Interdimensional Investment Inspection Team

When Yuan Zhu returned to the hall, everyone had changed into new outfits and carried military-grade briefcases, exuding the air of business elites preparing to head out for negotiations.

It was just that the dried-up old granny with her face full of weathered wrinkles, the rainbow Mohawk Head dressed up like a monkey in a hat, and the burly Black uncle who looked like a berserk serial killer... somewhat ruined the image, drastically dragging down the team's professionalism and likability.

"Baa-ee-ee..."

Oh, and there was a little lamb running around naked with its tongue hanging out, rubbing itself fiercely against the old granny as it acted spoiled. It was utterly incompatible with the team's business style.

"Very good! You look much more presentable now." The captain clapped softly, satisfied with the visual improvement brought by their outfits.

Even the most unpresentable country granny, bloody butcher, and timid little punk looked spirited and had their fashion value soar after putting on their brand. They no longer looked quite so much like short-lived cannon fodder.

This was changing one's fate!

Temperament determined one's destiny, and clothing changed one's temperament. Therefore, Mao Mao King's luxury children's wear was absolutely a rigid necessity for the residents of other worlds.

"Ahem. Everyone, take out your respective communicators—your mice—and I'll teach you how to use them. Their tails have been modified and contain safe, sterilized needles. They'll pierce your skin to draw blood and store it in their blood sacs. When the blood is drawn, they'll automatically activate spiritual-frequency authentication. You only need to calm your mind and concentrate carefully to establish a connection with the communicator and control it mentally."

"Now look at its abdomen. There are eight exoskeletal limbs in total, piercing into its body. Once everyone has finished drawing blood, you can inject your own blood into the 'limb cavities' of other people's communicators to complete signal binding. Put simply, I represent the first limb on the left. I'll inject my blood into the 'Left 1' of each of your communicators. After entering the mission world, you only need to focus your mind on that limb to call me and communicate."

Yuan Zhu counted. Including the captain, there were eight people in total. Each person's modified mouse had been pierced through by eight insect-like segmented exoskeletal limbs. So the rookie slots for a squad were specifically limited to seven people, right? Each person represented one spider leg, neither more nor less.

Emm... the Phantom Troupe, huh?!

"Alright, everyone, begin. Once authentication is complete, line up and come to me for one-on-one signal binding."

A sharp pain pricked the back of his hand. The mouse's tail extended a needle and accurately pierced a blood vessel in the back of his hand, drawing blood with a chattering sound. Then, as if replenished with life, half of its mechanical skull began turning with a series of clicks, and a red light flickered within its metal eye socket.

At the same time, Yuan Zhu's own Immortal Scripture issued a mild warning, and the Little Elf reported in sync, "Boss, in Earth terms, an external plug-in has been detected attempting a Bluetooth connection—spiritual connection! Do you consent to this action?"

Yuan Zhu said, "Approved!"

A faint burst of static appeared in his mind, then quickly faded. In his consciousness, a screen appeared like a small pop-up video player on a phone display, with options to turn it off or on. It was the unique viewpoint of the mouse's mechanical prosthetic eye. The image was somewhat blurry, and the signal lagged as well. It was far inferior to the perspective from the snake tail in Tiger Demon Form—that was perfect synchronization, another self.

The Little Elf said in surprise, "Oh? This is pretty fun."

Under her control, the thoroughly dead mouse in Yuan Zhu's hand suddenly shook violently and sprang back to life, its half-mechanical head vividly looking left and right. Then, the exoskeletal limbs piercing its body pulled free from its chest and abdomen one by one. Like a spider or centipede, they propped up the mouse's body with their segments, clinging to Yuan Zhu's arm as it nimbly crawled, circled, and spun.

"Holy shit! A mouse-type spider-crawling drone?" Yuan Zhu cried out in amazement. It was actually an external spirit bone—four-wheel drive becoming eight-wheel drive.

The most advanced toy he had played with in his previous life had only been a remote-controlled shuttlecraft. Yet now he had acquired a thought-controlled "mouse-type all-terrain drone" that could crawl across the ground, burrow into holes, climb trees at ninety degrees, hang upside down from ceilings at one hundred and eighty degrees... and even make calls, synchronize video, store and exchange data. A treasure.

Yuan Zhu was not the only one marveling at it. Even the well-informed female investigator and the silent, cold, unapproachable Black Butcher were drawn in by the mouse, seriously fiddling with it and playing to their hearts' content.

"After completing authentication, you'll have plenty of time to familiarize yourselves with the controls. Now, confirm your companions' codenames with one another, then exchange blood. The mission is about to begin."

Under the captain's arrangements, everyone took turns establishing signal bindings with the other mice.

Following the principle of men on the left and women on the right, Yuan Zhu claimed Left 2, Lü Rang took Left 3, and the silent Black Butcher took Left 4. The women's group, in order, consisted of the investigator, the college student, Bread Girl, and the old granny. As for the little goat? Everyone ignored it.

Once all that was done, the captain raised his left arm alone and clenched his fist. "Ready? Transmission commencing!"

