I can upgrade the shelter

"This road is a real pain in the ass!" Chen Xin exclaimed as he looked at the route planned out on the map. He cranked the steering wheel again to adjust the car’s direction back onto the projected path in front of him.

The mountain roads were completely covered in snow, with layers over a meter thick. It wasn’t just unrecognizable; it was downright impassable.

However, the valley beneath the mountain wasn’t much better. Although the terrain was flat enough to possibly pass through, the snow varied in consistency. In some places, it was frozen solid, making driving easier, but in others, the snow hadn’t hardened at all, causing the vehicle to tilt unexpectedly.

Even though Chen Xin’s car was equipped with radar and drones continually scanning the surroundings, these devices weren’t advanced enough to penetrate the snow and detect conditions beneath it.

So Chen Xin had to rely on intuition to judge direction, using the system’s route planning to move forward with difficulty.

Driving under these conditions was no easy task. Chen Xin had to focus all his attention, as the slightest distraction could result in the car flipping over.

If Chen Xin’s car wasn’t large enough and didn’t have superior performance, he might have rolled over by now.

Despite the intelligent assistance from the operating system, Chen Xin, after two hours of driving, had to find a relatively flat wind-sheltered area to stop and take a break.

He lowered the stabilizing jacks to keep the vehicle steady and then went back into the living cabin to pour himself a cup of hot water, intending to rest a bit.

But while Chen Xin was resting, the vehicle itself didn’t stop working. The radar continued scanning the surroundings at its maximum range, the drones flew forward scouting the terrain, and even the onboard operating system was analyzing the scan results and planning the route ahead.

After all, it was thanks to these technologies that Chen Xin wasn’t lost in the snow. Without ready-made roads and with surrounding darkness swallowing up any prominent landmarks under layers of snow, driving at night in a snowfield without clear paths made it easy to lose the way.

Fortunately, with the system in hand and some planning, Chen Xin was able to complete most of the journey smoothly, without much delay or any wrong turns.

The only setback was right after setting out, when he encountered a highway bridge that had collapsed, forcing him to take a detour.

All this was thanks to the equipment onboard his vehicle.

Chen Xin knew that his safe return home depended entirely on the vehicle’s technology, so despite resting, after pouring the water, he returned to the cockpit, watching the operating system analyze the data from the radar and drones to plan the route.

The road ahead didn’t seem easy to navigate. Within the radar’s range was a mountain, not very tall but still several hundred meters high, whose contour caused the valley below to be quite narrow.

Originally, a tunnel had been carved through the mountain, but a few hundred meters of tunnel was nothing for Flame Country’s formidable infrastructure and engineering capabilities.

Currently, however, the tunnel entrance was nearly buried in snow. For a person to crawl through was still feasible; the drone footage showed an opening less than half a meter wide, leaving enough room for someone to squeeze through.

But driving a car through would be impossible unless Chen Xin wanted to spend half a day digging out the snow.

While digging was an option, Chen Xin could drive through the valley below instead, saving time. The entire tunnel was only a few hundred meters long, so even if the valley route was a bit longer, it only added a kilometer or two.

More concerning to Chen Xin was the snow on the mountain.

The mountain wasn’t particularly steep, but the side facing the valley wasn’t exactly gentle, either. If over a meter of snow on the mountain were to slide down and cause an avalanche, it would bury Chen Xin driving at the valley’s base.

The worry about avalanches wasn’t unfounded. Chen Xin had already encountered several on this journey, and if not for the drones’ early warnings, he might have been buried multiple times.

Though Chen Xin’s sturdy vehicle might allow for escape even if buried in an avalanche, avoiding such incidents was preferable.

Thus, Chen Xin was now controlling the drones to conduct full-spectrum photography of the mountain, gathering as much data as possible to analyze the avalanche risk.

Fortunately, the images returned so far suggested the mountain wasn’t likely to avalanche, which reassured Chen Xin, allowing him to rest a bit more before setting off again.

As Chen Xin brought the drone back to the vehicle for recharging, he suddenly felt a bit hungry and decided to grab something to eat from the living cabin.

However, just as Chen Xin stood up and headed for the living cabin, a tremor suddenly hit, and the whole vehicle shook. Chen Xin braced himself against the wall to steady his body until the shaking stopped and he dared to stand upright again.

