Safe synthesis

"Iron Mom" loaded up a full load of cargo.

It floated silently outside the shelter entrance, then retracted its mechanical arms so it could fit into the cave.

Then ripples spread across its surface again, and it turned invisible!

After that.

It entered the underground shelter and began unloading the cargo one item at a time.

Cheng Qi simply couldn't hold back his praise. He stood there, clapping feebly.

He had expected a tedious move, but he had ended up resting the entire time!

Thirty minutes later.

Cheng Qi sat inside the underground shelter.

Items covered the floor before him. Iron Mom had finished transporting everything and laid it all out in neat, orderly rows, even sorting identical items into groups.

Cheng Qi rubbed his chin. "I actually have twelve pairs of underwear? Forty-three pairs of socks? Foolish Boy hid nine issues of 'Playbot' magazine?"

"Technically, underwear is a technological product too. Textile technology, at the very least."

"Can it be synthesized?"

The Standard Template Construct activated and, under Cheng Qi's coercion, scanned the underwear.

[Technological content too low]

[Unable to synthesize]

[Have you no decency?]

"Fine, fine, fine. Apparently, things don't work the way I thought. They still have to pass the Standard Template Construct's screening."

Cheng Qi slowly leaned back in his chair. After all that work, every item had been moved into the shelter, including the similar technological junk Monkey and the others had brought. Everything had been sorted, too.

Xiao Qiong had also taken refuge inside and was now studying the Earth Dragon King's expandable house, her eyes full of wonder.

Foolish Boy was off to one side, drawing up a fresh plan.

The underground shelter still needed plenty of improvements, such as stairs, a water supply, and drainage.

The underground shelter's entrance had also been closed.

Earlier, Foolish Boy had reinforced the door from inside, installing dozens of thick alloy braces. The door already lay flat against the ground, offering little wind resistance, so it should be more than strong enough to withstand the Gray Storm.

"It's about time."

Cheng Qi narrowed his eyes. "The Gray Storm should be here."

Aboveground, the moon seemed to have hidden away early.

Terrifying pressure descended, and all the garbage seemed to tremble.

In the distance, what looked like a pitch-black wall appeared, stretching between earth and sky. Radiating an overwhelming sense of menace, it swept toward the B43 Zone at astonishing speed.

Every beast hunkered down, and the humans had vanished without a trace.

Rumble!

Violent lightning flashed within the Gray Storm. Whenever a bolt tore through it, metal dust and combustible gases in the air ignited, blazing into crimson chains of fire like divine punishment falling from the heavens!

Tens of millions of tons of garbage were swept into the sky, whirling and colliding at high speed, twisting out of shape as sparks flew everywhere.

Not far away.

The wreck of an interstellar excavator weighing hundreds of tons was swept into the sky by the gale.

It exposed a cave beneath the surface, and the scavengers hiding inside instantly paled with terror.

Before they could react, their bodies were hurled into the sky and struck by lightning. Green flames erupted across them, reducing them to drifting ash in an instant.

Inside the underground shelter, all was peaceful and quiet.

Xiao Qiong had fallen into a sweet sleep in the crook of Foolish Boy's arm.

Cheng Qi still sat in front of the expandable house.

A lamp floated in midair, illuminating the beautiful dome and the surrounding walls.

In front of him, a pot of hot tea simmered on the little Cass Stove.

By Cheng Qi's reckoning, the Gray Storm was directly overhead at that moment. Yet in this space a hundred meters underground, almost nothing seemed amiss. Only by paying close attention could he detect an extremely faint vibration.

That was the trembling of the earth, and it was unavoidable.

Beside Cheng Qi's feet, a little blade of green grass swayed gently.

It was the same grass that had grown beside his shack.

Before entering the shelter, Cheng Qi had dug it up along with a small patch of soil.

Now it sat beside him, its vitality still strong.

"No matter how dark the world gets, stubbornness deserves something to show for it."

Cheng Qi lifted his hot tea. Seventeen vials of Black-Market Gene Serum lay neatly arranged on the floor ahead of him.

Even he hadn't realized that this young man, who had struggled at the bottom of Garbage Earth's society for eighteen years, now exuded an air of transcendence, a blazing light shining in his eyes.

"Once I finish this tea, I'll begin my rise. From this day on, I'll break free of the genetic hierarchy's contempt!"

"Pfft! Why does this tea taste so weird?"

"Foolish Boy, there's something wrong with this water. It's gone sour!"

Cheng Qi rubbed his tongue and set the cup back on the table. "We need to hurry up and upgrade the filtration system!"

"What's wrong?"

Foolish Boy poked his head over. "Oh! Xiao Qiong really needed to pee just now. She said she couldn't bear to dirty the floor here, so she peed in your teapot!"

Cheng Qi completely lost it. "Isn't there a toilet in the room?!"

Foolish Boy replied, "Oh, Xiao Qiong said she wasn't used to using a toilet!"

"..."

"Stay calm. Grandpa said so."

"People in the old days loved drinking horse piss!"

Cheng Qi pressed both hands downward and steadied his breathing. "Where was I? Oh, right. From this day on, I'll break free of the genetic hierarchy's contempt!"

His gaze shifted slightly to the right.

[Genetic Serum containing large amounts of impurities] ×17

These were the failed batches of Black-Market Gene Serum he had traded for from the merchant Mo.

They had come from the black market to begin with, and they were failed batches on top of that.

Each finger-thick glass vial held a pool of flowing black liquid, with plenty of sediment suspended inside.

Even a dog wouldn't drink it.

The success rate for genetic optimization was below 0.0035%.

Mo had said the survival rate after drinking this stuff was below 0.0035%, so the figures matched.

In other words, either it worked or you died.

But that success rate was outrageously low.

It was hard to imagine that this stuff actually sold for three hundred thousand credit points.

That showed just how fanatically humanity now craved high-grade genes.

Cheng Qi's eyes flickered. "Begin synthesis."

[Breaking down into raw materials]

[High-Quality Black-Market Gene Serum] ×8!

The white glow slowly faded. On the floor, the original sixteen vials had become eight.

Their appearance hadn't changed, but the liquid inside had turned a pale silver. It flowed somewhat thickly, like a kind of silver paint.

[An upgraded CRISPR-Cas9 technology solution that greatly reduces destructive effects and optimizes and repairs human genes. Genetic optimization success rate: 11.23%.]

Cheng Qi lightly clenched his fist. The upgrade had taken exactly the direction he had expected.

The genetic optimization success rate had increased more than three thousandfold!

"Of course, the increase is only that huge because the original baseline was so tiny."

"The success rate is still only eleven percent."

Cheng Qi narrowed his eyes. "Continue synthesis!"

[Breaking down into raw materials]

[Synthesis successful]

[Premium Black-Market Gene Serum] ×4!