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

Kyle leaped out from behind the rock, his body arcing through the air. With all his strength, he wielded the bone spear, stabbing it precisely and ruthlessly upwards into the heart of the monstrous boar from its relatively soft belly. With a "thud," a cluster of spikes exploded from the tip of the bone spear, tearing the fleshy heart apart.

For an ordinary wild beast, this attack would have been fatal, but the opponent was a monster that could still fight the two of them for a while even with its tumorous heart shattered.

After nearly half an hour of fighting, the fanged boar had its limbs severed, and its shattered tumor-like heart also deprived it of its ability to rapidly regenerate.

Looking at their prey lying in a pool of blood, the two boys, covered in blood and panting heavily, displayed an unprecedented confidence and determination.

They have transformed from naive teenagers into true... anti-demon warriors.

Shen Ge stood under the shade of a tree not far away, watching this scene with a satisfied expression on his face. The anti-deception warriors he was training were beginning to take shape.

After the hellish training for Kyle and Roca came to an end, Shen Ge once again turned his attention to the recovery of his own strange abilities.

Hunting these first and second-tier anomalies could provide him with a negligible amount of anomaly energy, and could hone the two boys into qualified anomaly warriors. However, relying on this method to accumulate enough massive energy to restart the system was like a drop in the ocean.

He estimated that even if he slaughtered all the strange creatures around the island, the energy he would obtain would probably not even be enough to light up 10% of the system's progress bar.

The only shortcut remains the center of the island, that giant heart that resembles a bizarre production factory.

Only by "stealing" the pure liquid supernatural energy from there can he hope to regain his strength in a short time.

However, when Shen Ge once again stealthily crept to the edge of the core area of ​​the jungle, he found that the situation was much worse than when he left last time.

First, there's the unusual number and density of patrols.

He was merely observing from the outside when, in less than half an hour, he encountered three groups of wandering monsters.

The strangest thing is that they no longer wander aimlessly, but patrol back and forth along specific routes like real sentinels, expanding their vigilance range several times over.

?

"Damn, I stole some kind of supernatural energy, and now even the supernatural knows to call security?" Shen Ge was speechless at the scene before him.

What disturbed him even more was the dark red fungal carpet, which resembled the flesh and blood of a living creature. It was spreading outward from the core basin at a visible speed. Wherever the fungal carpet passed, the trees that were originally just twisted trees were completely assimilated and turned into "ghost tree people" waving their branches.

The rocks on the ground are also being enveloped and corroded, becoming part of the fungal carpet. The "alienation" process of the entire island is accelerating rapidly.

This means that the giant, fleshy heart deep underground is operating at unprecedented efficiency, frantically producing the bizarre and transforming the island.

The previous act of "stealing" energy undoubtedly awakened a dormant mechanism, causing it to enter a more aggressive and expansionist mode.

"This is troublesome." Shen Ge, hidden in the shadow of a rock, frowned deeply.

Faced with such tight defenses and rapidly expanding fungal carpet, it became an almost impossible task to silently infiltrate the basin again and pierce the energy nodules.

This "shortcut" has also been temporarily blocked.

Shen Ge retreated back to the camp before dark, pondering a new plan.

He had initially thought that this isolated island could become a sanctuary for the Alai family. Once he had trained the boys and ensured they were capable of protecting themselves, he could confidently explore the underground base and find a way back to "reality."

But now it seems that the idea was too naive.

At the rate of expansion of the fungal carpet, the entire island will be completely swallowed up and assimilated within six months, turning into a truly bizarre nest.

At that time, not only their small camp, but even those powerful second-tier monsters would probably become food for higher-tier beings.

This island is not a home, but a death cage on a countdown.

Shen Ge watched as Alai, who was sharing the roasted fish with Moya by the campfire, and Kyle and Roca, who were wiping their bone spears with resolute expressions, and made a decision in his heart.

Since we cannot recover our strength in a short time and lead them to fight our way out, then let's try another approach—

Build a ship.

