Wasteland Border Inspector - Chapter 926

Chapter 926: Chapter 297: Secrets of the Rune, the Path of the Immortal!

Head up, head down.

Head down, head up.

That slanting stroke “” was like a spiritual brand, carved deep into his mind, impossible to forget.

It would never again be like before, where he forgot everything the moment he looked away.

“How is this possible?”

Cheng Ye muttered to himself, utterly shaken. “I actually remembered this rune, but I’m not even sure what it means…”

He’d just been worrying about researching the rune, fretting over how to memorize it, and now it was already done?

Yet this process had skipped far too many of the twists and turns he’d imagined.

All sorts of bizarre thoughts surged through his mind like a flood through an opened gate, until finally freezing on a single guess.

“Could it be that after equipping the Little Nature Physique, I’ve turned into a rune receiver?”

As soon as this idea surfaced, Cheng Ye shook his head and denied it. “No, a receiver can only be like Brother B, sensing the power corresponding to the rune and describing that strange feeling, but unable to see the rune or remember its shape, while I can directly memorize the rune’s form…”

“Could it be that I’ve become a rune carrier?”

Cheng Ye was filled with shock. This discovery was too astonishing, leaving him a bit at a loss for a moment, unsure what step to take next.

First, all of Shi Xu’s deductions were guesses based on the current information they’d collected.

There was no empirical support, nor a reproducible environment.

And without reproducibility, there wasn’t much research value. Even if he went to Shi Xu to describe this state, it would be just like Liu Bi telling him he could sense the power of nature—like telling a story—and might even expose the existence of the Collector.

Second, if only by equipping a Perfect Level physique could one remember runes, then he might be the only person in the world with this ability.

Other people had no way to collect someone else’s physique to fuse it, unless in the future the Collector could grant skills to others; but if it ever reached that point, the secret of the runes should already have been cracked.

“Then what can this rune bring me?”

Thinking of this, Cheng Ye stopped overthinking it.

Since he couldn’t prove or reproduce the process of memorizing the rune, he might as well move on to the next step.

Figure out what this simple “” actually means, and how to use it to influence reality.

Right at this moment, the phantom of the Little Nature World began to slowly fade away.

Compared to the rough act of accommodating a brand-new talent, which would bring about drastic changes to the body,

The enhanced Little Nature Physique hadn’t gained any completely new traits, only targeted reinforcement.

The changes it brought were more like a spring drizzle, moistening things silently.

In the instant he returned to the warehouse, Cheng Ye immediately noticed that his skin, just like when he’d last equipped the Zeye Physique, was drying up and peeling off again. Layers of dry outer skin flaked into powder with the slightest touch, falling down in a rustle, as natural as an animal shedding its skin.

What surprised him even more was that when he lifted his shirt, the wild grass totem on his chest had changed as well.

What had once been just a cluster of lush green weeds had now transformed into a three-leaf clover totem.

The three leaves were broad and glossy, each different from the others:

The upper leaf bore crimson lines forged by thunder and fire, the left leaf shimmered with the moist luster of nourishing rain, and the right leaf remained the same fresh, oily green as before.

When it was equipped for the first time, all three leaves were glowing softly at the same time, emitting an indescribable energy fluctuation.

Shrouded in this fluctuation, Cheng Ye suddenly felt his clothes become loose on his body.

Hm?

He raised his hand in surprise and found that his bones and muscles were shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye.

His burly frame, which had almost hit two meters after accommodating the Shrinking Earth Giant Louse, was slowly returning to its original state.

“So I can’t be a big muscle guy anymore?”

He’d gotten used to the higher field of view from before, so the sudden drop in height made Cheng Ye a bit unaccustomed.

But as his body returned to its primordial form, an even more surging Life Force began to churn and spiral in his chest, as if it had been highly compressed.

Even without deliberately testing, he could clearly feel his physical stats rapidly rising, soaring, skyrocketing!

What surprised Cheng Ye even more was that despite crossing the huge chasm from rare to perfect, the intense hunger that always accompanied the fusion of a new talent this time never came. Instead, a persistent sense of fullness lingered.

Something stirred in his heart, and he immediately grasped the key.

The rune.

Strictly speaking, it should be the materials decomposed from the Heart Lake Martial Domain that provided the energy.

Unlike Skill Fusion of the same grade, which required the Collector himself to power the new skill, this time the upgrade materials actually carried sufficient energy, perfectly making up for what was needed for the skill’s advancement.

“It’s hard to imagine how many more strange unknowns in this world are waiting for me to uncover?”

Cheng Ye stood there dazed, carefully feeling every subtle change the Perfect Level physique brought to his body.

Only after more than ten minutes did he come back to himself from that mysterious state.

The skill panel popped up automatically, and detailed prompts about the Little Nature Physique appeared line by line:

[Little Nature Physique (Level 3; Perfect)]

[Effect]: Moderately increases Life Force; slightly increases defensive power; slightly increases strength

[Special Bonus]: Water Gathering Rune (Completeness: 1/7)

Effect: Unknown (due to insufficient current rank, unable to collect and analyze this rune’s ability)

Consumption: Each use consumes Life Force (maximum consumption does not exceed 99% of the Collector’s current Life Force)

…

“Water Gathering Rune?”