HBWnovel Chapter 336: Transcendent Plant, Fiery Sunflower!
Chapter 336: Transcendent Plant, Fiery Sunflower!
October 19, New Era Year 35.Before anyone realized it, it was already the fifth day since they had set out on their field duty.
After a day of continuous drizzle, the rain actually grew heavier the following day.
The pattering light rain turned into a moderate downpour, blanketing the entire wilderness in a hazy mist and transforming the ground into a muddy swamp.
The alarm rang. Cheng Ye climbed up, his gaze sweeping toward the Sunlight Slate on the dashboard.
The slate's glow had grown increasingly faint, leaving only a pale halo spread across its spiral light path.
He pressed his pendant against it. Based on the charging time, the power output had plummeted to a mere 1.9kw, less than a twentieth of its peak output. Surprisingly, this corresponded perfectly with the efficiency drop of standard photovoltaic panels in such weather.
'Hmm, photovoltaic panels utilize the photovoltaic effect, absorbing photon energy like visible light and near-infrared rays from the sun to cause electrons in semiconductor materials to jump and form an electric current.'
'I wonder how the Sunlight Slate absorbs photons to convert energy while maintaining a stable, long-term power output. If I could analyze its input and output principles... No, even if I only analyzed its energy transmission technology, it would be enough to cause an earth-shattering leap in our current technological level.'
Cheng Ye lay there pondering for a moment, feeling increasingly convinced that he needed to search for some genuine scientific research skills to lay a solid theoretical foundation.
Otherwise, when encountering situations like this, he could only rely on parsing and guessing, making it difficult to produce conclusive theoretical data to support his judgments.
Pushing the door open and stepping out of the car, he saw Zhang Daping, whose leg was broken, sitting under the canopy, using a hand-crank generator to charge a Camping Lamp.
He turned the crank at a steady pace, crank after crank, and the charging indicator light beneath the Camping Lamp flashed continuously in rhythm.
This was the most common charging method for humans in the Wasteland Wilderness.
Photovoltaic panels were hard to maintain, bulky, and required strict environmental conditions, needing wide-open spaces to be deployed.
Hand-crank generators, on the other hand, were not limited by the environment. As long as one had stamina, they could generate electricity at any time.
With continuous cranking, its maximum charging power could reach 50w, with an average output of around 20w.
The Camping Lamp had a maximum power of 5w, but it was usually set to a 1-to-3w low-light mode. Paired with a 10Ah battery, it could guarantee two nights of illumination, and once completely drained, it only took two hours of cranking to fully charge.
"Why not rest a little longer?" Cheng Ye walked over, picking up another hand-crank generator and turning it alongside him.
Although it seemed effortless to turn the crank, maintaining a stable output actually required some skill. Zhang Daping's speed was very even, neither too fast nor too slow.
"Inspector Cheng, you guys are all busy working. I've been resting for the past two days, and I've finally recovered my strength. It's just this leg that can't move. If I could walk, I would definitely follow you out to scavenge and set up camp."
Zhang Daping spoke with a simple, honest expression, but the movements of his hands did not pause for a second.
"Yeah, we'll stay for another two or three days, and set out once the rain stops," Cheng Ye said after cranking for a while, then stood up.
The research on the Stone Sunflower People was certainly important, and they were currently approaching the final stage of solving the mystery.
However, once the situation regarding the underground Transcendent Mother Source was clarified and the behavioral patterns of the Stone Sunflower People were fully analyzed, there would be little point in staying any longer.
After all, to complete the containment of the Transcendent Mother Source, his current strength was far from sufficient.
Just like how the Immortal Object ultimately required Tan Ming to step in and exhaust its energy before it could be contained, containing a Transcendent Mother Source naturally required returning to the city for reinforcements and bringing an entire team to cooperate on the task.
If an Elder could come and hold the fort, it would be even safer; there was no need for him to risk his life charging in blindly.
