Wasteland Border Inspector - Chapter 930

Chapter 930: Chapter 298: Mountain Body, Rune Revolution

A sudden three-minute moderate rain fell on Diversion Island, creating quite a stir.

Luokuke might wonder about the natural anomaly that occurred just as he set foot on the island.

After pondering over it for half an hour, by the time Cheng Ye returned to the dock on his wooden boat, Luokuke had already taken his people to patrol elsewhere.

The guards stationed at the waterproof wall, though surprised, dared not step forward to inquire.

Returning to his room, Cheng Ye removed his battle armor and sat at the table, picking up his pen once more.

This time, he no longer had a vague understanding of runes but possessed a clear and definite perception.

He wrote the word “rune” in large characters at the top of the white paper and began to systematically organize the currently known information:

[1. The key to breaking the cognitive barrier of runes lies not in “understanding” but in “carrying.”]

[2. The specific manner by which runes are carried is currently unknown, with potential groups speculated as innate talent holders, Martial Artists at the Unity of Heaven and Man Realm, and those in the Extraordinary Control State.]

[3. The carriers of runes must be able to directly supply energy to the rune. For example, runes engraved on immortal objects rely on converting life force to provide energy; runes in the Demon Eye Sponge’s Cotton Room are powered by its body. Additionally, Elders have mentioned that using immortal objects requires a significant cost, which may be in the form of massive amounts of life force.]

[4. Runes do not create matter out of thin air; the so-called “immortal methods” are essentially advanced applications of energy, a more extensive and convenient way of using resources, akin to human conversion of light and thermal energy. Runes cover a wider range of materials and can be applied more flexibly.]

[5. Every stroke of a rune has a distinct meaning and can be used independently. If one can master a large number of strokes, it might be possible to combine them and derive different usage methods.]

…

With these five core discoveries noted, Cheng Ye put down his pen and fell into deep thought.

Based on existing clues, it could be inferred that Yu Erlan in the Extraordinary Control State must understand how to carry and use runes to be able to condense air resources as a means of attack.

The Elders of Happiness City certainly know the characteristics and uses of runes, yet they never shared this information with Shi Xu, resulting in a lack of breakthrough progress in his research.

Even when Happiness City acquired immortal objects, they couldn’t utilize them effectively and could only trade them with Firewood for other technologies.

“So, what the Elders truly care about is not how to carry the rune itself or how to obtain the rune, but how to reduce the cost and threshold for using runes?”

Cheng Ye concluded, suddenly understanding why Shi Xu had long struggled to secure funding support.

In fact, Happiness City already had a clear answer to the research path he was pursuing.

But Yu Erlan wouldn’t speak of it, and the Elders wouldn’t volunteer to divulge it.

What if?

What if Shi Xu could really research a method to lower the threshold for carrying runes or find a new cognitive breakthrough?

In any case, squandering the resources of a research group and a director was still within Happiness City’s means.

Yet, if they directly closed off this path, it would mean Happiness City had completely abandoned the exploration of rune carrying.

However, Shi Xu’s research progress was too slow, lacking additional resource support, and he hadn’t even stepped through the door, still analyzing and speculating on the essence of runes, essentially overanalyzing and leaning more towards theory than application, thus securing funding was as difficult as climbing the sky.

“Following this line of thought, perhaps Firewood also hasn’t figured out how to lower the threshold for carrying runes, but they’ve likely made new breakthroughs in reducing the cost of rune usage.”

“Hmm… let me guess…”

Cheng Ye picked up his pen again and took a new piece of white paper, quickly jotting down his thoughts one by one:

[1. Among the “rune strokes” researched by Firewood, there may be runes of the “energy consumption reduction” type, which, when added to the main rune’s usage process, can directly reduce energy consumption.]

[2. Firewood found a “cheap” way to supply life force, such as raising large numbers of animals, mutant creatures, or even cultivating corresponding “cost-type” creatures to use such special creatures as substitutes for the direct extraction of life force from the human body by runes.]

[3. Among their ‘rune strokes,’ there might exist a life force gathering rune, similar to the Water Gathering Rune, but this rune can extract human life force, able to control the extraction magnitude. If each person only donates 5% of their life force in a cycle, it wouldn’t affect their life at all, yet accumulated, it becomes a sizeable amount, enough to power the runes.]

[4. Firewood, through potions or special means, has cultivated a group of “Blood Bull Warriors.” These individuals have life force far exceeding ordinary people, even comparable to the Extraordinary, serving as a stable energy source for runes.]

[5. Firewood mastered energy conversion techniques, capable of converting conventional energy types like electric, light, and thermal energy into forms required for supplying immortal objects or runes.]

…

Another five speculations were written down.

With modern logical thinking, a comprehensive analysis of massive related information, coupled with personal experience in carrying and using runes,

Cheng Ye rubbed his chin, secretly feeling that this intern researcher position was indeed worthwhile.

Though being asked to conduct professional research, producing hardcore results to put into practical production, he temporarily had no clue.

However, analyzing the various possibilities behind an extraordinary phenomenon was effortless, definitely meeting the intern standard of the research institute.

More importantly, no research speculation is built out of thin air, but has traces to follow, and in the future, if the opportunity arises, he might even have the capability to personally verify them.