The Activity content around the Huanglishu Mini-Oasis was already little different from a barren zone.

Still, the surrounding vegetation was reasonably lush. Lower Activity content didn't affect plant growth; it only meant no new plants beyond iron fruit could be nurtured.

A Firestarter fragment could release a special Firestarter energy, catalyzing metal into corroding into Activity, and could also catalyze ordinary jin fruit into possessing breeding capacity.

Extremely peculiar.

Only, for the time being, the Eastern Theater Command's laboratory still couldn't master this energy — hadn't even scratched the surface of it, in fact.

From bottom to top, the first barrier lake.

Walking to the lakeside, Shen Cong slowly reached his hand into the lake water. The Third Eye opened, the Activity wave began oscillating at a special frequency, swiftly spreading through the lake water.

The wave propagated at a blazing speed.

In an instant the whole lake became, in Shen Cong's mind, a vivid three-dimensional scroll in black-and-white. Clear, lifelike, true to form — though he still couldn't see colors, just from the look of those fish and shrimp, he could all but sense what color they ought to be.

It was a vision touched with mystery.

"No pearl mussels. There's a big fish, looks like a mutated snakehead, probably the overlord of this lake — not all that big, at most 1H Talent, couldn't bite through my Hell Plant Armor."

"Bit strange, though. This big black fish seems off in spirits, listless somehow… Could it be that this lake has too few small fish, a scarcity of food? Possible. With the Firestarter fragment taken away by me, this place has already declined, the number of organisms slowing, unable to sustain the food chain."

A big black fish starved half to death didn't even rise to the level of a threat, as far as Shen Cong was concerned.

He at once took up a spanner-crab blade and slowly waded into the lake water, preparing to lure the big black fish over, kill it, and then get comfortable familiarizing himself with the water in peace.

He could swim — a…