Steel Chang'an

Chapter 38

"Be careful, there is movement ahead!"

Mu Yun manipulated the armor Xifeng, suddenly stopped and listened carefully.

Beyond the sea of ​​thorns, dozens of mechs clashed, but the news could not be transmitted underground.

The sound of the series of intense firefights that Mu Yun heard came from the depths of the dead castle.

"It should be the group of people who entered the dead castle in front of us. Unexpectedly, this dead castle is also very lively." Li Jing also controlled the armor Wuming to stop, and after listening carefully for a while, he said, "the other party should have five or more people. Six mechas, listening to the exchange of fire, the things they encountered will not be smaller than the iron spiders, and the number... probably more than the group of iron spiders we encountered before. It seems that their luck is no better than ours Where are you going?"

"You can hear this?" Mu Yun looked sideways.

"Practice more and you can do it." Li Jing said lightly, which made Mu Yun wonder if the numbers he reported before were just random delusions.However, there is no doubt that someone entered Dead Castle before them.

"Boss, are we going to support them?" Su Sheng returned to the metal back compartment of the armor Xifeng, and made an idea there, "We only have two mechas. If we encounter a few more waves of iron spiders, we will probably have to The confession is here. Seeing that the situation of the people in front is not very good, let's go to support them now, sell them favors, and go with them when the time comes, and they are too embarrassed not to agree."

Going to support, Mu Yun really has this plan. Even if he doesn't pay attention to chivalry, just because he wants to deal with the powerful common enemy of the iron spider, there are enough reasons for him to make a move.After all, if this wave of iron spiders wiped out the team in front of them, and they dealt with them later, they would gain nothing.In Mu Yun's view, only by concentrating his strength now can he have a chance to get out of the dead castle.As for Su Sheng's talk about selling favors first, Mu Yun didn't have it at all. He didn't think the previous group of people had any reason to refuse him and Li Jing's mechs to join.

"Hehe, the idea is good, but you want to sell this favor, but others may not appreciate it." Li Jing continued Su Sheng's words and said, "The other party is obviously wary of us, and our rush to support may cause misunderstanding and mess up their relationship. This is probably the last thing they want to happen. Besides, they probably don’t need our support at all.”

"You can hear this?" Mu Yun was a little shocked.

"I can't hear it, but I can see it." Li Jing smiled lightly, but said to Mu Yun, "It's been reminded to this point, if you still can't see it, I will reconsider the decision to accept you as a disciple gone."

Is it a child's play to accept apprentices?Why do you still have regrets!It is agreed that one day will be a teacher and a lifetime will be a teacher!How can the master-student relationship be terminated every minute!Mu Yun felt very tired.But Li Jing has already talked about this point, so he can only take this question and try to find the answer with his eyes.

It's just that since leaving the tunnel, the dead castle has been plunged into complete darkness.Mu Yun and Li Jing's two zero-type mechas are of course a bit older, but they are still equipped with searchlights, but walking with the lights on in the darkness, they are like two living targets.Therefore, both Mu Yun and Li Jing gave up the external lighting, and instead drove forward in the dark with the infrared night vision mode that came with the mecha.

The infrared imaging effect of this zero-type mech is also very ordinary. The mecha monitor can only see black and white, and the picture outlined is a bit abstract.In this completely unfamiliar environment, it is not easy to take care of one's own feet and defend the surroundings well, so both Mu Yun and Li Jing's progress along the way has been much slower.As for what clues to catch in this darkness, it is a bit difficult.

Since the details cannot be seen in the darkness, what Li Jing wants him to see is probably the darkness itself.After clarifying the general direction of the problem, Mu Yun's thinking became much clearer: What is the mystery of this darkness?When they first entered the Fortress of the Dead, they were shocked that there was actually a light in the ruins that had been sealed underground for thousands of years...

Wait, lights... the induction lighting system in the passage... the remaining energy...

"The problem lies in the induction lighting system of this road!" Mu Yun felt that he had already figured out the answer, "The coverage of the induction lighting system should not only be the avenue at the entrance, but the entire dead castle.

"When we first entered Dead Fort, the induction lighting system along the way was still effective, indicating that there was enough energy in the Dead Castle to support the continuous operation of the induction lighting system. But when we caused an explosion and made noise, the road was full of trouble. There is no light, which can only mean one thing——

"Someone noticed our presence and intentionally destroyed the sensor lighting system along the way. And their purpose of doing so is already obvious - to slow down our progress and avoid contact with us!

"It can be seen from this that the real goal of the group of people walking in front of us is not the same as ours. They simply want to enter the East Forest through the Fortress of Death. If they are just here to borrow the way, they don't have to care about walking behind them Who is it, first concentrate on dealing with the iron spider, and everything can wait until they get out of the dead castle.

