Chen Xin was somewhat undecided, worried that this might be something strange, especially since it was glowing, which led him to bad associations; after all, the Star's Color from Cthulhu myths also fell to the Blue Star in the form of a meteorite and glowed.
However, considering that his survival shelter was not far away, and if this was indeed the Star's Color, he wouldn't be able to escape it either. Chen Xin gritted his teeth, approached the object, and gave it a kick.
The object at the bottom of the pit wasn't large, roughly the size of a ping pong ball. Its surface bore some scorched marks, which flaked off with Chen Xin's kick. They seemed to be residue from the material that burned as it passed through the atmosphere.
And as the heat dissipated, the object's glow gradually dimmed, eventually resembling an ordinary metal ball.
Seeing that the thing no longer emitted light, Chen Xin's anxious heart gradually settled. It seemed this wasn't the Star's Color.
After kicking it a couple more times and seeing no further reaction, and seemingly no danger, Chen Xin hesitated a moment before picking it up.
When Chen Xin picked it up, it still felt a bit hot, and the warmth caused a slight sting to the wound on his hand that he had grazed earlier.
Chen Xin didn't pay much attention, inspecting the object and finding it looked like a smooth metal ball with nothing special about it; it had been glowing before, but now it was just an ordinary-looking metal ball.
Seeing nothing more to be discerned, Chen Xin put the ball in his pocket, planning to study it closely back at the shelter.
Looking around the crater and finding no other meteor-like objects, Chen Xin then climbed out of the pit and headed back towards the shelter.
As he walked back to the shelter, Chen Xin glanced up at the sky. Seeing the trails of two meteors having reached below the horizon, he knew the impact was imminent.
Although he was far from the point of impact, the effects of the meteor strike would soon reach here.
So Chen Xin didn't hesitate, quickly returning to his shelter. After closing the heavy door, he picked up the TV from the ground and headed deeper into the shelter.
Because the shelter needed to be dug deep enough, Chen Xin's shelter had a tunnel about fifty meters long.
The tunnel was constructed at a downward angle. Considering future vehicle access, it was made quite wide during construction.
After entering the shelter and setting down the TV he had been holding, Chen Xin sat down and took out a medical kit, intending to treat the graze on his hand.
However, when he found the medical kit and was about to rinse the wound with water, he found that the scratch on his hand had already healed on its own.
If it weren't for the bloodstains left on his palm, Chen Xin would have thought the graze was just an illusion.
This mysterious self-healing immediately made Chen Xin think of the small ball he had picked up from the crater, so he quickly took it out of his pocket.
Unfortunately, his pocket was a bit tight, causing the ball to fall to the ground when he tried to pull it out.
As the ball hit the ground, a bright blue halo flashed across the point of contact and swept through the entire room before retracting back into the ball.
With the halo retraction, the ball lit up again and floated into the air, leveling with Chen Xin's line of sight.
Seeing this scene, Chen Xin realized there was a problem with the object he had picked up. He took two fearful steps back and picked up the medical kit beside him to bolster his courage.
"Doomsday Survival System activated..."
"Target gene collected..."
"Gene composition confirmed, carbon-based life form..."
"Survival environment confirmed, meteor crisis, potential for species extinction present... conditions met, binding program initiated..."
The ball emitted a mechanical voice. Surprisingly, even though it spoke in another language, Chen Xin could understand what the ball was saying.
As the ball spoke, it flew to Chen Yu, emitting a blue light that scanned his body, then directly rushed toward Chen Xin.
Chen Xin hurriedly used the medical kit in his hand to block, but the ball directly hit the back of his hand and then merged into it.
This greatly alarmed Chen Xin. He dropped the medical kit and looked at the back of his hand, but found no changes.
While Chen Xin was feeling uneasy, an unexpected change occurred in his body. A green data-like grid light emanated from under his feet, scanning the entire shelter before retracting back into his body like a radar echo.
Chen Xin stood dumbfounded, his mind blank, completely at a loss for what was happening or which expression he should wear.
"What on earth is going on?" Chen Xin, stunned for a long time, finally regained his cognitive abilities and asked the question after his mind rebooted.
With this question, a lot of information flooded into his mind, displaying in the text he recognized, projected onto his retina, which finally cleared up the situation.
In brief, Chen Xin had stumbled upon a system reminiscent of those found in ubiquitous system-flow novels.
This system was called the Doomsday Survival System, crafted by an advanced civilization from an unknown space-time, seemingly one of their entertainment products.
But the origin of the system wasn't important. What mattered was its functionality.
The system's name was the Doomsday Survival System, so naturally, its functions revolved around survival.
According to the system's data, as long as the system-bound host, meaning Chen Xin himself, survived in the doomsday environment identified by the system, he would earn Survival Points for each day survived.
This was somewhat akin to the points in other systems, though in this system, the points couldn't be exchanged for items out of thin air but were used for upgrading objects.
Because this was an advanced civilization's entertainment product aimed at experiencing the thrill of doomsday survival, exchanging items out of thin air would be akin to cheating and would severely diminish the survival game's experience.
Thus, the system had only the single function of upgrading objects, which was similar to the synthesis and upgrade functionalities in many games, albeit much more powerful.