World-saving Plan: The Only Savior
Chapter 404 - 288: Iron Head Fish

Chapter 404: Chapter 288: Iron Head Fish

"What just happened? Did the Eye of the Starry Sky react?"

Zhang Xiaoman looked at his right hand, puzzled.

He was certain he had seen it light up; it definitely wasn’t an illusion.

But now, the problem arose again: the Eye of the Starry Sky was no longer the same passive skill as before. Even if he were to approach a monster’s corpse, it wouldn’t activate on its own unless he intentionally used it.

Yet just now, as he sat there doing nothing, the engraving on his hand suddenly lit up, which was quite baffling.

"Star Rank, command the Dawn to retreat along the same path, but slower."

He instructed the System to return the way they came and then focused all his attention on his right hand, prepared to see what exactly had just happened.

Sure enough, as the anti-gravity car retraced its path, when it passed a certain spot, Zhang Xiaoman saw the mark of the Eye of the Starry Sky on his hand light up again, and he immediately said to his wristwatch:

"Stop! Stop! Move a little bit ahead! Yes, right here, the Dark Energy Fluctuation here does seem a bit different..."

Looking at the pattern on his hand that was emitting a faint glow, Zhang Xiaoman pondered for a moment before thinking of a possibility.

He didn’t hesitate and began trying to activate the Eye of the Starry Sky’s absorption skill.

The result didn’t surprise him. Transparent colored Energy Flows actually appeared in the nearby space, all converging towards the palm of his hand.

After about ten seconds, the fluctuations gradually ceased, and a prompt from the System resonated in his mind.

"Ding, Essence absorbed successfully, points increased by 10."

"Ding, unknown new species discovered, would you like to name it?"

"..."

"Eh? What’s going on?"

Zhang Xiaoman was very surprised by this sudden interaction from the System; he was more concerned about this abrupt development than the unexplained glowing of the mark on his palm.

Ever since he had obtained the System, it had never interacted with him, but now it was suddenly posing a question to him, which he found unbelievable.

"System Elf, is that you? You’re not dead yet?"

Zhang Xiaoman tried asking a couple of times but got no response—the System was still as it always was, lacking the ability to chat.

Recalling its earlier words, Zhang Xiaoman uncertainly said, "Then, confirm that we are naming the new species...?"

The System still didn’t respond.

Zhang Xiaoman paused, feeling a bit awkward talking to himself, but he continued anyway:

"Hmm, if I were to name it... well, since this guy is so tough and has such a hard head, let’s call it the Iron Head Fish."

"Ding, Iron Head Fish successfully named."

This time, the System finally responded, directly approving the name he had just proposed.

"Hmm... that’s it? Just like that...?"

Zhang Xiaoman stood there, stunned, waiting for quite a while, but the System’s follow-up never came, making his expression turn slightly odd.

"That’s not right, isn’t there supposed to be some sort of reward, like a chance at an advanced draw or something? Or even just some points would be good..."

"Just a simple naming, that’s all there is to it? Is the System that stingy?"

Zhang Xiaoman felt very uncomfortable in his heart, having looked forward to it for a while, only to end up just giving himself a name.

"Alright, I was thinking too much," he muttered to himself. "The System Elf is gone anyway, so where would any reward come from?"

He thought about it briefly and then let it go.

The system he had acquired seemed mostly like an auxiliary program without any treasure trove of its own.

Everything he bought within it was exchanged for points, and the system itself didn’t have any self-producing functions, so there was no point in talking about rewards.

Now that the naming issue had been resolved, the remaining issue was about the Engraving suddenly glowing.

Zhang Xiaoman looked at his right hand, having already come up with some guesses about the situation just now.

Although the Iron Head Fish was completely obliterated in the explosion, its lingering traces had not yet dissipated for a while.

Zhang Xiaoman did not know how to describe it, but it felt somewhat similar to something like a soul.

However, he was certain that it shouldn’t be a soul or anything like that because he clearly remembered bragging more than once that there were no ghosts in this world.

Therefore, what he absorbed just now shouldn’t be something like a soul. It was probably the "Essence" that the system kept prompting about.

Although he still didn’t understand what this so-called Essence really was, Zhang Xiaoman was sure that after the monster’s body was destroyed, the Essence would dissipate quickly.

Even now, if the System Elf suddenly told him that it had been absorbed by the Cosmic Will, he felt he wouldn’t be too surprised.

The reason why Zhang Xiaoman was so sure was that at the beginning, during his Spirit Detection, the monster’s strength was definitely more than just 10 points worth—it should at least be close to a level 2 at the end of tier 1.

And now, after its body was destroyed and only a short delay had passed, the points had already reduced by almost half, which was sufficient proof of the issue.

"Well, it looks like I should use these kinds of weapons less when fighting monsters in the future; losing half the points at once is too big a loss," he theorized.

For such a problem, he had no solution now and could only be more careful in the future.

As for why the Eye of the Starry Sky in his hand suddenly lit up, Zhang Xiaoman guessed that there were two possible reasons.

Either the monster’s form had dissipated, leaving only the basic Essence behind, or it was because of encountering a new species, as the icon in the palm of his hand would light up when he met new species.

Of course, there might be other reasons, but Zhang Xiaoman couldn’t determine them now; if he wanted to experiment, he would need more materials.

After that, Zhang Xiaoman drove the Anti-gravity Car around the vicinity and discovered the mercenaries’ camp, conveniently located at the northeast corner of Seven-star Lake, which was the farthest away from the island.

As for the sudden appearance of these people today, he was somewhat prepared in his heart.

During his days on Rebirth Island, aside from dealing with matters from the Star Alliance and enhancing his strength, Zhang Xiaoman would occasionally pilot the Dawn to survey the area on the nearby map.

The nearby forests had now begun to grow more lush. Just in terms of scale, they were almost indistinguishable from those outside forests and were even more exaggerated.

Looking at the shape and size of those trees, it seemed that they hadn’t reached their limit. Instead, they resembled the giant trees of the dinosaur era, and maybe it wouldn’t take long before Rebirth Island had vast super forests.

And it was during his environmental exploration that Zhang Xiaoman discovered soldiers from various countries exploring everywhere. They seemed to have started a comprehensive investigation at the same time.

He had anticipated such a scenario.

Fortunately, Rebirth Island was large enough, and with many high-tech methods unavailable, it was impossible for those people to complete their exploration quickly.

Most of them were still in the outer areas, and it was still a good distance away from reaching Seven-star Lake in the interior.

Of course, like the situation he encountered today, there were also forces deploying assault teams specifically for deep investigation, and what Zhang Xiaoman now needed to guard against were these teams.