Chapter 71: Florida Man Announces New Guinness World Record Attempt: Driving Unlicensed Farm ATV Across Continent Without Getting Caught by Police
"Asking help from that bitch is no good."
Visiting the Black Forest would be suicide, as the perverted Lamias might attack him on sight. Felix shook off the thought and searched for another option—the system shop. He looked for a vehicle to shorten his travel time, ideally something he could use immediately.
In the vehicle section of the store, many modern vehicles were affordable, such as bicycles, motorbikes, and scooters. However, Felix wasn't satisfied with them as he couldn't imagine riding a mountain bike a thousand miles through forests, dirt paths, and across mountains.
He was not a professional biker! His butt would have been destroyed!
Felix kept scrolling, looking for a better choice. Then, he came across the off-road motorbike section.
The cheapest one was a scooter, costing as little as 100 years of lifespan, but it required gasoline. As Felix hadn't purchased the oil refinery yet, he couldn't procure the fuel for the vehicle. Other motorbikes were also attractive but had the same fuel limitations. Felix ignored them and kept browsing.
Finally, Felix found what he had been looking for: an ATV with a sophisticated electric engine. This vehicle required either a spirit stone or an essence stone as fuel, and its unique feature, 'Driver Safety,' demanded an essence stone's power. Still, the price tag almost made Felix cry—5,000 years of lifespan.
Felix didn't have enough. He deeply sighed and was about to give up. But then, he remembered he had another type of currency - mana. A thousand mana was worth one year of lifespan, so he should be able to pay with five million mana. This method seemed inefficient at a glance as mana was related to his level. However, Felix remembered the oil derrick pumping crude oil into his inventory.
He was an oil baron! Why not exchange the oil for something more useful?
Felix added the item to the cart. When he pressed the checkout button, the system prompted for the payment option, which Felix usually neglected. He switched to the mana option and pressed proceed.
*DING*
It worked. The shop subtracted five million mana points from him. Felix's heart ached. If he wanted to get stronger in the future, he would need to recover that mana first.
*DING*
A camo off-road ATV was deposited into his system inventory. Felix ejected it and put it on the floor to inspect it.
The ATV looked similar to modern ones but featured two unique options: Barrier Dome and Auto-Navigation. It also had a front tablet attached to the middle console.
Felix unlocked and opened the back boot, revealing a humble storage area and an empty battery socket, which could also accept an essence stone. He fit a fresh essence stone into the socket and immediately pulled his hand away.
The essence stone was still dangerous, even though Felix's body was immune to poison and fire. The radiation leaking from the item left a black mark on his fingertips. Fortunately, his blood and mana quickly regenerated lost cells and corrected the DNA before he could turn into a monster.
The essence stone activated the ATV, which automatically generated a transparent dome around itself. However, it instantly deactivated the dome and gave Felix feedback through its front monitor:
[Error. Please deploy the ATV outside your primary residence's domain.]
Felix shrugged, put the ATV back in his inventory, and walked outside. He placed it in front of his house, away from the barrier, and reactivated it. The vehicle hummed and deployed a dome around itself.
Felix approached it and entered its domain unhindered. Hopping on the ATV, Felix looked at the console monitor.
The functions of the console were similar to modern electric cars. It also came with a GPS, which surprised Felix. A world map function was what he needed the most. He opened the GPS map to check the geography and the locations of cities around him.
Aero City and the Purple Forest were directly north of Terra City, as Felix remembered. Several miles northwest of his location, the oil derrick icon became a landmark in the no-name forest. Moving to the left, 200 miles west, there was a large snake icon—Lamia Lair.
'So that's where they are from,' Felix thought. He finally understood why those monsters moved when Aero City and Terra City mobilized their armies. As neighbors of the Black Forest, they were the Lamias' prime targets.
Moving away from the Lamia's nest, Felix searched for the capital city, "Big Zoot." Fortunately, there was a search bar to input place names. Upon entering the city name, the screen automatically moved to the destination.
It was 1,200 miles east of Felix's current location. Felix zoomed out to check if there was any road to get there. As he expected, there were no good roads other than beast trails and dirt paths. If Felix wished to use the local roads, he had to take several detours and visit a total of 20 towns and three big cities along the way.
"I won't make it in time, will I?" Felix scratched his head. Judging from the distance, vehicle speed, and difficult terrains, he expected to take about 10-20 days to get there. By that time, Jane might already be in danger.
Felix glanced at the ATV's shield and raised an eyebrow. He wondered if he could try something creative.
"Say, Jessica."
<Planning something stupid?>
"Yes."
Jessica sighed deeply. <How far will that be?>
"Just a little. Say, what can the shield do?"
Jessica looked at the ATV's brand and searched its manufacturer's specifications, customer feedback, and accident statistics from the system shop's database. When she noticed the hidden functions of the barrier dome, she faintly smiled.
<From the records, this vehicle is known as "Mini Tank." Its shield was originally designed to prevent accidents, but many users exploited the barrier functions to shove away trees and elevate lands. The manufacturer often pleaded with their customers that the vehicles were designed to be off-road ATVs, but their customers started treating the vehicle as war machines as a response.
Later on, the manufacturer cooperated with the barrier generator company to develop a better ATV. Fast forward a decade, and they became the leading military tank manufacturer of their world.>
"…,"
Felix wanted to rebuke that he didn't need to know those details, but the story gave him inspiration. He navigated the console and found the barrier option. The function allowed Felix to adjust the barrier input and what it could do.
…
Barrier Intensity Adjustment
Level 1:
- Light collision protection and scratch prevention.
- Low battery consumption.
- Suitable for professional drivers who don't need automatic assistance.
Level 2:
- Driver and total vehicle protection.
- Medium battery consumption.
- Suitable for casual drivers and families.
Level 3:
- Heavy protection and larger dome.
- Medium-high battery consumption.
- Suitable for parking in public areas, as the shield dome prevents theft, door dings, and heavy collisions. It can also deter people who may try to tow your vehicle.
Level 4:
- Absolute protection.
- High battery consumption.
- Designed for emergencies, providing a 10-meter-diameter dome around the vehicle that automatically repels every object except you and your family.
Level 5:
- War Mode.
- Very high battery consumption.
- Self-explanatory.
…
Felix widely grinned and immediately switched the barrier to level 5. Gazing east, he drove off to initiate his test run.
The explosions caused by Gurudeer and Diana had left random trees, boulders, and rubble scattered everywhere. Large rocks had broken into smaller pieces, and tree logs had turned into burnt kindling, blocking Felix's path.
However, as soon as the barrier touched the debris, dust and objects on the ground flew away. Like a tractor shovel on steroid, the vehicle plowed through everything in its path at the speed of 60 MPH. The absolute barrier prevented every speck of dust from entering its domain.
Felix couldn't see anything in front of him as brown dust shot up from the ground and the rubble. Rocks and tree branches collided with the barrier surface, creating noise.
*BAM*
The vehicle's barrier hit a huge log and shattered it to pieces, yet Felix didn't feel any feedback force from the collision.
"Wow," Felix grinned. He turned the vehicle around and drove back to his house.
He finally understood why it was nicknamed a mini-tank.