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

Everyone present was so shocked by this overwhelming, heavy, and despairing "truth" that they were speechless for a long time.

The world beneath their feet turned out to be just a… patient infected by two “viruses” and waiting to die.

Were all their efforts and struggles in vain?
"Hey, Hephaestus."

Everyone stared at Shen Ge in astonishment.

Clearly, they couldn't understand why their ruler could remain so calm after encountering such a "desperate" truth!
"How much of that database was downloaded?"

Hephaestus hesitated for a moment before subconsciously replying, "M-My lord, 100% downloaded. 'Hermes' has completely backed up all the data..."

“Very good.” Shen Ge nodded.

He glanced at the woman who was still sleeping in the hibernation pod.

Because of a "traitor," both sides' plans failed.

But Shen Ge felt that without this woman's interference, the old man's thinking would not have been able to complete the final plan, because their direction was wrong.

"grown ups."

Hephaestus was the first to recover from the shock, his eyes rekindling with a fervent thirst for knowledge: "That database, I... I'll go there right now..."

"No rush." ​​Shen Ge waved her hand, interrupting him: "You have to eat one bite at a time, and walk one step at a time. If you try to get fat in one bite, you'll choke to death."

His gaze swept over all the core members present.

"What you just saw and heard, keep to yourself. From now on, this matter is classified as top secret by 'Iron Heart.' I don't want despair to spread like a plague in the home we've just built," Shen Ge said earnestly.

"In this world filled with despair, we need to give everyone 'achievable hope,' not endless despair."

Everyone nodded heavily, understanding that this overwhelming truth was indeed something ordinary people could not bear.

“Hephaestus, Ellie. Your most important task now is to lead your ‘Ark Research Society’ to try to restart ‘Ark Zero’ based on that complete database.”

"Yes! Your lord!"

……

After analyzing the research data obtained from the Pioneer Base, the development speed of "Iron Heart" has increased to another level.

Fifty Raider-II armored vehicles were successfully mass-produced within just one month, significantly increasing the combat effectiveness of the Ironheart Guard.

Meanwhile, the brand-new "Type II flesh-and-blood alloy" was being produced in a continuous stream and began to gradually replace the old and fragile ordinary steel in the upper echelons of the city.

The three-dimensional ecological farm has also been expanded to cabins No. 3 and No. 4, and various new crop cultivation experiments have been put on the agenda.

After the pioneers' "doomsday report" was hidden, everything seemed to be speeding towards a bright future.

However, just like an engine that is overloaded, which will inevitably suffer fatal wear and tear, the "Iron Heart" has side effects due to its rapid development.

The first to discover the anomaly was Roca. As the chief captain in charge of maintaining the city's internal defense facilities, he led his team to conduct routine inspections of the bottom keel and supporting structure of the "Iron Heart" every day.

That day, as he ventured deep into the quarantine zone at the very bottom of the city, near where the "Heart of God" engine was located, a strange smell entered his nostrils.

“Strange…” He frowned.

The support columns here were all replaced with the latest "Type II flesh alloy" two months ago. This alloy has a slow biological regeneration ability and is theoretically unlikely to show signs of corrosion within a hundred years.

He shone a powerful searchlight and walked to a keel support pillar that resembled a giant pillar supporting the sky, and began to examine it carefully.

The smooth, tough, dark alloy surface showed no abnormalities, and Roca subconsciously reached out and tapped it.

The clear, resonant sound indicates an extremely solid internal structure.

Just as his fingers traced the point where the support column met the ground, a sound like sandpaper rubbing against skin made him stop instantly.

Roca shone the searchlight on it and saw a dark red, rust-like spot, no bigger than a fingernail, at the very bottom of the seemingly perfect support pillar.

That's not ordinary rust!

It looks like a living moss!
In the center of the spots, you can even see extremely fine veins, like blood vessels, that are pulsating slightly!

Roca immediately drew a high-strength alloy dagger from his waist and tried to scrape off the "rust spot".

