Chapter 1
Life never lacks amusement—what’s lacking is simply the eye to discover it. Just like this dilapidated and failing shelter ship, it’s filled with suppression and the shadow of approaching death everywhere. However, after Scholar Auro floored the accelerator and sent everyone onto the road, Hao Ren couldn’t care less about feeling sentimental over the place’s decline.

Because he was being jostled so much that he couldn’t think straight…

He’d been worrying about how to get Scholar Auro and Willie to the vicinity of the Ancestral Furnace before the situation deteriorated, but now it seemed that his worries were completely unfounded. Scholar Auro could not only withstand the young man’s breakneck speed, but also the vibrations that came with it. The shelter residents were indeed extraordinary. Having spent his life in this harsh world, Scholar Auro's physique was already extraordinary. Even though he looked old and frail, the old man couldn't be judged by ordinary standards. Hao Ren and his companions were tossed around in the carriage, watching the dilapidated ancient cities and ancient roads of millennia past whiz by. The gloomy and oppressive feeling that had accumulated in Hearthstone City unknowingly dissipated.

A feeling of heroic spirit of racing across the wasteland at the end of the world arose spontaneously within him.

The car gradually drove out of Hearthstone City’s sphere of influence, and the silhouettes of the factory buildings and nearby landmarks slowly receded into small dots in the distance. Ahead was a deserted and empty wasteland. The dry and dirty road surface was covered in dust, and the car stirred up sandstorms several meters high as it passed, these sandstorms were then spun around and thrown behind. Occasionally, figures would emerge from the dilapidated building complexes on both sides of the road. These were vagrants living in the wasteland area, these free wastelanders who were not protected by any kingdom and did not swear allegiance to any king wore clothes made of rags and leather, shivering in the cold wind of the approaching winter night. They crawled out of their small nests, waving spears and slings in their hands while issuing savage roars at the speeding steel beast chariot on the avenue, looking full of hostility, but no one dared to actually rush up and fight this steel monster.

Willie, the timid young soldier, looked a little nervous, but he carefully prepared the crossbow in his hand, then opened the wooden board on the side of the carriage, pointed the crossbow at the vagrants crawling out of the shacks, and made a threatening "ha-hey" sound. The vagrants, who had paint smeared on their faces and were dressed like savages, shouted even louder when they saw this, but they really began to retreat: their crude spears and slings were no match for military crossbows, and they were even more afraid of the whistling steel monster.

Lily asked loudly, "Why are these people so hostile?"

"They're vagrants, without kingdom protection!" Willie replied loudly as well. "These people can't get factories and farms, even the dogs in Hearthstone City eat better than them. We people from the city-states aren't welcome in the wild!"

Nangong Sanba chuckled coldly twice, "This is really a welcoming procession."

At this moment, Lily suddenly heard a sound. She looked at the back of the carriage: "There's another car coming!"

Hao Ren looked back and only saw a cloud of dust flying on the avenue behind the carriage, and in that dust and mist that blotted out the sky, a vague dark shadow was gradually catching up. Although he couldn't see the appearance of the newcomer yet, he could hear a deafening roar of the engine resounding in the sand and dust. Willie immediately gripped the crossbow in his hand nervously, and took out a gunpowder pack wrapped in kraft paper from a small box in the corner of the carriage.

After a moment, sure enough, another car broke through the sand and dust and chased after them. This car was wrapped in leather and thick cloth from top to bottom, and the sides of the carriage were tied with strings of white human leg bones. Thick smoke billowed from both sides of the front of the car, and sparks splashed out of the engine, looking like a terrifying chariot rushing out of hell. A middle-aged man dressed similarly to Scholar Auro stood on the front of this chariot, controlling the engine and direction with a set of strange-looking linkages. His whole body was constantly shedding sand and pebbles, his face was blackened by the smoke, and he furiously accelerated while yelling loudly at Scholar Auro: "Bastard from the High Tower! You and your car should be chewed up and swallowed by the monsters of Erdos! How dare you, you old geezer, run in front of me!"

"It's someone from Iron City-State!" Willie's hand shook and he almost dropped the gunpowder pack. "Their scholar has set off too!"

