“You think an employee card will make me change my mind?”

Bai Cheng said with a look of disdain, but Tang Yan’s simple words still revealed a lot of information to her.

In short, this guy must be extraordinary.

Closing their chat, Bai Cheng stared at the trading interface for a few more minutes. This time, neither others nor Tang Yan continued to trade employee cards.

It wasn’t until cheng book’s urging sounded in her mind again that Bai Cheng, slightly disappointed, continued to chop trees.

Just as Tang Yan said, the supplies along the way were very limited, but fortunately, trees were still of great use to Bai Cheng now.

She chopped trees while traveling, and as one small tree after another fell, the handy bronze axe in her hand suddenly flashed with a purple light.

The next second, the bronze-colored axe in Bai Cheng’s hand transformed into a shining silver.

The axe blade was smaller than before, and it felt incredibly light in her hand. This time, even the axe handle was made of the same metal as the axe blade.

“Name: silver axe”

“Level: Purple”

“Durability: 100”

“Introduction: An axe made entirely of mithril can not only easily cut down trees, but also inflict powerful spiritual damage on even incorporeal demonic creatures.”

“Evaluation: Chopping trees and exorcising demons, two birds with one stone!”

This time the information was more detailed than before.

“Exorcism?” Bai Cheng examined the silver axe in her hand. “So she can damage monsters like demonic creatures.”

It wasn’t difficult to understand, but at this moment, she was more looking forward to what this silver axe would look like after upgrading.

“100 durability, that’s just a hundred trees.”

Although the speed of obtaining wood was slower during the day, it could quickly upgrade the axe in her hand.

Bai Cheng set a goal for herself: to upgrade the axe in her hand directly to gold before nightfall!

She held the silver axe and swung it directly at the small tree in front of her. With hardly any effort, an invisible energy seemed to burst forth the moment the axe blade touched the trunk.

Immediately after, the trunk broke, then collapsed, turning into several pieces of wood.

Bai Cheng was shocked, “One hit! Just one hit?”

One axe, one tree?!

Bai Cheng didn’t believe it and immediately chopped down several other small ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ trees nearby. Without exception, all of them were one-hit kills.

“This is great!”

Bai Cheng was very excited and bent down to pick up the wood on the ground, but her hand suddenly froze in mid-air as she realized something.

“Wait, durability didn’t decrease?”

“silver axe: 0/100”

Bai Cheng’s face immediately fell. This way, she couldn’t chop trees to upgrade the axe during the day.

But she wasn’t too disappointed, after all, the efficiency of obtaining wood had greatly improved.

Since she couldn't get rich by obtaining a condenser at the start, Bai Cheng would rely on her diligent hands to exchange wood for everything she wanted!

What if she couldn’t exchange for it? Then there definitely wasn’t enough wood!

One hour, two and a half hours, four hours....

Bai Cheng was tireless, forcing herself to chop down one tree after another. The railcar also slowed down due to carrying too much wood.

The silver axe in her hand was as usual, still not losing any durability.

Bai Cheng felt her body had reached its limit, even with the axe upgraded and chopping trees requiring almost no effort.

Looking up at the sky again, the sky was growing darker.

“Is it getting dark so fast?” Bai Cheng frowned. She didn’t feel very hungry at the moment.

After casually tossing the axe onto the car, Bai Cheng plopped down.

Her whole body ached, and she felt her hands were no longer her own. “So tired, so sleepy...”

She looked at the mileage: “Distance to next station: 446km”

“Still so far?” Bai Cheng looked utterly dejected. “There aren’t many supplies on the way, so it seems I need to hurry after replenishing.”

A distance of 500km, in two days and one night, Bai Cheng had only covered 54km so far. She suspected this progress was the slowest among all survivors.

One hundred fine woods were synthesized in an instant, and the rough square pillar woods immediately disappeared by more than half, transforming into more refined, polished-looking excellent woods.

Bai Cheng immediately clicked on 【My Train】 and then submitted all these materials.

Before deciding to focus on traveling, Bai Cheng needed to not only fill all the train’s materials except for the steam engine but also hoard enough food and water.

Of course, the most important thing was to upgrade the employee card in her hand.

Protecting First Station was something she couldn’t do on her own.

“But speaking of which, everyone’s first employee is a beast, some even less than a beast. Can one animal really guard a station?”

Bai Cheng couldn’t quite believe it. This seemed to indirectly indicate that the so-called danger of First Station was not very great in reality, or that personal ability was greater than that of an employee.

“Could it be that this impressive-sounding Infinite Plunderer is just for show?”

Bai Cheng didn’t think too much about this question. She still stuck to her idea of trying to upgrade her employee card to the highest level before reaching First Station.

“Train: Dilapidated Manual Railcar”

“Level: Cannot Upgrade!”

“Armored Core: None”

“Employee: None”

“Advancement Conditions: 0/50 Exquisite Leather, 100/100 Fine Wood, 0/200 Iron Ingots, 0/1 Steam Engine.”

“Still short of a hundred leather.” Bai Cheng raised an eyebrow.

She planned to wait until nightfall after dinner to trade wood for all the remaining leather she needed.

Looking at the few remaining fine woods on the car, she decided to exchange for some food first.

Just as she opened the trading interface, an employee card dropped out of thin air.

“Trader Lin Qiuyue traded your hunting bow and received Employee Card * 1!”

“It actually sold!” Bai Cheng’s face lit up with joy. She glanced at the employee card on the ground; it was a mouse.

Afterward, she exchanged fine wood for some food and prepared to start cooking.

Of course, she still opened the channel as usual to relieve boredom.

However, these were secondary. The main reason was that she needed to constantly monitor the progress of other survivors to ensure she wasn’t falling behind, or how far ahead she was if she was leading.

The first sentence that caught her eye made her pause.

“Brothers, the speed of nightfall is accelerating! I have a watch, and it clearly recorded that yesterday’s nightfall was at six o’clock, but now it’s not even five o’clock!”

Bai Cheng subconsciously looked at the sky. At this moment, the entire sky was unusually dark, and it was conservatively estimated that it would be completely dark in less than half an hour.

And others in the channel also echoed.

“I knew it! Why is it getting dark so early today? It turns out it’s earlier!”

“Damn, the nightfall time won’t get earlier and earlier, will it? Then won’t we all be in great danger!”

“...”

Bai Cheng’s meat wasn’t even cooked yet when the sky completely darkened.

Because the sunlight was gone, the solar-powered lantern on the railcar immediately lit up, emitting a dim yellow light, dispelling some of the surrounding darkness.

But when Bai Cheng looked over, the surroundings were no longer grasslands, but the eerie Dark Forest.

“Silent Night descends!”

“Tip: The longer you stay outside the station, the higher the danger level!”

Bai Cheng instantly realized that the system was not referring to the time spent parked, but the total time spent outside the station!

It was at this moment that she finally understood the sole mission during the five-day safe period before arriving at First Station.