5: Effects of the Mechanical Heart

He crafted all the vehicle accessories that a Level 1 Train could make, including ‘Level 1 Train Iron Armor’ for five carriages.

He also built two ‘Gale I’ light machine guns and an ammunition box.

Lu Yang was left with only 734 units of Iron Mine, 300 units of copper, and 1936 units of wood.

This was far from enough to upgrade to a Level 2 Train.

The scarcity of copper meant it couldn't be used indiscriminately for now.

Looking at over a thousand units of wood, Lu Yang pondered for a moment, then decided to upgrade the Repeating Ballista.

Although the Repeating Ballista was a white-grade accessory, it was the only weapon on a Level 1 Train capable of effectively striking large mutated creatures.

In the wilderness, when encountering a tide of corpses, as long as the number of corpses wasn't in the tens of thousands and hadn't encircled the train, even with the speed of a Level 1 Train, escaping wasn't difficult.

But encountering large mutated creatures was different.

They were mostly massive in size and agile in movement.

Some were even faster than a Level 3 Train traveling at 200 km/h.

A single collision could overturn a train carriage.

Bullets leaving small holes on them were akin to tickling them.

Even heavy machine gun fire struggled to inflict fatal damage and consumed a lot of ammunition.

The only thing that could effectively suppress them was the Repeating Ballista.

A crossbow bolt over a meter long and as thick as a baby's forearm, a single hit could cause them immense trauma.

Currently, Lu Yang had the most wood, and it was useless just sitting there, so it was better to use it to upgrade the Repeating Ballista first.

This way, if he truly encountered danger, it could at least play some role.

Upgrading a Level 1 Repeating Ballista to Level 2 required 50 units of Iron Mine and 100 units of wood.

The cost was the same as building it.

The effective range increased from 800 meters to 1000 meters.

Upgrading a Level 2 Repeating Ballista to Level 3 required 100 units of Iron Mine and 200 units of wood.

The effective range increased from 1000 meters to 1500 meters.

However, generally speaking, vehicle accessories topped out at Level 3.

In the Donglin Plain area, while the danger was minimal, the maximum level for a train could only reach Level 3.

This applied to accessories of any quality; they could only be upgraded to Level 3.

After Lu Yang upgraded the Repeating Ballista to Level 3, he wanted to see if it could be further improved.

Then, the Strongest Train Captain System displayed a prompt:

“Detected that the host possesses the unique accessory ‘Mechanical Heart’, Mechanical Affinity is maxed, train accessory level upgrades are unlimited.”

“Would you like to continue upgrading the Repeating Ballista? The upgrade will consume 150 units of Iron Mine and 300 units of wood.”

“Haha, just as I thought.”

When he first awakened the Strongest Train Captain System and automatically loaded the ‘Mechanical Heart’ accessory, Lu Yang didn't quite understand what the Mechanical Heart's inherent effect, ‘unlimited train accessory level upgrades,’ meant.

It was only after truly becoming a Train Captain and learning the train operating procedures that he understood that while train accessories could be upgraded by consuming resources, with each level improving the accessory's effect, there was a level cap of 3.

Lu Yang upgraded the Repeating Ballista, not only for safety but also to test if his vehicle accessories could continue to be upgraded after reaching Level 3.

Now it seemed, it truly could.

The Mechanical Heart had something special!

“Continue upgrading!”

“Congratulations, Train Captain! By consuming 150 units of Iron Mine and 300 units of wood, the Repeating Ballista has been upgraded to Level 4, and its effective range has increased to 2000 meters.”

“Would you like to continue upgrading?”

“Hint: After a vehicle accessory is upgraded to Level 5, there is a chance to gain a trait.”

“Trait?” This was another term Lu Yang didn't understand.

But it didn't matter; he still had enough wood and Iron Mine, so he would find out by upgrading it to Level 5, wouldn't he?

“Continue upgrading!!”

“Congratulations, Train Captain! By consuming 200 units of Iron Mine and 400 units of wood, the Repeating Ballista has been upgraded to Level 5, and its effective range has increased to 3000 meters.”

“The Repeating Ballista has been upgraded to Level 5 and gained the trait [Enemy Lock].”

“[Enemy Lock]: After aiming at an enemy for 3 seconds, the Repeating Ballista will automatically lock onto the enemy. When the enemy's level is lower than the Repeating Ballista's level, the fired bolts will definitely hit the enemy.”

“This… this… this…”

“This is too awesome!”

Although the Repeating Ballista was powerful, it had a major drawback: its accuracy was worrying.

Whether it hit the target depended entirely on luck.

But now, after upgrading to Level 5, it actually gained the [Enemy Lock] trait.

This perfectly filled the Repeating Ballista's weakness.

The effect of the [Mechanical Heart] was simply heaven-defying.

Most importantly, this kind of enhancement wasn't limited to just the Repeating Ballista.

Other vehicle accessories could also achieve this.

Breaking the original level restrictions and gaining miraculous 'traits'.

Lu Yang could already imagine himself, with his entire train equipped with high-level vehicle accessories, each with various miraculous traits, traversing the wilderness, arrogant and invincible.

Then, a loud gunshot instantly pulled him back to reality.

“Master Yang, Master Yang, this is Yang Kui.”

“Small tide of corpses detected in the northwest, small tide of corpses detected in the northwest, please evacuate passengers immediately.”

Yang Kui's urgent voice came through the walkie-talkie.

Lu Yang's heart tightened, but he immediately calmed down.

He climbed onto the roof of the cockpit and saw a dense mass of black shadows appearing about two kilometers to the northwest.

It was Liu Shan who had fired the warning shot.

He was on the roof on alert and was the first to notice the movement of the tide of corpses.

Then he fired a shot into the sky.

This was pre-arranged.

Otherwise, when danger struck, relying solely on shouting would be too inefficient.

Seeing this, Lu Yang immediately ordered Qin Lei and Zhang Fang in the mine to evacuate the personnel via the walkie-talkie.

In fact, at this moment, without Lu Yang's instruction, Qin Lei and Zhang Fang were already leading the passengers out.

In the wilderness, hearing a gunshot was already a very clear danger signal.

If one didn't even have that much alertness, they deserved to be finished.

However, when the passengers all came up, they weren't panicked by the gunshot, but they were panicked by the brand-new Xinhuo Train.

Before entering the mine, the Xinhuo Train had only a pitiful three carriages, and the iron sheets of the carriages were covered in rusty green, looking no different from something fleeing from a famine.

But now, not only were there two more carriages, but the bodies of the carriages had also become dark and heavy.

On the roofs of the first and second carriages, two machine guns with a metallic luster stood firm.

In the middle of the third carriage, a huge Repeating Ballista, emitting a bronze sheen, was fully drawn and ready to fire.

No, what happened?

While they were mining, their own train was annexed?

This was too fast!

Their good days hadn't even lasted two days, had they?

Not only the passengers, but even Qin Lei and Zhang Fang were stunned.

After all, before going down the mine, the train hadn't changed at all.

If it really had been annexed, the most sensible thing for everyone to do now was to stay put, otherwise, a burst from the machine guns on the roof would turn them all into minced meat.

Fortunately, Yang Kui ran over in time.

Seeing Zhang Fang standing stunned, he kicked him.

“What are you still standing there for? Didn't you hear Master Yang's evacuation order?”

“Master Yang upgraded the train.”

“Quickly get on the train, carriages four or five are fine.”

Saying this, he shouted to everyone, “After getting on the train, if anyone knows how to use firearms, immediately report to the fourth carriage.”

“This tide of corpses is quite large; everyone needs to fight.”