The system is four years ahead of schedule, but Weird is still a cub.

Shen Ge spent the entire night underground and finally found a way to open the "Zero" Ark. A few seconds later, accompanied by a faint cracking sound and a hissing sound of depressurization, the maintenance hatch, which had been closed for thousands of years, slowly rose up.

Inside the passageway, emergency lights turned on.

Once inside, Shen Ge found that the interior was exceptionally well-preserved. He walked through a narrow maintenance passage and entered the living area.

The place is fully equipped with a restaurant, medical room, hibernation pods and other facilities, and there is even a small ecological recycling chamber. Because it has been neglected for so long, it is like a small primeval jungle.

The facilities inside Ark Zero simulate a miniature ecosystem, large enough to support the long-term survival of hundreds of people.

The equipment, pipelines, life support systems... everything demonstrated a level of technology far exceeding that of his era; at least, this was something that Shen Ge's "reality" could not achieve.

In this way, the "speculation" that the world went from destruction to rebirth and to its current state over thousands of years or even longer has been confirmed.

However, when Shen Ge arrived at the bridge from the living quarters and took a stroll around the main control room, looking at the surrounding control panels, a sense of powerlessness welled up within him.

He recognized these things; in countless operations destroying monster bases, he had seen far more complex and massive control centers than this. But his understanding of them lay in how to detonate, destroy, and disable them in the most efficient way.

As for how to operate them... he knew nothing about it.

Shen Ge couldn't even distinguish which was the weapon system, which was the navigation system, and which was the energy monitoring panel, let alone how to activate them, how to input commands, or how to awaken this steel behemoth from its slumber and bring him back to "reality".

In the past, these tasks were all done by Xiao Qi, and he only needed to stand aside and wait for Xiao Qi to finish deciphering.

Shen Ge has always had a clear understanding of his own role. He is a top-notch frontline anti-creeper, an expert struggling to survive in the apocalypse, but not an engineer or a scientist.

"If Li Xiang were here... he could probably get this ship airborne in less than half a day." Shen Ge couldn't help but imagine the scene of Li Xiang showing off in front of him after starting the spaceship.

Shen Ge could only sit there, like a primitive man who had stumbled into a temple of civilization, facing a priceless treasure but not knowing how to use it.

The inability to start the Ark caused Shen Ge a considerable headache.

But Shen Ge did not give up. Instead, he patiently began a thorough search of the bridge and surrounding control rooms.

He hoped to find something like a paper-based operating manual, an emergency start flowchart, or any foolproof instruction guide.

However, the result was disappointing.

Civilization in this era has clearly become highly dependent on electronics and artificial intelligence, with all information stored in a host database that he cannot access.

He found some data chips in a locker, but without a reading device, they were no different from ordinary stones.

After the search yielded no results, Shen Ge sat alone in the captain's seat, lost in thought.

Ugh.

I've missed Xiaoqi for 365 days.

One road was blocked, but he was not facing a dead end.

The image of the strange man, seemingly "Raven," sleeping in the life support capsule in the corner of the observation hall flashed through his mind.

That person is undoubtedly a core member of this base, and may even be one of the highest leaders. Awakening her might provide the method to activate the Ark, or even unravel all the mysteries of this world.

The idea is incredibly tempting, but it's also fraught with deadly danger.

First, it's uncertain whether the other party is friend or foe.

According to the data recorder footage, she didn't appear on screen at all, and she also had that mysterious organization's emblem on her body, which made Shen Ge unable to trust her.

Secondly, and most importantly, is Shen Ge's own condition.

His current power is less than one ten-thousandth of his peak strength, while that woman, who has been able to sleep for thousands of years in this way after the apocalypse, is probably unfathomably powerful.

Once the other party awakens and becomes hostile, he will be powerless to fight back, and may even drag Alai and the others into an abyss of no return.

"No way." Shen Ge quickly rejected this risky idea.

He must not touch the life support pod until he has recovered enough strength to at least fight back, and until he finds a way to counterbalance the opponent.

After weighing the pros and cons, Shen Ge made the most prudent decision—

Let's leave here for now.

