After exiting the System Shop, Rong Hui noticed a red notification dot on Personal Mailbox. When she opened it, she found the system’s instance settlement reward: Survivor Basic Supply Pack ×1.
Inside were five bottles of mineral water, three milk bread buns, one bar of soap, and one roll of medical bandage.
Rong Hui noticed that these four types of supplies seemed to correspond exactly to the four attributes in her personal status.
Among them, the cleanliness attribute particularly caught her attention. In modern society, people generally appeared quite “clean” on the surface, so it was not obvious where cleanliness would be consumed. This was something she would need to observe further.
For now, she stored the supply pack in her backpack.
Rong Hui discovered that as long as items were bundled together into a package, they only occupied a single backpack slot. In addition, identical items could be stacked within the backpack.
These counted as two small tricks she planned to make good use of in the future.
The Public Channel kept flashing as new messages constantly flooded in. Rong Hui had no idea how many people were in the channel.
When she opened it, the number in the upper right corner showed 78,698 people.
Remembering that nearly a quarter of the people had disappeared after the beginner instance, she estimated that the original number of people in this channel had probably been around one hundred thousand.
Speech in the Public Channel was very free. Some people were discussing the beginner instance, while others were trying to find acquaintances.
“Looking for someone: Liu ##, from Qucheng. Big brother, it’s Liu # here. If you see this, add me as a friend!”
“Help! My phone has absolutely no signal. I really don’t want to participate in this ridiculous apocalypse!”
“Did anyone else get the old residential district fire survival instance?”
“I did! Mine was also an old residential fire. The stairwell was full of smoke and impossible to escape through, and the fire exit was blocked by electric scooters. Who understands this suffering…”
“My beginner instance was high rise fire survival. I almost got trapped inside the building. If I didn’t know rock climbing and climb to the rooftop, I would have been finished!”
“Anyone here from the sixth floor residential fire instance? I tied together all the bedsheets in my house and climbed down from the window. By the time I reached the second floor the sheets were not long enough. I jumped down and broke my leg.”
“You had it worse. I held out and waited for rescue. I got saved right before I fainted, haha!”
“How are you people adapting so quickly? What kind of ridiculous instance is this? It scared me so badly I almost wet myself…”
“Did anyone notice? The System Backpack slots can stack identical supplies up to 99 items. Don’t ask how I know. I tested it one peanut at a time.”
“Damn! Thanks to the person above. Good people will live peacefully for a lifetime. I hope you clear future instances smoothly!”
“My instance settlement rating was B. I got 15 points. Did anyone get higher?”
“Boss level player! The person above is a big shot! I only got rating D. The system said I suffered fatal injuries and only gave me 5 points. I can’t afford anything in the shop…”
…
As Rong Hui browsed the Public Channel, she discovered quite a lot of information.
It turned out that everyone’s beginner instances were not exactly the same, and the methods for clearing them were also different. Their experiences were not very useful as references for each other.
However, the information that each backpack slot could stack up to 99 identical items was extremely useful.
People in the channel kept revealing their instance ratings.
Rong Hui had no intention of joining the excitement. She believed there were definitely people with higher ratings than hers. The true experts were often indistinguishable among the crowd. She preferred not to embarrass herself.
As for searching for acquaintances, she felt even less attachment.
After her parents divorced when she was fifteen, she had become an unwanted burden. She relied on government assistance and part time work to finish university. Rong Hui had long since stopped expecting any warmth from family. She usually presented a cold and indifferent exterior to others, and only a few close friends truly understood her.
This trip home for the Spring Festival had actually been to visit her grandmother. Otherwise she would have spent the holiday alone in her rented apartment.
If that had happened, she might never have encountered this strange Doomsday Train System.
To be honest, after experiencing the beginner instance, Rong Hui’s view of the system had completely changed.
Her life had never been so thrilling and extraordinary before.
The adventurous instinct hidden deep within her was stirring.
She wanted to see just how far she could go.