At the very moment the old man died, all the silk tubes binding Brian Clark retracted, a warning popped up on the instrument, and an electronic synthesized voice sounded: “Master deceased, initiating purge protocol.”

Brian Clark, ignoring his still-numb body, rolled off the platform, unable to stand, and could only look up at the screens as images and data flashed by in an instant.

Every piece of information about to be purged would flicker across the screens—it was hard to imagine the old man had set up such a purge mode.

Even B-level or even A-level genotypes might not be able to catch those data and images; even if they could, they might not be able to remember them all, and that’s just for a single screen. But Brian Clark memorized everything from more than a dozen screens. This would have been absolutely impossible before; although his memory was strong, his capture speed could never keep up, let alone memorize more than a dozen screens at once!

His body was rapidly adjusting. Brian Clark’s eyes seemed unfocused, yet he deeply imprinted the flashing information from all those screens into his mind, because if he didn’t understand this information, he might not even know how he would die—the stuff the old man injected into him was like an unknown bomb.

Five minutes later, the purge program was complete. All information related to this experiment, including information about the old man Henry Baker Hanson, as long as it flashed on the screen, was memorized by Brian Clark.

“Purge program complete. Destruction protocol will execute in five minutes. Sandification countdown…”

Damn!

Brian Clark cursed inwardly, moved his body as sensation returned, struggled to his feet, and staggered toward the exit.

All the doors in the underground lab were open. The other rooms were for storage—“specimens,” food, equipment, medicines, and so on. The real core was the room where Brian Clark had been, so he had neither the mind nor the time to bother with anything else, and followed the route he remembered from when he was brought in.

All the doors were open, the way clear, as if deliberately arranged—five minutes, just enough.

When Brian Clark reached the ventilation duct at the edge of the lab, the sandification protocol activated. From the central lab, a depression like flowing sand appeared and spread outward—the floor, all the experimental instruments, and the dead old man all turned to flowing sand, the sandification spreading. By the time Brian Clark crawled out of the vent and returned to the building, the sandification had just reached the duct.

Brian Clark had no time to rest. He knew the old man’s so-called “destruction protocol” was definitely not just sandification. To prevent his research results from leaking, he had bound his own life to all the protocols. To be so resolute, he would surely destroy everything even more thoroughly.

Fortunately, dawn had not yet broken, and the streets were empty. Under cover of darkness, Brian Clark moved close to the walls and eaves. If “Sky Eye” spotted him, everything would be ruined.

Sure enough, not long after Brian Clark left, a massive explosion woke the sleeping people. A mushroom cloud billowed into the sky, dazzling firelight, a huge crater in the ground, surrounding buildings collapsed by the blast wave, broken walls and ruins everywhere, children woken in terror crying and screaming, adults cursing nonstop.

Before any curious onlookers could approach the blast site, a white light descended from the sky, enveloping the area in a cage of white radiance, isolating it from the outside world. “Sky Eye” had already responded, and it wouldn’t be long before the security patrols arrived to investigate.

But none of that concerned Brian Clark. Slipping back to his ten-square-meter room in the slums, his taut nerves finally relaxed, and he fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter Four: The Secret of the Wilderness

In his sleep, some of the information recorded in his mind flashed by, and changes were also taking place within Brian Clark’s body.

When he opened his eyes again, two days had passed. Brian Clark did not go to Old David’s shop, but instead went to his master Field’s residence.

Brian Clark had been found by Field in the woods on the west side of the town. At that time, an abnormal stellar flare had brought high-energy radiation, causing crop failures on several nearby planets. The price of nutrient serums soared, which was a disaster for the poor—many starved to death, and children who couldn’t be raised were sold to the rich in the prosperous districts. Brian Clark was one of those who hadn’t been sold in time. That day, a fight broke out in the western woods over food, and when Field arrived, only Brian Clark, still an infant in swaddling clothes, was alive in a tree hollow.

Field was only a seven-element gene F-level, yet lived better and was stronger than most D-levels. Field taught Brian Clark a set of fitness exercises, which, compared to those Brian Clark had seen on TV, were improved in every aspect from human kinetics and more. Later, Brian Clark used these exercises for hunting. Field had said that originally, this set of exercises was adapted from martial arts, with the killing moves removed and more peaceful elements added, but in practice, Brian Clark gradually restored those removed parts.

Field died when Brian Clark was twelve. No one knew how old Field really was; Brian Clark only knew that his master was far from ordinary, but nothing more.