Uncle here isn't your average office worker!

Roy suddenly understood why there were so many seemingly well-maintained living facilities around this shelter. Those houses and spaces, which constitute the basic elements of a city, were built for the purpose of allowing the humans sleeping in the sarcophagus to live after they awoke! Just as Trevor Friston had said, this place could have become a secluded paradise, a refuge, undiscovered by anyone.

"You look surprised. You haven't heard of the Preservator Project?"

Trevor Friston's voice rang out again, echoing throughout the entire building. Roy looked up at the massive void deep within the space, at the center of the countless sarcophagi. From within the void, Trevor Friston's colossal body slowly rose, like the grand entrance of a final boss in a breathtaking game scene, exuding an overwhelming aura.

It has no human form; its shape is a huge, metallic sphere. Half of the sphere is covered with eye-like markings, but upon closer inspection, one can see that they are not paint, but rather countless tiny mechanical structures forming a large camera that resembles an eyeball.

That was the "organ" through which Trevor Friston obtained information from the outside world and monitored the entire shelter.

His generators are found throughout the entire facility.

In response to his question, Roy paused briefly, then shook his head and said, "I don't know. Perhaps I should have known, but at least for now, I have no recollection of this place. I'm sure you can tell that something has happened to me."

“Yes.” Trevor Friston affirmed Roy’s statement with his not-unfeeling voice, “but I still need to fulfill my duties, my fellow countryman. Please allow me to ask you a few simple questions.”

Roy tensed up immediately. A problem? What problem?

Before he could accept or refuse, Trevor Friston's enormous "eyeball" emitted a red light that enveloped Roy.

Roy felt a wave of dizziness, and the things around him gradually blurred, transforming into new and unknown forms.

A few seconds later, the chaotic colors gradually took shape, and a tall figure gradually appeared in front of Roy. It was a middle-aged man with light golden hair and emerald green eyes. As if he was deliberately hiding his features, Roy could not see his exact face. He could only roughly judge from his skin, pupils, hair color and clothing that he should be a white man and a scientist or researcher.

"You seem a little surprised?"

A man's voice rang out, stating simply,

“I am Trevor Friston, and this body is based on my appearance in my human form. This technology should have been quite advanced in our time.”

Roy raised an eyebrow slightly, as if he had thought of something, and replied noncommittally, "Maturity does not equate to widespread adoption."

Trevor Friston shrugged, tacitly agreeing with Roy's answer, and then asked:

"Fellow countryman, this is a place for debate. As one of the most intense ways for humankind to clash with ideas throughout history, I have preserved this tradition and improved upon it. Of course, I invited you here not to engage in any kind of argument with you, but simply to ask you a few questions."

How is humanity doing now?

He asked bluntly, a hint of unrealistic hope flickering in his emerald green eyes.

He desperately wanted to get some good news from Roy, such as that humanity still existed, even though the sparks of civilization had been extinguished several times, it had stubbornly survived.

But the only response he received was Roy shaking his head with a grave expression:

"Humans in the narrow sense no longer exist. Those who live in this world now are [demi-humans], like me now, or, to use a more anime-like term, [monster girls]."

“Anime/manga…” Trevor’s face showed a look of reminiscence. He looked up with a touch of nostalgia, closed his eyes, and sighed after a long while, “Such an ancient term. It must have been more than 30,000 years ago.”

Your serious expression of my complaints makes me feel very awkward.

Roy's face flushed as he internally complained.

Even after discussing this worst-case scenario, Trevor Friston still sighed for a long time before calmly accepting the outcome and continuing to ask, "Which project did you belong to? Why did you end up like this? As far as I know, humans haven't conducted experiments on transforming their own bodies into monster girls... cough cough... I mean, demi-humans."

As expected, there was this problem.

Roy clicked his tongue inwardly. Ever since Friston pulled him into this illusion, he had guessed that this would be one of Friston's questions.

Fortunately, Roy was not unprepared. Before meeting Kal'tsit, Roy had prepared for the question and had crafted a meticulous explanation.

