Zhong Yun had absolutely no idea that back on Dawo, his friends were frantic trying to locate him. Meanwhile, he was currently in the depths of misery.

The largest hall on the spaceship, originally intended for passenger leisure and recreation, had been transformed into a chaotic factory floor, littered with all manner of components scattered everywhere, leaving barely an inch of space to stand.

Zhong Yun sat in the middle, his eyes slightly bulging and bloodshot, his lips moving ceaselessly, mumbling unintelligibly to himself.

His hands flew, dismantling a component in mere seconds, sorting the pieces meticulously before picking up an identical replacement.

He repeated this process endlessly, only pausing after completing one hundred units.

"Xiao Ling, you're deliberately setting me up, aren't you?" After disassembling another hundred parts, Zhong Yun collapsed onto the floor, weakly addressing the ceiling.

It seemed ZER was absent, as no reply came.

Zhong Yun lacked even the energy to curse, closing his eyes to regain strength. Suddenly, he felt something tugging gently at his right hand.

"Stop bothering me," he mumbled, rolling over to continue his rest.

Then, his hair was pulled next. "Are you ever going to quit?" The rare moment of rest being interrupted made Zhong Yun exceptionally irritable; if he hadn't been utterly drained, he would have jumped up to retaliate.

He tilted his head back, intending to see which audacious automaton dared to harass him now, resolving to dismantle it upon their next meeting.

Zhong Yun saw a bottle.

Cool liquid **trickled down his parched throat. Zhong Yun tilted his head back and drank deeply. He finished with a satisfied burp, feeling the vitality rapidly returning to his body.

"That's something," Zhong Yun felt instantly energized. He tossed the bottle aside, wiped his mouth, sat up, and returned to work.

Fifty Antimatter Cannons. With over half the necessary components already fabricated, there were still over a thousand procedural steps remaining. He only had twenty days left of his vacation; completing the entire task in that timeframe was nearly impossible.

To maximize efficiency, Zhong Yun separated the procedures entirely, first finishing the machining of all components before proceeding to the final assembly all at once. This significantly sped up the process.

Due to concerns about the success rate, he machined one hundred units of every single part, drastically increasing his workload.

He had originally asked ZER to dispatch some fabrication robots to assist, but ZER refused, which enraged him, fueling his suspicion that he was being deliberately tormented.

After finishing another hundred parts, Zhong Yun lacked the strength to even keep his eyes open. He fell backward, and within ten seconds, snoring echoed through the hall.

Two hours later, Zhong Yun, sprawled out in disarray, shot upright, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and declared, "Time to work."

…………

Time passed day by day. After over eighteen hours of intense labor daily, on the seventh day before his vacation concluded, Zhong Yun finally finished assembling all the Antimatter Cannons. Thanks to increased proficiency, the success rate had risen, resulting in an unexpected surplus of nine extra units.

He spent another two days installing fifty-nine of the Antimatter Cannons around the perimeter of the base. Zhong Yun had officially completed his assignment.

"When you delegate tasks, you really don't treat people like people, do you?" As soon as he saw ZER, Zhong Yun couldn't resist a sharp retort.

"Congratulations, your internal Yuan has seen significant improvement," ZER replied.

"Even if I were a peanut, you’ve managed to squeeze the oil out of me; this small progress means little."

Despite his words, Zhong Yun was quite pleased with his own progress. "Xiao Ling, am I close to breaking through to the second tier?"

"Regrettably, at your current rate, it will take more than two years to reach the second level."

"Two more years?" Zhong Yun scratched his head, admitting he didn't fully grasp the Yuan leveling system.

Chen Wen had once asked him if his physical conditioning had reached the fourth layer. The 'layer' Chen Wen mentioned was clearly not the same concept as the 'tier' Xiao Ling spoke of.

"So, if reaching the second tier is considered maximum capacity, my current reading is less than 20?" Zhong Yun offered as an analogy.

"Precisely seventeen," ZER corrected him.

"How are these tiers categorized? Why is the span so vast?" Zhong Yun inquired.

"Human evolution."

"Human evolution?" Zhong Yun hadn't expected their conversation to veer into such esoteric matters, suddenly leaping into bioscience.

"Human evolution is ceaseless, and upon reaching a certain threshold, a bottleneck occurs. Overcoming it results in a qualitative leap in enhancement. Much like single-celled organisms evolving into multicellular ones, or the transition from ape to *human."

"Starting from baseline humanity, you are currently in the first stage. When you break through the bottleneck of the first stage to reach the second, it is equivalent to undergoing another evolutionary event."

"That significant?" Zhong Yun was deeply stirred by the explanation. Two years would pass quickly. What level could I attain then? He couldn't help but feel anticipation.

"What is your current success rate for opening the boxes?" ZER asked in turn.

"Do you truly take me for an immortal?" Zhong Yun's expression darkened. "These past few days, I haven't even been able to enter 'Combat Simulation,' how am I supposed to practice?"

"Could what's inside these boxes again be related to our survival?" Recalling the complexity of opening that one box made Zhong Yun’s head throb.

A small box, only fifty centimeters long and high, required three thousand six hundred and eighty steps to open—that alone was insane. Even more perverse was the five-minute time limit.

Successfully opening it once out of ten tries, Zhong Yun considered godlike. Yet ZER was demanding a success rate exceeding ninety percent.

ZER always seemed intent on pushing him past his limits.

"That can be said," ZER nodded. "Without the contents of the box, you will never be able to break through to the second tier."

"What?" Zhong Yun's face changed drastically. ZER had struck his most vulnerable point.

"Don't worry, I guarantee I will practice until I achieve a ninety percent success rate within six months," Zhong Yun declared through gritted teeth.

After a moment of silence, ZER stated, "We depart for Dawo tomorrow. Please begin your preparations."

"Returning to Dawo? That soon?" Zhong Yun was stunned; he had lost track of time due to his labors. He opened his personal computer: "Oh dear, school starts in five days! How did time fly so fast?"

"There isn't much to prepare," Zhong Yun said, then recalled a critically important matter. "You're coming too? Then what about this base? Who will manage it?"

This planet was technically his; he couldn't rest easy if it was left unattended. But leaving Xiao Ling behind here pained him. He felt intensely conflicted.

"Rest assured, I can maintain remote control. The base construction will not halt."

"Then I can relax," Zhong Yun sighed in relief. "But across several dozen light-years, how will we communicate?" Even as a military novice, Zhong Yun knew that the limiting factor for Dawo's expansion was long-distance data transmission.

Compared to spaceship speeds that had already achieved light speed, Dawo's communication technology, still based on wave carriers, was hopelessly antiquated.

Sending a command one light-year away would take a year to arrive; such lagging information made effective control impossible.

Although Dawo was classified as a mid-tier civilization, its sphere of influence extended only 0.1 light-years outward from Kepler Star. Beyond that, its control withered rapidly.

The entire nation of Dawo suffered due to communication technology issues. Major institutions poured fortunes into research annually with no breakthrough.

It could be said that communication technology severely constrained Dawo's development.

Previous administrations had issued bounties: any researcher who could develop a communication device faster than twice the speed of light would be awarded an A-Class Contribution Point by the nation and personally bestowed the title of A-Class Physicist.

P: I’ve made the new arrivals list! Thank you to all the readers who have continuously supported me and cast votes. Without you, this book wouldn't have reached second place. I will work hard to write this book well so you can witness even more exciting plots. Please continue your support.