He needed to return to the ground, partly to reassure Alai and the others, and partly to shift the focus from "finding the way home" to a more fundamental and feasible direction—how to activate "Zero".

Shen Ge turned and left the bridge, returning to the bottom of the shaft along the way he came. He grabbed the cable and began to climb back up to the research area above.

……

……

When Shen Ge's figure reappeared at the edge of the dense forest on the edge of the camp, Alai, who was sitting by the campfire mending a fishing net with a bone needle, immediately looked up.

Her hands paused for a moment, and her deep blue eyes, which always carried a hint of worry, were instantly filled with a light that felt "reassuring".

He was gone for five whole days.

For the past five days, Kyle and Roca have strictly followed Shen Ge's instructions, patrolling, keeping watch, and reinforcing defenses, but the entire camp remains shrouded in an invisible oppression. Every day, Alai would gaze countless times into the depths of the jungle, his silent figure filled with worry.

As Shen Ge approached, his body was covered in the dust and decaying smell unique to the underground base, but his eyes remained as calm as ever.

He nodded to Alai as a greeting, then naturally sat down by the fire, picked up a skewer of dried fish that had already been grilled for him, and slowly began to eat.

Alai didn't ask him where he went, what he did, or whether he had found hope of leaving.

She silently handed him a leather water bag filled with clean water, then continued to lower her head and focus on mending the fishing net in her hands, as if the five days of waiting and anxiety had never happened.

This unspoken understanding warmed Shen Ge's heart. Months of getting to know each other in this strange, bizarre future world, this small camp, and this group of foreigners who didn't speak his language, gave him a long-lost sense of belonging, a feeling called "home."

As long as he comes back, this family will have a pillar of support.

The peaceful days lasted only one day. The next morning, while it was still dark, Shen Ge dragged Kyle and Roca out of their warm animal skin blankets.

"Get up." Shen Ge's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an unquestionable command.

The two boys, still half-asleep and rubbing their eyes, were taken by Shen Ge to an open area outside the camp before they were fully awake.

“From today onwards, the training will be upgraded.” Shen Ge pointed to the depths of the jungle, and then to the bone spears in their hands that had been sharpened to a considerable degree.

"What you need to learn is no longer how to 'hunt,' but... how to fight higher-level monsters more efficiently and directly."

The "high-level monsters" that Shen Ge is referring to are not some enormous fourth or fifth-order creatures, but rather second-order monsters located near the heart of the jungle.

The anomalies in this area are more powerful, more cunning, and more deadly than the first-order anomalies in the outer perimeter.

In the past, these were all targets that Shen Ge hunted alone. He would only bring the processed flesh and blood back to the camp. But now he wanted these two teenagers to personally face this fear and bloodshed.

Their first lesson came from when Shen Ge first entered the Special Operations Department. At that time, Feng Chengxiu was not yet the "captain," but the infamous instructor in the Special Operations Department. Feng Chengxiu devised a series of "training plans" for Shen Ge.

Today, Shen Ge applied this "inheritance of the Special Affairs Department" to Kyle and Roca without any changes, and even with greater intensity.

Shen Ge led the two to the vicinity of a second-tier "Disguised Predator," a strange creature resembling a withered tree that could perfectly blend into its environment and launch lightning-fast attacks with tentacles like tree roots.

"See that tree?" Shen Ge lowered his voice and pointed to a twisted, withered tree not far away: "Its weakness is three meters below the canopy, where there is a sunken fleshy core. Your task is to use your bone spears to pierce it."

Kyle and Roca looked in the direction he pointed and saw only an ordinary, withered tree, their faces filled with confusion.

"This is your first lesson: observation."

"On the battlefield, the enemy won't label you; everything you see could be a disguise. Use your eyes and your heart to sense the subtle anomalies. The bark texture of that tree is 'newer' than the surrounding trees; the moss at the base of the trunk shows signs of being dragged... These are all flaws."

The two brothers couldn't fully understand Shen Ge's words, not because they were "stupid," but because they had only been learning Shen Ge's language for a few months.