Nangong Wuyue glanced at the Iron City-State scholar who was standing on the front of the car and cursing wantonly, and then glanced at the old Scholar Auro sitting on the front of their car: "Their scholar looks a lot more energetic than ours."

Unexpectedly, although Scholar Auro was old, his hearing was very sharp. When he heard Nangong Wuyue's comment, he angrily slapped the machine in front of him, and then Hao Ren felt a heartfelt short sound burst out of the engine under his butt: "Boom!"

Lily's face immediately turned green: "What's he going to do?"

Hao Ren glanced at Scholar Auro's movements as he busied himself among a pile of linkages and axles, gritting his back teeth: "... Drag racing!"

On the vast wasteland, two tattered chariots that seemed to have driven out of an art museum sped past, dragging long sandstorms behind them. The deafening roar resounded throughout the empty wasteland wilderness. Two scholars stood or sat on the front of the cars, desperately accelerating while cursing each other. Scholar Auro was old after all, and he couldn't gain the upper hand in the cursing match, so he used his skilled techniques to continuously floor the accelerator. An old chariot successfully threw the Iron City-State's skeleton chariot behind him six times in a row, while the Iron City-State's scholar frantically honked the horn behind him, chasing closely like an enraged bull.

Scholar Auro shouted loudly to Willie: "That bastard, his car has a horn! If your governor father could give me just a little bit of power, I would have replaced the steel beast chariot with a new horn long ago!"

Hao Ren's head was dizzy from the roar of the car engine, and he almost wanted to shout back at the old scholar: Listen to the sound of this car! It can resonate throughout the whole street just by starting the engine, adding a horn might not even be as loud as the wheels, is installing that thing meant to accompany the bearings?!

This crazy, bizarre, and grotesque drag race lasted for who knows how long. Hao Ren only remembered that in the second half of the journey, he almost felt that the whole world was filled with flying sand and the ear-piercing roar of the engine, but the ceasefire agreement between the Four Kingdoms seemed to be real. Although the soldiers on the Iron City-State's chariot kept roaring at them along with their scholar, no friction or conflict ultimately occurred. At the end of this insane wasteland sprint, both cars arrived at the finish line unscathed: they came to the end of this enclosed space, where the towering figure of the Ancestral Furnace stood proudly in front of them.

With a "creak," the steel beast chariot stopped in the black smoke and dust, and the rivets and wire linkages all over its body made a series of clattering noises. The old chariot proudly stopped at the intersection, proudly showing how glorious it had been along the way—not only were all the wheels still intact, but even the carriage was still properly tied to the chassis.

The Iron City-State's skeleton chariot also stopped next to it. Several of the bones hanging on the carriage had been shaken off during the sprint. Several Iron City-State soldiers got out of the car and looked at the situation in frustration, pondering how to replace the missing bones.

Scholar Auro flicked his long robe and jumped down from the chair. The moment he left the front of the car, the old scholar's waist immediately bent down at a speed visible to the naked eye, and then he slowly paced to Willie, coughed lightly twice, and said in a slow voice: "Child, we've arrived."

Everyone: "..."

It seems that the old man's buff has passed, and it expires as soon as he leaves the front of the car!

The Iron City-State's soldiers glared at Willie and Scholar Auro, but because the ceasefire agreement between the Four Kingdoms had just been signed, and this was the closest place to the Ancestral Furnace, even the Iron City-State, which had always been called "barbarians," would not provoke trouble at this juncture, so these soldiers, who were wearing leather armor like Vikings and carrying axes and spears, were just glaring at them. Moreover, their attention quickly focused on Hao Ren's group: Hao Ren's group's strange clothes were the focus of attention wherever they went in this place.

However, in this shelter where social order was a mess, strange clothes were not a big deal. At most, someone would have a bit of greed for your flashy clothes, and if you had enough self-protection ability, you could ignore this trouble.

"The last time I came here was just after I had my coming-of-age ceremony," Willie said to Hao Ren, avoiding the eyes of the Iron City-State soldiers. "The High Tower Kingdom's royal city is next to the Ancestral Furnace. It's a great fortress. This is the kingdom's territory, and foreigners don't dare to cause trouble here."

Hao Ren didn't say anything, his attention was completely on the "Ancestral Furnace."