The steam locomotive rumbled away from the Northwest and made its way through the wilderness towards the Central Plains again.
The Great Hoodwinker said out of concern on the train, “Future Commander, why don’t you rest for a bit? You didn’t rest well when we set up camp yesterday. The urgency of the Prosperous Northwest plan isn’t dependent on this moment.”
Ren Xiaosu shook his head and said, “I’m not sleepy yet. How about this? You go and sleep first, and I’ll wake you up six hours later to take over from me.”
“Sure, Future Commander. Tell me when you’re tired then.” The Great Hoodwinker was indeed sleepy. From the time they went to the Central Plains to abduct the refugees for the Prosperous Northwest until now, the two of them hadn’t slept in over 20 hours. Although superhumans did not get tired easily like normal people, the Great Hoodwinker was still advanced in age.
Ren Xiaosu was actually rather sleepy as well, but he could not wait to see exactly what the palace’s third weapon was!
When the Great Hoodwinker went to the carriage to sleep, Ren Xiaosu immediately said to his mind palace, “I have 15,000 gratitude tokens now. That’s enough to unlock the third weapon, right?”
“Yes, do you want to unlock the third weapon for 10,000 gratitude tokens?” the voice from the palace asked.
“Unlock it!”
Ren Xiaosu waited quietly, but there was still no sign of the weapon being unlocked this time.
The interior of the palace resembled a circular library filled with display cabinets. A small, delicate cabinet lit up, but there was nothing in it.
Ren Xiaosu was a little puzzled. “Where is it?”
The palace did not answer.
Suddenly, the palace started shaking. Ren Xiaosu intuitively stretched out his right hand with his palm facing up. A scorching ball of energy that caused no physical harm started gathering in his hand.
A huge vortex started forming in the sky above the steam locomotive.
As the steam locomotive was moving at a high speed, the huge vortex above also moved rapidly along with it.
Fortunately, there was no one around in the wilderness. Otherwise, someone would definitely have been shocked if they saw this strange phenomenon.
A violet eye suddenly appeared within the gray vortex.
Ren Xiaosu stared blankly at his outstretched right hand. Meanwhile, the Great Hoodwinker in the next carriage over was alarmed. He hurriedly opened the door and ran to the front of the train. “Future Commander, it feels like something odd is happening! An eye has appeared right above us. Have the Heavens come to subdue me because I’ve revealed too many secrets?”
“Revealed too many secrets?” Ren Xiaosu did not know whether to laugh or cry as he ridiculed, “What secrets have you revealed? You’ve clearly just cheated too many people!”
But at this moment, the tremendous ball of energy in Ren Xiaosu’s hand suddenly started solidifying into a black stone.
The black stone was only about the size of a fist, and it felt a little warm in his hand. But the strangest thing was that as the vortex in the sky started fading away, the violet eye within it began appearing on the black stone instead.
Curious Ren Xiaosu asked in his mind, “What is this!?”
But the voice from the palace replied, “Unauthorized to answer.”
At this moment, the Great Hoodwinker came over to Ren Xiaosu’s side and looked at him in surprise for a while. Then his gaze landed on Ren Xiaosu’s hand. “Future Commander, did that strange phenomenon in the sky have anything to do with you?”
Ren Xiaosu did not hide it from him and nodded. However, he did not explain where the black stone had come from, so the Great Hoodwinker did not probe any further either.
Ren Xiaosu looked silently within the palace. This time, the palace did not indicate there was a next weapon to unlock. In other words, this was the last weapon the palace would give to him!
Thus, he had a problem. He was about to earn tens of thousands of gratitude tokens, but what could he do with the tokens other than exchange them for more Explosive Poker cards and Seeds?
Inside the palace, he saw a new, transparent window slot in the vending machine. There were light gray stones in it, and every stone was in the same exact shape with an eye sigil on it.
Product name: Proficiency Stone.
Ren Xiaosu was stunned. What the heck was this? What was wrong with the palace? Why did it always give him something he could not make sense of?
But for some reason, he suddenly felt the purchasable Proficiency Stones and the third weapon in his hand might turn out to be very important.
Although the palace might mess around with him at times, it had never done anything redundant since it came into existence!
Ren Xiaosu used a gratitude token in exchange for a proficiency stone. It was as soft as limestone in his hand, and he crushed it by just tightening his grip. But more importantly, there was no reaction after that.
The voice from his mind palace suddenly said, “You do not have any corresponding skills whose proficiency can be increased. The Proficiency Stone was destroyed.”
Ren Xiaosu muttered to himself, “What the hell is this? Don’t I have a lot of superpowers? Why did it say that I do not have any corresponding skills? What’s the use of this Proficiency Stone?! Ptui, you unscrupulous merchant!”
The voice from the palace answered, “Unauthorized to answer.”
But next to him, the Great Hoodwinker suddenly said, “Future Commander, the black stone you’re holding looks a little familiar.”
Ren Xiaosu was stunned as he looked at the Great Hoodwinker. “You recognize it?”
“I can’t be sure.” The Great Hoodwinker said softly, “You also know that our Fortress 178 had fought with enemies from beyond the Northwest before. Although all the previous battles ended in our victory, Fortress 178 also paid an extremely painful price. The last war happened about 17 years ago when I was just a company commander. When the enemy was defeated, only 20% of my entire company was left. This sigil of an eye looks similar to the one I saw back then.”
“You mean that something like this appeared in that war?” Ren Xiaosu wondered.
“That’s right. When we were cleaning up the battlefield, we saw a few broken pieces, which we pieced back together to form this eye sigil.” The Great Hoodwinker recalled, “But those stones all looked very worn. They were not as exquisite as the one you’re holding, and their eye sigils were faded as well. At that time, the fortress commander even ordered us to continue searching for those stones. In the end, we only found some broken pieces but not any complete ones. So we didn’t know what uses they had.”
“Were they all broken?” Ren Xiaosu muttered, “Who’s the enemy from beyond the Northwest and why did they come here?”
“They’re also humans, but they’re a little different from us.” The Great Hoodwinker said, “I heard that in the early days of The Cataclysm, roughly around 200 years ago, they started coming to our territory to kidnap our people. A large number of our compatriots were kidnapped to a place beyond the Northwest. It was estimated that several hundred thousand to even a million were taken away. Fortress 178 was built specifically to defend against them. At that time, human civilization in the Central Plains had not yet been restored. They also seemed to have a secret legacy before The Cataclysm. As such, the martyrs fought very hard against them, resulting in a lot of casualties for us.”
Ren Xiaosu started thinking. A million people were abducted during the early days of The Cataclysm? At that time, the total population of the entire Alliance of Strongholds probably only numbered a few million, not the tens of millions it currently had.