As if the inexplicable loss of energy wasn’t bad enough, they weren’t the only ones suffering from this issue. Even the train was suffering from the energy drain.
The lamps in the carriages went out immediately after they entered the tunnel. This absence of light from artificial sources and the absence of light from the sun in the tunnels plunged the whole place into utter darkness.
The train’s engine also suffered a drain on its energy reserves. The heat of the fire in its furnace and the heat of its boiler both took a heavy hit and dipped. This slowed down the train and put it at risk of stalling.
The train couldn’t be allowed to stall, or they would be at the mercy of the world barrier. So a special fuel was poured into the furnace.
This special fuel caused the fire in the furnace to explode and soar. The heat rose quickly, and the boiler resumed working at full capacity. This caused the train to resume its normal speed out of the tunnel.
Loki had felt the train slow down when they entered the tunnel, and it had frightened him far more than he liked. The idea of being stuck in the tunnel under the force siphoning their internal energy sent chills down his back because the only outcome would be death.
As his mind conjured the image, he thought to himself, "If the train stops, then we will need to leave it to escape the tunnel. But that will expose us to the full brunt of the world barrier. What a tragedy that will be."
Fortunately, his worst expectations didn’t come to pass. The train smoothly passed through the dark tunnel and came out of the other side sound and safe.
After getting out of the grey tunnel of the world barrier, they plunged into another tunnel, but inside one of the larger mountains that Loki had seen on the other side.
Sunlight from the sun still wasn’t able to reach them because of the conditions of the new tunnel, but the force that killed the lamps had disappeared, so the lamps could resume their jobs, which caused the inside of the carriage to brighten up.
As it so happened, the brightness of the lamps resembled the mood of nearly everyone who just had a serious but short encounter with death. They sighed in relief, and their mood brightened after they came out of that tunnel of darkness and impending death.
Even Loki, who could afford to die, felt relaxed after they got out of the grey tunnel. His mood only got better as they went further away from the grey tunnel and plunged into the large mountain.
He did catch Jane looking at him at some point, but he didn’t think much about it aside from asking himself with a smirk, "What is she looking at me for? Is she thinking of swallowing her pride and recruiting cannon fodder like me to make up the numbers?"
The thought of her trying to recruit amused him. So her looking at him only served to improve his mood.
Meanwhile, Jane had stopped looking at him and was questioning herself inwardly, saying, "Did I misjudge him? Is he talented?"
She is questioning her estimation of Loki’s capabilities because she saw that he wasn’t holding any energy stones when the train left the world barrier.
There was only crystal dust in his hands, which indicates that he had held an energy stone that had been exhausted recently. But Loki hadn’t looked like he was in a hurry to replace it, and his face had been calm, not strained like everyone else.
The ease of his condition indicates that the energy drain hadn’t been as painful for him as it was for everyone else. She knows a lot about the world barrier, so this sight hinted to her that Loki is more talented than the others in the room.
She doesn’t know that he didn’t need the energy stone at all and had only brought it out because he thought that he would need it, which was why he didn’t replace the energy stone after it was consumed completely by the energy-draining force.
She only thinks that he used fewer energy stones and had a much easier time than everyone else. But even this is enough to reconsider Loki as a talent for recruitment.
Loki had been joking to himself when he thought that she was thinking about recruiting him. But if he found out that he was right to suspect that, he would kill her to get rid of her instead of appreciating her for spotting his talent and potential.
Only after she is dead will he allow himself to feel pride that his energy capacity was robust enough to handle the energy siphoning without much stress.
For now, he doesn’t know that everyone else performed much worse than he did because of the darkness in the cabin. So he doesn’t think that there is anything much to be proud of.
He was more concerned about reaching their destination. Fortunately, he got his wish five minutes later. This made a total of ten minutes that the train had spent traversing tunnels.
The tunnel in the mountain opened up into the hollow space within the mountains. The first thing that Loki noticed was that this hollow space was as large as a country in his past life. So the space within the mountain was actually many times bigger than the external size of the mountain.
His curiosity was piqued, so he pressed his face to the window beside him and looked up at the sky. As he did so, his eyes widened in wonder because of the sights.
There were large trees and birds, and various animals bounding through the forest. There was even a mountain far off in the distance. He saw a lake at the bottom of this mountain, and there were many animals taking a drink from the lake. It was a scene of peaceful paradise.