Uncle here isn't your average office worker!

"Human civilization has come to this point, and reality has long taught us not to complain about our misfortunes. Roy, that's your name now, right? I'm so glad I met you while I was still lucid, so that I knew about the demise of human civilization and didn't die in a daze of hope."

Trevor Friston spoke softly, like a devout priest making a heartfelt confession.

Roy couldn't understand his words; he brought news of the demise of human civilization—what was there to be grateful for? But after hearing the second half of his sentence, he suddenly understood the feeling.

To cling to false hope and live in meaningless waiting is inherently painful. For someone like Trevor Friston, what he fears more than the demise of civilization is the possibility that civilization might survive while he is forgotten in this underground space.

At least, in the former case, he could be said to have fulfilled his responsibility, holding fast to this refuge until the very last moment. Even in death, what he was buried with, and what was buried with him, was the great civilization he knew and loved so dearly. He would perish with it.

Seeing that Roy's pale expression had improved considerably, Trevor Friston nodded slightly, reached out, and snapped his fingers. The scene before him began to distort again. After a moment of dizziness, Roy returned to the underground space filled with an ominous dark red light, where he once again saw Dorothy waiting beside him, and Christensen and Ferdinand observing the sarcophagus and Trevor Friston's enormous alloy body, which resembled an eyeball, not far away.

He returned to reality.

"My fellow countryman, thank you for heeding my call and rushing here. Although the outcome is always disappointing, I still hope there is anything I can do to help you."

Trevor Friston's voice rang out from all directions as always, and his huge alloy eyeball slowly rotated, forcing Ferdinand, who was looking him up and down, to take several steps back.

"Where are this thing's vocal organs? How does it float? Damn it, Dorothy, why didn't you tell me you were bringing me to a place like this? I should have brought my energy testing equipment!"

Ferdinand said somewhat anxiously, his slightly offensive words causing Trevor Friston's alloy eyeballs to turn slightly toward him. The nanomaterials forming the pupils vibrated, as if a protective aura from a fantasy novel had sent Ferdinand flying.

Roy quickly reached out and caught him, preventing the head of the Rhine Energy Department from falling too hard. But no sooner had the guy landed safely than he eagerly asked:

"What kind of technology is this? How did they do that?! Damn it, can you wait a few minutes? I'm going back to get my equipment!"

“Ferdinand, it’s more than 20 kilometers from here to Trimont. Even Seria couldn’t make a round trip in just a few minutes.”

Seemingly at a loss for words regarding the fanatical attitude of his subordinate, the head of the energy department, Christen finally spoke, handing over the USB drive he had prepared.

“This is what we agreed on. I think there’s a proper order to things. Before you catch up with Mr. Roy, you still owe me a few questions.”

“Heh…” Trevor Friston let out a sigh that was half helpless and half nostalgic. He seemed to see some familiar shadows in Christensen. He did not abandon Christensen like he had abandoned Ferdinand, but agreed, “Ask away.”

"Who are you?" Christen asked almost immediately after Friston, as if she had prepared a list of questions beforehand.

"You're applying double standards! Damn it, we came in together, why are you being so rough with me!"

Ferdinand muttered a curse under his breath, somewhat unwilling to accept it.

“Trevor Friston, a human, the manager and preserver of this shelter.” Trevor naturally ignored Ferdinand’s voice and answered briefly but precisely.

"Human... why do you call me a little animal? Are you artificial intelligence, or a real life form?" Christen continued to ask.

"Is this two questions or one question?" Trevor asked with a hint of amusement.

“Two,” Christen answered matter-of-factly.

“Then you have two more.” Trevor paused. “The first problem is that, in my eyes, you are an animal, just like the animal data on this USB drive you provided me. In my eyes, you are no different from a toothed beast. The only thing I don’t understand is why you have grown into what you are now, walking upright, and looking almost exactly like humans. It’s really interesting. If a zoologist like Catherine saw this, she would be very surprised.”

"This is a gift from me; Catherine is my wife."

"As for my life form, I am now a semi-AI with a human soul. I am both Trevor Friston and the Preservator System, and the two are inseparable."

That concludes the answer. Not only Christensen, but Ferdinand and Dorothy also had remarkably interesting expressions.

