The boost granted by Iron Body went far beyond anything he had imagined.
A flicker of shock crossed Cheng Ye's eyes as he carefully took in the changes inside his body.
Without experiencing it firsthand, there was simply no way to grasp the night-and-day difference.
No wonder the records described the S-3 virus as capable of overturning entire civilizations. Right now, this was merely a single talent born from a genetic atavistic mutation, yet it had already left ordinary humans far in the dust.
What about supernatural abilities?
They had probably long since grown terrifying enough to diverge humans and "humans" into two entirely distinct forms!
*Wait, Dai Zun's Iron Body didn't seem quite this powerful, did it?*
Losing pain perception while simultaneously enhancing his three-dimensional bodily awareness—this change bordered on absurd.
Cheng Ye simply unequipped Iron Body, then equipped it once more to test it out.
After testing and comparing four or five times in a row, he indeed discovered an unexpected quirk.
*The effect of this talent actually steadily diminishes over time?*
*And it has an internal cooldown?*
Right when Iron Body was equipped, the boost was at its most violent. The liberated nervous pathways sent his body control surging by fifty percent, bringing about an immediate qualitative leap.
Yet that surge lasted for at most one minute before steadily tapering off.
After five minutes at most, the boost vanished completely, and he had to unequip the talent before it could be reactivated.
Furthermore, unequipping and immediately re-equipping it did not trigger the surge.
Through Cheng Ye's testing, he had to wait five full minutes to recover the peak enhancement.
*Pain pathways were freed up to capture sensory data... Could it be that the liberated neurons can't endure long-term, high-intensity information processing?*
Cheng Ye guessed silently. Though his major had been civil engineering, this knowledge had actually been covered in his high school biology classes.
The transmission of pain signals relied on specific neurons. When pain perception was dampened, the firing frequency of those neurons dropped, which theoretically could reduce the burden on neural resources within the dorsal horn of the spinal cord and the thalamic pain centers.
Meanwhile, information transmission between neurons depended on the opening and closing of ion channels—a process demanding massive amounts of energy supplied by mitochondria.
When the processing load climbed too high, sustained high intensity would quickly push the mitochondria past their energy supply and metabolic limits. The outward manifestation was the steady decline of the boost.
*Theory is just theory. If I could completely puzzle it out with just high school knowledge, genetic atavism wouldn't be this miraculous. Down the road, I can look into copying some scientific research skills to study it thoroughly.*
Cheng Ye shook his head, deciding not to dwell any longer on the neurological mechanics.
Without that surge in body control, this talent was indeed a double-edged sword.
Even so, gaining performance superior to Dai Zun's original self was already a tremendous, pleasant surprise.
In any case, he had no intention of keeping pain dampening equipped around the clock. At most, he would use it during routine training when pushing himself to the brink, allowing him to grit his teeth and wring out every last drop of his physical potential.
As for actual combat, close-quarters life-and-death clashes were settled within thirty seconds. Who would drag things out past five minutes until the boost faded?
It was more than enough!
*Grumble, grumble.*
Right at that moment, a familiar hunger surged over him like a tidal wave.
Cheng Ye's expression changed. Without a second thought, he snatched up a pouch of nutrient paste and poured it down his throat.
Just as expected, whether it was a skill or a talent, once it reached a certain level, it would adaptively reconstruct the body's foundational physiology.
Last time with Basic Force Exertion, his body had directly sprouted new muscle mass to adapt.
What about Iron Body this time?
One pouch, five pouches, ten pouches... Twenty pouches of nutrient paste were drained in the blink of an eye, empty wrappers strewn across the floor.
Based on his previous experience, guzzling this much nutrient paste should have eased the emptiness long ago.
Yet right now, the black-hole-like hunger in his stomach hadn't receded in the slightest. If anything, it felt as though it wanted to hollow out his internal organs entirely.
*Good, wonderful! This feeling is spot on!*
*Bring it on! I can take more!*
The factional clash had only just gotten off to a promising start when the threat of infected entities came knocking right on its heels.
Every lingering trace of wishful thinking was snuffed out in his heart.
This was the wasteland. Death never granted anyone a moment of respite.
Today it was a stationmaster who fell; tomorrow it might be an inspector.