Of course, once reinforcements were called in, he would inevitably be put in a passive position during the final division of interests.
'If the underground Mother Source is truly capable of continuously producing Sunlight Slates, then it's absolutely impossible for me to get a share of the profits. It will definitely be confiscated by the city, and at most, I'll be rewarded with some Contribution Points and supplies...'
Cheng Ye walked up to the shelter's watchtower, gazing quietly at the rain-shrouded canyon in the distance, deep in thought.
In the past, when his strength was low, he would have undoubtedly abandoned the field duty without a second thought and run back to Happiness City to fetch people.
But now he had Dabo Town, which was almost equivalent to an independent town.
He also had a group of people following behind him, giving him the foundation to build his own faction.
Even constructing the Dabo Town Research Institute required an exorbitant amount of funds; it was impossible to rely on Happiness City's support to build it.
Inevitably, when encountering such a situation, he naturally had to scheme to line his own pockets with more benefits.
This was a delicate art, requiring him to comprehensively weigh the shifting situation while ensuring no one could pick out the slightest fault.
'If killing those reserve Stone Sunflower People underground yields the same Traits, that means I can exchange the Traits for thousands of standard Sunlight Slates, as well as an equal amount of redstone.'
'Even with the other three Traits, I could still accumulate dozens of exchange opportunities at the very least.'
'But if the shelter city sends people over to exterminate them all, I'd lose out on this entire wave of Traits.'
Cheng Ye calculated rapidly in his mind.
He was the only one who could harvest the Traits from the Stone Sunflower People. If he cleared them out little by little, no one could gossip about it.
As for the remaining Transcendent Mother Source, if he could strip the Traits from it, he would profit even more.
In short: he could hand over the results, but he had to maintain total control over the process.
The value of the Sunlight Slate couldn't be quantified by tens or hundreds of thousands of Contribution Points. Once the complete technology was parsed, it could absolutely become a pillar technology for a shelter city. Its worth was incalculable.
Of course, the premise of all these schemes was ensuring that the Stone Sunflower People wouldn't leave the Red River Gathering Place to wreak havoc.
If the underground Transcendent Mother Source and the Infected Bodies were to join the winter Infection Tide, then the sooner they were eliminated, the better.
Additionally, he had to keep an eye on Yin Ruofeng and Zhang Daping, making sure they didn't leak any information about the Red River Gathering Place.
Seeing Liu Bi returning with the others, Cheng Ye went over to help unload the supplies, then shot Liu Bi a meaningful look.
Liu Bi immediately caught on. After arranging tasks for the others, he followed Cheng Ye to a secluded spot.
"Brother B, I have an idea I want to discuss with you."
"Go ahead," Liu Bi said, picking up a towel to wipe the rainwater from his face.
"I've made a breakthrough in my research on the Stone Sunflower People. Remember when I said I picked this thing up from the cave? In truth, it's a material that drops after a Stone Sunflower Person dies."
As Cheng Ye spoke, he pulled a Sunlight Slate from his chest pocket.
It wasn't a synthesized large slate, but the small slate that had dropped from the Stone Sunflower Person.
Liu Bi took it, slowly rubbing his thumb along the spiral patterns, quickly realizing the implication. "Is this thing very valuable?"
"A single piece isn't worth much, but the parsable technology it contains is probably worth..."
Cheng Ye held up a single finger as he spoke.
Liu Bi's brow twitched, and he made a bold guess. "One million Contribution Points?"
Though he had poured his entire net worth into the construction of Dabo Town and couldn't even scrape together ten thousand, let alone a hundred thousand or a million Contribution Points right now.
But as a veteran Fourth-Stage Inspector, he knew the immense value of new technology parsed from Infection Sources.
One million was at most the price of standard technology. In genuine trades between shelter cities, three to five million was very common.
Seeing that Cheng Ye remained silent, Liu Bi felt a jolt of shock. "Could this thing be worth ten million?"