Still shaken, it took him a moment to figure out what had just happened.

But the shaking didn’t last long, only about ten seconds or so. By the time Chen Xin finally stood up, the shaking had already subsided.

"Earthquake? Or was it an avalanche?" Chen Xin felt a bit uncertain and, after pondering for a moment, returned to the cockpit to scan the surroundings again using the radar. He also activated the vehicle’s self-check to see if the earlier shaking had caused any damage to the body.

With the radar on, everything around seemed normal, and there were no detected changes. The vehicle’s self-check also revealed no issues.

This made Chen Xin frown, as it was hard to determine what caused the shaking just now.

If it were an earthquake, it must have been a minor one, with the seismic intensity not strong enough to cause any damage to the vehicle.

But if it was an avalanche, causing such a big shake, then the scale of the avalanche would not be small.

Judging from the radar scan, there were no changes in the surrounding mountains, and it didn’t seem like an avalanche had occurred.

"So was it an earthquake just now?" Chen Xin was uncertain and had a very bad feeling, so he put down his water cup and planned to release the drones for another scan investigation.

However, before the drone could take off, Chen Xin noticed ripples forming in the water cup placed on the holder of the control panel.

Chen Xin quickly looked at the radar display screen, and sure enough, the snow accumulated on the canyon walls had already begun to collapse due to the previous earthquake.

Avalanche! The thought flashed in Chen Xin’s mind, and without a second thought, he quickly retracted the support shovel from under the vehicle. Before the shovel was fully raised, Chen Xin already floored the accelerator, setting the vehicle in motion, trying to escape from the valley about to be buried by avalanches from both sides.

The snow surged down like waves, gathering more snow along its path, making the avalanche grow larger and larger. Chen Xin could even feel the entire vehicle shaking more violently than before. The water in the cup on the control panel holder was sloshed out, but Chen Xin had no mind to even care about it.

The surging snow rushed down from the mountainsides like two waves, creating a tremendous roar along the way.

If it weren’t for the lack of light making it hard to see, Chen Xin believed that at this moment, white snow mist would have risen from the walls of the mountains on both sides.

It was a spectacular sight. If he weren’t driving to save his life, Chen Xin believed he would have been happy to watch the spectacle of an avalanche cascading down the mountainside from a safe place.

But being under an avalanche, especially under dual avalanches, no one would want to risk their lives to admire such grandeur.

Chen Xin had already increased the speed to maximum. At this moment, he no longer worried about the stability of the ground or whether he would fall into a snow pit. If he didn’t run faster, it wouldn’t be a question of falling into a snow pit, but of being completely buried by snow.

However, at a top speed of merely eighty kilometers per hour, it seemed a bit insufficient. The radar results suggested that Chen Xin might not escape the valley before being hit by the avalanche.

At such a moment, Chen Xin felt very grateful for having installed an overload feature on the car.

Without hesitating, he slapped the big red overload button on the control panel. The vehicle immediately roared as if a beast had been awakened and was now growling—a huge shove felt from behind meant that Chen Xin could distinctly feel the acceleration.

Reaching a speed of one hundred sixty kilometers per hour with a tracked chassis was something Chen Xin had never dared to think about. Although he designed the overload mode, never in his dreams did he think he would actually use this feature to escape.

It was an extremely dangerous speed; a slight mistake could send the entire vehicle flying. However, at this moment, Chen Xin couldn’t afford to think much about it—not even when the entire vehicle intermittently flew up due to the terrain and crashed onto the snow, did he dare to stop for a moment.

Yet, even though Chen Xin drove at the highest speed, the avalanche still mercilessly crashed down!

In an instant, all Chen Xin saw was a blur of gray and white, unable to make out anything, and even the radar signal turned into a blur, unable to detect anything.

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Yet Chen Xin didn’t give up. With only loose snow mist so far, he still had a chance to escape!

Flooring the accelerator, he cared no more about route planning, abandoning the idea of adjusting directions, and just slammed the pedal hard, desperately charging forward.

If he wanted to escape the avalanche, he had only this path to take.

But the snow continued to cover down, and just as Chen Xin’s vehicle was airborne due to a bump on the ground, the surging snow from the mountain sides engulfed his vehicle.