Dark Moon Era

The numbers made Tang Ling feel a little sorry for himself.

His Precise Instinct was a little lackluster in front of such a powerful machine.

However, Su Yao reacted differently. His complicated look revealed a mixture of excitement, heaviness, and reminiscence as his rough hands stroked the monitor with the numbers slowly as if he was caressing his most precious treasure.

Tang Ling got a clear glimpse at Su Yao’s fingers which were shaking.

“Again,” said Su Yao, but his tone sounded a little different this time.

Tang Ling spared the chatter and punched the machine again.

The outcome did not change a bit. He could precisely calculate his own strength but still fell behind the machine in front of him in terms of performance.

“A-Again.” Hesitating for a second, Su Yao requested Tang Ling to repeat the punch, but his voice this time sounded shaky as though the words were squeezed out of his throat.

Tang Ling obliged, and when he got the exact outcome, Su Yao was completely stunned.

His narrowed eyes were a little red while his lips were trembling. His lips would sometimes curl up into a smile, displaying his excitement and joy but it would also pucker up tightly as if he was saddened by it.

Tang Ling felt very strange, so he carefully asked, “Uncle Su Yao, d-do I need to do it again?”

Su Yao was dragged back to his senses all of a sudden by the question, yet he did not answer him. He strode to Tang Ling and hugged the boy tightly.

Su Yao was very strong, even more so when he was excited.

Tang Ling felt like the air in his lungs was almost squeezed out. He could not help but cough repeatedly after Su Yao hugged him.

Deep in his heart, Tang Ling felt that he had zero chances of fighting back against a man who was as fierce as a vicious beast.

Perhaps because Tang Ling’s coughs woke him up from his reverie, Su Yao realized that he had embarrassed himself. He finally let go of Tang Ling, but his excitement drove him to tap the latter’s shoulder strongly. He almost nudged him into the ground.

“Very good. This ability of yours is fantastic,” he said.

Although the strange feeling in Tang Ling’s heart didn’t go away, his Precise Instinct was nothing stellar in his own opinion. Why would it cause so much excitement in Uncle Su Yao?

He wanted to ask, but Su Yao had calmed down by inhaling two deep breaths.

“Your growth is barely satisfactory, but don’t be sad about it. You’ll only grow stronger.”

My growth is barely satisfactory? Tang Ling was very concerned about that. He even forgot about the strange feeling in his heart.

As a matter of fact, Tang Ling had no idea what his growth meant, but since Su Yao was so concerned about it and purposely brought him here to test it out, it must be something more important than the basic numbers just like it was more important than simply measuring his strength and speed.

Am I not strong enough?

“Don’t be discouraged. I say you’ll become stronger. As long as you can safely grow, you’ll… become very powerful.” Compared to Tang Ling, Su Yao showed no disappointment. He was rather confident instead, and it made him look extra joyful.

“But…” Tang Ling’s heart almost exploded because of the suffocation as unanswered questions popped up in his life one after another without any reason. Would this go on forever?

“No buts!” Su Yao suddenly looked stern as he ordered, “Keep it a secret! I’m referring to your ability.”

Tang Ling kept quiet. It seemed like his life that was enveloped by the veil of mystery had to continue for now.

******

After several days of a continuous downpour of rain, Safety Sector No. 17 finally welcomed the sunshine in the afternoon three days ago.

Since then, the sun felt like it was taking revenge for its absence as it shone down extra harshly and powerfully.

According to the seasons, the beginning of summer had gone by, and mid-summer was around the corner.

Summer should be hot anyway. Therefore, whenever he wore the reserved warrior uniform, it felt a little hard to breathe despite it still being dawn and the sun had not even risen into the sky completely.

“Are you going into the examination like this?”

Tang Ling performed his final check on his luggage before putting it on his back. He did not have any miscellaneous things with him other than the remains of his grandmother and his sister, and the clothes that Su Yao gave him. All that was left were the clothes that he once wore in the settlement.

He did not have the heart to part with them since they were all his memories.

The reason why he packed all the clothes was that Tang Ling was not concentrating. He was actually waiting for Su Yao because he wanted to see whether the man would show up or not, but reality disappointed him.

No footsteps came from outside the door. The door did not even open and Su Yao did not appear.

He went missing, or more precisely, he was nowhere to be found after he brought Tang Ling to the so-called training base.

Everything that came after that was taken care of by the cooking maiden of the little inn.

The cooking maiden helped him get through everything, including Tang Ling’s three meals, the basic introduction to Safety Sector No. 17, and the location and time for the day’s reexamination.

Most importantly, she gave him a library card that allowed him very high-level accessibility. With it, Tang Ling could enter the library of the inner city behind the wall, and read as long and as many materials as he wanted.

Of course, the access was only limited to the books that the card had access to, but even so, Tang Ling felt it was a little rushed.

In the past three days, other than having his meals and less than six hours of sleep yesterday, he spent all his time in the library.

The vast collection of books was interesting. Even with his powerful brain that was equipped with Precise Instinct and him skimming through the books as quickly as possible, all he could finish was a little corner of the entire library.

Despite so, Tang Ling felt like he had gotten closer to the world. He first got to know about the true old civilization.

The old civilization did not just exist. In fact, it reached a very highly-advanced technological level. They explored space and even landed on the Purple Moon. They had all sorts of buildings with various functions while their architectural level was high and was further developed. They had many miraculous transportation vehicles, cars, airplanes, ferries, and so on. They even had a rich cerebral world, movies, books, television…

Last but not least, there were weapons!

It was such an envious existence with unimaginable power! If such weapons were available in this era, would surviving still be a problem?

Tang Ling thought about it. At the same time, he recalled the explosives and the Desert Eagle from Quark. He now had a full understanding of what those two items truly were.

In the old civilization, those two items were nothing significant, but Tang Ling’s thoughts led him nowhere. His answer was lost in limbo.

In the old civilization, humans were conquerors. As long as they willed it, they could easily exterminate any kind of animal out there.

However, when comparing these two eras, the most vicious animals in the old civilization would be a joke in the current one. Would it be reason enough for the old civilization to go extinct?

Tang Ling would not think that those terrifying nuclear weapons and all sorts of fighter jets could not fight with animals even if they were the so-called mutated beasts and vicious beasts.

Tang Ling thought of the black-horned purple-striped snake back in the sewer.

If that was the case, how did the old civilization go extinct? Tang Ling simply could not find an answer to his question.

The other thing that went beyond his comprehension was that since the old civilization fell into destruction overnight, the gap between civilizations caught humans off-guard, so how did the current civilization make a stand in this era? Who or what built it from the ashes of the old?

It was so conflicting, similar to what Uncle Su Yao said before, “This bloody era sometimes makes me feel that we’re very close to space, yet sometimes it feels like we’ve returned to our savage days.”