After more than ten seconds had passed, he was still observing where to start, while Luokuke had already cut out a piece of marked flesh with a small knife and begun examining it.

In contrast, he seemed rather inexperienced in the Inspector’s area of expertise.

However, inexperienced as he was, as Cheng Ye placed the small knife on the mark behind the earlobe, the panel automatically opened.

[Collector detected biological information dissipating, automatically absorbing...]

"Eh, can it do this too?"

Cheng Ye raised an eyebrow. With the Collector assisting in detection, it couldn’t be simpler.

He quickly embedded the small knife into the flesh, watching the progress bar on the panel jump rapidly.

When the progress jumped to 60%, the panel immediately popped up a notification.

[Absorption completed, new biological record added: Soul-Hooking Catfish]

"As expected, it’s a source of multiple fusion infection..."

Cheng Ye exhaled slightly, feeling a bit relieved.

The Soul-Hooking Catfish was familiar to him, whether in the Happiness City Inspector’s manual or the Firewood apprenticeship assessment memories in recent days, detailed information related to it was present.

This is a common source of infection active near water, characterized by spiritual contamination.

Of course, this spiritual contamination definitely cannot compare with the Wanderer, being a kind of hallucination.

Similar to making humans think there’s another step forward, but it’s actually already water surface.

Or perhaps seeing something long-desired above the water, becoming emotionally stirred to enter, which rapidly increases contamination, never able to leave the water and eventually turns into a Water Ghost.

Such spiritual contamination usually won’t affect anyone if one has a strong will or is vigilant.

But the strange thing is, Water Ghosts can only operate underwater or at the water’s edge, possessing similar abilities to the Soul-Hooking Catfish, even weaker in creating hallucinations, only barely active at night.

Otherwise, why call it Water Ghost, wouldn’t it be more fitting to call it Land Ghost?

Like now, arriving on land to conspicuously contaminate other humans, is simply unheard of.

While pondering, the progress bar reached 75%, and a new notification popped up again:

[Absorption completed, new biological record added: Face-Changing Fish]

"Triple fusion?"

Watching the progress bar still rising on the panel, Cheng Ye was stunned.

Compared to the Soul-Hooking Catfish, the Face-Changing Fish is actually more common and considered a benign infection source.

After humans are infected, their appearance changes randomly, but the premise is not to touch water.

Once touching water, the change disappears instantly, and the face begins to rot.

Continuous seven days of not touching water are required for the face-changing effect to fully dissipate.

Generally speaking, such infection sources are most favored by assassins like Master Tian, the best way to escape after executing a task.

"How many infection sources are hidden beneath White Water River?"

Cheng Ye felt a shiver down his spine.

Being hooked by the Soul, changed faces, and it’s far from over, the ultimate infection source is probably the main reason these two Water Ghosts went ashore.

Yet the progress bar slowed down markedly, stopping completely at 90%.

Cheng Ye pondered slightly and turned to Luokuke, "Someone else? I’ll check your status!"

"Hmm?" Luokuke was taken aback for a moment, then nodded, signaling him to check freely.

By then, he had already cut six pieces of flesh from the first infected person and was pouring powdered substances from jars and bottles onto the flesh, carefully observing the changes.

It looked more like the research methods used by researchers like Qin Feng.

Cheng Ye picked up the small knife, placed it on the starting point of the tattoo on the second person, and gently sliced.

The progress bar on the panel began to rise again, but soon, a new message suddenly popped up:

[Absorption completed, Ghost Water Cave Crab’s characteristics enhanced]

Oh dear.

Four-fold fusion!

Cheng Ye’s heart silently clicked his tongue, it’s really hard to imagine someone could harbor so many types of infection sources.

The danger level beneath White Water River is probably far beyond expectations, luckily Jiang Chuan didn’t go underwater that day.

Brother B’s earlier words were indeed correct, facing the unknown Wilderness, one must maintain absolute reverence, because even the Extraordinary are not invincible.

Though his life level had already increased, there still were many instances with a 100% parasitic rate.

Perhaps, only by continuing to enhance the life level can one further boost immunity against such parasitism.

Finally.

The progress bar crawled steadily upwards, little by little reaching 100%.

The panel flashed sharply a few times, followed by a not surprising notification:

[Absorption completed, new biological record added: ???]

Indeed a completely unknown infection source, since Firewood Communication couldn’t find it and couldn’t rely on previously gathered information for analysis.

After all, such vast Wasteland only discovered and analyzed a tenth of infection sources by today.

Many continue mutating in places untouched by humans or have been hiding since the old era.

Only by triggering specific places will anyone discover its existence.

Cheng Ye silently pondered, opening the record functions.

Yet the next second, he was completely stupefied.

White, Blue, Purple, Red...

The record already contained four colors, regular infection sources are predominantly white, blue.

The purple entry only had Ghost Water Cave Crab.

The red, signifying Extraordinary entries, had only Vortex Turtle.

But now, there’s no new additions under these white, blue, purple, red entries; instead, at the bottom of the list, a completely new color appeared.

The color was intense and vibrant, resembling the noon sun, surprisingly pure... gold!

...