However, when his psychic dagger, powerful enough to easily cut through the third-tier bizarre carapace, touched that dark red area, a soft "crack" sounded, and the alloy in that area became incredibly fragile. With just a light touch from the dagger, it shattered and peeled off, turning into a pile of dark red metallic powder.

Beneath the powder, even more "vascular" rust had spread, deeply penetrating the interior of the support column!

"not good!"

……

……

Half an hour later, in the central council hall.

After realizing the seriousness of the problem, Roca immediately reported it to his superiors.

The alloy sample removed from the support column was placed in a top-level isolation box and presented to all core members.

Hephaestus's hands flew across the holographic keyboard, frantically accessing various data. Ellie and the group of veteran engineers beside him were also glued to the screen, barely daring to breathe.

“Impossible, absolutely impossible…” Hephaestus muttered to himself, his worldview, built on logic and data, was being challenged like never before.

"The molecular structure of Type II flesh-and-blood alloy is the most stable state we can achieve so far. No known external environment could cause such a complete 'structural collapse' in just a few months!"

“Unless… the problem isn’t outside, but inside ‘Iron Heart’.” He suddenly looked up, his gaze meeting Shen Ge’s equally grave expression in mid-air.

With this guess in mind, Shen Ge used the Ghost Eye to examine the interior of the "Iron Heart," and what he saw was far more serious than what Roca had discovered.

The vascular "rust" is not only present at the bottom layer; it is like an invisible spider web that runs along the energy transmission lines inside the city, eroding nearly 15% of the main structure near the core energy area.

The "iron heart" is slowly being "corroded" from the inside.

"Hermes!" Hephaestus commanded, "Immediately conduct the deepest scan of the 'Heart of God,' the 'Heart of the Demon King,' the 'Precursor Backup Core,' and all our energy sources."

A massive stream of data scrolled frantically across the screen projected onto the biocomputer. Minutes later, when the final comparison result appeared before everyone as a flashing "warning" message, the entire council chamber stared at the screen in disbelief. [Comparison complete.]

[Warning! The "Heart of God Subspace Engine" and the "Strange Energy Biomass Flesh Alloy" have suffered severe "corrosion."]

[Judgment: Under prolonged contact, subspace energy will cause irreversible erosion and fusion of the biomass material containing the strange energy.]

[Simplified description: They are being digested.]

Upon hearing this conclusion, everyone felt a chill in their hearts.

The most powerful and stable source of their livelihood, the "heart of God," turned out to be the very source of the disease that caused this upheaval!
"What should we do?" Alai's voice trembled slightly.

All eyes were once again drawn to the Supreme Leader of the "Iron Heart".

“Disable the use of ‘Heart of God’,” Shen Ge proposed the first solution.

"No! Sir!"

Hephaestus immediately retorted, "'The Heart of God' is the core of our energy system. If it is shut down, the city's energy supply will instantly drop by 70% relying solely on the other two auxiliary cores. The energy shield will fail, the industrial zone will grind to a halt, and the growth lights in 'Eden' will go out! We will regress to the era of Arcturus!"

This is the most fatal "energy paradox".

Not using it is just waiting to die.

Using it will hasten death.

They seemed to be stuck in an unsolvable deadlock.

"I'm just saying to temporarily stop using it, at least until we resolve the signs of this 'Heart of God's' mutation. Besides, with our current capabilities, it's not like we can't create another one."

To...recreate myself?
A brand new "heart" installed in the "Iron Heart" that can rival the "Subspace Engine Core"?
This...how is this possible?

"Why is it impossible?" Shen Ge asked, looking at the incredulous expressions on everyone's faces.

He walked up to Hephaestus and looked at the genius with the "Iron Heart".

"Haven't you always believed that flesh and blood can become a part of power? Haven't you always tried to perfectly integrate biotechnology with mechanical logic?"

"Now, the opportunity has come."

Shen Ge placed her hand heavily on Hephaestus's shoulder.