He coughed lightly and replied:

"Just as I had never heard of Project Preservation, you should also know very well that at that time, in the face of threats, many of humanity's plans had already been carried out in secret, and it was normal for each other to be unaware of each other's plans."

Trevor Friston nodded, acknowledging, "That's true. Back then, our network system was no longer reliable, otherwise I wouldn't have voluntarily changed into what it is now."

The position of "Preservator" that he held should have been filled by a super AI created by humans. However, faced with threats in space, a perfect AI would become the greatest threat, potentially exploitable by the enemy. Therefore, Trevor Friston, a human, voluntarily copied and uploaded his consciousness, merging it with the AI ​​to become a cyborg Preservator.

Seeing that Friston not only agreed with his statement but even helped to patch things up and revealed a lot of information, Roy's confidence grew even more, and he continued:

"As for my plan, although I can't remember the specifics, it seems to be related to Originium, spirit, and the Sea of ​​Solaria."

Roy initially wanted to say "Void Realm," but considering that Friston and the others might not use that name, he changed it to "Sea of ​​Solaria."

Friston was clearly taken aback by Roy's answer, but then seemed to realize something and added:

"I see. They store the spirit in the Sea of ​​Solaria, extract it using Originium as a medium, and then put it into a new body. What a daring experiment! But how did they do it? How can a person's spirit be completely separated from the sea of ​​consciousness and stably placed into a new container? It's like trying to scoop a single drop of water out of the sea—almost impossible!"

He looked at Roy with a puzzled expression, scrutinizing him from head to toe, as if he wanted to uncover all of Roy's secrets.

Feeling a little uneasy under his gaze, Roy had a sudden inspiration and asked in return:

"So, this is why I have amnesia?"

Trevor Friston suddenly looked enlightened and clapped his hands loudly!

"I see!"

Volume One: Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty: Humor

"I see!"

As Trevor Friston clapped in realization, the entire debate illusion twisted into countless colored blocks like bubbles and began to recombine. The whole process was very fast; Roy only felt a blur before his eyes, and the surrounding environment transformed into a completely new appearance.

The space Roy was in had transformed into a bright, gigantic underground facility. Although it differed slightly from their current situation, Roy recognized it as the underground ruins they were in in reality. At this moment, countless sarcophagi remained open, empty inside, while human researchers bustled about outside, and occasionally, family members of the researchers could be seen visiting.

They tried to look relaxed, but Roy could still see the deep tension and fear hidden beneath their smiles. It was an unmaskable fear of the unknown future.

Just as Roy was about to lean closer to listen to what they were saying, Trevor Friston's voice rang out again, calling to Roy:

"This is the scene I remember, the last few days before the entire shelter base fell silent."

Roy turned around and noticed the lingering look in the eyes of the mother and daughter standing before a stone coffin. He immediately understood, stopped, and asked:

"My memory is quite hazy. I only remember that the danger came from the stars, but I've forgotten its specific form. So, as soon as I awoke, I began traveling across this land, doing my utmost to search for relics of human civilization, trying to reconstruct what happened back then. What led us to this predicament?"

Perhaps the question was too sharp, touching on some memories Trevor Friston didn't want to recall, or perhaps the question itself deserved serious consideration before a solemn answer could be given. In any case, Trevor Friston fell into a long silence, his tightly furrowed brows and slightly pursed lips revealing his helplessness and anxiety at that moment.

Roy didn't urge him, waiting quietly. Nearly ten minutes had passed before Trevor Friston finally spoke, almost with a sigh:

"There are too many answers to this question. It could be awakened mechanical life, excessive modification of natural species, sudden and terrifying natural disasters, or a terrifying invasion from a higher dimension."

"But in any case, humanity wasn't entirely helpless from the start. In fact, we should have had a greater advantage; we already had a greater advantage..."

"If I had to give a reason, as a researcher, I would attribute our failure to emotional arrogance."

His gaze fell on Roy, as if waiting for him to utter that classic line.

"Weakness and ignorance are not obstacles to survival, arrogance is."

