Zhu Yao also noticed the wounds on the monster's mouth and face, but she wasn't particularly surprised.
"He must have locked himself in this room and snapped from hunger. In the end, he ate his own limbs and turned into a monster."
This was why, even in a relatively safe camp, people never knew if the person next to them would turn into a monster the next day.
What broke a person could be the stress of survival or psychological pressure.
All it took was a single bite of one's own hand to instantly transform into a monster.
"If the Recycling Station truly recycles according to a schedule, a world in any given cycle should contain a terrifying number of humans or intelligent beings."
But there did not seem to be that many people in this world.
Perhaps it was because the vast majority had already turned into monsters or monster food.
The Recycling Station used this specific method of anomalous mutation to rapidly consume this world's deleted "data."
"I used to wonder the same thing." Zhu Yao reached out and ended the monster's life with a slash of her knife.
Even with its skull pierced, some of the monster's limbs continued to twitch unconsciously.
But it was mindless. At the very least, its spirit and sanity would no longer suffer.
"The priests all know that Great Wizards possess their own divine kingdoms. They can create worlds and create life. However, not all creations are satisfactory. So, to make room for a newly created world, they have to delete the old one. That includes the lifeforms within it."
Zhu Yao sighed softly.
"It's a terrible feeling. That's why so many people go mad after entering the Recycling Station. Truly mad."
The two conversed as they searched the specially arranged safe house.
"Ah, I found a filter. Excellent, this is on the list." Zhu Yao's gloomy mood lifted significantly upon discovering the supplies.
While she wasn't exactly dancing with joy or beaming, her eyes were noticeably brighter.
The Recycling Station was not a place meant for long-term survival.
Many of its internal rules were set up to consume the lifeforms here as quickly as possible.
Li Ban recalled the world covered by vast swathes of black.
This place was inherently a graveyard.
Just as the Southern Continent had described it, this was the world after death.
There was no reincarnation, nor any way to communicate with the world before death.
"So, surviving in a place like this truly requires a strong soul."
Li Ban looked down and moved an overturned wooden box on the ground.
He looked at what lay underneath in surprise. "Zhu Yao, come take a look. What is this?"
Hearing this, Zhu Yao set down the items she had been sorting through and hurried to Li Ban's side.
Her eyes lit up again when she saw what Li Ban had found.
"It's... it's wild black wheat."
Noticing the word "wheat," Li Ban asked, "Is that the raw ingredient for wheat flatbread?"
Zhu Yao nodded rapidly. "Yes. I never expected to find wild black wheat here."
"Maybe it's not wild black wheat," Li Ban said, thinking of the wooden box that had been carefully overturned on top of it. "The monster probably planted it himself when he was still human."
"Planting it alone is extremely difficult," Zhu Yao shook her head. "It consumes seeds and water that could have served as emergency food. For an individual with few reserves, it is a very dangerous decision."
Because an individual's risk tolerance was simply too poor.
"Now it benefits us." Li Ban leaned down and harvested the underdeveloped black wheat.
Li Ban carefully tucked the black wheat into the burlap sack on his back, still wondering how much black wheat it would take to sustain a stable camp.
The scale did not need to be large, but the safety and survival of the camp's members had to be guaranteed.
His current camp only sold finished wheat flatbread to outsiders, not black wheat.
So, if they wanted to stockpile seeds, they would need to find much more wild black wheat.
"Can we keep this wild black wheat for now?"
Because this was a team operation, Li Ban still had to respect Zhu Yao's thoughts.
"Of course," Zhu Yao nodded. "We've collected quite a few things; this little bit of black wheat is nothing."
Zhu Yao continued searching for supplies elsewhere.
She tacitly agreed that all this wild black wheat was Li Ban's harvest.
After uprooting all the wild black wheat, Li Ban continued searching the soil for any dropped grains.
But as he searched, he noticed the soil caving inward. It seemed there was an empty space beneath the dirt.
He picked up a small wooden stick nearby and poked at it, quickly exposing a wooden slatted base beneath the soil.
There were half-finger-wide gaps between the slats. They were normally invisible, but shifting the soil slightly revealed the anomaly.
Li Ban wedged one end of the stick into the gap and pried hard.
The stick splintered a little, but he managed to pry the wooden board underneath up a bit.
He wedged his hand under the exposed gap and pulled forcefully again, lifting the entire wooden board.
Then, a voice he had not heard in days suddenly rang out.
[Discovered waste element "Maternal Womb." Do you wish to absorb it?]
Li Ban slowly revealed a smile.
His quick agreement to accompany Zhu Yao on this mission was not without the thought of searching for elements.
When Rayleigh said that elements were useless in this world, Li Ban had not completely believed him.
In his view, it wasn't that elements were useless, but rather that the rules of this world prevented them from using elements.
However, the rules here did not entirely apply to him.
For one, he was not deleted data.
For another, he still had a Star River inside his body.
Granted, this Star River had shown no activity since he entered the Recycling Station, and he could not contact the Faceless One who had come in with him.
But Li Ban was different from the people here.
In a sense, he possessed the Star River that only a Great Wizard would have.
Therefore, although he could not use powerful abilities for the time being, he could still exploit loopholes in the rules.
This confidence stemmed from the "Mission Assistance System" in his mind.
Of course, Li Ban now understood that this so-called "Mission Assistance System" was not a chip loaded into his consciousness by the Ring World Laboratory, but a counterfeit that had sneaked in just like him.
He was not sure if this counterfeit originated from the Star River hidden within his consciousness, but he believed the two were closely connected.
Because ever since his consciousness crossed into the Ring World, only these two things had remained with him.
"Absorb," Li Ban responded inwardly to his system.
Since the wilderness here was piled with quite a few useless elements and waste elements, Li Ban did not need to be overly frugal; he could directly use them to test his ideas.
Currently, the only element in this body, "Virus," remained dormant, its abilities unusable. But could it absorb waste elements?
Before Li Ban's eyes, the waste element, which looked like a collapsed egg, sank into his palm.
However, the spiritual rhinoceros it converted into did not enter the "Virus" element.
Instead, it ignored the element that needed spiritual rhinoceros and sank into the Wizard Embryo Fragment within his consciousness.
Li Ban slowly closed his eyes and opened them again.
"Excellent. Now that I am in the Recycling Station, I will not have to worry about spiritual rhinoceros for the time being."