Three Months

General Vick, a domineering, ambitious military man.

Dean Bo Li, an old man who headed the research on him, the man in charge of the Underground Base and the highest authority over research into his body.

Doctor Jenny, a biology PhD with a rather cold and striking appearance, carrying herself like an aloof scholar. Aside from Dean Bo Li, she was the highest-ranking researcher in the underground facility, with authority second only to his.

Violet, a beautiful woman with blonde hair, blue eyes, and an utterly expressionless face. General Vick's bodyguard, she often stood behind and to his left. Ba Di felt that this woman did not seem human.

Colonel Slade, General Vick's confidant and the person responsible for security and defense in this Underground Base.

Over the past three months, Ba Di had gradually pieced all of this together from their scattered remarks.

He had already been trapped for three months. At first, every time he woke up, he would rage and struggle, driven mad by his confinement.

Part of it was an act, but even more of it was genuine. From his initial frenzy and daily outbursts to his gradual acceptance of reality, he had displayed the hopeless resignation of someone with no will left to live.

He had perfectly concealed his progression from struggling in Despair to utter despair.

Otherwise, Ba Di feared that if he woke up too calm, looking as though he could control the whole situation and turn the tables even while hanging from the wall, he would scare them into raising their guard tenfold. That would be the end of him. Things were already bad enough.

The room was still a vast expanse of white. Only a one-way mirror embedded in the white wall reflected his figure. He could imagine a group of lab-coated researchers observing him around the clock from the other side of the glass.

His body was still spread against the wall in the shape of a cross, his feet dangling above the floor. His hands were locked in refined-steel cuffs, leaving him nowhere to exert force. Gravity pulled him downward, and his wrists and ankles were red and raw, marked with bruises from his struggles.

Even with the strength of ten thousand kilograms, he had no way to forcibly break free from his restraints.

Ba Di hung his head with his eyes closed, looking as though he had been tortured to the point of passing out from exhaustion. In truth, with his eyes shut, he felt the pain of blood seeping from his wrists while his mind constantly searched for a way out.

All he knew was that this was an Underground Base where the sun could not be seen. The scant information he had learned about a few people made him feel incomparably irritated and furious.

He had gone through untold hardship to come from Krypton to Earth, only to get an opening like this?

Ba Di clenched his teeth in secret. He had grand ambitions and the power to shatter heaven and earth. How could he have come all the way from Krypton to Earth just to offer himself up as a test subject, biological sample, and source of scientific knowledge?

No! He had to get out, bask in the sun, stand upon Earth, grasp the stars in his hands, and snuff out the sun! But his current situation was nothing short of a dead end.

Every day, they administered anesthetics more than ten times heavier than an elephant, while the Muscle Relaxant injected to prevent him from using excessive strength left his muscles aching terribly. After three consecutive months, his once-powerful body, packed with explosive muscle and only five percent body fat, had been reduced to slack, weak flesh. He could not even summon his strength.

Before Kryptonian physiology was activated by sunlight, it was nothing. He could still be killed with ease.

The sun.

Only by exposing himself to the sun and activating his Kryptonian genes would he gain enough power to leave this Underground Base.

Of course, that did not mean that merely basking in sunlight would give him power as absurd as Zod's or Fiora's in the movies. Rather, it would activate his Kryptonian genes, allowing him to absorb solar energy and grow stronger. His vision, sense of smell, hearing, mental processes, and cellular vitality would all undergo a tremendous leap, like an evolution. The change it would bring to him would be unimaginably immense.

Even if he was only the lowest-grade disposable soldier model from Krypton, perhaps even a defective one.

As long as the core of his Kryptonian genes remained, he could absorb solar energy and gradually grow stronger.

What can I make use of?

His bowed head kept turning over possibilities, trying to change his situation as much as possible.

He absolutely could not resign himself to being passively studied, waiting for some accident to occur in the Underground Base's laboratory and then hoping luck gave him a chance to escape.

Ba Di did not believe something like that would happen, as though this were a movie.

If his luck had been that good, his spacecraft would not have suffered an accident, crashed, and gotten him captured. Worse still, the blast from the spacecraft's explosion had hit him so hard that he had passed out immediately.

Otherwise, with the ten thousand kilograms of strength he possessed upon arriving on Earth, along with the combat ability of Krypton's most elite soldiers, how could he possibly have been captured and reduced to this state?

His luck had been used up the instant he transmigrated. Afterward, he had only been the lowest-grade Gene Warrior, and even reaching Earth had required every scheme and every ounce of effort he possessed.

Luck?

It did not exist!

Everything could only depend on himself. No matter the cost, no matter whom he had to betray, no matter what schemes he had to use, he had to get out.

General Vick, Dean Bo Li, Doctor Jenny, Violet, Colonel Slade.

Ba Di kept his head lowered. The will forged through elite Kryptonian soldier training, along with the Meditation Technique he had swindled from the Kryptonian Meditators Guild, continued to operate, concentrating his mental faculties and supporting his relentless thoughts as he searched for something he could use to escape this predicament.

They probably would not kill him.

Whether for biological or scientific answers, his degree of understanding of alien civilization, the reason he had come to Earth—taken together, all these factors meant that he was far more valuable alive than dead.

Information gathered over the past three months flashed through Ba Di's mind.

He first eliminated General Vick and Violet. The former was obviously wildly ambitious; finding him had probably made the man ecstatic enough to laugh in his dreams. Violet, meanwhile, was like a robot that followed orders, obeying General Vick's commands. There was no hope there.

As for Colonel Slade, Ba Di found the name somewhat familiar. Death Knell was called that too. Could this guy be Slade Wilson? But whether he was or not, given Ba Di's current status as a prisoner, he would not receive any help.

Dean Bo Li... if he could gain that man's assistance, perhaps by offering some research into biological genes—no! That old man was cunning and slippery. Ba Di sensed that he was a crafty bastard who would probably only drain all the knowledge from his mind before imprisoning him forever.

Ba Di's lowered head shifted slightly as he opened his eyes. Strands of hair hung before them, making him appear utterly dejected and lifeless.

Doctor Jenny... she was probably around twenty-five or twenty-six, absurdly young. Yet in this research base, she was a biological expert whose authority was second only to Dean Bo Li.

A young woman, highly knowledgeable, with a doctorate at such a young age, and capable of holding the second-highest position in such an important underground research facility.

Ba Di intended to use her as an opening.

To become a biology PhD and expert at twenty-five or twenty-six, then serve as the second-in-command in such an important research facility, her knowledge, intelligence, and even her backing had to be formidable.

Only in her did Ba Di see the slightest opening.

Perhaps he could use her to see the sun.

He hoped her emotional intelligence was not too high.