"I want you, Hephaestus, to be the foundation of the 'Garden of Eden' that we created ourselves, to use the 'Heart of the Demon King' that is 100% compatible with us as the pacemaker, and to use the 'information rewriting' technology that you deciphered from that 'Dream Engine Box' as the central control system..."

"Let's create a brand new heart for our city, one that we control ourselves!"

Anyway, since coming to this world, Shen Ge hasn't learned anything else, but he's become quite adept at "drawing pie in the sky" to motivate his employees.

The key point is that Hephaestus falls for this!
Faced with Shen Ge's "trust", his eyes almost sparkled with excitement.

"Sir, this... this is insane. To transform an entire ecosystem into an 'engine'? The technical challenges involved are simply astronomical!" An engineer, recovering from his shock, spoke with a hoarse voice.

"Yes."

An elderly engineer with gray hair also mustered his courage and stepped forward, his tone filled with concern: "How can we guarantee a stable output of energy? How can we achieve 100% coordination in the bioenergy cycle among tens of thousands of different species?"

“If any part of the process goes wrong, for example… if a certain type of critical fungus suddenly dies off on a large scale, the entire ‘engine’ could be instantly clogged, and the resulting disaster would be ten thousand times more terrible than this kind of ‘rust’ corrosion!”

His words expressed the sentiments of all the technical staff.

All the doubts and concerns ultimately converged on Hephaestus, the chief researcher on whom Shen Ge had placed high hopes.

After being "energized" by Shen Ge, he was now using "Hermes" to continuously calculate the feasibility of the plan.

Energy conversion efficiency model of vertical farms...

The pulse output curve of the Demon King's heart...

The taboo theories about "collective consciousness linking" within the "Dream Engine Box"...

The probability of failure is at least 90%.

But the "result" that 10% chance of success could bring was like a crazy temptation for this genius who regarded "creation" as a faith.

After a long time.

Hephaestus slowly raised his head.

"can."

“I think it’s okay!” he said again seriously.

Hephaestus looked at Shen Ge, then at all his skeptical colleagues, and said slowly and deliberately, “In theory, we can do it. I will produce a plan as soon as possible, and then you will see the treatment plan for this rust corrosion, or ‘rust disease’.”

……

Hephaestus kept his word.

For the next seven days and seven nights, he and his "Ark Research Society" locked themselves in the laboratory, conceiving the plan according to his deductions.

Soon, a complete design blueprint of the vast, complex, and exquisite Heart of Eden was projected onto the dome of the central council hall.

Hephaestus pointed to the core of the blueprint, the "Heart of the Demon King," which was still operating stably, and began to introduce this grand plan:
"...This is the 'aorta' of the 'heart'. It will no longer be responsible for direct power supply, but will play the role of 'pacemaker' and 'booster pump'. Every time it beats, it will inject the most basic 'life pulse' into the entire ecosystem."

He then pointed to the pipes that were densely packed throughout the vertical farm: "...These are 'capillaries.' We will modify the existing irrigation system so that it delivers not only water, but also an 'energy liquid' that is a mixture of low-level, strange energy and nutrients!"

He pointed to the huge culture area of ​​"luminescent bacteria": "...These are the 'lungs'. They are responsible for 'gas exchange,' absorbing the waste gases we exhale and producing oxygen-rich and life-energy-rich air through photosynthesis, which in turn nourishes the entire system."

"And all our 'Garden of Eden' creatures—potatoes, algae, 'armored tuna'... they will all become the 'cardiac cells' of this 'heart.' They will absorb the 'energy fluid' and thrive, and their life activities themselves will continuously generate the purest and gentlest biomass energy!"

This idea is ingenious beyond compare.

It perfectly transforms a complete, self-sustaining "ecosystem" into a perpetual motion machine-like "biomass energy reactor".

After listening to his explanation, all those who had previously been skeptical fell silent. Their eyes were filled only with shock and...admiration! (End of Chapter)