Wasteland Border Inspector

Cheng Ye pondered, suddenly feeling somewhat anxious.

What he lacked most now was experience. Even though he had so much information, he still felt uncertain.

Moreover, it wasn’t just him—humans across the Wasteland lacked experience and understanding of this source of infection.

Could any force decipher those mysterious runes? Could the research lab in Happiness City crack them?

Unfortunately, though he knew about the existence of "runes," he couldn’t even remember the two large runes from the Cotton Room earlier. The interior of the Demon Eye Sponge’s Cotton Room was probably the same.

And the charging value was still recovering, so there was no way to extract the pass-through Cotton Mark into items for testing effects for now.

Would he go alone then, or bring Luokuke along?

Cheng Ye rubbed his forehead, only to feel that the choices before him were becoming increasingly difficult. Going alone was too risky, but bringing Luokuke along made him worry that he wouldn’t be able to manage in case of an emergency.

He got up and went to stand by the riverside again.

By this time, the sky had turned completely overcast, with lead-gray clouds hanging low. The flow of the White Water River had become much more turbulent, with white waves churning on the surface.

Obviously, it was pouring upstream, and the rainwater had already flowed into the river.

Cheng Ye stood there for over ten minutes until there was a splash from the water surface, and Luokuke surfaced with an underwater breathing device.

To his surprise, Luokuke also held a long, slender Containment Box in his hand, his face full of excitement.

"There’s a major discovery again!"

Luokuke nimbly climbed ashore, shaking the water droplets off his Battle Armor. "The Demon Eye Sponge must have been provoked. It released the source of the infection from its interior before nighttime! I just witnessed it underwater, this thing coming out from its tentacles!"

Saying this, he opened the Containment Box, where a forty-centimeter-long Eerie Fish lay inside.

Its whole body was gray-black, and what’s hair-raising was that every scale had a miniature human face imprinted on it. When closed, they looked like lifeless masks; when open, they revealed murky pupils, looking particularly eerie.

"So, there are many sources of infection underwater now?"

"Yes! I was just about to call you in for containment, to capture them all now to ease the pressure when exploring the cave tonight!" Luokuke nodded repeatedly, his tone betraying his excitement.

This was indeed an unexpected joy. Though equipped with Obsidian Battle Armor, they weren’t afraid of these ordinary sources of infection, but no one could guarantee they wouldn’t cause trouble at critical moments. Clearing them out early was naturally the best.

"Alright then, let’s go down now." Cheng Ye didn’t hesitate, turning to grab the Containment Boxes.

"Wait!" Luokuke suddenly grabbed him, a serious tone in his voice, "We agreed it’s just containment. You can’t start slashing the sponge again!"

"Uh..."

Cheng Ye paused for a moment, then laughed, "Don’t worry, I understand the rules of containment."

The two fetched enough Containment Boxes and tools and jumped into the water one after another.

Sure enough, as Luokuke had said, the Demon Eye Sponge seemed thoroughly panicked, with sources of infection operating in the shallow water, patrolling around like sentries.

At a glance, all those ordinary infection sources that Garcia mentioned were indeed present.

Wearing Destruction Level protective gear to contain some ordinary sources of infection?

It had never been such an easy battle.

Within just over ten minutes, the two took turns and managed to contain as many as twenty-three sources of infection.

Cheng Ye didn’t waste these "materials"; once the infection sources were ashore, he immediately extracted their characteristics.

Luokuke was already accustomed to his "violent maniac" image, not only not stopping him but also proactively explaining how to kill them faster.

"Is that all?"

After another round of patrolling, the two surfaced, and Cheng Ye wiped the water off his face and asked.

"Should be all. These infection sources in the water are quite conspicuous. The ones that are hidden would be difficult for us to find as well." Luokuke caught his breath.

"Then I..."

"Wait, let me get ashore first!" Luokuke hurriedly swam to the shore, a sudden surge of strength flowing through his tired body.

Once he clambered ashore, he quickly turned to look at the water surface, indeed seeing that Cheng Ye was no longer there.

He silently counted in his heart, and in just a few dozen seconds, the water surface suddenly exploded.

Ye soared through the air like a cannonball, holding onto four or five still-wriggling sponge tentacles, landing steadily on the dock.

Behind him, hundreds of tentacles followed furiously, thrashing wildly on the water surface, obviously provoking the Demon Eye Sponge once more.

Cheng Ye blinked, his gaze fixed on the eyeball at the tip of the tentacle.

"Do you think it’ll release new sources of infection?"

...