Cheng Ye's craving for strength had never been so urgent, and answering him were pouches upon pouches of deflated nutrient paste!
Ripping open wrapper after wrapper, once he entered a feeding frenzy, he could down a pouch of nutrient paste nearly every five seconds.
The thick paste was originally meant to stave off hunger, but the moment it hit his mouth, it seemed swallowed by an abyss, leaving not the faintest sensation of fullness.
Before long, the nutrient paste he had bought from Uncle Dong during the day was completely gone.
Cheng Ye felt a faint stir of joy. He quickly dragged over the cardboard box, ripped it apart violently, and kept chugging.
Ten pouches... thirty pouches... fifty pouches...
Only when the empty wrappers piled into a small hill on the floor did the nutrient paste stop vanishing the moment it slid down his throat, finally settling solidly into his stomach.
With his past experience in mind, he poured another ten pouches down his gullet, and a sense of fullness finally arrived.
"Basic Force Exertion took twenty-eight pouches from start to finish. This time, Iron Body took a whole... hundred and seven."
Sweeping his gaze over the wrappers covering the floor, Cheng Ye stood up and instantly felt the change in his body.
*Is this... increased physical resilience?*
A wondrous transformation seemed to have taken place in his skin.
Cheng Ye raised his right hand and ran his fingertips along his left upper arm. The texture was no longer the soft tenderness of ordinary flesh; it was tough and resilient, like stretched old leather.
Moreover, with the slightest turn of his neck or flex of a joint, he could feel the subcutaneous fascia stretching taut like bowstrings, giving off faint, crisp twitches, as though every inch of his skin had become an elastic suit of armor encasing his muscles.
*This crazy?*
Cheng Ye's eyelids twitched violently. With his experience from Basic Force Exertion, he knew this kind of enhancement didn't merely show up while the skill was equipped—it was a permanent reinforcement carved into his very flesh.
No matter what other skills he equipped down the line, this enhancement would never disappear.
*Iron Body dulls pain and massively boosts bodily control. If I still had my previous body, pulling off drastic maneuvers would probably have torn my fascia to shreds.*
*But now, after this reinforcement...*
Cheng Ye squeezed his arm. The muscle beneath the skin swelled like an over-inflated tire.
He couldn't say exactly how much stronger he had gotten, but Cheng Ye could vaguely sense that if he went up against five versions of his old self before acquiring any skills, he could probably take them down without an issue.
Of course, that was assuming a gauntlet of one-on-one fights.
*The Inner City has ways to test vitality, but unfortunately, they're only open to the Three Great Legions to rank their soldiers. In the end, inspectors are administrative personnel; the higher-ups never put combat strength first in evaluations, so my clearance isn't nearly enough to borrow that equipment.*
*Still, I can find time to visit the training hall. Even if Brother B isn't around, they have paid sparring partners. One test will show me how much my strength has grown.*
Placing his short blade by the head of the bed, Cheng Ye lay down fully clothed.
That night.
He slept terribly fitfully.
Just as Uncle Dong had predicted, popping gunfire broke out intermittently through the dark hours.
It seemed quite a few infected entities really had surged in. Fortunately, inspectors weren't responsible for internal sweep-and-clear operations.
Chores like that were usually handled by the strongest of the Three Great Legions, the Happiness Legion.
Even if inspectors were called upon to participate in security patrols, they only handled the final mop-up work, carrying a relatively low risk factor.
...
[Collector: Cheng Ye]
[Current Rank: Lv. 1 Apprentice (3.2/100)]
[Life Tier: 0]
[Skills: Basic Force Exertion, Beast Instinct, Iron Body (Talent)]
[Locked...]
[Evaluation: Your strength has grown rapidly in a short time, leaving you just one step away from the minimum standard for a Civilization Collector. Focusing on the fundamental development of your biology will grant you additional rewards.]
*The panel changed again!*
Having endured until morning light spilled outside the window, Cheng Ye rolled out of bed.
While brushing his teeth and washing up, he habitually opened the panel and caught the change immediately.
Iron Body had actually provided a whopping 2.5 points of information degree, more than eight times the 0.3 he had calculated earlier.
If his collection efficiency remained at this level going forward, it meant he would only need forty searches to meet the information degree requirement for a Collector rank advancement.
