Chapter 427

Chapter 427: Monitoring Device

Time slowly passed, and the sky began to lighten, but the fishing float in the Sea remained still.

The waves on this planet were generally calm, and throughout the entire night, there had been no changes around the fishing hook and bait.

Fortunately, Lin Qingliu had an abundance of patience and decided to keep waiting, at least until it was completely bright outside.

Another hour passed, and workers in the outer city started to leave for their morning shifts; finally, the float in the Sea moved slightly.

The fishing rod from the Old Era had excellent flexibility, as proven by an incident decades ago—though the fisherman was long gone, the rod still floated steadily on the water, undamaged.

Now, the rod’s superb physical properties combined perfectly with Lin Qingliu’s impressive muscle power.

The moment he saw the float moving, he grabbed the fishing rod and began to battle with the fish that was already hooked beneath the water’s surface.

After five minutes of letting the fish struggle, he gradually reeled in the line and managed to bring it, half-pushing and half-pulling, to the base of the city wall.

Seconds later, a rather strange "fish" appeared at Lin Qingliu’s feet.

This marine creature looked quite odd—it resembled a prehistoric beast long lost to time more than any fish from the Old Era.

Its back was dark gray, while its underbelly was pale, and its overall shape resembled a dart.

It had not yet evolved protective scales on its skin, and its gills were symmetrically distributed across several areas of its body instead of just on the sides.

After being pulled from the water, the fish flopped around for a while but soon became still, seemingly requiring much more oxygen than an ordinary fish.

Lin Qingliu did not dwell on this matter—his concern was solely for the fish itself; whether it was alive or dead was momentarily unimportant.

Soon, this fish was placed before Deputy Director Zhou Zhuo of the research institute.

Zhou Zhuo had always believed that the creatures in the Sea were just another type of extraordinary beast, but upon learning that this task was assigned by the Speaker, he thought carefully and realized that the mycelium system or theory indeed struggled to encompass the marine ecosystem.

Speaker Arthur’s task for Zhou Zhuo was straightforward: determine whether this fish was a descendant of biological samples from the home planet aboard the spaceship while also checking for any mycelium-related remnants.

As a senior member of the research institute, Zhou Zhuo gained access to many documents after the secrets of the spaceship and humanity’s origins were revealed, gaining a clear understanding of humanity’s current situation.

The Spaceship Debris carrying the majority of biological samples had been completely captured by the mycelium, which naturally included samples of aquatic animals.

If this fish contained genetic material from humans coming from the home planet and lacked any signs of mycelium, it would indicate that this organism formed from the natural evolution of biological samples brought aboard the spaceship.

Though fifty years is a brief time for biological evolution, humanity had also gained superpowers during these decades; nothing seemed impossible.

Conversely, if the creature showed no traces of mycelium manipulation and lacked remnants of human home planet genes, it would confirm that this was indeed a true native organism of the planet.

In front of it, both humans and mycelium could only be regarded as outsiders.

Zhou Zhuo recalled the documents he had reviewed—the planet had been chosen as a destination for a spaceship partly because it displayed basic traces of life.

He was unsure how humans from the Old Era conducted their observations, but existing data indicated that their technological level was exceptionally advanced, far beyond what they could compare with now.

With a thought that perhaps they could "establish a new school of thought," Zhou Zhuo quickly began his research.

—

"Signal is clear, repeating, signal is clear."

"Received, please begin the routine report."

"On February 1, New Era Year 53, at 8 a.m., twenty kilometers within the tall grass, all personnel are in normal spirits."

"Report the current number of exploration team members."

"Twenty people, all alive."

"Report the current height of the surrounding grass."

"Fifteen centimeters, no changes."

"Hope City received, you may proceed and attempt to eliminate the unknown plants."

The communication ended, and Wang Xiao turned to the people in the vehicle behind him.

Today marked the first exploration action of the new year, and upon learning what Hope City’s enemy truly was, Speaker Arthur offered very generous arrangements for this mission.

The exploration team consisted entirely of superheroes, and each member had at least Second Level powers. This union created a stronger biological field to resist the corruption from the mycelium.

Following Wang Xiao’s plan, he intended to initially utilize excessive manpower during the exploratory phase to ensure that corruption would not occur.

Then, he would gradually reduce the number of exploration team members, probing for the smallest number needed to maintain rationality while ensuring safety.

While this method seemed a bit clumsy, it was the most reliable approach for dealing with an invisible, intangible biological field.

After obtaining detailed topographical information around Hope City, Arthur instructively signaled to Wang Xiao to take the team out to explore.

To the east of Hope City was the Sea, to the south lay marshes, to the west was a forest, and only the tall grass in the north was a true soft target.

Thus, the poor tall grass was trampled under the tires of all-terrain vehicles, as everyone dined on nutritional paste while monitoring data. In just two hours, they arrived twenty kilometers into the grasslands.

Wang Xiao looked back at his new team members, each wearing the rationality testing glasses developed by the research institute.

This new equipment could reflect the rational state of frontline personnel at any moment, preventing scenarios where individuals might be corrupted without realizing it.

As someone who had previously experienced corruption and returned to normal, Wang Xiao participated in the early development testing with five other team members.

Though this equipment sounded advanced, it was essentially a miniature projector powered by electricity.

It would periodically display certain images to the wearer—sometimes terrifying monster patterns, sometimes questions that required careful attention to notice, and even some images that even Wang Xiao himself did not know.

The monitoring device on the glasses could track data points behind the wearer’s ear, estimating whether the images or questions prompted the wearer’s appropriate attention.

If there was no response for three consecutive displays, the glasses would sound an alarm to indicate an issue with the wearer’s rationale.

At this moment, twenty superpowered individuals sat in three all-terrain vehicles, with blazing flames in the back of the vehicles.

This was the handiwork of Fresnel.