Chapter Ninety-Nine: The Fruit of the Castle

On the Mystery Train, the four of them sat around the sofa.
Liang Bing, Zhou Bansian, and Dong Huawen all stared at Gao Ning’s face with unwavering eyes, as if they wanted to see through him.

Gao Ning didn’t care at all and kept chewing the omelet roll in front of him.
He kept talking as he ate, “The flavor is still rather unique. A French chef preparing Japanese cuisine creates an entirely different taste.
It’s strange, too—this is supposed to be a semi-post-apocalyptic scene, yet the dining culture is amazingly developed. High-end restaurants line the streets, and the prices are jaw-dropping. If I didn’t have some pull, I’d probably not even get through the door.
Why aren’t you all eating? This is hard-won delicacy!”

Liang Bing said flatly, “Eat. Keep eating. You can stop when you can’t swallow it anymore.”

Zhou Bansian gave a chuckle. “From the beginning, I figured you were no ordinary kid, maybe even someone of note. I never expected you to be a true giant.
This time your move was huge—pulling out thirty-thousand-odd biochemical troops in one go. If you hadn’t finally gone all out, we might all still have been kept in the dark.”

Dong Huawen rubbed his nose. He was new to all this and not in a position to comment, yet the moment he saw the endless war beasts and armies on the broadcast, the shock was still vivid in his memory.
Could this be the power of the Mystery Train? His pupils trembled. His whole spirit seemed unsettled.

The three noticed it, but none of them paid it much mind.
Zhou Bansian didn’t know much either. He’d only done one mission before, and this one was his second. Both missions had been completed by Gao Ning. Apart from divination, fortune-telling, and evasion of misfortune, Zhou hadn’t even had to stretch out a hand. So though he had a vague notion of the Mystery Train, his understanding was shallow; in many details he was probably no better than Gao Ning.

Liang Bing was different. She had already lived through a world with Grandma Liu, had studied the rules of the Mystery Train and its mission-world precautions in detail. With that strong, practical mind of hers, she had mastered the protocols. So when Gao Ning pulled off such a grand scene, she was the one most stunned.

Seeing that Liang Bing had stopped darting her eyes, Gao Ning sighed, put down his plate, swallowed the rest of the omelet in his mouth, flicked out a towel and wiped his lips, tossed it aside, and said, “Fine, fine—let me explain.

“It’s not that complicated. My case is somewhat similar to Zhou Bansian’s, though stranger in some ways.
Zhou can pinpoint good fortune and avoid misfortune; I can summon reinforcements.”

“How many unit types from Red Alert can be exchanged? Is there a limit?” Liang Bing asked quickly.

“The number isn’t fixed. Every ten hours after entering a mission world, I can summon once.
Last time, there was an accident—a special unit appeared, one that could create a gene mutator directly.
So I used my recurring-rebirth capability, and in a hotel in Paris I made a gene mutator, then quietly got it into the occupied zone.
At first I only planned to run experiments on extraterrestrial monsters. I never expected the mutator to be so overwhelmingly powerful. Even though those aliens had no human genes, after mutation they could still become berserk brutes—and with extraordinary fighting power.
What’s more, the modified aliens, turned into berserk brutes, seemed to have some resistance to world-reset abilities. After every event reset, they were unaffected, just like us.”

Gao Ning laughed and shook his head. “And once transformed, those berserk brutes carry a vicious virus of high transmissibility. If they scratch you, it’s like the werewolf virus— the victim is infected and turns into a new berserk brute.
It was with that viral spread that I was able, in just over a hundred days, to raise their numbers above three hundred thousand. Exponential growth like that can only be done by a virus.”

Dong Huawen, shaken, blurted out, “Did you bring that virus back?”

Liang Bing said, “You can’t bring it back. But have you analyzed the virus’s structure? Don’t tell me you didn’t think of that. I don’t believe you.”

Gao Ning spread his palm. “Come on. We have only one, maybe two days at most. Even if I can remember every bit of experimental data, I’d still need a virus specialist to work with me.”

“Two days—do you really think I could have grabbed a lab and comfortably finished a full decoding experiment?”

Zhou Bansian brought out a fan in his hand and swayed it as he spoke. “None of this makes sense to me, these little kids’ terms you say. But from Gao Ning’s tone, he likely can’t do it anyway.
Either way, the mission getting done is a good thing. On top of that, he took down two enemies. The reward this time is far from small. We should just be grateful. Three rounds of review feels like overkill.”

Liang Bing replied evenly, “The Mystery Train is deadly dangerous. These are just steps to help us live longer. No one is blaming him. We only want to understand more for future cooperation.”