"No, ten million doesn't cover its value."
Cheng Ye took a deep breath, lowering his voice. "The technology behind it could probably prop up an entire... shelter city!"
"What?!" Liu Bi couldn't help but exclaim, then hurriedly lowered his voice. "It's that valuable?"
"Yes. Just this tiny piece of slate alone can output a stable 3kw of power when placed in the sunlight. We can even boost the output by splicing together larger slates or adding the special redstone from the Stone Sunflower People's faces."
Cheng Ye then pulled out three different slates in succession.
They were a tier-two slate, a tier-one slate, and an unranked small slate.
Liu Bi's gaze immediately locked onto the tier-two slate. The embedded redstone instantly reminded him of the Stone Sunflower Person they had killed the day before yesterday. "What about this one?"
"Its peak power output can reach 40kw!"
Hiss.
Liu Bi drew a sharp breath, his expression shifting rapidly before settling into grave solemnity.
He didn't understand the technical details, but he knew the value of something that could stably output 40kw in the wasteland all too well. He even couldn't help but link it to Guanghong's new type of energy.
The Super-Concentrating Photosynthesis Panel was the core of Guanghong's new energy, its value lying in three points: portability, low maintenance, and stability.
An unfolded photosynthesis panel had an area of 5 by 5 meters and a thickness of roughly 45 centimeters. Paired with a power transmission base, it could stably generate 100kw in clear weather.
An ordinary gathering place only needed to buy ten panels to satisfy its long-term energy needs.
What was even more insidious was that the charging base came with an encrypted protocol. If you wanted to output the energy, you had to buy Guanghong's matching infrastructure.
To put it bluntly, buying the photosynthesis panels meant outsourcing a gathering place or shelter city's energy system to Guanghong. The profits involved were beyond imagination.
Yet the Sunlight Slate in front of him was far smaller than a photosynthesis panel, but it could provide nearly half the power output.
"Quick, put it away. Don't let outsiders see it."
Liu Bi urged urgently, but just as the words left his mouth, he suddenly remembered—where would there be outsiders in this vast wasteland?
They had been here for three days and hadn't seen a single soul. This place was truly utterly abandoned.
"So what do you want to do now?"
"The safest approach is to return to the city immediately and report this information. That way, we're highly likely to receive a handsome reward, easily ten or a hundred times the earnings of this field duty."
"Yeah, and the other options?"
"A slightly riskier approach is to stay here and study it deeply. We report the information only when our progress completely stalls.
But this process could be very long—at least a month as a baseline."
"Me driving back to fetch some living supplies wouldn't be a problem." Liu Bi nodded, then sharply shifted the topic. "But have you considered all the risks involved during the research process?"
"Yes. Actually, the fewer people there are, the more controllable the risks become. I'd be safer staying here alone."
Cheng Ye stroked his chin and continued, "As for the riskiest approach, we proceed with our original field duty plan in two or three days, pretending we never came here. Once the field duty is over, I'll secretly bring a team back to establish a hidden base here for research."
Whoa.
Liu Bi clicked his tongue in amazement, looking Cheng Ye up and down. "You've got quite the nerve, kid. Are you thinking of ditching the shelter city and going solo?"
"Dabo Town has already been approved to establish a Research Institute, and I'm a Researcher myself. I inherently have the authority to conduct independent research."
Cheng Ye gently shook his head, his tone growing heavier. "Brother B, the construction of the satellite city has already begun. From here on out, we'll only need more and more money. Developing Dabo Town requires money, and supporting East Peace Town requires money too. We can't just keep waiting for the shelter city's support; we have to find ways to generate our own income and cut costs."
"I'm not saying we should break away from Happiness City once we make money. It's just that if we want to get things done, and do them smoothly, we need to have funds and confidence in our own hands..."
The extravagance of the Davidson family went without saying; their intertwined network of relationships practically monopolized the entire Industrial District.
