Ever since May started taking Ayla out to scavenge, their little family has never experienced famine again.
Mei was initially worried that she was too old to teach the child, but reality quickly made her realize something.
Ayla's learning ability and growth rate far exceeded the imagination of any ordinary person in this wasteland.
She had been scavenging with Mei for less than a week, and her harvesting efficiency had already far surpassed that of this old woman who had been rummaging through garbage dumps for more than a decade.
These days, Mei brings back more than three times the amount of supplies she used to bring back every time she goes out.
The abundance of food resulted in Ayla growing even more rapidly.
Just over six months later, when Ayla turned one year old, her development was no different from that of an ordinary sixteen or seventeen-year-old youth.
Her racial genes seemed to be inherently superior to those of the native humans struggling to survive on the planet Vedtal.
At just one year old, Ayla was already taller and stronger than any adult man in May's settlement.
His every move exudes an explosive power far beyond his peers, and his amethyst-like eyes hold a calmness and sharpness that are quite incongruous with his youthful appearance.
But this precocity also brought another side.
Ayla is exceptionally detached in her emotions, to the point of being cold-blooded.
At first, apart from Mei, she disdained to communicate with anyone else in the entire settlement.
She's like a precise, emotionless machine—efficient and accurate, yet completely lacking in understanding of human relationships.
She dismisses others' polite greetings as meaningless noise; she is stingy with her responses when others greet her warmly.
Until one day, Mei got into an argument with someone, who was in a bad mood and said something a little harsh in anger.
No one saw how Ayla made her move.
In a flash, she had already closed in, striking her opponent precisely on the left side of his vital spot.
The angle of that slash was tricky, and the force was just right. It instantly rendered the opponent unable to resist without killing them on the spot. It was clear that the calculation was completed in a very short time.
In Ayla's simple, almost stubborn judgment, the person who spoke rudely had already harbored evil intentions towards Mei, and not eliminating him completely was the greatest mercy she could show.
Mei suddenly woke up at this moment.
He realized that for Ayla, moral and ethical education was a thousand times more important than the teaching of survival skills.
This child is too powerful, so powerful that he seems like a creature from mythology.
But once she loses the constraints of human ethics and morality, this force will sooner or later push her down a path of no return.
He didn't want to see his daughter ultimately become another beast in this wasteland, driven only by instinct and devoid of a soul.
So May began to deliberately take Ayla to help the other people in the settlement.
He taught her how to interact and converse properly with people, how to respond when she receives kindness from others, and how to discern the true intentions behind a person's words.
He patiently fed this gifted child the life lessons he had accumulated over the years through his experiences.
Ayla didn't understand at first why May would give away the food and medicine they had worked so hard to obtain to others, or why she would help repair the dilapidated roof for free.
But she gradually discovered that those she had helped would sincerely express their gratitude and quietly reciprocate with some of their treasured supplies.
After Mei was injured while scavenging and ended up in a hospital bed, men, women, and children from the settlement took turns caring for her.
They brought him hot water and medicine, and silently repaired the holes in his shed.
Little by little, warmth seeped silently into Ayla's cold heart.
That time, Mei lay in her hospital bed and told Ayla a short story in a weak but gentle voice.
"My child, the earliest symbol of human civilization was not tools, but a healed femur."
Ayla listened quietly without interrupting.
"In nature, a fractured femur in any animal is almost always a death sentence."
The injured are unable to walk normally, hunt, gather food, or escape predators.
However, in an ancient site, anthropologists found a completely healed femur.
Its complete healing suggests that for weeks or even months after the man's injury, other members of his species cared for him, provided him with food, and protected him from wild animals until he was fully recovered.
Looking into Ayla's clear eyes, May said, word by word:
Therefore, civilization never begins with the strong conquering the weak, but with the moment when humanity is willing to stoop down and care for its injured and vulnerable companions.
These words struck Ayla like a thunderbolt, resounding powerfully within her.