Regardless, they are all top talents in their respective fields, possessing superior social status and civilized ways of thinking. To be compared to barbaric beasts is unprecedented.

Ferdinand, an arrogant man, was almost instinctively about to retort, but as soon as he took a step, the memory of being blasted away not long ago surfaced before his eyes, causing him to retreat.

It was a technology I had never seen before, not Originium Arts, but a completely new and unknown science.

Not only that kind of power, but the entire underground ruin was filled with materials, energy, and incomprehensible ways of using them. Although he was unwilling to admit it, just as the Fanged Beast couldn't understand human mobile cities but knew how to avoid his tracks, he could only selectively ignore Trevor Friston's blunt and sarcastic remarks.

Christen pondered for a moment, then continued to ask:

Is the starry sky real?

This was a question she had wanted to know since she was a child: those irregular starry skies, the constellations that could only be interpreted through superstitious astrology, and the star pods hanging high in the sky—which were real and which were fake?

Trevor Friston replied:

"Of course it's true. The starry sky is a vast space, and every star is about the size of Terra. Why would you ask that?"

Christen chose to answer the question with a question: "What are the star pods above Terra?"

"Star Pod...you mean that isolation layer?"

Trevor Friston gave a wry smile.

"That was a plan full of regrets, the Guardian Angel Project."

Volume 1: Chapter 262 The Three Great Rulers

"Have you heard of the concept of megastructures? If so, then I don't need to explain it any further. If not, then I'm too lazy to elaborate. You can ask the person next to you."

Trevor Friston's alloy eyeballs looked at Roy, drawing the attention of the others as well.

"Simply put, it's exactly what it sounds like: a giant building."

“How colossal? The size of a mobile city?” Christen asked, but quickly realized something was amiss. If the colossus was only the size of a mobile city, then the pod couldn’t possibly cover the entire sky of Terra.

Thinking of this, her eyes widened involuntarily, and she turned her gaze to Roy, trying to get an explanation.

Roy nodded somewhat embarrassedly: "Much larger than a mobile city. Even the smallest megastructure is measured in terms of the size of a planet or satellite. The largest megastructure is enough to fill an entire galaxy."

Although they didn't understand the concepts of these terms, both Christine and Dorothy could deduce their meanings from the analogies they used.

Planets refer to the land beneath their feet, while galaxies refer to the entire system in which the planet exists, such as Terra, the Twin Moons, and the Sun.

"That's impossible. Not to mention the energy required to support a building of this scale, the cost of constructing such a building alone would far exceed the total resources of Terra!"

Ferdinand immediately raised a question. This was reasonable. The construction of an ordinary mobile city often takes several years or even decades, and a mobile city cannot even fill a small corner of this land! To build a colossal structure covering the entire planet on the outer edge of the planet would require so many resources that even draining the entire Terra would not be possible.

Trevor Friston, unusually, showed no displeasure at Ferdinand's questioning; instead, he gave a bingo-like approval sound, saying:

"You're right, small animals."

"It is a consensus among interstellar civilizations that the limited resources of a single planet are absolutely insufficient to support the construction of a megastructure. In fact, many of the megastructures built by mankind are large-scale projects that are jointly supported by several star systems of the entire civilization. This is why the Guardian Angel Project is a regrettable failure destined to fail. It was only a half-finished product from beginning to end."

"A half-finished product?" Dorothy murmured, rationally believing that Trevor Friston's half-finished product was vastly different from her own understanding of it. If an isolation layer covering the entire planet could only be called a half-finished product, how terrifying would the actual finished product be?

The alloy eyeball continued its narration:

“The Guardian Angel Project is one of the few projects that I was aware of and participated in the early preparations for. Faced with the threat of a sudden galactic catastrophe, the sudden loss of contact with our home planet, and the predicament of a weak galactic defense force, humanity in dire straits launched a series of seemingly unbelievable projects, and the Guardian Angel Project was one of them.”

"The term 'Guardian Angel' originates from the research of our allies and mentors who roam the stars. The Colossus Weapon they created—a powerful anti-planet weapon—can create an insulating barrier around a planet, transforming it into a dazzling toy crystal ball in the universe. Even the most terrifying black hole explosions cannot affect planets in this state. This weapon is called the Angel of Peace."