Li Ming's small clique of Inspectors was even more exaggerated. They could casually pull out a three-million investment, and maintained trade relations with over two hundred external shelter cities.
But Cheng Long hadn't left behind any fortune back then, and Liu Bi had never put his mind to making money.
Transcendent Power allowed a person to walk the wasteland without fearing bizarre Infection Sources and Infected Bodies, but to feed the group of ordinary people following them, mere strength was far from enough.
This also applied to supporting the subsequent equipment development and upgrades for the Heavy Machinery Faction. Every single thing required money, and they had to figure out how to earn it themselves.
Liu Bi paced back and forth for two or three minutes before gritting his teeth and asking, "How confident are you?"
"Right now, only about thirty percent."
Cheng Ye didn't inflate the numbers; instead, he added truthfully, "If we complete the field duty and return to the city as planned, and then I bring back sufficient instruments and equipment to spend two or three months solely on research, my chances could rise to fifty, or even sixty percent."
"And if our luck holds out, with a little more..."
Before he could finish his sentence.
Liu Bi unexpectedly interrupted him, his expression stern. "Say no more. There's no such thing as a hundred percent certainty in this world. For me, a fifty percent chance is worth the gamble. If it were Brother Long, he wouldn't hesitate to go for it even with just thirty percent."
"You just need to think one thing through clearly: can you accept the cost of failure?"
Failure?
Cheng Ye froze for a second, instantly grasping Liu Bi's concern. He was worried that Cheng Ye would exhaust all his energy on the research only to end up with nothing, wasting time and potentially paying other unbearable costs.
But Liu Bi didn't know that with the Civilization Collector in hand, every step Cheng Ye took forward would only yield gains; there was no such thing as a true "cost."
Even if he failed to decipher the complete technological chain in the end, the slates and Energy-Gathering Redstone materialized from the Traits were already supplies worth millions of Contribution Points.
"I can accept the cost," Cheng Ye nodded solemnly.
Liu Bi immediately pivoted. "Alright then. Leave Yin Ruofeng and Zhang Daping to me. I'll make sure they don't leak any information about the Red River Gathering Place."
"How are you going to handle it?" Cheng Ye asked instinctively.
But Liu Bi shook his head meaningfully and reached out to pat his shoulder. "Back during the Great Reclamation Era, if an Inspector wanted to lead a team outside, they had to finish a series of mandatory courses first. Looking at them now, those courses were certainly a bit dark and brutal—unpresentable even—but their effects were rock-solid."
"You still have a long road ahead, and the current environment isn't suitable for learning such manipulative tricks anymore. If you're really curious, I'll teach you slowly once we return to the city this winter."
Good heavens, Brother B really hid his depths well.
Cheng Ye was stunned, the look in his eyes as he gazed at Liu Bi shifting slightly before quickly returning to normal.
A simple-hearted, reliable older brother who took care of everything—that was merely the side Liu Bi had chosen to show him.
Just like how he presented himself to Liu Bi with sincerity and absolute trust.
Yet in the eyes of outsiders, even in Elder Ou's eyes, Inspector Cheng was a deeply calculating and shrewd figure.
Liu Bi was a Fourth-Stage Inspector who had survived since the Great Reclamation Era. How could he possibly be truly "naive"?
"Alright." Cheng Ye opened his mouth, but ultimately just sighed. "Don't hurt them."
"Relax, violent coercion is the lowest tier of methods in the wasteland. Making someone voluntarily forget out of sheer gratitude is the true essence of keeping a secret. Besides, our Happiness City has strict standards for selecting caravan members anyway. If we weren't worried about them relaying the information back to the city, there'd be no need to take this extra step."
"Mhm. I'll head to the mine then. Contact me via radio if anything comes up."
After parting ways with Liu Bi, Cheng Ye rode his Flying Wings toward Mine No. 1, suddenly glancing back midway.
Liu Bi was still standing there watching him, his eyes carrying a bit of validation and encouragement.
