Darkness fell, gradually blanketing the wasteland.
Cheng Ye returned to the staff residential compound, climbed the stairs to the fifth floor of the tenement building, and unlocked the security door at the end of the hallway.
It was a tiny single room of just over ten square meters, containing nothing more than a small five-foot bed and a compact desk.
Everything else had been useless clutter, and once he got his bearings after transmigrating, he had cleared it all out and hauled it to the scrap station—including a keepsake from a woman his predecessor had known in the Inner City and half a box of love letters.
There was no room for romance in the wasteland. When merely staying alive was a daily struggle, indulging in anything else was an obvious mistake.
After plugging the pendant into the power strip to start charging, Cheng Ye walked to the communal washroom on the fifth floor, swiping his keycard to draw water.
The young man in the mirror was slender with a slightly pale complexion, though his sharply defined features would have made him quite handsome by modern standards.
In the wasteland, however, a burly, rugged build like Liu Bi's was the true answer to survival.
Fresh water gushed from the pipe with a rushing splash, slightly tinted yellow from flash floods upstream.
Still, there was free electricity, a limited water allowance, and enough food to fill one's belly just by working.
Happiness City's public broadcasts hadn't lied about that much: life here was indeed happier than in many other sanctuary cities.
That was assuming, of course, that no massive infected horde showed up.
A thirty-meter-tall barrier wall could keep all external assaults at bay, shielding the core residents of Happiness City, but ordinary people living in the buffer zone would bear the brunt of the disaster.
Right now, gaining entry to the Inner City required 1,000 contribution points. In his two months as an inspector, Cheng Ye had managed to save only 19.
For an ordinary citizen to amass that many points, barring hitting the jackpot by uncovering some rare resource, even a lifetime of hard labor would leave a massive deficit.
What was worse, becoming an inspector barred one from entering the Inner City even after accumulating enough points, which left Cheng Ye with a persistent, nagging sense of crisis.
If an infected horde came crashing in, the buffer zone wouldn't hold.
If he had to run, how would he escape, and where could he go?
Veteran inspectors might have secret shelters beyond the quarantine zone, but as a newcomer with neither resources nor influence, where was he supposed to find a spot to build a hideout?
Brother B might have one, but when the time came, he would have to evacuate his own family. Would he still bring Cheng Ye along?
Wiping himself clean, Cheng Ye returned to his room, his mind swirling with thoughts as he lay in bed, sleep eluding him.
It wasn't until the first glimmer of dawn broke and fish-belly white crept past the edges of the curtains that he snapped to attention, leaping out of bed to crouch by the power strip.
He touched the pendant, and the interface materialized before his eyes.
[Current Activation Progress: 99.8%]
Only 0.2% remained. Cheng Ye simply sat on the floor, tapping the pendant every few moments to see if the progress bar had nudged forward.
Building up the earlier progress had taken two full months without him feeling rushed, yet at this final juncture, anxiety gnawed at him.
Fortunately, 0.2% amounted to just four kilowatt-hours of electricity. Before the sun had fully risen, the charging finished.
*Finally, it's done!*
The instant the thought crossed his mind, Cheng Ye's eyes went wide in disbelief.
The pendant was gone?
The moment charging concluded, the pendant in the socket seemed to turn invisible, vanishing completely from sight.
Before Cheng Ye could even process the shock, a blinding flash of blue light flared before his eyes.
The interface he had looked at countless times finally transformed, text scrolling across the screen line by line.
[Civilization Collector fully charged. Automatic activation and binding complete.]
[Welcome, Civilization Collector: Cheng Ye. You are now operating this collector. Current rank: Level 1 Trainee.]
[Civilization Collector has entered sensory mode. Silently recite "Collector" to open or close this interface.]
[Collector functions corresponding to your rank have been unlocked. Please review them on the interface using your intent.]
[We wish you a pleasant experience!]
*I'm a trainee inspector, and now I'm a trainee Civilization Collector...*
*Which means the Civilization Collector can be leveled up to unlock more functions down the line.*
Skimming through the text, Cheng Ye felt no real shock; two months of mental preparation had braced him for this. After summoning and dismissing the panel several times with his mind, he quickly got the hang of controlling it.
*The Level 1 Collector only has one function for now, but it happens to fit my day job pretty well.*
Cheng Ye's gaze fell upon the panel's solitary unlocked feature.
[Search (Lv. 1)]
[Current Energy: 2/2 (Restores when replenished with energy after use)]
[Valid Targets: Living organisms]
[Search Condition: Requires the target's consent. Searchable scope unlocks based on degree of cooperation.]
