"Yes, here, the stronger your primal instincts, the easier it is to survive. Maybe I'm the weakest among you."
"That's because you're used to suppressing your instincts," Constantine shook his head and said, "The overly cold demeanor that makes you look like a neurotic lunatic is just the side effect of excessively suppressing your animalistic nature. You want too much to be a person, monster."
Shiller chuckled and leapt directly onto the trunk, quietly climbing upward. Constantine followed closely behind. The two maneuvered between the branches, the vertical distance being twenty meters, but in reality, the climb felt like several hundred meters. After much effort, they finally made it up, and what appeared before them left both of them stunned.
Above was not the sky, but a massive blue canopy, and what shone wasn't the sun, but a bulb rising in the east and setting in the west.
Shiller closed his eyes and sighed long. He knew there was no Primitive Jungle; this thing was merely a nature reserve planted inside a machine. As for understanding why, he owed it to Brainiac, this wicked artificial intelligence that loved building reserves.
In fact, Brainiac didn't just establish reserves for humanoid beasts; his efforts in protecting Earth's ecosystem were commendable too. During wartime, Brainiac set up several simulated ecosystems to preserve the ecological chains of Earth's varied climates. These ecosystems were also built inside machines, with some even housed in his server rooms, completely managed by him for temperature and light regulation. The living flora and fauna were carefully gathered, with several specimens of each to ensure genetic diversity, occasionally allowing natural reproduction to ensure reproductive capability wasn't compromised.
As for why place them in server rooms, the reason is simple. Maintaining these ecosystems is challenging, with too much to monitor and adjust, requiring substantial energy consumption. Constructing them far away poses a burden to electronic life, also occupying significant space. Server rooms contain nothing but machines, and external machines wouldn't affect the internal ecosystems, thus making it an ideal location.
Shiller and Constantine also noticed the distant massive object—a square box, clearly a technological artifact. Now surrounded by giant trees, overgrown with plants, perhaps even inhabited by animals. To less discerning animals, it might appear as an oddly-shaped hill, but to Shiller and Constantine, it likely played a crucial role in this ecosystem, either as a monitor or regulatory device, and it was what they were searching for.
However, reaching it posed the greatest challenge. The ecological zone was so vast its edges were unseen, and cats have limited vision, making it hard to discern just how far this behemoth was.
On Earth, visibility would allow distance estimation, but not here. The land here was flat, preventing any horizon-based distance assessment. On ground, it might take a year to arrive.
Sunlight above the canopy was indeed plentiful, and Constantine spent a moment sunbathing, quickly drying himself. Suddenly, both felt a gust of air rushing by, prompting them to scurry downward, hiding amongst dense branches, witnessing a pterosaur likely larger than a plane sweeping overhead.
Once the pterosaur passed, Shiller immediately climbed outwards, looking toward its flight path. Indeed, it was heading toward the square metal box, significantly elevated above the ground, perfect for nesting by such flying creatures. Shiller started devising an idea, but implementation required much preparation.
The two descended leisurely, returning to the nest where several cats were somewhat famished. Peter and Constantine, having encountered a flood, failed to catch prey, facing a potentially hungry night. But Shiller had an idea, "Yesterday I checked out the Centipede Cave; there are indeed many small centipedes inside, powerless to resist. If we can distract the big one, we can feast."
Hunger was unbearable and easily led them into a vicious cycle, the hungrier they got, the less energy they had for hunting, the less energy they had for hunting, the hungrier they became. Such a situation was unacceptable. Thus, they decided unanimously to take the risk and hunt centipedes.
This time, everyone had to mobilize. Luckily, after the flood, most animals were likely still hiding, minimizing the risk of theft if acted swiftly. The four cats rushed swiftly toward the centipede nest.
Yet upon approaching the centipede nest, the sight shocked the cats. Scattered centipedes were everywhere, and the largest one was cut in half, lying on the ground uncertainly alive, its blue blood spilling all over, as though a massacre had just occurred.
The cats nearly simultaneously bristled, bolting from the centipede nest, crouching within exterior shrubbery, cautiously peering inside. What could exterminate such a large centipede?
But after waiting for a while, there was no trace of a predator, more puzzling was, if killed by animals, why wouldn't the culprit consume them?
Shiller poked his head into a bush, closely observing the scene, concluding it likely wasn't a predator's doing. The area was extremely moist, with water even covering their paws. The grass on the side where the large centipede lay was all flattened, as though swept down by something, more importantly, their nest's entry pipe showed clear impact marks.
Although coming to the Primitive Jungle, he hadn't expected to play detective, this case was too straightforward for Shiller. Undoubtedly, it wasn't murder but likely an accident.
The centipede family's domicile pipe wasn't abandoned but likely a drainage pipe from somewhere. With such heavy rainfall, any area's pipes were under maximum stress, bound to expel water.
If pipes were clear, drainage speed naturally increased gradually. But when Shiller arrived, he found the drainage pipe blocked with a glowing object, indicating the initial blockage of water flow.
As rain intensified, internal pipe pressure grew, and the blocking object couldn't hold, resulting in a sudden water surge with enough force to sever the large centipede in half, sweeping the smaller ones to their deaths.
Now what piqued Shiller's interest wasn't the deceased large centipede, but rather the unidentified glowing object expelled by water; he intuitively felt it had a potential use. Carefully, he approached the large centipede's corpse, indeed finding a small glowing electronic device there.
Shiller pawed at it, curious what it was. In the next moment, it buzzed into motion, its light flashing, emitting two beeps.
"Hello. I am intelligent robotic butler Jarvis. Biological activity detected. Scanning... Scan complete. Identified as unknown creature. Uploading data..."
Shiller pounced fiercely.