The meticulous "sense of care" from the past had slowly faded, replaced by the side-by-side tacit understanding of friends and comrades-in-arms.
Cheng Ye suddenly felt deeply moved, a quiet realization blooming in his heart.
In the Wasteland world, even between Cheng Long and Liu Bi, what bound them together wasn't solely years of friendship.
What truly allowed people to open their hearts to one another and willingly entrust their backs to each other, apart from mutually pursued ideals and resonant Beliefs, was undoubtedly the intertwining of interests and the unbreakable bond forged by weathering storms together.
The old Liu Bi had simply been fulfilling his lingering affection for Cheng Long, unilaterally looking after Cheng Ye and treating him as his closest junior.
But as they forged forward step by step, enduring a life-and-death trial and finding themselves bound by grand, shared interests, Liu Bi had finally begun to respect his choices, throwing his full weight into supporting Cheng Ye and clearing the obstacles from his path.
'If I hadn't told Brother B about the massive benefits behind the Stone Sunflower People, and had instead hidden it to research secretly on my own, he would surely be immensely disappointed if he ever found out, wouldn't he?'
Cheng Ye thought to himself, never expecting that he would stumble into making the most correct choice by accident.
The Flying Wings landed smoothly inside Mine No. 1. He composed himself and pondered for a moment before tucking away his stray thoughts.
The gloomy rain in the sky persisted relentlessly. He took out the slate to test its power output and found that the reading had climbed back up to around 4kw.
Although the clouds blocked direct sunlight, a large amount of scattered light still penetrated the cloud layer to reach the ground. This scattered light similarly contained photons within the visible spectrum.
Judging by the power generation laws of photovoltaic panels, if the rain remained steady, the final output would likely stabilize at around 15% of its peak value.
That would mean roughly 6kw.
The time ticked past eight o'clock.
The Stone Sunflower People clocked in for "work" right on time.
What made Cheng Ye feel "relieved" was that a new Stone Sunflower Person had actually filled the vacancy in Mine No. 2 above. However, its face was embedded with only two fingertip-sized redstones; comparatively speaking, it had the lowest redstone count among all the current Stone Sunflower People.
Furthermore, affected by the reduced light intensity, the Stone Sunflower People looked notably more disheartened. They stood listlessly at the cave entrances, fully displaying the decrepit appearance of miserable laborers.
In the blink of an eye, it was 1:00 PM, and the 25% charging energy requirement was finally met.
Cheng Ye sat cross-legged at the mine entrance. He didn't choose to go up and kill the Stone Sunflower Person to accumulate the sunlight Trait for materializing slates.
In this endless rainy weather, even if the slate's area was expanded, its power output would struggle to return to peak levels, at most increasing by 1-
to 2kw, which would not meaningfully alter his current situation.
Right now, what he cared about more was the true situation underground, to verify if the intelligence he had analyzed yesterday was accurate.
He opened the Biological Compendium.
His eyes locked firmly onto the Stone Sunflower Person's third Trait: Flame Energy Conversion.
"Extract intelligence: Flame Energy Conversion. Selected direction: the entire process of Flame Energy Conversion."
Cheng Ye silently issued the command in his mind, and the energy value in the top right corner instantly reset to zero.
Streaks of purple light converged on the System Panel. The fully stocked Trait Value of the Flame Energy Conversion immediately dropped by 100%, indicating the successful extraction of the corresponding intelligence.
Hum.
The panel flickered abruptly as the previously marked question marks slowly dissipated. It had clearly extracted the core information necessary to fully decipher the Stone Sunflower Person.
However, before he could review the specific details, his surrounding scenery shattered ahead of him.
The world before his eyes disintegrated into pixels. In its place emerged a special space constructed entirely from the extracted intelligence.
By now, actively selecting the direction of the intelligence no longer degraded its quality. The only drawback was the lack of unexpected surprises.
