Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

The accident scene was a graveyard of twisted metal, a chaotic tangle of dozens of vehicles. Among the wreckage sat several high-end luxury rides.

Chen Ye even spotted a Nanzi, along with a few other supercars he’d only ever ogled on TV or scrolling through his phone.

Now, they were scrap.

The Nanzi, once worth tens of millions, had its front end crumpled into an accordion of carbon fiber and steel. Chen Ye didn’t need the System to tell him the bad news; just one glance told him that restoring such a beast would cost a fortune in Slaughter Points. Tens of thousands, easily.

In the apocalypse, vanity was a death sentence. When choosing a vehicle, practicality was king. You needed raw power, trunk space, durability, and fuel economy.

Especially fuel economy.

Gasoline was liquid gold. You couldn’t count on finding a station every few hundred miles.

Chen Ye frowned. He still owed Captain Chu Che a barrel of gas. That debt was sitting in the back of his mind like an itch.

His gaze drifted to a vehicle nearby.

A Jeep Wrangler.

It was legendary. Anyone who knew anything about off-roading knew the silhouette. Before the world ended, this machine turned heads on every street corner. The rugged boxy frame, the high clearance—it was the dream ride for countless men.

A small group of survivors had gathered around it, chattering excitedly. Some were even bracing themselves against the frame, trying to heave the tipped-over vehicle out of the sand.

But the heavy SUV was bogged down deep. Without a winch or heavy machinery, they were wasting their calories.

As Chen Ye approached, the chatter died instantly.

The survivors looked up, their eyes flashing with a mix of apprehension and resignation. They saw the cold look in his eyes, the confidence of his stride. They knew what he was.

If Chen Ye wanted this car, they had to walk away.

When a survivor met a Sequence Beyonder, there was no negotiation. You yielded, or you died.

This was the apocalypse. The only truth that mattered was the size of your fist.

The survivors stepped back, giving him a wide berth. Chen Ye ignored them and inspected the Wrangler.

The driver’s side door was caved in, forming a concave dent where another vehicle had likely T-boned it. The handle was jammed tight; the survivors had clearly failed to pry it open.

The chassis was half-buried in the sand, obscuring the undercarriage. Of the two visible tires, one was shredded, hanging off the rim like a limp rubber skin. The roof hadn’t fared much better; something heavy had smashed into it, tearing a jagged gash through the metal.

Even the exposed frame looked slightly twisted.

“System, scan vehicle condition.”

Chen Ye placed a palm on the cold metal of the door.

[Target Scan Complete.] [Vehicle Integrity: 69%] [Status: Critical Damage. Requires comprehensive overhaul. Currently Inoperable.]

69%?

Chen Ye clicked his tongue. The integrity rating was in that awkward middle ground—not total scrap, but far from drivable.

Still, it was a Wrangler. He wasn’t ready to walk away just yet.

“System, calculate the cost for a full restoration. Price and time.”

[Calculation Complete.] [Full Restoration Time: 7 Days, 12 Hours.] [Cost: 13,728 Slaughter Points.]

“…”

Chen Ye’s face remained expressionless, but internally, he scoffed.

Thirteen thousand points. Over a week of downtime.

Ridiculous.

He didn’t have the time, and he certainly didn’t have the points to burn on a vanity project. He instantly erased the idea of restoring it from his mind.

He turned to leave, but something through the shattered rear window caught his eye.

He paused, peering into the cargo area.

Jackpot.

Chen Ye moved to the rear hatch and grabbed the handle. Locked. Jammed tight by the frame distortion.

He didn’t look for a key. He braced his foot against the bumper and hauled on the handle with raw, enhanced strength.

CREAAAK—BANG!

Metal screamed and the latch sheared off. The trunk lid flew open, dangling on one hinge.

He had gone back to the tricycle to grab a crowbar, but in the end, his muscles did most of the work. An ordinary man would have popped a disc trying that; for a Sequence Beyonder, it was just a heavy lift.

Chen Ye stared at the prize inside.

Two 30-liter jerry cans.

These weren’t the cheap plastic containers you bought at a gas station. These were professional-grade expedition canisters, designed for long-range desert crossings. Stamped with a row of English letters he didn’t recognize, they screamed quality.

He lifted one. Heavy.

Full.

A rare smile touched Chen Ye’s lips. That was 30 liters—roughly 8 gallons—of fuel.