From that day on, this child, who once only believed in efficiency, began to try to understand things she couldn't understand before.
She gradually understood why Mei helped others and why a group of strangers were willing to gather together.
Together they defend against enemies and wild beasts, share food and campfires, and rely on each other in the endless wasteland nights.
Those instincts, latent deep within her human genes and belonging to her tribe and civilization, began to quietly awaken.
She wanted to create a better world for humanity, or rather, for Mei.
To achieve this goal, she first needs a truly united and obedient team.
Although she knew in her heart that even if everyone in this gathering were combined, she was absolutely confident that she could kill them all within a minute.
But she knew that personal strength alone was far from enough to achieve anything significant.
However, the current gathering place does not have a real leader; everyone is maintaining a fragile cohesion purely through the simple human relationships between people.
Mei had taught her that, as a human being, one should not be too barbaric.
Therefore, she cannot seize the leadership position by conquering everyone with her fists; that would be uncivilized.
She needs an opportunity, an opportunity for everyone to see that this community needs a leader.
The opportunity came quickly.
One late night, all was quiet, and everyone was fast asleep.
Dozens of pairs of eyes, gleaming with an eerie light, were silently approaching the camp.
A pack of Tusag Hound.
This wild animal, which is called a "hunting dog," is actually not related to any true canines.
They are social lizards that have mutated due to radiation. They have an exaggerated shoulder height of 1.5 meters, are covered with hard scales, and have barbs growing on their backs and limb joints.
Perhaps "large lizards with barbs" would be a more apt description of them.
However, before the pack of hounds could get within fifty meters of the camp, they were detected by Ayla's senses.
Without disturbing anyone, Ayla quietly awakened the sleeping May and all the adults in the camp who were still able to fight, and calmly issued her orders.
Prepare to meet the enemy.
People were jolted awake from their sleep, grabbed homemade scrap guns, electric spears wrapped with cables, and crude crossbows, and hastily formed a defensive line behind the camp's makeshift ramparts.
In the midst of this chaos, Ayla naturally took over command of the entire camp's battle operations.
She remained calm, simply sweeping her amethyst-like eyes across the entire room. With a gesture or a glance, she directed everyone to their designated positions.
No one knew why, but the words of this one-year-old girl had a magical power that made them want to believe her.
The Tusag Hound that came charging in consisted of six adult dogs, eleven sub-adult dogs, and eight juvenile dogs.
With Ayla's combat prowess, she could have easily taken down this group of beasts single-handedly, but she chose not to display her personal bravery.
She wanted to demonstrate to everyone, through a perfect performance, what a true leader is.
That night, there were no casualties in the camp.
Ayla accurately predicted the charge of each hound, directing the crossbowmen to break up the pack's formation, guiding the electric spearmen to flank and encircle them, and using the concentrated fire of the scrap guns to kill the stragglers one by one.
All 25 Tusag Hound were cleanly and swiftly killed, while the camp remained unscathed.
During the post-war inventory, Ayla discovered something unusual on the hunting dog's carcass.
These hunting dogs have been injected with a nerve-stimulating drug into their blood, which is why they attack human camps so frantically.
Following the trail, she found a lure on the outskirts of the camp that could attract the Tusag Hound.
Ayla immediately figured out the truth.
Someone wanted to use the Tusag Hound to weaken their camp.
This is just the beginning; another attack from its own kind is lurking in the darkness.
After that battle, the people in the camp began to subconsciously ask Ayla what they should do next.
Ayla was satisfied with the result, but she remained outwardly calm.
She calmly directed everyone to disguise the camp as a desolate scene after it had been ravaged by hunting dogs, with abandoned ramparts, messy footprints, and scattered bloodstains all carefully arranged.
Meanwhile, deadly traps were secretly laid along the only routes around the camp.
Everything was ready; all that was left was for those rats hiding in the shadows to take the bait.