Cheng Ye calmed his mind and quickly noticed that his perspective was similarly focused inside the cave.
The difference was that the owner of this perspective was not himself, but a Stone Sunflower Person bouncing forward.
He paused the view and switched to a third-person perspective, freezing slightly in surprise.
This Stone Sunflower Person was none other than the one he had killed yesterday in Mine No. 2.
Pulling the perspective out to the canyon, he could also determine from the location that this was the area of Mine No. 2.
Cheng Ye even tried dragging the view downward, but there were no traces left in Mine No. 1. This proved that the timeline of this intelligence occurred before his group had fled into Mine No. 1.
The perspective reset, following the Stone Sunflower Person as it hopped all the way down the mine shaft.
Whether this intelligence revealed the truth he desired or not, it at least provided a reference route from Mine No. 2 to the underground.
That alone made it worth it!
Cheng Ye thought to himself, his gaze tightly locked onto the path extending deep underground from the mine.
This place looked no different from a regular mine. Abandoned cableways hung overhead, and flight after flight of emergency stairs stretched out beneath his feet.
The Stone Sunflower Person bounced steadily down the stairs, every landing flawlessly precise and exceptionally stable.
At the same time, based on the number of stairs, he could roughly calculate the extent of their descent.
Ten meters, thirty meters, fifty meters.
The Stone Sunflower Person's footsteps never stopped, as if it intended to travel all the way to the deepest reaches of the mine.
Meanwhile, the thudding sound of bouncing and muffled footsteps gradually echoed from the surroundings. Clearly, all the Stone Sunflower People "standing guard" at the cave entrances were gathering somewhere ahead.
As expected, after descending another thirty meters, a buffer platform appeared in his field of view.
Entrances of varying sizes dotted the area around the platform. Presumably, when miners came down here in the past, they would scatter to the different shafts to dig.
The Stone Sunflower Person from Mine No. 2 waited for barely half a minute before numerous dark silhouettes converged from all around.
Cheng Ye immediately paused the frame to count: exactly 91 figures.
Currently, there were 107 Stone Sunflower People absorbing sunlight on the surface. That meant from the time this intelligence was recorded until now, another 16 Stone Sunflower People had been added underground.
As long as he could determine the time gap between the two points, he could calculate the production efficiency of the Sunlight Slates.
The newly gathered group of Stone Sunflower People moved in unison toward a large mine tunnel marked with the number "17".
The larger Stone Sunflower People silently led the way, while the smaller ones hopped along right behind them. The entire scene exuded an indescribable eeriness.
Upon entering the mine tunnel, the stairs beneath their feet vanished entirely, and the space ahead abruptly widened.
The area was several times larger than the previous passage. Looking up, the ceiling disappeared into pitch blackness; a rough estimate put the height at well over six meters.
Damp air, carrying the reek of raw earth, wafted over, mixed with a faint, lingering putrid smell.
Excavation marks were clearly visible on the rock walls on both sides and even on the ceiling.
The dense pickaxe marks looked like countless ugly scars embedded unevenly into the stone.
Overall, this place was no different from the mines in Cheng Ye's impression.
However, this suppressed silence was utterly shredded the moment the group of Stone Sunflower People hopped around the corner.
A split second later, a horrific scene—one terrifying enough to freeze the blood in his veins—slammed into his vision without any warning.
The moment he clearly registered the sight, even though he was just in the intelligence space without a physical body, Cheng Ye felt a rush of cold travel furiously from his soles straight to the top of his head. Every hair on his body stood on end.
Coiled within the darkness of the ceiling was a fiery red vine as thick as a water bucket!
It resembled a slumbering crimson-scaled python, winding and twisting across the rocks, dominating more than half of the ceiling. A dark red luster slowly rippled across the vine's surface, radiating a heart-palpitating demonic aura.
Although the vine's surface was covered in coarse hairs similar to those on a sunflower stalk, this "fuzz" lacked any of the gentleness of plants. Each hair was half a meter thick, resembling twisted, brownish-red giant fingers, with rings of grayish-black suckers growing at their bases.