It wasn't their wooden fishing boat that would fall apart at the first sign of a storm, but a truly sturdy and reliable ship capable of withstanding the storms of this strange ocean and carrying them to an unknown continent.

This idea seems far-fetched. On this primitive, isolated island, without tools or materials, how could a modern ship be built?
But in Shen Ge's eyes, although the island was fraught with danger, it also contained a huge treasure trove—the underground experimental base that had been abandoned for thousands of years.

There are countless alloy materials, abandoned but structurally intact mechanical equipment, sturdy metal plates, and flexible cables.

What the creator considered garbage was, to him, the only hope for realizing this plan.

He may not know how to start a starship, but he understands the most basic physical structure and knows how to cut, weld, and reinforce it.

With his current abilities and knowledge of materials, it's entirely possible for him to use those "waste materials" to build a simple "dock" on the beach and assemble a ship...

A Frankenstein-like ocean-going vessel.

It may be ugly and crude, but it will certainly be more sturdy than any wooden boat in the world.

Not to mention that besides the underground experimental base, there are a lot of strange things on this island that can be used. Their skeletons can be used to make weapons and also to build a ship.

Shen Ge wasn't building a fully automated ship; it was still a sailboat, but he was strengthening its sturdiness to withstand wind and waves.

Shen Ge stood up and "informed" Alai of the plan.

He didn't explain the existence of the underground base in detail, but simply gestured with his hands—a larger, stronger ship that would no longer be destroyed by storms—and pointed to the distant sea.

Alai looked at him, at the unwavering confidence and determination in his eyes. Although she couldn't fully grasp the grandeur and difficulty of the plan, she understood its core message—he wanted to lead them away from this place about to be swallowed by darkness, to find a new home.

She nodded emphatically, her deep blue eyes gleaming with complete trust. This man, from the day he appeared, had been creating miracles.

And this time, she believed he could do it too.

The next day, Shen Ge led the Kyle and Roca brothers to change their focus from hunting monsters to building a "dock," while simultaneously moving things out of the underground laboratory.

Since entering the underground experimental base required passing through the core area where the sarcoma's heart was located, Shen Ge had to complete this arduous task alone.

The moving work lasted for three months. The two brothers, Kyle and Roca, were in charge of building the dock, while Shen Ge was in charge of moving various materials.

Soon, those strange "plates" and "iron bars" that Alai and his companions had never seen before, gleaming with a cold metallic luster, were moved to the dock.

Each piece seemed so heavy, its surface covered with scratches and jagged breaks. It was hard to imagine what terrifying force could have separated them from a whole and transported them here.

This was largely thanks to the island's strange creatures; some of their skeletons were even stronger than steel. Shen Ge used these strange bones to make various tools, which enabled him to complete this arduous task.

With the accumulation of materials, the shipbuilding project officially commenced.

Shen Ge continued to enter the base every day to carry out "demolition office" and transportation work, transporting one piece of material after another back to the shipyard.

He found a portable energy cutting/welding device at the base's repair station.

The device's energy conversion mechanism is powered by bizarre energy, and the island has no shortage of bizarre sarcoma hearts that serve as its "core."

This made Shen Ge's demolition work go more and more smoothly, and he was also able to repair and polish those oddly shaped alloy plates one by one, and then precisely assemble them according to the blueprint he had conceived in his mind.

Holding a welding torch that shimmered with a ghostly blue electric arc, Shen Ge welded two thick alloy plates together seamlessly.

The boat doesn't need to be too big; enough to accommodate ten people is sufficient. It will be powered by wind and will use a traditional Chinese-style rigid sail, combined with human labor.

The idea is good, but it's not easy to make.

It took Shen Ge a full four months to complete the basic shape of the ship's hull.

Its keel was a single main load-bearing beam that Shen Ge had salvaged from the second floor of the base, strong enough to withstand the impact of a fourth-order bizarre event. The overall structure of the hull was not a traditional streamlined shape, but a multifaceted, angular structure full of violent aesthetics.

