Upon leaving the shop, all the contribution points were instantly reset to zero, and he even owed 7 points.
As the fragmented sunlight leaked through the gaps in the clouds, danced on his shoulders, Cheng Ye touched the newly placed delivery receipt in his pocket, unable to suppress his excitement.
In the perilous wasteland, an appropriate, handy weapon is the fundamental root of settling down and making a living.
Its significance is no less than buying a car or a house in modern times.
"I bought my own extraordinary weapon in just two months?"
A bit dreamlike.
Even though behind this weapon, he first borrowed 100 points from Song Yongfeng and then owed 7 points to the shop.
But when compared to the modern man's mortgage which often starts at thirty years, Cheng Ye could only silently sigh at what a "good" era he had come to!
If he had transmigrated to a post-apocalyptic wasteland like in radiation-bathed backgrounds or places where people couldn't even find food and had to fight zombies for scraps.
Not to mention weapons, with the original host's physical condition, it's uncertain whether he could have survived to this day.
"Thank you, Happiness City, at least at this moment... I am truly happy."
Cheng Ye is a very contented person.
With the contribution points at zero, he directly put out the thought of going to look at firearms.
The standard pistol equipped for inspectors isn't unusable; without off-duty assignments, the Wild Bull Fighting Handgun isn't urgently needed.
Moreover, visiting the north and south stations comes with the opportunity to collect infection sources; with luck, two or three days of duty are enough to earn new contribution points and save up for hot weapons.
Of course, it's better not to be that "lucky."
The more one understands special infected bodies, the more one appreciates the hardships humans face surviving in a wasteland.
Especially the case mentioned by Luo Xiaoxue last night, where a special infected body successfully sneaked in and accumulated enough contribution points without being detected, eventually passing through the Gate of Happiness into Inner City.
Fortunately, the monitoring mechanism in the Inner City is quite comprehensive; before this infected body amassed enough strength to trigger secondary infections, it fell into a testing trap and was forced to reveal itself.
If it hadn't been discovered, Happiness City's scale would have had to shrink by at least half by now.
...
As he boarded the bus to the library, Cheng Ye found a seat in the back row and called up the collector.
The water-blue interface is quite simple, but the functions are fairly complete.
In the upper right corner of the panel, similar to a phone's battery level, the current charging progress is displayed.
[lv1.32%]
"The night before last, I charged 26 degrees at home, yesterday at the library another 23 degrees, and last night at Brother B's house, a bit less, only 18 degrees..."
Cheng Ye calculated in his mind, unable to contain his joy.
Accumulating to 50% earns one search opportunity; even though not every minute was utilized yesterday, the charging speed is much faster than previously estimated.
At this rate, by tomorrow morning he might have enough for a search opportunity.
He flipped to the collector's personal page.
To Cheng Ye's surprise, being hungry all night the day before yesterday resulted in no movement in the page data.
And after resting normally last night, the page surprisingly synchronized and updated the data during sleep.
"Do I need to sleep to update data?"
Memorizing this rule in his heart, Cheng Ye glanced up.
[Collector: Cheng Ye]
[Current Rank: lv.1 Intern (0.7/100, continue gathering more 'information degree' to upgrade)]
[Life Level: 0]
[Skills: Basic Power, Beast Intuition, Empty]
[Not yet unlocked...]
[Evaluation: You have already risen above the bottom of the food chain where you could be casually hunted by natives, but you are still far from reaching the minimum level of a Civilization Collector. Focus on searching for transmissible information to quickly progress and enhance your rank]
...
"Alright, at last, I'm not just a roadside stray to be kicked to death by natives..."
Besides the evaluation, Cheng Ye noticed the first item under rank, revealing specific upgrade requirements.
The 0.7 at the front should be the information feedback from acquiring two skills, while the following corresponds to the requirements for leaving the intern period.
"If one search yields 0.3, then 100 points would require over 300 searches."
"It would take nearly 16,000 degrees of electricity; that's too difficult. Even without taking hydro dams' closures during dry seasons or potential price hikes into account, if I charge 50 degrees a day, it would still take over half a year."
After calculating carefully, Cheng Ye felt the lengthy journey ahead, realizing that upgrading was even harder than becoming a qualified inspector from an intern.
However, he had a vague sense that the collector might have alternative charging methods, potentially not relying solely on electrical energy.
Unfortunately, in the current environment, the only accessible energy he could absorb was electric power.
Only after establishing a foothold in the buffer zone could he look for other energy forms the collector could absorb.
"To boost upgrade speed, I need to, as the evaluation said, focus on searching for transmissible information..."
"But, what qualifies as transmissible information?"
Cheng Ye pondered silently.
Until the bus alert announced 'Library Station', he had some vague ideas in mind, although these thoughts would require further searches to confirm if they held water.
"Mr. Cheng, you're here!"
As Cheng Ye pushed the door, Gwen, who was nestled in the small bed, raised her head to greet him.
"The book you didn't finish yesterday, I have organized it for you this morning, it's on the second desk."