Of the five siblings in the camp, only Alai can understand a small part of Shen Ge's language; the rest depends on guessing and tacit understanding.

The two boys stared at the tree with suspicion for a full half hour. With Shen Ge's constant prompts and gestures, they finally began to see some clues.

"Now, go." Shen Ge pointed at the withered tree and gave the order.

Kyle gripped the bone spear, took a deep breath, and, with the fearlessness of a newborn calf, charged forward first.

Just as he was less than ten meters away from the dead tree, something unexpected happened!
The "dead tree" instantly came to life, and dozens of root-like tentacles shot out like arrows from all directions, swirling towards Kyle.

The boy's face turned deathly pale. He instinctively tried to back away, but it was too late.

Just then, a dark shadow swept past him.

Shen Ge had appeared in front of him without him noticing. Instead of drawing his sword or attacking, he used his body to slam into Kyle's side, sending him flying and rolling to the ground in a sorry state.

Shen Ge himself was instantly engulfed by those frenzied tentacles.

"Brother!" Roca screamed in terror.

However, the next second, a muffled explosion came from the clump of tentacles that enveloped Shen Ge. All the tentacles seemed to be torn apart by an invisible force, breaking into several pieces, and green juice sprayed everywhere.

Shen Ge reappeared, completely unharmed.

He stared coldly at Kyle, who had fallen to the ground, his voice devoid of any warmth: "Lesson Two: Never turn your back on your enemy. Just now, you hesitated. In battle, hesitation is death."

He walked up to the "disguised predator" that was roaring madly because its tentacles were destroyed. Just as the monster opened its huge mouth and was about to launch its next attack, Shen Ge's body sank slightly, and his right foot, like a battle axe, kicked hard into its trunk.

"boom!"

The entire second-tier monster was kicked off the ground and crashed heavily into the rock behind it, letting out a mournful cry.

“You see, it’s not invincible.” Shen Ge pointed to the monster that had temporarily lost its ability to move: “Lesson Three: Fear stems from the unknown. When you understand your enemy and find its weakness, it is just… prey.”

He threw two bone spears in front of Kyle and Roca.

"Now, go and complete your tasks."

The next few days became a nightmare the two brothers would never forget.

Shen Ge no longer provides any direct assistance; he only points out the target and analyzes the weaknesses. He will never intervene unless the two brothers are on their last breath.

Shen Ge was at least in the training ground when he was in the Special Operations Department. Of course, there were also some very unusual and rare circumstances involved.

The reason he is now directly training the two brothers in this way is because of the appearance of the "Zero" Ark, and his plans have to be changed accordingly.

The two brothers' current strength is completely insufficient to face the enemies they may encounter next!

In the following period, the two brothers witnessed what "hell" was like, what "hell instructors" were like, and even hovered at the gates of hell more than once.

They were burned all over by the corrosive liquid sprayed by the second-tier "Acidic Beetles"; they were tackled to the ground by the extremely fast "Two-Headed Hounds" and nearly had their throats ripped open; they had fought hordes of first-tier "Face-Faced Spiders" all night in caves filled with sticky spider webs until they were completely exhausted...

Every time they were on the verge of death, Shen Ge would appear at the last moment, eliminating the deadly threat in the simplest and most brutal way, and then dissecting every mistake they made with the coldest words.

He taught them how to crawl through mud, how to use the wind to mask their scent, and how to quickly stop bleeding wounds with specific plant juices.

He forced them to swing bone spears thousands of times under extreme conditions until their arms went numb. He even tied them to trees to let them experience firsthand the despair of being unable to move when danger came, in order to train their courage and willpower.

This is no longer training, it's... abuse.

But the results were astonishing.

Two months later, when Kyle and Roca faced a second-tier "Deceptive-Toothed Boar" again, there was no longer any fear in their eyes.

Roca was responsible for launching a feint attack from the front to draw the attention of the fanged boar; while Kyle, silently and like a cheetah, used the terrain to circle around to the fanged boar's flank and rear.

Just as the monstrous boar charged towards Roca, Kyle moved. (End of Chapter)