[Current Searchable Scope: Intelligence (10% cooperation, Lv. 1), Items (30% cooperation, Lv. 1), Skills (50% cooperation, Lv. 1), Skills (100% cooperation, Lv. 2)]
[Search Success Rate: 50% success rate against same-level targets, halved for each level above. Action points refunded on failure.]
[Note: Searches perform equivalent duplication. Success or failure will not affect the target.]
*Searching can yield... intelligence, items, and skills?*
Cheng Ye's thoughts raced as he fought to suppress a surge of excitement.
Securing a target's consent wouldn't be difficult. Any survivor willing to step into the quarantine iron cages possessed at least some willingness to cooperate.
With proper guidance, hitting 100% might be tough, but reaching 50% was well within his grasp.
Intelligence and items were self-explanatory, but what qualified as a skill?
Did Brother B's marksmanship count as a skill?
What about those rumored superhumans who hadn't succumbed to infection and somehow developed special abilities—did those count?
Cheng Ye couldn't help envisioning the possibilities.
If abilities like that could be searched and duplicated, his chances of surviving future field missions would skyrocket.
*Unfortunately, the success rate isn't very high—only fifty percent even at the same level.*
*And at my current rank, a full charge only grants two searches. I'll need to choose my targets carefully.*
*As for the action points refunded on failure, I wonder what they're used for...*
*And the energy points—how do I restore those?*
A barrage of questions flooded his mind. Cheng Ye's eyes gleamed; he decided not to overthink the exact mechanics just yet. Once he ran a few searches, whether they succeeded or failed, he would naturally figure out what everything meant.
Furthermore...
*I can't rush. The more critical things become, the more cautious I have to be.*
*Brother B already requested leave for me. Rushing back to work now would only make people suspicious. If I use the collector and slip up, the chances of drawing unwanted attention will shoot through the roof.*
Repeating that caution to himself, Cheng Ye took several moments to push the excitement down before returning to his study of the Civilization Collector.
Digging deeper, he noticed another profile tucked beneath the Search feature.
Or rather, something that barely counted as a function.
[Collector: Cheng Ye]
[Current Rank: Lv. 1 Trainee (Can be promoted by searching the current civilization and collecting more data)]
[Life Stage: 0 (Has not reached the minimum threshold)]
[Skills: Empty, Empty, Empty (Current Life Stage allows up to three skills equipped simultaneously)]
[Locked...]
[Evaluation: Fragile trainee collector, what you should be doing right now isn't collecting civilization data, but doing everything you can to survive the hunts of the local natives!]
A sub-standard Life Stage, completely empty skill slots, and a warning about being hunted by wasteland natives.
The panel was Spartan, yet it painted an accurate picture of Cheng Ye's current predicament.
*With my current capabilities, getting caught in close-quarters combat against an infected mutant would indeed be a disaster.*
Confirming that no other features were available, Cheng Ye closed the collector interface and began planning his path forward.
Happiness City was a textbook industrial sanctuary. Its manufactured firearms and ammunition were shipped thousands of kilometers away in exchange for precious grain, technological blueprints, and other vital supplies.
Living in this city, getting his hands on a decent gun wasn't hard for an inspector like Cheng Ye.
The Bison 9mm combat pistol Liu Bi favored, for instance, cost a mere 20 contribution points—an exceptional bargain.
Yet despite their devastating power, firearms had very rigid use cases. They were truly effective only when repelling infected hordes, engaging in large-scale coordinated battles, keeping watch on the perimeter, or fighting other humans.
The checkpoint's field missions primarily revolved around courier deliveries, scouting, and reconnaissance, carried out by small squads of two to four people with virtually no direct combat assignments.
Firing a gun within ruined city districts would instantly draw hidden infected mutants like sharks scenting blood.
Getting surrounded wasn't just a matter of failing the mission—it meant losing his life.
*If I'm lucky and draw a courier run, I might not run into a single infected mutant along the way.*
*If it's a scouting run, the best approach is still to dispatch any stray infected silently using melee weapons—in quiet, out quiet.*
*Which means... the skills I prioritize searching for next must boost my close-quarters combat ability.*
His rapid-fire average on twenty-five-meter targets hovered around seven rings, which barely met the bare minimum for field deployment.
In close quarters, however, he was nowhere near ready. He lacked not just technique, but the necessary courage, practical experience, and adaptability.
If he could acquire a skill to shore up those deficiencies, his odds of survival would rise dramatically.
His mind made up, Cheng Ye turned his head toward the window.
A curtain of rain swept under leaden clouds, rolling in slowly from the horizon. As the rain front steadily pushed south, its influence was already reaching Happiness City.
As was usually the case, survivors on the road would quicken their pace before the full-blown downpour arrived.
Down at the checkpoint, that meant a massive surge of travelers was about to hit.
Chapter 4