Dong Huawen pushed his glasses and said nothing.
Gao Ning waved off, knocked lightly on the table, summoned a glass of orange juice, held it in both hands, and drank. “I’m not blaming you. I just haven’t fully grasped this power yet. Maybe gaining it this time will bring a real breakthrough.”

“Now tell me about you. After the leisure mission you should have gained an ability, right? What is it?”

Liang Bing said, “In fact, after I entered my private carriage last time, I gained my own ability.”

She lifted her palm. On its right appeared a full-height dressing mirror.
She touched the glass lightly with her fingertip; the smooth, calm surface rippled in a strange way.
“My ability is called Mirror. When I first got it, I could only open a small free space behind the mirror.”

She conjured a one-and-a-half-meter teaching ruler and casually inserted it into the mirror.
With her palm on one end, the mirror stopped at the one-meter mark.

“I tested it. No matter how large the mirror is, it can only open a storage space one meter deep. Time does not pass in there, there is no temperature, no air. If a living thing enters, it dies in seconds, but objects stay unchanged.
Of course, the mirror with the stored things is the only entrance and exit; it does not connect to any other method. If the mirror shatters, those items fall into a dimensional void and can never be found.”

She flicked her hand and erased the ruler and mirror and went on, “Thanks to Gao Ning, I made a solid gain. My time may have passed one hundred points, so I’ve gotten an upgrade card.
The Mystery Train has given me two upgrade paths. I’m still considering them. I’ll explain it to everyone after I come out of my private carriage. For now, I propose we rest.”

After saying that, Liang Bing stood, nodded to the three, and walked toward her private carriage first.

Gao Ning finished the orange juice and stood as well, then patted Dong Huawen on the shoulder.
“Zhou Bansian is your guide. Ask him whatever you need. Time is frozen in the private carriage. It’s a bit like the Spirit and Time Room in Dragon Ball, only far more comfortable. Rest as long as you can. If you want to return to the real world, you can go straight back from the private carriage, but it costs time currency.
Don’t worry. The Mystery Train is good—at least much better than Main God-space.”

Dong Huawen nodded.
Gao Ning smiled faintly, gestured at Zhou, and headed toward the back of the carriage.

At the private carriage entrance, the color marking for Liang Bing had already disappeared, making it obvious she had returned first. Gao Ning gripped the handle. His heart gave a tiny jolt—and a shadow of a person appeared in the carriage.

As he descended the stairs, a cold mechanical voice sounded in his ears:

“Returning to private carriage channel.”
“Passenger has completed three mission rounds. Conditions met. Ability allocation in random mode.”
“Defeat hostile squad units three times to receive three options.”

Three lines of text then appeared before him.
The lettering was neat and square, like printed ad type, but in 3D.

[Option One]
[Death Note: Gain dominion over life and death of ordinary people. As long as you know a person’s name and appearance, you can control their life or death.]
[Only with the Death Note can one bear the authority of a god of death.]

[Option Two]
[Castle Fruit: A demon fruit from the deep sea, possessing unimaginable power. Upon eating, you can transform yourself into a castle.]
[A castle can house people and also has formidable defensive power.]

[Option Three]
[Alchemical Arts: Understand structural decomposition. If you can grasp the structure of all things, you can create anything with ease. With a piece of chalk in hand and by drawing on the earth’s power, you can create a city.]
[Learning makes me better. Learning makes my combat power explode.]

Gao Ning suddenly understood. “So the number of enemies I killed influences the number of ability choices?”
What a hidden layer. Liu Grandma never mentioned it; she probably never noticed it.
From her account, her three mission worlds all blended together, and she never killed anyone, let alone hostile enemies.
Even in her previous mission world, she had killed only one hostile enemy, meaning if Liang Bing could see these options she would have seen only one—no choice at all.

Now it made sense. No wonder three worlds were prepared for you as warm-up. The invisible Easter egg is right here.

Still, every one of these abilities is useful. Properly used, each could make an enormous impact.
Take the Death Note, for example. Even if it only works on ordinary people, it has tremendous strategic value. In the hands of someone brilliant, it could set a devastating trap in no time and eliminate hostile forces using native powers, no matter what abilities those foes possess.

Alchemy, though, has always been a power Gao Ning longed for. To forge alchemy with a gesture—it’s something no one could easily shrug off.

Yet Gao Ning already has a Red Alert interface at hand, and with paratroopers helping him, killing ordinary people won’t be hard.
Besides, in the real-world layer, most of his past burdens are already settled; for him, gold has lost much of its edge. It seems to have little use beyond gleaming. In modern society, transfer systems matter more, especially covert transfers.

And the Castle Fruit seems to pair better with paratroopers.
Gao Ning narrowed his eyes and chose the second option without hesitation.

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