Meanwhile, in another part of the pitch-black forest.

A square lantern on the railcar emitted a warm glow, dispelling the surrounding darkness and illuminating the sharp, chiseled face of a short-haired young man.

He stood at the front of the car, his gaze now shifting away from the screen.

Looking at the five fresh pieces of hyena meat that had appeared at his feet, he casually tossed them to a large crocodile beside the car.

"If the creatures of Silent Night weren't inedible, why would I bother wasting resources to trade for food?"

However, there was no expression on his face; he clearly didn't care about the matter.

"It seems there's no way to get a steam engine before reaching First Station. After collecting the supplies, I'll have to hurry."

With that, Tang Yan sat down in the car and closed his eyes, feigning sleep.

Meanwhile, the crocodile below the car continued to battle Silent Night creatures, and notifications of experience gained flashed across the screen... 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

At this moment, Bai Cheng had also just made a major decision.

"Someone who can use so much fresh water to trade for food right at the start, and even obtain an Employee Card."

"With fresh water and no shortage of food, what else could he trade my hyena meat for?"

Bai Cheng looked at the Fierce Tiger Employee Card in her hand and immediately had a guess.

Presumably, the other party was using it to feed his employees; that would explain everything.

However, Bai Cheng didn't care about this; everyone was a survivor, and there was no hostile relationship between them at the moment, at most, just a little envy.

And the major decision she made... was to become a diligent lumberjack!

That's right, in the early stages, besides food and water, almost all basic obtainable resources were important, and wood was one of the essential materials needed to upgrade the train.

The Employee Card might be a huge temptation for survivors, but at this stage, no one could possibly produce the exorbitant price of 200 pieces of wood.

Of course, it's not impossible that someone might not craft tools and instead continuously chop trees ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) to gather these materials for exchange.

So, if Bai Cheng wanted to trade for the Employee Card in Tang Yan's hand, she had to quickly gather wood.

"It's night, and I'm in a forest—a perfect time to get wood!"

Otherwise, relying solely on the sparse small trees during the day to obtain two hundred pieces of wood for an Antelope Employee Card would undoubtedly be a huge loss.

But ultimately, 200 wood for an Employee Card was still a bit expensive, so Bai Cheng decided to try negotiating the price with the other party to see if she could get it cheaper.

Bai: "Seriously buying, can it be cheaper?"

However, this message seemed to fall on deaf ears, and it took several minutes before a slow reply came from the other side.

Tang: "Fixed price. If you don't want it, plenty of others do."

Bai Cheng's face darkened, but she still wouldn't give up and wanted to negotiate with the other party, but the other party simply stopped replying.

"Damn it, so arrogant?"

Bai Cheng was furious, but she still needed this Employee Card; the other party seemed to have her completely figured out.

Bai Cheng had no choice but to get off the car with her stone axe, illuminated by the firelight.

Fortunately, the trees here were not only thick but also very dense, so even within the three-meter safety radius of the railcar, many trees were covered.

Bai Cheng didn't have to worry about encountering danger, so she swung her axe down.

Thud! The tree trunk didn't budge, and the stone axe almost flew out of her hand, while a prompt popped up simultaneously.

"Your current tool level is too low to chop!"

"Durability - 1"

"...?" Bai Cheng's face immediately filled with disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"

So many trees at night, and she couldn't chop them?

"Damn it, how can you crush a lumberjack's dream!"

Bai Cheng was indignant and immediately summoned cheng book to change her upgrade target from the Employee Card to the stone axe.

The Employee Card only required collecting cards to synthesize; she could switch back once all Employee Cards were collected.

"Stone Axe: 0/8"

"Use up durability?" Bai Cheng raised an eyebrow. "The upgrade method is really simple..."

After all, the trees at night couldn't be chopped with a stone axe; one swing would reduce its durability by one point.

Bai Cheng immediately swung the stone axe, and its durability quickly dropped to zero.

The moment the stone axe shattered, a green light flashed.