He lifted the second one. Empty.

Still, a high-quality container was valuable in itself.

An idea struck him. He looked at the sea of wrecked cars around him.

Dead cars. Live fuel tanks.

He wasn’t the only one with the idea. A few hundred meters away, other survivors were already siphoning tanks with makeshift hoses.

Chen Ye moved fast. He unscrewed the Wrangler’s fuel cap and fished a siphon hose out of the trunk loot. He fed it in and sucked.

The flow was weak. The Wrangler had been running on fumes when it crashed. He barely filled the bottom of the empty can before the line sputtered dry.

Chen Ye didn’t waste a second. He moved to the next wreck. Then the next.

It took him thirty minutes to fill the second 30-liter canister.

He capped it tight and scanned the area. There were still a few unsearched cars, but he had what he needed. He’d leave the scraps for the scavengers.

With the fuel secured, Chen Ye returned to his hunt for a new vehicle.

But his optimism quickly faded.

The selection was vast, but the quality was garbage. Most of the vehicles had suffered catastrophic damage—cracked engine blocks, snapped axles, shattered drivetrains.

Dead weight.

After circling the entire crash site, he found only one contender that beat the Wrangler’s specs.

[Vehicle Integrity: 76%]

It was a rugged SUV from the Neon Islands, bearing the famous Bull Head Logo.

A Toyota.

In the most hellish, war-torn regions of the old world, the Bull Head was ubiquitous. It was a cockroach of a car—hard to kill and easy to fix.

Aside from some body damage, the mechanicals seemed intact.

But “intact” was relative. To get it moving, he’d still need to perform a System repair. He didn’t need it factory fresh, just roadworthy.

“System, estimate minimum repair time for driveability.”

[Estimated Time: 12 Hours.]

Half a day.

Impossible.

Captain Chu Che had given the order: the convoy moved out in forty minutes.

It wasn’t even about the Slaughter Points. If it were just points, Chen Ye could have managed. He could have taken a Loan, or repaired it piecemeal over a few days.

But time was the one resource he couldn’t buy.

Chen Ye sighed, abandoning the Toyota.

Was upgrading his ride just a pipe dream?

He looked back at his battered tricycle. It was reliable, but it was a frankenstein monster of unmatched parts. The engine was underpowered, the chassis rattled like a bag of bolts, and the tires were modified motorcycle rubber that struggled in the deep sand.

He looked back at the Wrangler.

Empty-handed… no, he refused to leave empty-handed. Walking away from a goldmine wasn’t his style.

A cold, calculating light entered his eyes.

If he couldn’t take the car… he would take the organs.

Why swap vehicles when he could cannibalize the best parts for his own?

The Wrangler had All-Terrain tires—grippy, thick, superior to his tricycle’s bald rubber. It had a high-torque engine. It had a non-load-bearing chassis with a solid steel frame.

The more he thought about it, the more his mechanic’s heart raced.

RUMBLE.

A deep, grinding noise interrupted his thoughts.

Chen Ye turned to see Iron Lion—that massive, simple-minded brute—making a scene.

The man had activated his ability, swelling into a three-meter-tall giant. Muscles corded like steel cables, Iron Lion roared and physically dragged a massive yellow school bus out of a sand drift.

The surrounding survivors watched, jaws dropped.

The school bus was a fortress compared to the flimsy coach bus the group had been using. It was wider, taller, and looked built to survive a bomb blast.

Iron Lion dropped the front end with a thud. Old Li was already swarming over it, barking orders for the survivors to transfer their supplies.

Chen Ye’s eyes narrowed.

A school bus…

If Iron Lion was upgrading, maybe his old coach bus was up for grabs?

“Iron Lion!”

Chen Ye jogged over, shouting up at the giant.

A minute later, he walked back, disappointment etched on his face.

Iron Lion had been blunt. The old coach bus was a rolling coffin. It had suffered a major breakdown the night before and had only limped here because they had a mechanic on board patching it together on the fly. Now? It was dead.

Chen Ye ran a quick System scan on the abandoned coach just to be sure.

[Status: Critical Engine Failure. Repair Time: 3 Hours.]

Plus, the thing drank fuel like water—nearly 30 liters per 100 kilometers.

Chen Ye shook his head. Too much cost, too little gain.

He turned back to the Wrangler.

There was only one path forward.

Gut the luxury cars. Upgrade the tricycle.