"Thank you, Miss Gwen."
Cheng Ye nodded and took out a 10-value Happiness Coin from his pocket to hand over.
He didn't take the remaining 10 coins from the 20 he paid yesterday, so now he offers this 10 as a kind of deposit.
Who knew Gwen would shake her head, "No need, the deposit is just to screen customers. Your care for books and respect for knowledge need no further proof with a deposit."
"Oh?"
Cheng Ye chuckled softly and didn't retract the coin, "Then please help me exchange this 10 coins for nutrient paste, so I won't waste time going out to buy lunch and can keep reading."
"Alright, I'll heat it up and bring it to you at noon."
Even though he had only been here for a day, Cheng Ye felt more at home in this library than anywhere else.
As he passed through the shelves and saw the reading area, he was a little surprised.
No wonder Gwen left the unfinished book at the second desk—someone was already seated at the first desk.
It appeared to be a woman, but her outfit was quite unusual.
A large black headscarf wrapped around her head, and her face was tightly covered with a mask. Her lower body was dressed in the uncommon scavenger attire of recent Buffer Zone—a worn-out beast skin outfit paired with flat hiking shoes.
Cheng Ye glanced briefly and noticed the books she was leafing through and those on the edge of the table. They were precisely the ones Gwen had introduced yesterday, documenting special infected bodies.
"Another bounty hunter looking to make a fortune?"
Cheng Ye was slightly perplexed but soon shifted his gaze. He discreetly inserted the pendant into a slot, sat at the second desk, and began to rapidly turn the pages.
Soon, the sound of pages ruffling filled the air.
The woman frowned and looked over, confirming that Cheng Ye wasn't deliberately making noise to attract her attention, but was instead engrossed in reading. She could only shake her head in resignation.
"One Hundred Ways to Deal with Infected Bodies"
"Eight Tips to Kill Infected Bodies Effectively!"
"Earth Series, Air Series, Water Series, Fire Series, Migratory Series, Reproduction Series... Unraveling the Sources of Infected Bodies"
"A Must-Read for Real Men: Learn How to Avoid Ten Years of Wrong Turns in the Wasteland"
"..."
A thousand readers create a thousand Hamlets.
People of different personalities naturally have vastly different approaches to dealing with infected bodies.
Some excel at waiting for prey, while others prefer to take the initiative and strike first.
Some believe "if you can handle it from a distance, never engage in close combat," while others insist "close combat is more efficient, avoiding the dependency on ranged attacks."
Opinions vary, and these survival books are a perfect showcase of diverse perspectives.
Cheng Ye adopted an open-minded approach, voraciously absorbing the core information from each book.
When it comes to diversity of viewpoints, how can the wasteland compare to modern times?
What have modern people experienced?
Open a short video app, and within minutes, a hundred different creative angles are recommended, sparing no effort to dodge censorship.
Discussing manga with passionate fervor, even the reputation of "Boruto" can flip, from non-combustible material to audiences who have lost the Will of Fire.
Thus, some of the exaggerated expressions in books seemed to Cheng Ye as endearingly stubborn.
Why must long-range and close combat be so opposed, or waiting quietly and taking initiative be in conflict?
In different scenarios, there are distinct logical approaches to breaking through, and what he needed to do was sift through all potential solutions to find the optimal one.
Before he knew it, evening had arrived.
When Cheng Ye finished the last book on the first shelf, the wall clock had just chimed eight o'clock.
Outside the window, light rain began to fall again.
The woman at desk number one had left unnoticed, and the desktop gleamed with a clean, cool luster under Gwen's cleaning.
"It's raining again."
Cheng Ye stood up, looking around slowly, before placing all the read books back onto the shelf in order.
Hiding in this cozy little library for two days had calmed his restless heart.
But after all, this place was the wasteland.
According to some accounts in the books, the scale of infection tides ranged from small to large, divided into group, tide, plague, disaster, destruction, and extinction levels.
Since the start of the New Era, an extinction-level infection tide had not yet appeared, remaining a theoretical construct.
However, destruction-level infection tides had occurred four times, each sweeping away millions of infected, with Extraordinary beings of the old era mingling among them.
There was once a Shelter City multiple times larger than Happiness City, which planned to stand firm in the path of a destruction-level infection tide.
The outcome was naturally predictable. Despite employing every possible means, the city could not stop the tide's advance.
In less than half a day, the city was destroyed, millions of people were polluted into new infected bodies, nearly causing an extinction-level disaster.
Fortunately, as it approached the brink of extinction, the Extraordinary within reached their limit and began to retreat.
Humanity seized this opportunity to breathe, gradually dividing the massive infection tide into several smaller surges, redirecting them in different directions, barely controlling the spread of disaster.
"With Happiness City's current strength, not to mention withstanding extinction level, even encountering a destruction level is as futile as a mantis trying to stop a chariot."
"Before the true disaster strikes, I must accumulate enough power."
"At the very least, be able to escape!"
...