"Since this team is so guarded against other people who enter Dead Castle, it means that their goal is Dead Castle itself, or something in Dead Castle. Their understanding of Dead Castle is far better than ours. From what they can Judging from the fact that they found the control circuit of the induction lighting system and destroyed it in a short period of time, they may even have mastered the structure of the dead castle—in other words, they came prepared, for the iron spider in the dead castle , They should have prepared corresponding countermeasures, we are going to support, it is indeed a bit pretentious.

"It's just that I don't know what their goal is. I'm afraid we won't know until we figure out what's going on in this dead castle." Mu Yun made a concluding speech.Since they entered Dead Fort, they have been in the dark except for the avenue at the entrance, and their advancing speed is quite limited.Judging by the size of that avenue, they are still in the outer part of the dead castle. What secrets are hidden in the dead castle? With the information Mu Yun currently has, he has no clue.

"Good guess." Li Jing affirmed Mu Yun's speech, "If you can see so much before I remind you, I can give you ten points. Now, let's discount it, five points."

If you say a discount, you will get a discount, and you will be given a [-]% discount!Why haven't I seen you so generous?Mu Yun was very dissatisfied with this rating, but heard Li Jing continue to say: "As for the true face of this dead castle, you should have a clue from the murals on the pillars along this road."

After Li Jing finished speaking, Mu Yun and Su Sheng shook their heads together.

It can't be blamed for their bad eyesight. Ever since entering the Castle of Death, Mu Yun noticed the huge pillars and the decorative patterns on the floor tiles, which seemed to have some kind of meaning in them.It's just that these patterns and patterns are already mottled, and it can only be discerned that these patterns may depict some kind of ancient beasts fighting with human knights.

And after leaving that grand avenue, there are also murals on the walls along this road, but the content of the paintings is different from the previous ones.On the mural, a group of villains surround a huge ancient alien beast, which seems to be taming it, but the ancient alien beast and villains are painted very abstractly, and both humans and beasts have been simplified and deformed for decorative purposes. Coupled with the age, the only thing that can be judged from this painting is the huge size of this strange beast, but it is too difficult to say what it is.

Ever since the exchange of fire with the iron spider, Mu Yun once thought that the beast depicted on the pillar was an iron spider, but when he looked back at the mural on the wall, it didn't look like an iron spider.After all, the iron spider's eight legs are quite obvious, but no matter what it is, the thing in the painting cannot count its eight legs.

Knowing that the secret of Dead Castle lies in the identity of this strange beast, Mu Yun also stared at the murals on the wall very carefully.On that avenue before, he looked at the pattern under the lighting, and he only felt that the colors were mottled.Now under the infrared night vision mode of the mecha, the images I see are only black and white, but there is less interference, and the image of the alien beast is a little clearer, which faintly gives Mu Yun a sense of familiarity—not that he saw This kind of strange beast, but this kind of stroke composition is very familiar to him...

"This...it doesn't look like a painting, but a character?" Mu Yun said with some uncertainty, because he traced the strokes in his heart, and found that if it was a character, it would be easy to write , and it is very close to a certain word he knows, but there is an extra stroke...

In order not to reveal the fact that she was uneducated, Mu Yun decided to shut up. Unexpectedly, Su Sheng was very bold and dared to say it, and said loudly confidently: "Isn't this a dragon character?"

After finishing speaking, Su Sheng also realized that something was wrong, "Eh? It seems that there is an extra sum. Could it be a typo?"

Could this be someone else's typo?What's the matter with being so confident without culture!Mu Yun complained silently in her heart, but Li Jing sighed and said, "Students in this class are not good! It's fine if they can't read, why don't they know how to count? The word for '尨' is one more than that for 'Long'." A pen? There are obviously two more pens!"

Mu Yun secretly cried out ashamed, and to tell the truth, he really only had a vague impression of how to write the dragon character.Therefore, whether it is an extra sum or a missing sum, he is also guessing based on intuition. After all, whether it is a scorpion or a dragon, they are all ancient creatures that have disappeared on the Pangu Continent. It is true that they are usually fine. These two words are rarely used.However, the figure used to represent the strange beast on this mural is actually a word. Mu Yun still feels admiration for the fact that he got it right. Well, pictograms are abstract art.

"Don't worry about whether it's one or two more, boss, tell me what this thing is first!" Su Sheng asked curiously with a cheeky smile.