The surrounding light suddenly dimmed. A weightless, dizzying sensation swept over them, and both body and spirit seemed frozen, unable to tell whether time was passing. When his consciousness gathered again and his thoughts became clear, chirping birds could already be heard by his ears, while a breeze brushed across his face.

When he opened his eyes, the light was not harsh. It filtered through dense branches, scattering patches of brightness across their bodies.

They were in a forest. The birds nesting there had been startled by Mao Mao King's business supergroup. The rustling flap of wings rang out in a sheet as dark masses of birds rose into the sky and flew into the distance. It clearly looked brimming with life, yet it gave off an atmosphere pregnant with ill omen.

Yuan Zhu studied the surroundings closely. Visibility was extremely high, but there were no animal trails or paths nearby. The ground was covered in a thick layer of fallen leaves, over which lay clumps of dried white traces. The air smelled stuffy and stale.

The Little Elf's voice also sounded in his mind. "Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture: Otherworld Exploration Mode activated. Continuously searching for and recording useful information from the surrounding environment for you..."

Beside him, Lü Rang wore an excited expression as he gripped the pipe wrench in his hand, tensely guarding against imaginary enemies in the air. The Black Butcher also silently tightened his grip on his bone cleaver, breathing heavily as he scanned from side to side.

"No need to be nervous. It has been confirmed—the vicinity is safe."

No one knew what method the captain had used. He had merely stood with his eyes closed for about a minute before speaking with certainty and telling everyone to lower their guard.

Then he said, "This is your first mission, so you still don't understand our team's operating style, nor the content and priorities of our missions."

Meng Xiyue asked in return, "Isn't selling children's clothing enough?"

The captain shook his head. "The duties you must fulfill after being recruited by Happy Home are far more than simply selling children's clothing. Whenever you enter a Foam World again in the future, your first task will be to determine the current world's environment—whether it is safe, and whether pollution is running rampant. Next, you must use experience to explore the world's upper limit of strength, its danger index, and its investment index. Then come assessments of the ecological environment, resource abundance, the level of enlightenment of the local civilization, the distinctive culture of its native inhabitants... and which Strength Systems the Foam World can accommodate..."

"After clarifying a small world's basic circumstances, you must determine whether it is suitable to become a raw-material production site for Mao Mao King's high-end woven goods. Is it suitable for raising unique Mao Mao Worms on a large scale, or for planting other crops? If it is unsuitable, but the local residents are prosperous and their civilization is enlightened, can they be turned into long-term consumers for fair trade?"

Listening to the captain's description, Yuan Zhu automatically put himself in the role of a "colonizer" and discovered that everything immediately became logically coherent. You could even force the locals to work overtime for low wages, plant crops, raise Mao Mao Worms, and open farms, then sell the products back to them at high prices to achieve a perfect cycle. (I'm really too kind. I'm even willing to pay them!) "For this mission, follow my command and familiarize yourselves with the basic process. This is an unknown new world. Our work from here on is exploration and recordkeeping."

Yuan Zhu was the first to respond, "Received!"

After briefly determining their bearings, the captain chose a direction and explained, "Most of you have not mastered supernatural abilities, so your senses have not been developed. The direction I've chosen shows a trend of energy convergence. In theory, it should be the core of this Foam World. If there is a local civilization, it should be settled nearby."

According to the captain's explanation, every Foam World differed in its degree of barrenness. Yet all of them possessed rudimentary energy cycles similar to "spirit veins" and "earth veins." Every creature with a functioning brain had the instinct to gravitate toward high-energy areas to live.

As for whether that high energy might be some kind of pollution?

Please. For native creatures in a polluted world, they had long grown accustomed to coexisting with pollution. Pollution itself was precious energy—the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in their eyes... After all, even the present world openly acknowledged that pollution equaled becoming stronger; cultivation was a controllable, orderly process of progressive self-pollution.

As the squad advanced, the captain further instructed everyone to release their bound "Teletubbies" to assist with reconnaissance and danger detection.

The mice came with rudimentary camouflage programs and could be manually controlled through divided attention, serving as crawling drones. They could aid in scouting the path, provide infrared night vision and sonic surveillance, and detect pollution levels.

If they kept the mice close, they could enjoy the invisible blessing of increased pollution resistance, as well as short- to medium-range communication. But everyone's clothes also had defensive functions, so all the mice were sent out to scout ahead.

Yuan Zhu converted his briefcase into backpack mode, strapped his pistol to the side of his thigh, and carried a semiautomatic firearm as he trudged through the dense forest, one step deep and the next shallow.

With the Little Elf's help, vast amounts of Mountain Lord hunting, tracking, and survival experience from the Boss Template gradually synchronized with his senses, thoughts, knowledge, and memories, intertwining and merging bit by bit to strengthen his adaptability in the wild. Forest terrain in particular gave him the relaxed ease of a tiger returned to the mountains, as though he had come home.

"Slurp!"

When the little goat being led by the old granny entered the corner of his vision, Yuan Zhu could not help swallowing. The urge rose in his heart to pounce on it and gnaw it alive, slap its body flat with one palm, then bite through its cervical vertebrae in a single mouthful, let it slowly suffocate, and finally savor it carefully.

All kinds of beg... beg, beg, beg...