Steve and Captain America returned to the camp together.
Captain America had been discussing the future direction with Hawkeye and Professor X last night, staying up all night.
Having also experienced the death of a member, his brow was heavy with exhaustion.
He nodded to Steve and walked straight toward the apartment.
Steve watched the figure disappear into the doorway, dazed for a moment before turning toward his own small stone house.
Entering the small house, he placed an oak plank in an empty slot in the corner.
Then, crouching down, he solemnly placed the [Empty Fresh Milk Carton] on top.
He stared at the corner for a while, feeling unsatisfied.
He broke the oak plank and crafted a gold block from nine gold ingots, placing it beneath the [Empty Fresh Milk Carton].
That seemed about right.
He wasn’t quite sure why he was using a gold block to prop up an empty carton, but he felt like doing it.
Sunlight slanted in through the glass pane, falling on the gold block and the empty carton, making the small corner look somewhat sacred.
Finally, he quickly crouched a few times toward the empty carton, then left the house with his equipment and three Shulker Boxes, setting out once again on his journey to obtain iron ore.
As Steve climbed over the perimeter wall, the Security Team on guard reported to Captain America again.
Captain America only replied with a faint sentence:
“It’s fine, let him be.”
…
This time, Steve didn’t run into Luke Cage either, and the Zombies along the way couldn’t pose any threat to him.
He successfully crossed the East River using stones.
About an hour later, he finally saw that stretch of railway tracks.
There was a building at the far end of the tracks, and an old-looking metal sign on top caught his eye.
Fresh Pond.
Xianchi.
Steve didn’t know that this place, called the Fresh Pond Hub, was a vital node connecting the Long Island Rail Road and nationwide freight before the infection.
The building had a sign that said “Classification Yard.” Steve didn’t know what it meant, so he just walked deeper into the Classification Yard along the rusted tracks.
He didn’t know where to find the iron ore either; he’d just explore first.
The place was eerily quiet.
Not even a single Zombie could be seen.
Steve could only hear the crunching sound of the pebbles beneath his feet.
But the quieter it was, the more eerie it felt, as if something was hiding in the shadows, watching him.
An abandoned freight train was parked by the tracks.
Steve could vaguely see something dark piled up inside the carriages, so he built a path up with stones.
It looked like coal.
Steve tried to punch one with his hand, and a lump of coal suddenly turned into a floating 2D item, then was sucked into his backpack with a “pop.”
Had the nature of the items changed, being converted into items from MC?
Steve had brought 76 pieces of coal ore with him when he came to this world, but thinking that he would need a lot more to smelt a large amount of iron ore later, he began converting the carriage full of coal.
Steve then used a crafting table to turn all the collected coal into coal blocks—9 coal for 1 coal block—which saved a lot of space.
In the end, Steve didn’t take much, just two stacks—only 128 coal blocks in total.
He hopped onto another carriage, where fine, orange-red metal shimmered in the sunlight.
From the color, Steve thought it looked a bit like copper ingots, but when he punched it, a…
[Copper Cable Core] dropped.
What was this?
Steve tried gathering over a dozen [Copper Cable Cores] and dragged them into the crafting table.
It could actually produce 2 copper ingots?
This was an unexpected surprise.
After all, if he wanted to use the [Timeless and Classics] mod to manufacture ammunition later, he would need a lot of copper ingots.
Without further ado, Steve started digging.
This time he took the entire carriage of [Copper Cable Cores], eventually obtaining a total of 12 stacks of copper blocks.
Steve didn’t spare the remaining carriages either, but they contained things like [Moldy Corn], [Rotten Soybeans], and [Rebar].
They were either inedible or couldn’t be crafted into anything, so they were useless.
After jumping down from the intact freight train, the sun was already beginning to set.
Steve finally saw the goal of his trip.
The view ahead suddenly opened up.
An overturned freight train lay quietly on the rusted tracks.
Over fifty gondola cars were connected end to end.
Dark brown ore was scattered all over the ground from the cars, their surfaces covered in a layer of rust-colored dust that glinted with a dark red luster in the setting sun.
This pile of stuff looked at least eighty percent similar to iron ore.
Steve ran and jumped toward the ore pile on his blocky legs, but he didn’t notice that the moment he landed, he stepped on and broke an almost invisible fishing line.
Click.
The sound of some mechanism being triggered.
The sound was very, very faint, but Steve caught it.
He had heard similar sounds many times in the adventure maps players had taken him through.
The sound of a Tripwire Hook being triggered!
Countless PVP matches played with players had already etched memories into his body.
Before he could even react, his shield was already held out in front of him!
A series of vibrations came from the shield.
Steve looked down and saw three bone arrowheads embedded in the shield’s wooden planks.
He unhurriedly crouched and retreated while holding his shield, hiding behind the ore pile, then glanced in the direction the arrows had come from.
Directly ahead, about thirty blocks away, a crossbow was mounted on top of that overturned carriage.
But there were no hostile mobs.
Just as Steve was looking around, a sudden force struck him from the side!
His whole body flashed red for a moment as he lost two hearts of health, and an arrow remained lodged in his arm.
Steve’s reaction was extremely fast.
Almost at the same time he lost health, he turned and built a shelter with two blocks of stone.
He peeked around a corner of the shelter toward the direction of the attack.
On top of the train he had previously scavenged, a figure draped in tattered animal skins crouched there, holding a bow made of bone and vines.
The creature’s posture wasn’t like a Zombie’s; Zombies shouldn’t know how to crouch, nor should they know how to aim.
And they certainly wouldn’t immediately notch a second arrow after missing!
A second arrow flew over.
Steve quickly hid behind the stone shelter.
The bone arrow struck the surface with a “ping” and was deflected.
Steve was thinking about how to deal with this sudden attacker when he abruptly heard movement behind him.
He turned around; a second enemy had already crept within ten blocks!
Draped in the same tattered animal skins, its deep gray skin was covered in ulcers and sores, even revealing the white bones beneath; it held a sharpened bone spear and was hunched over, creeping forward step by step.
Even though it was just a Zombie, it actually knew how to use weapons and was sneaking.
Seeing that Steve had discovered it, the Zombie no longer moved quietly.
It suddenly accelerated, thrusting its spear with the sound of whistling wind!
Backed against a one-block wide, two-block high stone shelter, Steve couldn’t move and could only hurriedly raise his shield to block!
At that exact moment, a third one suddenly lunged from behind the ore pile on the right.
That Zombie was swinging a stone tied with a rope, smashing it toward Steve’s head!
Steve was completely out of options.
With a “thud,” he blocked the bone spear’s thrust with his shield, but his head, wearing a Netherite Helmet, took a hard hit from the Meteor Hammer!
Health -2 hearts!
“Gahhhh!!!”
Thanks to the [Thorns III] enchantment on his Netherite Chestplate, although the Meteor Hammer Zombie had succeeded, it also took thorns damage.
Layers of pitch-black slime suddenly sprayed from its body as it quickly jumped away with a hiss.
But the Meteor Hammer Zombie didn’t retreat.
Instead, all three Zombies launched a new round of attacks on Steve simultaneously!
Bone spear, bone arrow, and Meteor Hammer all struck at once!