Armed Train in the Apocalypse

”March 18th, 2037, Gravity imbalance.”

”This is the key node in the train refit—complex terrain is no longer an obstacle for the train.”

When he heard that the Cultivation Pod had taken off, the conductor was very gratified. The time and resources invested hadn’t been wasted; as long as it could fly, the train surpassed all other mobile carriers.

Ultra-thick defense, ultra-high carrying capacity, ultra-strong firepower... with so many ’ultra’s and it can still fly, it’s already invincible.

But the smile on Su Huan’s face didn’t last long before being covered by a shadow.

The shell floating in the sky looked like it had drunk fake liquor; it first wobbled, then deviated from the big pit below and came straight down toward his face.

A huge patch of shadow.

”Boom—”

The shell came to a sudden stop three meters above the ground, its massive weight squeezing the air into a shockwave.

Watching from a distance, Professor Ma turned his head and said to Director Xu, ”I just remembered there’s a research progress I didn’t check today. The students might not be sure what to do, I’ll go back and take a look.”

With that, he turned around and left, mercilessly leaving Director Xu standing there alone.

”Bang!”

The huge shell was tossed back into the pit by Su Huan. As it began to sway and lift again, Liang Kuan took a running start and leapt onto it, pressing the shell down firmly. Lao San led several combat squad soldiers inside and dragged the Rule Stone out.

Su Huan didn’t say anything about this failure. Researching this kind of thing is just a matter of walking out of failure again and again.

Today could only be counted as his unlucky day.

When the shell landed, Ge Mian was also watching from aboard their mobile carrier, the Titan. However, there wasn’t the slightest hint of a smile on his face. If it can get airborne once, it can get airborne a second time. In the Domain of mobile carriers, the Armed Train had pulled ahead again.

In the apocalypse, the importance of carriers goes without saying; they even surpass weapons and food, ranking just behind evolution.

Most companies stack their technology on evolution. Even if they research carriers, it’s just apocalyptic modifications based on existing platforms. Only Longxi High-speed Rail staked everything on mobile carriers, even delaying the company’s development.

The appearance of the Armed Train was an even stronger shot in the arm. Aside from Longxi High-speed Rail, many factions had secretly begun studying the feasibility of mobile carriers.

There are mainly three major checkpoints. The first is survivability in harsh environments, the second is passability over complex terrain, and the third is carrying capacity.

The first two are easy to solve in an apocalypse where new materials keep emerging; the key is carrying capacity.

The local pressure the ground can bear is limited, so the size of a carrier naturally has a physical upper bound. Go beyond that upper limit and it’s basically a weirdly shaped base, and an expensive one at that.

Make it too small and it’s not very meaningful. Top-tier factions are not short on combat vehicles; what they want is a ”mobile base” that can break away from base supply and survive long-term in the wilderness or under harsh conditions.

After various experiments, they ended up with the Titan tracked train beneath them.

They call it a train, but it’s more like one of those mega engineering vehicles—a colossal monster 38 meters wide, 19 meters tall, and 800 meters long, like a land battleship.

Its ready-to-roll mass exceeds one hundred thousand tons; it can permanently station 3,500 people, and in extreme conditions, house over ten thousand.

But the downside is extremely slow movement speed, enormous energy consumption, a need for large numbers of specialists to maintain it, and poor passability—it can only be used in multi-plain terrain like the Gravity Zone.

The downsides practically catch up with the upsides.

Even so, when this carrier was built, it still helped Longxi High-speed Rail stabilize its position. Dragging it over next to the Armed Train this time was also meant as a show of muscle—only, they didn’t expect the other side to go into the sky.

Not playing on the ground with him anymore!

”Have you figured out their technology?”

Ge Mian’s eyes were squeezed into thin slits by his fat.

The researchers awkwardly shook their heads.

”They’re doing open manufacturing. You bunch of top researchers go watch them every day and still don’t understand anything?”

Ge Mian questioned.

The latter’s face turned red, then green, and he stiffened his neck as he explained, ”It’s not about whether we’re capable or not; it’s that their method is fundamentally unscientific! We all come from scientific research backgrounds, and what they’re doing is mysticism. How are we supposed to learn that?”

”Mysticism?”

Ge Mian was stunned for a moment.

”They’re drawing talismans!”

The researcher said, furious.

Ge Mian frowned, a trace of thought flickering in his small eyes. It might be a smokescreen by the Armed Train, but if the other side really wanted to guard against them, there was nothing they could do.

This news had to be reported to the company as soon as possible.

Three days later, the shell rose into the air again, but this time Su Huan had learned his lesson. He only peeked from afar inside the train, then went back to processing documents.

The number of personnel on the train had already soared to six thousand. The old hard-fitted cars could still hold them, but it would affect the train’s current layout.

This was also one of the reasons the refit had remained stuck at the Four Nations stage.

After Chen Ziliang’s patchwork, the shell floated steadily in the sky for two days before being brought down to start the relocation.

The Cultivation Pod’s structure is not complex, mainly divided into upper and lower levels: the upper level is a botanical garden where the Crown Pear Tree resides; the lower level is the supercomputing and data center. The shell structure already had an open space on one side; once it’s sealed, it becomes an extremely sturdy supercomputing center, requiring only some defensive modifications to the top of the shell.

To prevent war from affecting the Crown Pear Tree.

At the same time, the expanded Cultivation Pod also added a large amount of research and living space. The various laboratories had always been cramped in the train cars, unable to really stretch out. Now they all moved up into the Cultivation Pod.

With the success of the Cultivation Pod, refits to the Armed Train’s main body also went into full swing.