“It's been lost to history,” David Bolton said a little regretfully. “Let me ask you, if I gave you a set of materials on how to build an airplane right now, could you make one?”

“I’ve never studied it before. Even with the materials, it would save a lot of time, but I’d still be starting from scratch,” Jason Carter replied.

“Exactly, now everyone is starting from scratch,” Eric Bolton looked at the half cigarette left in his hand, feeling a bit pained, as if hesitating whether to smoke it or not.

He wanted to save half for later, but would doing so in front of Jason Carter and Brian Cooper make him lose face...

Jason Carter was still puzzled: “So in all those years, was there really no one who overcame hardship and kept on pursuing knowledge?”

“No, they all starved to death,” David Bolton said.

“So all that knowledge is really lost now?” Jason Carter was unwilling to accept it.

This time, David Bolton looked at Jason Carter seriously and said with deep meaning, “It’s in the hands of a select few.”

……

“All right,” David Bolton stood up and said, “Let’s not talk about this anymore, it’s time for class.”

Jason Carter pressed David Bolton with one last question: “Sir, when was the wall of our refuge barrier built, and why did they build it?”

“After the Cataclysm, wild beasts roamed everywhere. It’s said that a long time ago there was even a bug swarm. Humans had no choice but to build high walls to keep out the danger,” David Bolton explained.

“But most wild beasts, even after evolving, don’t actually attack humans on their own,” Jason Carter was curious. Monkeys were still herbivores, sparrows still loved to eat grain—they didn’t actively eat people.

Now, Refuge Barrier No. 113 was within the ‘inner circle’ of human habitation, and most of the fiercer beasts had actually been driven to the ‘outer circle.’

The higher the serial number of a refuge barrier, the more dangerous it was. For example, the legendary Refuge Barrier No. 178 lost many people every year driving out wild beasts.

But Refuge Barrier No. 113 was already considered the ‘heartland.’

There were still plenty of dangers, like wolf packs, but they weren’t insurmountable. If that was the case, why did such a large human settlement still need towering walls?

David Bolton laughed and said, “As long as there’s danger outside, the drifters can only rely on the refuge barriers to survive. That means the barriers have a huge supply of cheap labor. Do you think the consortiums behind the barriers don’t have the power to completely clear out the dangers outside? Human firearms are even more powerful than you imagine, but why would they bother? The threats don’t affect them.”

When Jason Carter heard this, he fell into deep thought. Although he was mature for his age, there were some things he’d never encountered, so he couldn’t understand them. That was also why he craved knowledge.

David Bolton continued, “They’ll never tear down the walls. How could the vested interests inside the walls ever give up such a natural class barrier?”

With that, David Bolton went to change his clothes. Jason Carter asked curiously, “Sir, why are you changing? The clothes you had on weren’t even dirty.”

David Bolton straightened his collar and said, “The last set smells like smoke. It wouldn’t be good for the students to smell it.”

Brian Cooper looked on with respect, while Jason Carter suddenly felt a bit disgruntled. “So it’s fine for me to smell it? You didn’t tell me to stay away just now, sir.”

David Bolton thought for a long time. “Get lost.”

At that moment, Jason Carter suddenly heard the palace in his mind speak again: “Mission: The desire for knowledge is never a bad thing, but what you learn, you must teach others.”

Jason Carter was stunned for a moment. He really couldn’t figure out what exactly this mission wanted him to do.

……

In the afternoon, all the students felt it was something new—standing outside the door was Jason Carter, who was several years older than them, so many students kept turning around to look at him.

David Bolton had to knock on the blackboard several times to stop the students’ curiosity. He said, “This afternoon, we’ll have a survival class.”

That was the unique thing about schools in this era—they didn’t just teach literature and science, but also survival.

But this class always gave David Bolton a headache, because he really wasn’t very good at wilderness survival.

So most of the time, he could only read from the old materials that had been preserved.

David Bolton looked at the students in the classroom. “Pay attention. Don’t think danger is far away from you. Right now, your parents protect you, but when you grow up, you’ll have to learn to protect yourselves. Today, we’ll talk about what to do if you encounter a wolf pack in the wild.”

Actually, survival class was the students’ favorite. The other subjects were still too boring for their age, but survival class was interesting.

At this moment, the classroom was silent. David Bolton looked at Jason Carter, who was standing by the door listening. “Come on, tell us—what should you do if you run into a wolf pack in the wild?”

Jason Carter thought for a moment and said, “You should try to pick a hillside with trees all around, because that way the feng shui for your grave will be better.”

David Bolton: “???”

Chapter 7: Substitute Teacher

When David Bolton was speechless at Jason Carter’s answer, he didn’t know that Jason Carter himself was also confused. Wasn’t he just teaching everyone what he knew? Why wasn’t the mission complete yet?

Could it be that the knowledge he taught was the problem...