2: Chapter 2 Upgrading the Steam Crossbow! My A-Rank Seed Bank!

Outside the Polaris's treads, the wind and snow continued to howl frantically.

Inside the vehicle, it was as warm as spring. Lu Chen sat in the driver's seat, his hands gripping the freezing steering wheel.

He didn't rush to start the crawler; instead, he invested his final 10 Truth Points into the tech tree.

"System, unlock [Armament and Weaponry Lv1: Black Powder Steam Repeating Crossbow]!"

[Ding! Unlock successful. 10 Truth Points consumed.]

As the notification faded, the weapon rack beside the driver's seat—which originally held a dilapidated crude musket—emitted a sound of metal grinding.

Within a ghostly blue light, old parts were decomposed, reorganized, stretched, and quenched!

In just three seconds, a heavy mechanical crossbow, one and a half meters long with a rugged and violent design, locked firmly into the firing port specially reserved in the vehicle body.

This crossbow had no bowstring; a thick brass pipe connected directly to the Primary Efficiency Boiler, its surface gleaming with the sheen of engine oil.

On either side of the crossbow's body hung a massive black powder drum, stuffed full of thumb-thick solid steel bolts.

Steam power combined with black powder secondary propulsion—this was the most direct expression of heavy industrial violent aesthetics in the apocalyptic wasteland!

Lu Chen reached out to stroke the cold brass pipe, listening to the hiss of high-pressure steam surging within. That sound was like the low growl of some steel behemoth.

His phobia of insufficient firepower was finally suppressed a little.

"Time to work."

Lu Chen pulled a thick control lever.

The heart of the Polaris, the Primary Efficiency Boiler, let out a low roar. The massive off-road treads began to turn, crushing the ice ahead as it trudged forward across the area known as the Pale Shoals.

He was looking for ore.

This region was barren, but occasionally, low-grade sourcefire coal crystal veins would be squeezed to the surface by the movement of glaciers.

The crawler spent nearly two hours crawling through the endless white at a speed of less than twenty kilometers per hour. Just as Lu Chen's patience was about to run out, his eyes locked onto something ahead, and he decisively stepped on the brakes.

Behind an ice mound fifty meters ahead, several pitch-black stones were exposed, emitting a faint, flickering red light.

This was the sign of a low-grade coal crystal associated mineral vein!

Lu Chen didn't rush to get out of the vehicle.

He was a cautious man who had prudence etched into his bones. He understood that on this wasteland, most resources exposed in the open had predators lurking nearby.

During the dozen or so seconds he spent observing, three large mounds suddenly bulged from the snow ahead without warning!

Then, bang! Bang! Bang!

With three heavy thuds, three ferocious beasts, their sizes comparable to adult water buffalo, burst out from the snow!

[Junior Icefield Wolf]

[Status: Extremely Hungry]

[Threat Level: Lethal (to unarmored targets)]

These three wolves no longer looked like creatures from the old era. Their skin had mutated into a grayish-white cuticle capable of withstanding extreme cold, and foul-smelling saliva dripped from their lips.

Six crimson eyes locked onto the Polaris, this moving tin can.

"Awoo!"

The alpha wolf let out a shrill howl, its limbs pushing off the ground as its muscular body lunged through the wind and snow like a cannonball!

The other two fanned out to the left and right, swiftly beginning a pincer movement.

They were incredibly fast, covering the fifty-meter distance in the blink of an eye!

Bang!

The alpha wolf slammed hard against the front armor of the Polaris.

Even if it was just Lv1 scrap metal, it was still metal.

The cabin shook violently. Lu Chen grabbed a handrail; his body swayed slightly but he quickly steadied himself, his legs firmly planted against the chassis.

"Ramming my car? Don't you know repairs are expensive?"

Lu Chen scolded in a low voice, quickly moving to the firing port and gripping the handles of the steam repeating crossbow tightly.

Having failed its initial strike, the alpha wolf's sharp claws frantically scratched at the bulletproof iron bars outside the window, producing a piercing noise like nails on a chalkboard.

Its bloody maw pressed against the firing port, and its foul-smelling breath blew inside.

"A distance of half a meter. I couldn't miss even with my eyes closed."

He stared through the firing port and pulled the trigger!

Sshhh! BOOM!!

First came the sharp hiss of high-pressure steam being released, followed immediately by the deafening roar of black powder igniting!

A thick, solid steel bolt, carrying incomparable and terrifying kinetic energy, burst violently from the firing port!

