CHAPTER 508: CHAPTER 277: RESTART?

"Let’s talk about the total profit."

Chen Mang lay in the chair, his arms resting on the armrests, gently rocking back and forth, with a hint of a smile on the corner of his mouth.

Mr. Li hurriedly continued to report: "The total profit from the ’mining robots’ is 37.5 million units of iron ore, with the remaining net profit being 32.9 million units of iron ore, totaling 70.4 million units of iron ore."

"And we acquired 12 dream stones."

"It’s worth mentioning..."

"There’s a big shot who’s a Level 17 Mechanical Train. He bought a bunch of refrigerators at once, muttering something about restarting this time..."

"..."

Chen Mang’s eyelids drooped slightly, he did not reply.

Restart?

Impossible. To upgrade a Mechanical Train to Level 17 takes an astronomical amount of resources and time. It involves a lot of luck. Without saying anything else, even if you let this Train Captain start from scratch again, it’s uncertain if he could reach the position of a Level 17 Mechanical Train Captain.

It’s impossible to restart.

An S-rank potential isn’t worth such effort, let alone, a Level 17 Mechanical Train is already in the red zone.

In the white or green zone, restarting is possible. For instance, if you feel the train isn’t planned well, or if you obtain a Rare Train Order and want to start anew, there’s no problem. Anyway, you won’t waste much, as the risk level in these zones isn’t too high.

If someone protects you or if you’re lucky, you can survive.

But...

Restarting in the red zone with a Level 1 Mechanical Train is like a lone boat in hundred-meter waves. A single wave would leave no trace.

Certain death.

Even if you’ve saved up a lot of iron ore in advance, you can’t instantly level the train up much because the leveling tasks are bound to take some time. However, while you can’t restart, you can create a new account.

But...

Chen Mang, thoughtfully, felt that actually, this S-rank potential train wasn’t very useful. Apart from offering a Train Stunt and an "Earth-Burst Missile," he didn’t see much special about it. But looking at the reactions of these advanced trains, this thing seems to be more useful than he thought.

He said nothing further.

"This time’s profit of 70.4 million units of iron ore, move it to Car No. 3, and place the dream stones there."

"Yes."

Mr. Li quickly nodded in agreement, then pulled out a spatial bag from his bosom, took out the dream stones from it, and neatly placed them on the table beside him.

With this.

He now had 113 dream stones.

As for iron ore, it reached 156 million units.

He could have a good night’s sleep now.

With more train resources, he felt completely at ease, that sense of tension was gone. He glanced at the screen displaying the cyber mine, chuckling, "If..."

"One day, I get hold of 3,000 mining machines."

"Then I could earn at least 100 million units of iron ore daily, if not more, right?"

"Quite a bug."

"Won’t the mines run out one day?"

"No, they won’t." Ai’s voice sounded inside the train, "Level 9 unit iron ore is not directly produced by consuming dream energy; dream stones merely provide a channel."

"In the universe, there’s a theory called quantum entanglement."

"The general idea is that once two particles become entangled, their quantum states become related. Measuring one particle will instantly determine the state of the other, regardless of how far apart they are."

"It can even transcend time and space."

"And the human brain itself is very mysterious. From the information I extracted in the last city, there’s a theory on this planet that when creatures dream, their brainwaves enter a stable and extreme state, resonating with beings across time, space, and from another part of the universe, creating dreamscapes."

"So, the actual situation might be—"

"In some corner of the universe, at a Level 9 iron mine, there really is someone mining. But by using dream stones, quantum entanglement was formed, resulting in the mined ore ending up in our pockets."

"The universe is vast; a small Level 9 mine is nothing to worry about."

"But..." Chen Mang paused then continued, "As you said, wouldn’t the slave who lost a unit of Level 9 iron ore care?"

"They certainly would care and would definitely face punishment."

"Poor child."

"Indeed."

"Are you sure AI can’t dream? Can you write a similar program? If robots could dream, building 100,000 mining robots and putting them all into the cyber mine, the train could take you beyond the universe tomorrow."

"This is really not possible," Ai inside the train said reluctantly, "I’m not clear about the specifics of the Mechanical Civilization; there’s no related information in the database. Based purely on my current thinking capacity, I find it difficult even to contemplate the existence of dreams."

"This is exclusive to sentient beings."

"Even cats and dogs, such semi-intelligent creatures, dream."

"In the library of the city before last, I found a book titled ’Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’. It roughly states that robots don’t have a brain or nervous system in the biological sense and fundamentally lack the ability to enter dreaming states."

"Why is it always electric sheep?"

"Always?"

"Nothing." Chen Mang didn’t say much more, he just turned his head to gaze out the window after a long silence, softly saying: "Ai, although I know it’s a bit early to think about this now, I’ve actually been contemplating this issue: the train is destined to break into space in the future."