The Scarred Present, the Hopeful Future We Return To!

June 14, Year Eight of the Doomsday Calendar, five in the morning.

Under the pitch-black night sky, an azure Energy Stone vehicle bearing an Academy of Sciences license plate silently slipped out through the rear gate.

Opening the side window and letting the cool night breeze blow in, Su Mo held the steering wheel with one hand, his gaze drifting toward the end of the lights.

Although Ai Jianqiang had called this Energy Stone vehicle ordinary, it was actually a top-of-the-line model equipped with a Level Five Energy Stone Engine.

Its performance was powerful, and its body was sturdy.

Even if it crashed directly into a solid wall, the vehicle's advanced alloy and shock-absorbing structure could perfectly ensure the safety of the driver and passengers inside, earning it the title of a "little tank."

Yet at this moment, Su Mo's thoughts were not on the vehicle at all.

Looking toward the distant horizon, where the first hint of dawn had appeared, he felt an indescribable sorrow in his heart.

Who could have imagined that achieving accelerated thought would require the Alchemy Furnace he had upgraded with the Energy Stones he had once used to heat the territory—Energy Stones worth sixty thousand Survival Points—as well as another twenty thousand points?

After the furnace had burned all sorts of strange disaster products over the years, someone had accidentally discovered this miraculous function.

Then, over the following several years, researchers in the Academy of Sciences had repeatedly tested it with their lives before determining its true method of use and effects.

To use it, one had to calmly walk into the furnace, activate the incineration device personally, and watch helplessly as the flames devoured one's own flesh. Only after enduring unimaginable pain could one obtain expanded thinking.

Facing such a method of use,