This force was too savage; the bolt instantly pierced through the alpha wolf's hard skull.

It didn't even have time to scream or struggle before its head exploded!

Red and white matter mixed with bone fragments, staining a large patch of snow red.

The muscular, headless corpse was dragged backward five or six meters by its own momentum, slamming heavily onto the snow. After a few twitches, it went silent.

The other two Icefield Wolves, which were gnawing on the treads from the side, were startled into a halt by the sudden explosion.

Realizing this iron lump hid something that could kill them instantly, they let out a whimper and turned, trying to flee deep into the wind and snow.

"Since you're already here, you think you can just leave?"

Lu Chen's face was taut as his hands rapidly turned the crank.

The steam crossbow made rhythmic clicks as it precisely reloaded.

Bang!

The second bolt fired!

The wolf on the left had only run ten meters when it was shot through the waist. The powerful kinetic energy pinned it firmly to the thick ice, where it struggled and wailed!

Bang!

The third bolt followed immediately!

The wolf on the right jumped in terror, trying to dodge, but was hit in the neck mid-air. Its entire neck was snapped by the sheer force of the penetration, and its corpse tumbled a long distance.

The battle was over in less than ten seconds.

Lu Chen released the handles, letting the tension drain from his arms.

This was the power of technology.

If it had been the original owner, that crude musket wouldn't have even pierced a wolf's hide, and they would have ended up being torn apart and eaten alive.

Only after confirming there were no further dangers did he put on his heavy coat, push open the thick iron door, and jump down from the vehicle.

The minus sixty-degree wind instantly rushed into his collar, making him shiver all over.

He walked quickly to the wolf carcasses, pulled out a skinning knife, and skillfully sliced open a wolf's belly, digging out three primary beast cores emitting a faint blue light from the heart area.

These were higher-order energy sources than low-grade coal crystals; not only could they produce heat, but they could also provide biological energy. They were the system's favorite food.

Next, he quickly cut off a dozen pieces of wolf meat and threw them into the vehicle.

The wolf skins were too severely damaged to be worth taking.

After scavenging the spoils of war, Lu Chen also dug up the dozen or so low-grade coal crystals from the mineral deposit and tossed them into the coal bin next to the boiler.

This haul would yield at least a hundred Truth Points. A massive profit!

"This wilderness is practically paved with gold."

He patted the snow dust off his hands with satisfaction, preparing to get back in for the return trip.

But just as he turned around, the sudden, rapid roar of a mechanical engine drifted through the wind and snow.

Unlike the steady tread of the Polaris, this was an extremely piercing, high-RPM noise from an internal combustion engine.

"A snowmobile? How can there be such a high-mobility vehicle in the starting zone?"

His vigilance piqued, he quickly ducked behind the vehicle door and raised his binoculars to look toward the sound.

A few hundred meters away on an ice mound, a figure nearly frozen into an ice sculpture was crawling desperately through the knee-deep snow.

Less than two hundred meters behind them, three armed snowmobiles painted with blood-red skull logos were giving chase at a leisurely pace, like cats playing with a mouse.

"Raiders from the Snow Shard Gang."

He instantly recognized that logo—the biggest cancer in the Pale Shoals region.

According to his rules of survival, he wouldn't have meddled in others' business. He even had one foot on the step, ready to get in and close the door.

But subconsciously, he looked through the binoculars, his gaze locking onto the object the crawler was desperately protecting in their arms.

It was a silver-white alloy code box bearing the logo of the Pre-Civilization Federation.

On the box, blurred handwriting read: [Grade A Constant Temperature Plant Seed Vault].

Lu Chen's foot stopped dead in mid-air.

"Grade A... Constant Temperature seed vault..."

Lu Chen's breathing instantly quickened, and his eyes glazed over with longing.

He currently only had a simple Cultivation Box in his vehicle; even growing some cabbage was a struggle.

If he had this thing, combined with the subsequent [Ecological Logistics] branch, he could directly build a small ecological farm inside the Polaris!

This was the lifeblood of the base-building path! It was the top-tier strategic resource of the apocalypse!

Watching the three raiders laughing wildly as they raised their crude machetes, preparing to enjoy the pleasure of torturing and killing their prey, Lu Chen shed his previous composure.

The path of caution was for living better and accumulating more resources.

But when a god-tier base-building core was right in front of him, so-called 'laying low' had to give way to 'grabbing it'!

"You dare touch my seeds?"

Lu Chen flipped back into the vehicle, slammed the thick iron door shut, and his eyes surged with killing intent.