Cheng Ye couldn't help glancing back at the little flame on the bed, and a surge of indescribable emotion rose in his chest.

Extraordinary.

So this really is another Realm of Life!

He hadn't expected that even in its fledgling eagle form, the little flame was already this smart.

He really didn't dare imagine what level it would reach once it fully grew.

Besides.

The shared attributes that were previously unavailable had finally gotten a bonus now.

Even though it was just over a 1% bonus at most, he wasn't disappointed. As long as the flame kept growing, those numbers would definitely climb higher and higher. Little by little, one day they'd undergo a qualitative change.

As for abilities, Cheng Ye didn't care too much.

Since both kinds of flames in the brazier were too ordinary, it was normal they weren't very useful right now.

In the future, once he went into the Wilderness to find more kinds of flames, what he should have, he'd have.

"Looks like when I searched for Heart-Protecting Fire back then, I really did search for the right thing."

Cheng Ye nodded slightly. "Relying on the flame to replenish Heart Power consumption, I can afford to be a bit more reckless when accepting Information Skills later and speed up my learning."

Of course, that was how he put it, but he'd also noticed the flame's current condition.

It made sense that a powerful skill like Scorching Eagle Heart Fire, which replenished Heart Power, definitely came with an internal cooldown.

With the flame's current growth progress, it still couldn't pull off continuous use.

Also, if he was going out adventuring later, he'd have to be cautious about equipping Information Skills, so he wouldn't fall into a disadvantage in a fight because his Heart Power got drained too fast.

Still, judging from what the evaluation bar said, accepting information should also count as a kind of special training.

If he stuck with it, maybe his Brain Domain really would get developed, and like his physical attributes, grow stronger and stronger!

Thinking this, Cheng Ye closed the panel and simply put the flame back into the Spiritual Body Space to rest.

He got up, took out six packs of Nutrient Paste and started heating them, deliberately grabbing two blue-bag special Nutrient Pastes.

These Nutrient Pastes did have a one‑month shelf life, but he'd stockpiled too much. If he didn't hurry up and drink them, half of them would probably expire and go to waste.

Taking advantage of the gap while the Nutrient Paste was heating, Cheng Ye habitually pulled out his Defense Communication, swiped open the screen, and checked for new messages.

But the screen was squeaky clean, not even a system notification.

Looked like the checkpoint had really thrown Intern Inspectors like him—currently "between jobs"—into the free‑range list, which actually saved him a lot of petty trouble.

He casually tossed the Defense Communication onto the table, then fished out the Happiness Communication hidden in the waterproof bag.

He lit up the screen and immediately raised his eyebrows.

The download icon at the top right corner of the screen had finally disappeared, replaced by a completion prompt.

"Finally done downloading!"

Cheng Ye's eyes lit up.

The originally estimated 144‑hour activation time had been dragged out to nearly 190 hours because Happiness City had been reallocating network resources so frequently lately.

Fortunately, the Happiness Communication could go invisible and hook into the net at night to download—on good nights it could jump 10%, on bad nights at least 5%. In the end, it hadn't been for nothing.

He immediately fumbled out the badge from the bottom of the waterproof bag and gently pressed it against the back.

The screen lit up at once, and a progress bar began to roll quickly.

Three minutes later, the progress bar vanished, but the interface didn't change much.

There were still only three options: [Rank Tasks], [Information Search], [Information Link].

But the previously greyed‑out Information Search finally lit up.

"Heh, now we've got something."

Cheng Ye hid the badge back in the waterproof bag, then, sipping the freshly heated Nutrient Paste, tapped into Information Search.

According to Firewood Shelter City's requirements for Intern Inspectors, if they wanted a promotion, they had to completely memorize all required materials for the internship period, and they had to score above 95 on the assessments to pass.

Now that he opened it, it was like flipping open a book; six new categories had indeed appeared inside.

On the left side of the book were: [Infection Sources], [Infected Bodies], [Mutant Creatures].

On the right side were: [Basic Science], [Basic Medicine], [Basic Languages].

"Yo, so this is how Firewood trains Inspectors?"

With interest, Cheng Ye tapped into the Infection Sources category. Text and illustrations instantly popped up on the screen.

He hadn't expected the very first page to be the most common "Green Giant" infection source.

Appearance description, infection routes, weak point markings—there wasn't much difference from Happiness City's teaching materials.

But when he glanced at the "Total Entries" at the bottom of the page, there were actually a full five hundred infection sources.

That was nearly one‑third more than the 350 that Intern Inspectors in Happiness City were required to master.

He then opened the Infected Bodies and Mutant Creatures categories and found that their numbers also far exceeded Happiness City's data.

Obviously, Firewood Shelter City was larger in scale and covered a wider area. The dangers their Inspectors had to deal with were more numerous, so naturally they had to master more comprehensive knowledge.

Besides these, Firewood Shelter City also set requirements for basic knowledge that Happiness City didn't train at all.

When he tapped into Basic Science, he found it actually subdivided into four major categories: mathematics, biology, physics, and chemistry.

Each page displayed about 200 words, and the table of contents ran to 860 pages.

"Damn, that's no small workload..."

Cheng Ye flipped a few pages and found it was basically textbook knowledge from middle school through high school.

Not unfamiliar, but with his current level, he'd still need some time to review.

Basic Medicine and Basic Languages were much simpler. The former only covered basic battlefield medical knowledge—like how to use the most efficient method to keep yourself alive when facing various injuries—and didn't involve treating others. The latter covered iconic languages from all over the Wasteland, sixteen in total, and for each language you only needed to learn a hundred common phrases.

"If their IQ is normal, an Intern Inspector in Firewood probably needs about a year to get through all this, about the same pace as Happiness City, but the training directions are completely different routes."