"Well, you can tell from the shape of this character that it is also a kind of dragon. The two extra strokes grow on the back of the dragon, which represent a pair of wings of the beast." Li Jing said seriously, "It is said that human beings When the ancestors first came to this planet, the continents had not yet formed, the surface of the planet was covered with ice and fire, and there were giant dragons entrenched in the ocean and sky, and this kind of beast was the most ferocious of the giant dragons."

"I know this. It's the legend about the creation of the Pangu Continent!" Su Sheng responded quickly, "According to the legend, human ancestors created seven giant mechs, which are as tall as the sky and the earth itself. These seven giant mechas drove out the evil Dragon, use your own body to support this continent... But now it seems that this legend is a bit too watery, if the legend is true, then there shouldn't be evil dragons on this Pangu Continent at all?"

"Hehe, the so-called dragon should be a general term for the huge primitive creatures on this planet. It's so easy to drive them all to extinction." Li Jing smiled, "In the age of legends, there are still many knights who fought dragons. It’s just that in the mechanical age, the dragons on the mainland were almost killed. But I didn’t expect this most ferocious beast to be tamed by people.”

Mu Yun also knows the legend about the creation of the Pangu Continent.Hearing Li Jing and Su Sheng talk about this ancient creature from the legendary era, Mu Yun couldn't help but see the huge figure looking down on the earth from the sky in the hazy dream.

Is that a dragon, or a beast?Why did this ancient creature from the legendary era appear in his dream?

Was that dream really his own dream...

Mu Yun was in a daze, but Su Sheng muttered puzzledly, "It doesn't make sense, what do you think the people here raise beasts for? Can this thing be eaten? Can't it? If it can be eaten, this thing It can't be extinct, can it?"

"Can the beast be eaten?" This question stopped Li Jing, "I have never seen the beast, but as a teacher, I met its dragon brother when I was at sea. It's a pity that the guy's body It's too big, the boat can't be dragged at all, so it can only be sunk directly into the sea. I didn't expect to cut a piece of meat and taste it. Although the skin looks rough, it should be roasted and sprinkled with more salt. I can eat..."

This conversation is completely beside the point!I really can't see that you master and apprentice are still a pair of foodies!Don't you think it's too much to discuss food at this time?I only ate one meal yesterday and it was still compressed biscuits. Didn’t you hear your stomach protesting when you talked about whether the beast meat is braised in braise or stewed in oil?Mu Yun's heart was screaming, and so was his stomach.

Speaking of which, if the beast can really eat, and there are really living beasts here, he doesn't mind getting one to roast and eat...

"Ahem, let's get down to business." It was Li Jing who brought back the topic, "Even if the beast can be eaten, it will definitely not be delicious. The people in this mural tamed the beast, probably not for the purpose of slaughtering it for food."

"It's not for eating, is it for watching?" Su Sheng was still puzzled, "Could it be that this dead castle is actually a zoo?"

"Hehe," Li Jing of course ignored Su Sheng's naive thoughts, and said to himself, "From the point of view that the murals on this road are all around beasts, this dead castle It should have something to do with the beast, and even this dead castle probably domesticated the beast back then. Instead of calling this place the dead castle, it is more appropriate to call it the dragon castle."

"As for why the people in the Dragon Castle specially tame the beast..." Li Jing narrowed his eyes, "I have some doubts, the so-called beast is probably a crystal beast."

"Crystal Beast!" Mu Yun heard Su Sheng's words clearly accompanied by the sound of swallowing saliva. It really can't be blamed that Su Sheng is a foodie, because even Mu Yun had to swallow hard when he heard the word "Crystal Beast" saliva.It's not because of how delicious the crystal beast is, but because the things produced by the crystal beast are priceless treasures, which are too tempting for knights.

We must know that on Pangea, cold nuclear fusion devices are commonly used in energy power systems, so the element lattice used to catalyze fusion can be said to have played a decisive role in the output power of energy power.Like the Type Zero mecha that Mu Yun and Li Jing are driving now, as a [-]-ton mecha, its nuclear fusion power device uses white crystal energy blocks, and its output power is far inferior to that of the [-]-ton special mecha. Blood crystal energy block: A ten-kilogram blood crystal energy block can stably support megawatt-level energy supply for twelve hours, and its output power is ten times that of a white crystal energy block of the same mass.

It's just that the synthetic process of artificial elements in blood crystals is extremely complicated, and the cost of raw materials required is also extremely high, so the price of blood crystal energy blocks of the same quality is much more expensive than that of white crystal energy blocks.There are very few ready-made sources of goods on the market, and most of the blood crystals are monopolized in the hands of the major knights.From the perspective of cost performance, the white crystal energy blocks sold by major weapon shops are much more affordable.It is also because of this that most of the power units of twenty-ton mechs are equipped with white crystal energy blocks.