*It seems targeting the strong to reap benefits really is the right choice.*
Spitting out the foam, Cheng Ye continued to assess his physical state.
Nearly five days had passed since he mastered Basic Force Exertion.
As muscle memory became more deeply ingrained by the day, even if he unequipped the skill now, his body could barely detect any noticeable anomaly in force delivery.
There might still be a slight hitch in his kinetic chain when executing certain specialized offensive moves.
Yet he could feel that in two or three more days at most, even those hitches would vanish.
That meant that before he searched out his next skill, he could free up one of his three precious skill slots in advance.
*Too bad Beast Instinct is probably also a talent; it's just that its Lv. 1 rank is too low to display it as one.*
*These talent skills concern foundational biology. Once unequipped, their effects vanish immediately.*
Keeping this in mind, Cheng Ye returned to his room, grabbed his backpack, and headed out early.
Although he didn't have to work today and only needed to attend a study session in the afternoon—meaning he hadn't needed to wake up so early—the flimsy door of his tenement apartment genuinely put him on edge. A gust of wind made it rattle, keeping him anxious all night long.
"Thick iron plates, yes, exactly like these! Give me three to start!"
"A security lock scavenged from the ruins? Does this still work? Fine, install it for me."
"Reinforcement nails for doors... You have a full set here too? Oh, lots of people buying them? Give me two packs, then."
"Ground spikes? What do I need these for? Put them in front of the door to ward off sneak attacks by infected entities? Then... then give me a set!"
"Anyone want fresh mutant beast dung? Smear it on your door and the infected are guaranteed to give you a wide berth!"
"..."
The pedestrian street's flea market was usually deserted in the morning, only bustling from the afternoon into the evening.
Today, however, it was packed to the brim first thing in the morning.
Listening to the haggling echoing around him, Cheng Ye clicked his tongue inwardly. It seemed he wasn't the only one terrified last night.
Judging by the frantic scramble for supplies, it was even crazier than yesterday's rush on nutrient paste.
*When it comes down to it, famine won't starve anyone overnight, but the threat of infected entities... that's lethal.*
Cheng Ye took a lap around the market.
Before coming, he had worried about what materials to buy, never expecting the stall owners had already prepared complete, ready-made solutions.
From apartment complexes and tenements to roadside tents and dilapidated shacks, whenever anyone wanted to bolster their defenses, the wastelanders had already figured out a comprehensive playbook, stocking everything imaginable.
What was more, if you bought enough, they even offered free delivery right to your door.
"That'll be 580 coins, sir. I'll arrange people to deliver it for you right away."
Taking the Happiness Coins Cheng Ye handed over, the stall owner grinned from ear to ear, immediately turning around to organize hands.
Before long, two scrawny young men wheeled out a handcart and piled all the materials Cheng Ye had purchased onto it.
"Lead the way, sir. We'll be right behind you."
"Alright."
In the Buffer Zone, Cheng Ye wasn't worried about anyone daring to embezzle an inspector's money.
He headed back to the tenement building ahead of them, picked up a wrench, and went straight to work on the flimsy sheet-metal door.
Calling it dismantling was generous; two whacks at the hinges, and the whole thing snapped off on its own.
The rusted hinges shattered into pieces, leaving the doorframe rattling loudly.
*Damn. Forget about holding off infected entities—even a normal human could charge right through this.*
Cheng Ye glanced at the rust along the fractures with lingering dread, silently marveling at his sheer luck. If an infected entity had slipped in right after he transmigrated, relying on this door alone, he wouldn't even have known how he died.
Soon, the materials were hauled up to the hallway one by one.
Just carrying the heavy security door up to the fifth floor left the two lads panting heavily.
"Thanks for the trouble. Here's what you earned."
Cheng Ye fished two 5-coin Happiness Coins from his pocket and handed them over. The pair immediately beamed, their faces splitting into wide grins as they showered him with profuse thanks, eager to pour out every flattering word they knew.
Once they left, Cheng Ye looked at the small mountain of materials piled across the floor, and the anxiety that had weighed on his heart all night finally eased.
*With all this, if an infected entity tries to burst in, it won't be that easy, will it?!*
...
Chapter 45