The edges of the suckers were lined with dense barbs. When attached to the rock wall, they pulsated slightly, as if greedily absorbing something. Faint traces of dark red sap dripped down the edges of the suckers, pooling into dark, murky stains on the stone.
But the most hair-raising sight was what hung from those suckers. Humans with faces as ashen as death had their heads securely clamped by the suckers, dangling in midair like suspended sacrifices.
All of the bodies hung stiffly. Their skin had long lost the vibrant color of the living, turning a lifeless greenish-gray. Their eyes were wide open, their pupils dilated, but the extreme fear they felt right before death remained permanently frozen in their gaze.
The clothing on some corpses was rotten and shredded, exposing skin riddled with dark purple ligature marks. The limbs of others were twisted at unnatural angles; clearly, they had been forcibly restrained amidst extreme agony, leaving even their final struggles forever immortalized.
Cheng Ye forcefully suppressed the churning in his stomach. Sweeping his gaze forward, his heart sank even further.
The mine shaft was bottomless, and the corpses hanging from the ceiling were layered upon each other. It was impossible to count them—hundreds, maybe thousands—forming a macabre corridor paved entirely with the dead.
The putrid smell in the air suddenly became distinct and overpowering, assaulting his nose alongside the raw scent of dirt and making him want to gag.
Even though he had witnessed the bizarre spectacle of hundreds of Crab-men kneeling in pilgrimage by the lake, the horrific scenes underground continued to batter his vision, awakening humanity's most primal shivering in the face of extreme terror.
Purgatory.
This was simply a purgatory on earth!
Cheng Ye couldn't describe what kind of emotion was surging within his chest. Was it anger, extreme fear, or sheer disbelief?
He could only force himself to regain his calmness, lowering his vision to avoid looking at the tragedy above. Fixing his eyes squarely on the vines beneath his feet, he continued moving forward.
As they descended deeper underground, the winding vines grew increasingly dense.
They blanketed the ceiling and coiled around the walls of the mine. Even the floor was covered by thick vines. When the Stone Sunflower People bounded across them, they yielded with an unsettling, fleshy elasticity.
Thud.
Rounding the corner, the large Stone Sunflower People in front gradually slowed their pace, and the smaller ones trailing behind decelerated their hopping in tandem, as if expressing some kind of reverence for the destination they were about to reach.
After passing through a narrow cave opening, a smooth vine slide abruptly appeared beneath their feet, leading straight down.
At this moment, however, Cheng Ye's attention wasn't on the slide at all. His entire gaze was fixed on the massive cavity within the underground mine, carved out for reasons unknown.
To be more precise, it was locked onto the giant creature occupying the center of the cavern.
Whoosh.
The instant he laid eyes on the mastermind behind it all, the fear he had felt just moments ago vanished completely, leaving behind only an inexplicable sense of perfect calm.
He paused the perspective and slowly zoomed in.
An untouchable, unapproachable, and unmatched aura of transcendent majesty erupted from the colossal organism, sweeping out with a suppressive pressure originating from its very essence of life.
However, right as it approached, it was partially neutralized by a resplendent, searing aura before being completely blocked by a blood-red barrier lined with golden patterns, failing to advance even a single inch further.
Without the transcendent majesty obstructing his view, the entity's full appearance was laid bare before Cheng Ye's eyes.
It was a gigantic, thoroughly fiery red sunflower.
It stood firmly in the center of the cavern. Its oval face possessed a diameter approaching ten meters. Like a colossal millstone heated red by roaring flames, it tyrannically dominated the core of the entire space, reducing everything around it to mere backdrop.
Its petals were not the tender yellow of a regular sunflower, but the crimson of molten magma. Every single petal was as wide as a sail, curling at the edges like a solidified tongue of fire. Dark gold veins flowed across their surfaces, gleaming with a wicked luster as they shifted.