"When the apocalypse came, we were powerless to launch interstellar exploration, so some people proposed to follow the example of the Angels of Peace and build an isolation layer outside our planet to help us avoid the spying and dangers from outer space, protect planetary civilizations, and wait for rescue from our home planet. But as this little animal just said, this plan has faced a huge flaw from the very beginning—insufficient resources."

"Due to the direction of scientific research, humanity's colossus weapons have taken a different and more efficient path. Our scientists only have a superficial understanding of how to build the Angel of Ecstasy barrier, and the resources on Terra are extremely limited, making it impossible to construct the barrier in near-Earth orbit as planned. After many attempts, our final result was to build an isolation zone in the sky only six thousand meters above the ground."

He couldn't help but laugh as he said this.

"A single barrier layer offers less than one ten-thousandth the protection of a real angel; it's not even a low-quality imitation. Its few functions are distorting light and creating magnetic storms, and it possesses a certain level of intelligence, capable of discerning whether an object attempting to pass through the barrier is threatening."

Christen frowned upon hearing this: "But now she'll even block probes, aircraft, and other tools that try to get close to that altitude, and she can judge these as threats?"

Trevor paused for a moment before replying, "Theoretically, no. But it is, after all, 30,000 years old. Since its construction, humanity's dwindling resources have been unable to support its regular maintenance. It's normal for a machine over 30,000 years old to have some problems."

“One of my former colleagues joked with me that after they completed the isolation layer, the project team held a temporary meeting and changed the name of Project Euthanasia to Project Guardian Angel. They were afraid that one day our allies would come to this star system, discover this isolation layer, and be so angry at this counterfeit and shoddy product that they would launch a planetary explosion at us.”

He laughed after he finished speaking, clearly due to the humorous side of the person who uploaded the video.

But his answer made Christine's face darken considerably.

This ancient relic, over 30,000 years old, has likely existed longer than the entire current Terran civilization, yet it still hangs in the sky, as awe-inspiring and inviolable as the legendary realm of the gods.

Christine couldn't think of anything she could use to get through its barrier. Was her idea of ​​exploring the stars destined to end in vain?

"You have one last question."

Trevor Friston reminded her to snap Christen out of her daze.

The blond-haired commander opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head, saying, "I need to consider this carefully for a while longer. I hope to give you an answer next time."

"Of course, as long as you don't ask me for five more wishes." Trevor once again made a very easygoing, old-fashioned joke.

"Then it's my turn."

Roy stepped forward and got straight to the point.

“Friston, I want to ask you for three things.”

"what?"

"First, the control method for the marine biological environment modification cluster. Second, the administrator code for the military weapons management and command terminal. Third, the usage method of [Civilization Survival]!"

Volume 1: Chapter 263 "Module, What Exactly Are You?"

From the moment he met Trevor Friston and learned his true identity, Roy had already been planning to ask these three questions.

The marine bio-environmental modification cluster, now known as the Sealings, may one day be instigated by the Deep Sea Church to land on land and wreak havoc on Terra's oceans. Is there a way to control and utilize them? If not, is there at least a way to restrict them and stop their actions?

One of humanity's treasures, the various military equipment left on this planet, is now very likely controlled by military terminals buried deep in the holy city of Lateran. Is there a way to obtain management access to it?

There's also the concept of "the continuation of civilization." The small black crown of the Demon Kings of past generations has been passed down to Amiya's generation, which has already separated from the Sarkaz race. As a conceptual product that stores the vast majority of human civilization's data, technology, culture, and history, how can it be utilized?

Roy needed to get answers to at least the first two questions, because it was crucial to whether Terra could survive the imminent maritime crisis.

As an unregistered deep-sea hunter without a connection to the large group of physical sea creatures, Roy could already feel the ocean's restlessness. This day came much sooner than expected, already beyond the timeline of the main storyline.

As for the Black Crown, it is equally important, but not urgently needed. Terra has not yet developed to the point where it can inherit the legacy of human civilization, and Roy is not in a hurry to open that treasure trove. Moreover, with Kal'tsit as Amiya's guardian, Roy is not worried that the Demon Lord will go out of control in Amiya's generation.

Faced with Roy's question, Trevor Friston paused, clearly not expecting Roy to be so blunt, and replied somewhat speechlessly:

"Your question is a bit extreme. I'm not Aladdin's lamp; I can't grant you three wishes, can I?"