16: Chapter 16: All-in on Scrap Steel and Heavy Armor! The North Star Undergoes a Complete Transformation!

The sound of the storm outside the carriage showed signs of waning. That sharp whistling that seemed to pierce through space gradually turned into a low moan.

Lu Chen looked up at the black wind curtain outside the carriage window. Visibility was still zero, but the subtle changes in air pressure could not escape his keen perception.

"It won't last more than twelve hours at most; this Extreme Cold Ice Storm will pass."

He quickly simulated the situation after the ice storm subsided in his mind.

Pale Shoals would usher in a bloody reshuffling of resources. Whether it was the mutated beasts hiding in holes with hunger-reddened eyes, or those scavengers who had luckily survived, they would all rush out like starving mad dogs to forage.

Time was running out. Polaris had to be armed to the teeth before dawn.

Lu Chen withdrew his gaze and, without hesitation, clicked on the third node of [Infrastructure Armor Lv1].

[Infrastructure Armor Lv1 (Node 3): Riveted Scrap Metal Armor Plate]

[Node Description: Using the system's high-dimensional reorganization technology, a layer of composite scrap metal armor ten centimeters thick is forcibly attached and riveted to the exterior of the vehicle's native bulletproof iron skin.]

[The armor has a rugged appearance with irregular sloped angles, which can effectively create a ricochet effect and offset 70% of the kinetic energy generated by the impact of mutated beasts. It is immune to primary firearms and the physical biting of ordinary mutated beasts.]

[Unlock Cost: 100 Truth Points.]

Ten centimeters of composite scrap metal. Sloped armor. Ricochet effect.

Lu Chen's eyes lit up completely.

As a former mechanical engineering prodigy, he knew exactly what sloped armor meant in actual combat. That was the defensive specification only heavy tanks in World War II deserved!

In a newbie-level area like Pale Shoals, as long as he didn't encounter the heavy The City-State guards with armor-piercing artillery, this layer of armor was an invincible physical barrier!

What satisfied him even more was the 70% offset of impact kinetic energy. This perfectly compensated for the fatal weakness of micro-vehicles being too light and easily overturned.

"Balance is 100 points, going all in."

Lu Chen looked at the golden numbers in the upper right corner, his eyes filled with fanaticism.

From full capacity to zero, not a single point more, not a milligram less.

"System, light up the Riveted Scrap Metal Armor Plate! Turn this paper-thin iron sheet into a true iron wall for me!"

[Ding! 100 Truth Points deducted. [Infrastructure Armor Lv1 (Node 3): Riveted Scrap Metal Armor Plate] successfully unlocked!]

[Current Truth Points balance: 0.]

[External armor attachment and reorganization starting. Warning: This modification will significantly increase the vehicle's dead weight; please ensure the Power Engine is sufficient to support it.]

Lu Chen didn't care.

"My Primary Efficiency Boiler and Track Anti-Cold Lubrication System have long been starving for this."

Every upgrade he had made previously was a tightly linked step based on rigorous calculations. Without a strong heart and flexible legs, how could he carry this heavy turtle shell?

Clang!

If the generation of the Harpoon Cannon before was a violent shattering, then the current generation of armor was a grand and heavy symphony of steel!

Both Lu Chen and Lin Wan clearly felt the entire Polaris suddenly sink!

The hydraulic suspension of the chassis made a painful yet tenacious creaking sound, desperately holding up the suddenly increased weight of several tons.

Through the bulletproof glass, Lin Wan's eyes widened instantly.

In the terrifying ice storm outside, countless earth-yellow rays of light intertwined into a net, tightly enveloping the entire Polaris.

Immediately after, an invisible giant hand of steel reached out from the void.

It took countless heavy steel plates covered in dark brown rust and slapped them fiercely onto the originally smooth and fragile shell of Polaris at sloped angles that were extremely brutal yet strictly compliant with mechanical structures!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The deafening sound of blacksmithing continued endlessly outside the carriage.

Dark red high-temperature rivets, as thick as an adult's thumb, were driven like a rainstorm into those heavy scrap metal armor plates, fusing them tightly with the original chassis of Polaris!

The armor plates overlapped and interlocked.

Directly in front of the vehicle head, it was specially molded into a sharp icebreaker-style inverted V-shaped ram!

Above the tracks on both sides of the vehicle body, the armor plates extended downward, forming two heavy side skirts, perfectly protecting the fragile track transmission gears inside.

The modification lasted for a full two minutes.

When the last rivet cooled and the earth-yellow light dissipated.

Parked under the ice hill fault was no longer that micro-iron lump that looked like it would fall apart in the next second.

The current Polaris was a whole size larger!

It was like a steel hedgehog clad in black heavy armor. The mottled rust and rough rivets did not diminish its deterrent power at all; instead, they added a sense of battle-hardened ferocity and stability.

The hail outside hit this ten-centimeter-thick scrap metal armor, leaving only insignificant white marks, unable to transmit even a hint of vibration into the interior of the carriage.

"Perfect."

Lu Chen closed his eyes, listening to the now extremely muffled sound of the storm outside.

The sense of security from being wrapped in an impenetrable barrier made every nerve in his body relax.

"An impeccable sense of weight."

Firepower: long, medium, and short-range three-dimensional coverage.

Defense: thermal bridge breaking plus ten-centimeter scrap metal heavy armor.

Power: constant temperature lubrication, smooth as walking on flat ground.

Supplies: pure water infinite circulation, A-grade seeds ready to go.

In this wasteland world that eats people without spitting out the bones, he had finally personally crafted an iron coffin for a bottom-tier wanderer into an indestructible micro-mobile fortress.

"City Lord... are we... are we safe now?"

Lin Wan's voice trembled. Looking at the thick walls that made people feel at ease, tears uncontrollably welled up in her eyes again.

"In this world, where is there true safety?"

Lu Chen picked up the pure water cup and drank it in one gulp.

"There is only armor that isn't thick enough, and caliber that isn't large enough."

In his cold, hard eyes, a increasingly greedy and distant light flickered.

The four major branches of the Lv1 technology tree were already full. But this was just the beginning.

The current level of Polaris was still a lv.1 micro snow fortress.

As long as those four core nodes hanging at the top of the tech tree were not lit, he could not complete the cross-tier evolution and turn this vehicle into a true behemoth.

And to light up the core, he needed extremely vast resources. Things of a much higher order than coal crystals and beast cores.

"The storm is stopping soon."

Lu Chen knocked the water cup heavily on the iron table, his gaze piercing through layers of frost, casting towards the distance where the wind and snow were gradually ceasing.

"Get ready. After dawn, we are going out to pull off a big job."