The center of the floral disk was not composed of dense yellow stamens, but was precisely divided into four immaculate sections: top, bottom, left, and right.
The surface was dotted with pieces of Energy-Gathering Redstone that resembled embers. They varied in size, flickering and pulsing rhythmically.
The larger ones were the size of a fingertip, while the smaller ones were fine as grains of rice.
Looking past the redstone to the base of the disk, Sunlight Slates were spread out diagonally underneath, arranged as neatly as sunflower seeds.
The slates in the upper-left section were identical to the tier-one standard slates materialized by the Collector.
The ones in the upper-right section looked just like the small slate that had dropped earlier.
The two areas below were even smaller, especially the bottom-right section. Every piece of slate there was only the size of a fingernail, packed so densely together that it was impossible to count their numbers.
Cheng Ye focused his gaze on the standard slates and quickly noticed that the spiral light paths on each slate were not entirely identical.
Some had only just birthed a central point, while others had already progressed a tenth of the way. It was as if someone were deliberately inscribing them; the closer a slate was to the center of the disk, the further its pattern extended.
Around the disk, countless fiery red tentacles squirmed. The thin ones were as flexible as steel cables, while the thick ones were as stout as water buckets. Some dangled onto the floor and dug deep into the rock, seemingly siphoning strength from the earth.
And its robust main stalk was comparable to an ancient tree that had lived a millennium. The epidermis was coated in a hardened, scale-like shell that reflected a grayish-brown metallic sheen, radiating an aura of utter indestructibility.
The Stone Sunflower People rushed down the vine slide, stepping closer and closer to the giant sunflower in the center. In the next moment, as if they had rehearsed it thousands of times, all the Stone Sunflower People dropped to their knees around the sunflower in unison.
The very next second, specks of golden light bloomed upon the faces of the Stone Sunflower People, slowly cascading onto the dusty gray floor.
An unimaginable scene unfolded!
The dreary gray floor began to shed its outer stone layer. It transformed in color bit by bit, gradually emanating a luminous glow.
A dark crimson spread outward from beneath the feet of the Stone Sunflower People, unfurling in all directions like pooling dye.
"Is this... redstone?" Dawn broke over Cheng Ye's eyes.
This was not refined Energy-Gathering Redstone, but the most primordial redstone ore. It was black tinged with red, radiating the primal aura of sheer energy.
The golden patterns seeped along the ground into the redstone ore, racing rapidly toward the central sunflower like flowing water.
Only then did Cheng Ye finally see it clearly: the roots of this colossal sunflower were not buried in rock, but entrenched deeply inside a massive piece of redstone ore that shared a diameter of nearly ten meters.
As the light paths connected with its roots, the sunflower shook its body joyfully, emitting rustling sounds.
Its root system gave a violent suction, causing the golden light on the Stone Sunflower People's faces to flare brightly. Currents of golden thread surged frantically along the redstone ore toward it.
At the same time, a series of crackling explosions echoed out.
The larger Stone Sunflower People seemed to be drained of their energy far too violently. The redstone embedded in their faces actually began to shatter, evidently incapable of withstanding the immense pressure.
Conversely, the smaller Stone Sunflower People were completely fine. They only convulsed ceaselessly under the suction, continuing to provide a steady supply of energy.
"What an incredible Flame Energy Conversion!"
Cheng Ye sighed in awe inwardly. The words had barely crossed his mind before the pixel-built world suddenly collapsed.
[Trait intelligence materialized successfully. Specified direction: the entire process of Flame Energy Conversion.]
[Intelligence Quality: Level 1.0 (Affected by the pathway, the intelligence quality is locked at 1.0 upon specifying the direction.)]
[Current available replay count: 4]
[Detected that the Collector has already recorded related biological information. Supplementing information...]
[Supplement complete. Recorded into Biological Compendium: Fiery Sunflower (Transcendent)]