But even if the blood crystal energy block is already considered high-end in the entire continent, its output power cannot be compared with the purple crystal energy block at all.An amethyst energy block of less than 24 grams is enough to maintain a megawatt-level energy supply for up to [-] hours, and its output power far exceeds that of a blood crystal of the same quality.

So let alone a [-]-ton special mecha, even a [-]-ton mecha, if it is equipped with an amethyst energy block, it can become an invincible Xiaoqiang.Because there is almost no need to worry about the problem of energy depletion, let alone the embarrassment that Mu Yun was struggling to calculate energy output in the sea of ​​thorns before.

In the entire Pangu Continent, in addition to the white blood crystal, the power energy that only exists in the legendary Immortal King, amethyst can also be regarded as the most high-end power energy.Therefore, the amethyst can be said to be the ultimate source of energy that all knights pursue.

Amethyst is different from blood crystal in that it is not made of synthetic elements. It is also a natural element like white crystal extracted from minerals.It's just that this natural element does not come from minerals, but from animals - the so-called "crystal beasts".

On the Pangea Continent, the word crystal beast does not refer to a certain type of animal, but generally refers to all creatures that can produce amethyst.In the era in which Mu Yun lived, there are about 20 known crystal beasts, all of which are near-extinct ancient giant beasts—that is, what people commonly call "dragons".Moreover, they are all hidden in the deep sea far away from the mainland, so that every time there is news of the discovery of crystal beasts in the sea, the major knights will be moved by the news, and even one or several small-scale wars will break out.After all, this amethyst energy may be enough to determine the outcome of a war on the battlefield, so the major knight groups would rather not get it themselves, nor fall into the hands of their opponents.

It's just that most of the time, the amethyst raw material obtained by killing a crystal beast may not be able to refine an amethyst energy block.Because to be precise, the raw material of this amethyst energy is some kind of stone in the gallbladder of the crystal beast.The size and number of stones will vary according to the age and shape of the crystal beast.For a [-]-ton crystal beast, the gallstones that can be removed from the gallbladder will not exceed [-] kilograms at most. In addition to the loss during the refining process, the final amethyst energy block produced will only be [-] kilograms at most.

In addition, the number of crystal beasts is getting rarer and rarer. Some of the captured crystal beasts weigh less than [-] tons. They are completely babies among the crystal beasts, and even the formed stones cannot be pulled out of the gallbladder.Generally, when this kind of crystal beast is caught, it can only be marked and kept in captivity until it grows up slowly.

Since the crystal beasts live in the deep sea, it is not so easy to raise them in captivity. Once they are raised, the ownership is more likely to cause disputes. In recent years, there have been problems such as poaching of the crystal beasts they raised in captivity among the major knights. There were also disputes.

And in the mechanical age, when the dragons near the mainland hadn't been driven to extinction, the amethyst hadn't reached the level of a rare treasure.It is said that the tonnage of humanoid mechas in the mechanical age even far exceeded that of the humanoid mechas in the mecha age, because there were still a certain amount of amethysts on the mainland at that time.

People have also been speculating that the birth of the giant mecha that can open up the world in the legendary era is also based on the premise of sufficient amethyst energy.There is even a saying that the reason for developing blood crystal energy, a synthetic elemental energy, is to replace the gradually disappearing amethyst energy.

But no matter what, if the true face of this dead castle is the legendary Dragon Castle that domesticated the beast, and the beast is a kind of crystal beast, then why this place that is not a military fortress has become one of the battlefields of the Millennium War seems to be a question. It makes sense.After all, no matter what era it is, amethyst is the top energy that military strategists must contend for.

"Speaking of which, the team that entered Dead Castle in front of us, their goal is the amethyst on the crystal beast!" Mu Yun came to a conclusion, and immediately understood why they were so guarded against him: Hearing It would be too hypocritical to say that I am not tempted by the word crystal beast...

What's more, if there is a crystal beast in this dead castle, then this crystal beast has grown for a thousand years, and it can become a spirit. Now the largest crystal beast caught on Pangu Continent is only a thousand tons. level.If there is a thousand-year-old crystal beast, its tonnage can even reach more than [-] tons. Even if there is only one, the amount of amethyst that can be produced is quite considerable...

Originally, I entered Dead Fort just to grab a few pieces of handy equipment, but I didn't expect to encounter such top-level energy as Amethyst. Mu Yun's heart was already gearing up, and the pace of the armor Xifeng was much bigger than before. .

On the other hand, Li Jing remained calm, manipulating Wuming's battle armor, lazily following behind Mu Yun, and said in a neutral tone, "Hehe, let's wait and see, I'm afraid this dead castle will Here, it's not just as simple as crystal beasts..."

(End of this chapter)