"Iron Axe: 0/30"

The axe in Bai Cheng's hand suddenly felt much heavier and more comfortable to wield; the handle was incredibly smooth, and the blade gleamed with a cold light.

This time, it was still about exhausting durability, but she suddenly realized.

If she could already chop trees, didn't that mean she had to chop at least thirty trees?

"This is only green quality." Bai Cheng was on the verge of tears.

"Name: Iron Axe"

"Level: Green"

"Durability: 30"

"Evaluation: A fairly handy tool, and it can also be a weapon."

But complaints aside, Bai Cheng's hands didn't stop moving.

As the iron axe swung down, a finger-wide gash appeared on the thick tree trunk.

"It works!"

Bai Cheng was instantly full of energy, and axe blows began to fall one after another.

The gash on the tree trunk deepened with each strike, and the trunk finally couldn't support itself, collapsing with a crash!

However, before the thick tree could even hit the ground, it completely decomposed into several pieces of wood while still in mid-air as it fell, finally scattering across the ground.

Bai Cheng immediately began picking up the wood from the ground. She counted it and found a full twenty pieces!

If you include the randomly dropped branches, each tree could basically yield over twenty pieces of wood.

Although the wood dropped by these trees was less than Bai Cheng had imagined, and the chopping conditions were harsh, there were so many trees!

More importantly, at this moment, all survivors should be unable to chop trees, and only she could!

Just on this point alone, she could get a huge lead over others, and Bai Cheng was very satisfied.

"Although I can't calculate the time, with my current strength, I chopped as many as fifty times, plus the time it took to pick up the wood, chopping one tree would conservatively take ten minutes."

Bai Cheng frowned; this didn't even account for the time she would need to rest due to exhaustion later, so the speed of chopping trees would actually only get slower and slower.

"And if too much wood accumulates, I'm afraid I won't be able to push the railcar."

After items are put on the trading system, the traded items do not disappear, so there's no way to exploit the trading space to transport resources.

"That's also a problem." Bai Cheng was now in a difficult situation.

She looked around; there were only four trees within the train's safety radius at this time, including the one she had just chopped. The total amount of wood within the range was even less than a hundred.

But if these hundred pieces of wood were placed on the railcar, Bai Cheng probably wouldn't be able to move the railcar anymore.

"Should I change positions, and then relight the campfire?"

Bai Cheng stroked her chin, but relying solely on the lighter's light source wouldn't allow her to see the surrounding environment while moving.

Being unable to determine the density of surrounding trees after pushing the railcar became a new problem.

Half an hour later, Bai Cheng chopped down two more trees.

Including the randomly dropped branches, she had now obtained a total of 66 pieces of wood.

These accumulated pieces of wood occupied almost half of the railcar's small space, also significantly increasing the vehicle's load.

Bai Cheng stopped chopping, got into the car, and tried to push the railcar.

It wasn't as unusually strenuous as she had imagined; the railcar still began to move slowly.

Bai Cheng didn't need to travel with these resources, so as long as the railcar could move a short distance forward, that was enough.

After moving about ten meters forward, the firelight behind her was still visible, but it was already obscured by layers of tree shadows, blurry and unclear.

Bai Cheng relit a campfire, and after confirming there were five trees within the range, she immediately began chopping.

The sounds of chopping echoed through the night, like a rhythmic symphony.

Two and a half hours later, all five trees within the safety radius were chopped down by Bai Cheng, including all the branches that had fallen to the ground.

This time, Bai Cheng's accumulated wood had reached 184 pieces.

"Iron Axe: 7/30"

As for the last sixteen pieces of wood, Bai Cheng gathered them by picking up branches at the edge of the safety zone.

"Finally, I have 200 pieces of wood!"

Bai Cheng wiped the sweat from her forehead and dragged her tired and sleepy body to the screen.

Her face was beaming with excitement as she immediately chose to trade for Tang Yan's Antelope Employee Card.