[While you were waiting for Jade to finish her shower, you soon heard a notification sound in your mind.]
[-Ding!]
{There’s only 3 minutes left before the mandatory station stop. Please prepare to disembark.}
[-Ding!]
{Station Pathways Ability activated!}
{The train is about to arrive at a station world. Please choose one from three of these stations.}
<{Station 1: Vast Ocean}>
{Description: A normal vast ocean. There are no supernatural sea creatures lurking in the deep waters or any fantasy-like resources. It’s just as normal as it can be, just that it’s a larger body of seawater.}
{Resources Available: Lots of seawater, sea creatures’ meat, and any resources that can be obtained from an ocean.]
{Danger Rating: None}
<{Station 2: Lightning Stone Mine}>
{Description: A purple-colored lightning has struck through an ore mine, turning it into a lightning stone mine. It has been contended by the three tribes that lived near it.}
{Resources Available: Lightning Stone, Lightning Essence, Lightning Turret Blueprint, etc.}
{Danger Rating: Low}
<{Station 3: Cannibalistic Forest}>
{Description: A forest that has been hit with a blood disease made the creatures there develop the urge to cannibalize, with most of them succumbing to that urge. The blood disease is contagious, as just smelling the blood they shed will infect those who inhale it.}
{Resources Available: Blood Disease, Fragmented Cannibalism Authority, infected meat, infected creatures, mutated plants and trees, and any forest resources that have been affected by the blood disease.}
{Danger Rating: High}
[Faced with those three station options, you didn’t hesitate to choose station 2, not bothering to even ask Jade’s opinion about it.]
[You had already decided to skip the upcoming stations. Jade wouldn’t mind since you had already informed her beforehand.]
[Moreover, you didn’t forget to use your Hint Prompt on that station option, finding out crucial information that one would need to know.]
[You sent all of that information to the zenith chat group, pinging Scarlet and Old MacDonald so that they wouldn’t go there blind.]
[The danger rating of each station was relative to the strength of the entire train crew. Because of that, you didn’t bother to choose Station 3 as that would mean that the entire Zenith Train Crew exploring that station would still yield a danger rating of High.]
[If it were only Scarlet and Old MacDonald who explored Cannibalistic Forest, you would be worried they would succumb to the blood disease and even get eaten by the beasts there. If it were only the two of them, you estimated the danger rating to be at the level of Extremely High.]
[Station 1 didn’t have any valuable resources. The items you obtained in the Global Ocean Survival World were still better than whatever you could get from that, which spoke a lot since you no longer needed the items in the Global Ocean Survival World.]
[On the other hand, Station 2 spoke of a Lightning Turret Blueprint, which you coveted. Based on the information you obtained via the Hint Prompt, it was an Initial Platinum-grade turret. It was stored in the only Platinum Chest in the Lightning Stone Mine Station.]
[You had already sent the directions to where it was located to Scarlet and Old MacDonald, even informing them about the dangers surrounding it. So, you weren’t worried that they wouldn’t get it.]
[-Ding!]
{Station 2 has been chosen!}
{Prepare to disembark in 2 minutes and 30 seconds.}
[After receiving that notification, you no longer minded this matter and waited for Jade to finish her shower with bated breath.]
[As a train conductor, you already did your best to assist Scarlet and Old MacDonald. From the other train crews you obtained information from, since they were your debtors, you discovered that they treat their train crewmates as humans.]
[After all, with how low ranking they were, those who lucked out on a train crew summoning scroll only got the lower grades of it. Others forcefully enslaved the natives they found in the stations they visited.]
[It was no wonder they would treat them as slaves. The train crewmates they invited weren’t as powerful or as talented as them, having no purpose other than doing their bidding.]
[You didn’t care about what they did since there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Those train conductors and Zenith just chose different development paths.]
[You went with the elite crew route, so you didn’t treat your train crewmates as slaves but crewmates and comrades. If you chose the development route of having a huge army or expendable fodder, you would naturally treat them as such.]
[Anyway, you didn’t care what they would do as long as you could take advantage of these train conductors through their debts and the Loan Shark’s Ledger.]
[Recalling that, you continued waiting in the master bedroom, and finally, Jade got out of the shower.]
[As she opened the door, a faint mist drifted out from the bathroom, carrying with it the warmth of recently used hot water.]
[Your gaze instinctively lifted.]
[Jade stepped out barefoot onto the polished floor, droplets of water slowly trailing down from the ends of her long jade-green hair. The strands clung together from the moisture, appearing darker and even more lustrous than usual, like freshly polished jade.]
[Her skin looked even more radiant after the shower. The faint moisture on her body gave it a soft sheen under the room’s light, as if her already flawless skin had been coated in a thin layer of crystal-clear dew.]
[A bath towel was wrapped around her slender figure, secured just above her chest. It concealed most of her curves, yet the outline of her figure was still impossible to hide.]
[The towel reached the middle of her thighs, revealing her long legs. Small droplets of water slowly slid down along the smooth skin before falling onto the floor.]
[Jade lifted one hand and gently squeezed the ends of her hair. A few drops of water fell from it.]
[Her jade-green eyes soon found yours.]
[Seeing you stare without blinking, a faint smile appeared on her lips.]
["Darling."]