"My access to higher-level matters is limited, but it's a generally accepted fact that after humanity's formal rise to power, it was struck by a cataclysmic event spanning the entire galaxy. War ravaged every inch of our territory and that of our allies, with battle reports pouring in daily, almost completely overwhelming our communication terminals. Fortunately, after the initial setbacks caused by being caught off guard, we and our allies adjusted our strategies, and in the ensuing war, we were consistently victorious. Until..."

“Until what?” Roy asked.

“Until our energy system ran into trouble,” Trevor Friston said. “I don’t know the specifics, but our fleet, industry, and everything essential for production and daily life—all of it—had a problem with its energy. The common explanation is that the colossal structure that extracts and converts energy from the void malfunctioned and exploded, but a small group claims that the machine’s energy was contaminated by some higher level of pollution, that some kind of monster spawned from the original energy and instantly erupted in all of the nation’s directly administered star systems, destroying the entire social system. Whatever it was, it’s beyond the comprehension of humanity on this planet.”

"I have been sending signals to the outside world for 20,000 years, but I have never received any response. Perhaps humanity has really reached its end."

As he said this, he seemed somewhat disheartened and closed his eyes, refusing to look at the image of his wife and daughter projected into his memory.

After all, they were compatriots, even though they weren't from the same Earth, Roy still tried to comfort them:

"That's not entirely true. As far as I know, besides me, there's at least one other pure-blooded human surviving on this planet. And aren't there so many home-use rehabilitation devices here? If we just turn them all on, we still have several thousand of our compatriots alive. The only thing we need to consider is how to ensure their survival on Terra in the present, while minimizing the attention from other countries..."

"These hibernation devices can no longer be opened."

Trevor Friston interrupted Roy.

"For 30,000 years, under conditions of extreme energy scarcity, I have kept the maintenance costs of the entire base to a minimum. This is why you and those little animals were able to find this shelter from the outside world, even though the facilities inside are already dilapidated."

"But even so, 30,000 years is still far too long."

Roy felt his heart clench suddenly and stop beating for a moment.

Trevor Friston didn't spell it out, but this sufficiently explicit implication was enough for Roy to understand the meaning behind his words. Yet, still incredulous and finding it hard to accept, he tried to ask:

"Their energy is depleted, and they're all...?"

Chinese people have traditionally been reluctant to use the word "death." When Roy asked him this, Trevor Friston remained silent.

He gazed once more at the busy figures in the illusion, and before he knew it, the scene in the shelter had undergone a few subtle changes.

The busy staff, the visiting relatives and friends, and those fortunate enough to enter the shelter all put away their smiles. They gathered around their own or their loved ones' coffins, embracing and kissing each other, pouring out what they had wanted to say until now. Occasionally, sobs could be heard from the crowd, but they were quickly suppressed.

Finally, they returned to their stone coffins, and after a final farewell, lay down inside.

Roy noticed that Trevor Friston's wife and daughter were the last to enter the sarcophagus, their gaze fixed on the depths of the shelter where a blurry figure stood.

The figure was tall and imposing, with short golden hair and a prickly beard. He wore thick black-rimmed glasses, and his emerald green eyes were filled with love and determination. He waved to the two people in the stone coffin and watched them close the lid, and all was quiet.

He remained silent, just like Trevor Friston.

But this silence is already an answer.

As time passed and energy was depleted, the stone coffins had long since ceased to function due to insufficient power supply at some point in the past. Now, what remains inside are only lifelike, frozen corpses.

For the first time, Roy felt breathless from sheer mental stimulation.

“I told my daughter that her father would kiss her awake from her sleep like a prince in a fairy tale.”

"She scolded me, saying I didn't want such an ugly prince charming like me."

"Haha, she got her wish."

Trevor Friston looked at Roy, forced a smile that looked more like a grimace, and said, "I'm glad I retained my emotions when I uploaded my consciousness, which allows me to show my sense of humor in situations like this."

Volume 1: Chapter 261 The Failed Guardian Angel

“I tell you this not to make you sad or to ask for your comfort. In fact, over the course of thirty thousand years, I have long since become accustomed to this pain and have made peace with it.”