Any attack, whether it be a terrifying wave or a potential collision with a sea monster, will be deflected and neutralized to the maximum extent at this tilted angle, rather than being directly absorbed by the hull.

That's right, he built it based on the "Zero" Ark in the underground experimental base. Since he couldn't start Zero, he built his own Number One!
He divided the ship's hull into several independent, sealed compartments using thick alloy plates, a design concept derived from submarines' "watertight compartments." Even if a part of the hull is breached, only one compartment will flood, preventing the entire ship from sinking instantly.

However, when the main frame of the ship was completed and the outer armor plating was about to be laid, Shen Ge encountered a tricky problem—the portable welder broke down when the last piece of the main frame was about to be welded, and he tried for several days but could not fix it.

This means that Shen Ge can no longer weld the outer deck onto the ship in a perfect way. He can use brute force to rivet and fix it, but countless tiny gaps will inevitably be left on the hull.

This is not a problem in the calm inner bay, but once they enter the turbulent open sea, these gaps become fatal weaknesses, as the seawater will mercilessly seep in and eventually drag them into the abyss.

Shen Ge stood before the nascent ship's skeleton, lost in thought.

For problems that cannot be solved by technology, can something else be used as a substitute?
His gaze involuntarily drifted towards the distant jungle.

This island is teeming with all sorts of bizarre creatures. Their flesh, tendons, and shells are all "materials" that have evolved in extreme environments and possess unique properties.

A bold and crazy idea formed in Shen Ge's mind—since it's impossible to build a purely technological ship, then why not... build a ship that stitches together technology and the bizarre!

If he had the Red Mist Armor and Xiao Qi, Shen Ge wouldn't have to worry about the strange flesh and blood "backlash" at all, but now he has to consider it.

What if we end up with a high-level weirdo instead of the original weirdo when we've actually built the Weird Ark? That wouldn't be fun!
Shen Ge put this idea into action. He needed a "glue" that was extremely strong, tough, and absolutely waterproof to fill the gaps that could not be welded.

He quickly identified a target: a second-order anomaly that inhabited the swampy area on the east side of the island—the "Adhesive Tendon Worm".

This creature is not particularly aggressive, but it secretes an extremely viscous, resinous liquid that quickly solidifies upon contact with air, forming a gel-like substance that is both elastic and strong—a perfect natural sealant.

"Kyle, Roca."

Shen Ge called the two boys to his side and drew the approximate shape of the worm in the sand: "We need this. It's slippery and hard to catch. Roca, you attract its attention from the front; Kyle, you stay on the side and attack its air sac with your bone spear when it spews out its mucus."

"I need a lot, lots of this kind of thing!" Shen Ge said, gesturing as he spoke.

This was the first time he had so clearly assigned the task of hunting second-tier monsters to the two brothers.

This was not just a material collection exercise, but also a practical assessment.

After entrusting the hunting work to the two brothers, Shen Ge put aside the construction of the No. 1 Ark hull and turned to designing objects for other areas.

A foul stench permeated the swamp.

Kyle and Roca held their breath and, following Shen Ge's instructions, cautiously approached the small, mountain-like "sticky worm" wriggling in the mud, one on the left and one on the right. They planned to attack the air sac while it was "breathing" and collect as much sticky material as possible.

When Roca threw out the first sharpened wooden spear, successfully attracting the worm's attention, the monster let out a low roar, its huge mouth opened wide, and a stream of yellowish-brown viscous liquid shot out like a high-pressure water gun.

Just then, Kyle, who was lying in ambush on the flank, made his move!
Like a nimble cheetah, he leaped from a decaying tree trunk along a pre-planned route, and in mid-air, with all his might, hurled the bone spear in his hand at a huge, ever-expanding fleshy sac to the side of the worm.

"Pfft!"

The bone spear struck its target precisely.

The sac ruptured instantly, and the worm let out a painful cry, its body writhing violently. But its ability to spray mucus was thus severed.

One of them held off the worm while the other began collecting the adhesive. (End of Chapter)