Alien Relic Hunter

"Aren't you afraid of death?" Ke Lan glanced at her and asked with a half-smile.

"Anyway, my brother is safe..." Mo Jue said firmly, "Since you are not afraid, then I am not afraid either."

"Actually, you think your father might still be alive, right?" Ivan suddenly interjected, "Although your reason tells you that the possibility is almost infinitely close to zero, you still have a glimmer of hope in your heart... After all, you Father, he is just 'missing', not 'dead', and you haven't seen his body with your own eyes, right?"

"You also hope that he is still alive, don't you?" Mo Jue asked.

"Yes, I also hope that your father is alive. You want to see people alive, and you want to see the body after death... Of course, if the body cannot be found, it would also be good for us to find the notebook your father carried with him." Ke Lan clicked. Nodding, "By the way, I forgot to ask you something just now. How long has it been since your father disappeared?"

"It's exactly six years and one month ago." Mo Jue replied.

"Six years...if he still stays in the Gray Mist Forest..." Ke Lan looked around the surrounding environment, "By the way, is there anything that anyone in the Gray Mist Forest can eat? I mean it can be eaten for a long time. The kind of food that allows life to move forward, rather than a temporary hunger-satisfying food.”

There is a big difference between food and food to satisfy hunger. The latter can be flesh and blood containing radiation, poisonous fungi, or even soil, bark, and corpses of the same kind... As long as it is eaten, it will not be fatal immediately, and it can temporarily delay the death of hunger. Anything that brings about a burning sensation in the stomach can be regarded as a hunger filler.

But relying on this kind of thing to survive in a forest for six years is obviously impossible.

If Mo Jue's father wants to survive in the forest, he must meet at least two hard conditions: 1. Breathable air that is clean and non-toxic; 2. A long-term and stable food source.

"Unless..." Ke Lan thought silently in his mind, "This guy has successfully passed through the gray fog forest and discovered a ruins similar to the wreckage of Engine No. 92 in the core of the forest."

According to the records of the 776 Special Forces Team and the super dream video that Ke Lan experienced, the wreckage of Engine No. 92 contains a large number of cans that meet the human definition of food. Those "people" who woke up from the hibernation cabin, It's those cans that sustain life.

As for the air problem, as long as Mo Zhuorui can find such a ruin, this problem will no longer be a problem.

"No." Mo Jue shook his head, "Things in the gray fog forest, whether plants, animals, or even soil, have been saturated with toxins in the gray fog over the years. Like the fog habitat trees we harvested back , before it is processed into furniture, special reagents need to be used to neutralize the toxins in the wood...and this step can only be completed on the Ark."

"How much food did your father have with him when he disappeared, and how many days of oxygen concentrator was enough?" Ivan added another question.

"As for food, each of us will bring enough dry food in our backpack to last for half a month. If we save some food, we should be able to last for more than a month... As for the oxygen generator, it depends on each person's weight-bearing capacity. , some bring four cans and some bring five cans..."

"A can of oxygen generator with a standard capacity can last for three days if it reacts non-stop for 24 hours. If the user engages in high-intensity physical activity and requires a large amount of oxygen, it will be shortened to two to two and a half days. To be conservative, we will take the minimum value of two days. By the way, how many days did it take you to reach the depth of 500 meters? "

"Three days." Mo Jue replied, "But when we go into the forest, we will bring a small trailer to stack food, medicine, oxygen generators, and some equipment and consumables. It is also used to collect the felled fog habitats. Wood is transported out of the forest, so everyone’s supplies will be replenished at any time.”

"Okay, the previous consumption is negligible. Even if your father brings four cans, he will have eight days before the oxygen is exhausted." Ke Lan raised an arm and faced the direction of the core of the forest, " According to the straight-line distance, the distance across half of the forest to the core area is about fifty kilometers. Of course, according to the 'map' I found from the photo of the stone monument, the route into the core area is not straight, so I will roughly take a three-dimensional route. The multiplier value is 150 kilometers. With your father’s physical strength and experience, he can complete the 150 kilometers in eight days with sufficient rest time.”

Ke Lan suddenly turned his head and grinned at Mo Jue: "Maybe your father is really not dead, and... he has also found the 'secret' he was looking for."

"Why do you think so?" Mo Jue slightly widened his eyes, "This... this is the gray mist forest, traveling 150 kilometers in eight days... This is absolutely impossible! Even if you don't multiply it three times, I don’t even think it’s possible to go fifty kilometers!”

"Because you think it took you three days to walk 500 meters, so it's impossible to walk 150 kilometers in eight days, right?" Ke Lan said with a smile, "But don't forget, your state is equivalent to feeling for stones. It's normal to not be able to walk fast when crossing a river. But what if your father obtained the map of the Gray Mist Forest... No, to be precise, what if your father obtained the dynamic navigation of the Gray Mist Forest?"

"What?!" Mo Jue's face was half shocked and half confused.

"This map... or in other words, this photo of the stone tablet with its own 'navigation' was found on the golden retriever." Ke Lan shook the phone in his hand, "Although it is not complete, since it is connected Golden Retrievers have such things, so as the leader of the lumberjack team, your father should also have them, and he should have more and more complete ones."

"B-but my father is not you. He doesn't know the writing of Alpha Civilization!" Mo Jue said.

"When Jin Mao disappeared, your father and the others probably hadn't been able to 'decipher' the message on this stone tablet. Otherwise, we wouldn't have seen Jin Mao's bones here." Ke Lan paused and continued, " But I have a guess that your father probably discovered some clues that led him to break away from the team and act alone through that five-hundred-meter-deep exploration operation... And his motive for doing this was probably that he didn't want to take you Get involved.”

"My father left the team on his own?!"

"I said, it's just a guess... But then again, as a father, I think he hopes that you can live a comfortable and stable life. You also said that he advised you to quit many times. The ‘Lumberjack’ team.”

"..." Mo Jue bit her lip and was silent for more than ten seconds before asking: "What do you think is the possibility that my father is still alive?"

"It's hard to say, but it shouldn't be higher than winning the first prize in a lottery." Ke Lan shrugged, "I stress again, these are all speculations without solid basis. I advise you not to have too much hope... … As the saying goes, ‘the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment’.”

Mo Jue nodded slightly: "I understand..."

To be honest, Ke Lan doesn't understand what the relationship between Mo Jue and her father is... But no matter what, there is still a family relationship between the two that is thicker than water, even if Mo Jue No matter how much he disliked his father, when he heard that his father might still be alive, his emotions fluctuated significantly.

It's a pity that Ke Lan can't empathize with this... Regardless of whether he is a "replica" created by the undead crew, for him, this thing of "relatives" has never existed.

Although I feel a little regretful, now it seems that this is not a bad thing for Ke Lan - many times, the existence of parents means weakness. Assuming that he really has a pair of parents living on the Ark, then whether it is the Undead Crew or some other force, as long as they can control Ke Lan's parents, they can use this as a bargaining chip to force Ke Lan to do things he doesn't want to do. .

This is definitely not the situation Ke Lan wants to see.

"It's so nice to have one person full and the whole family not hungry..." Ke Lan sighed inwardly, then looked back at the companions following him, and then thought of those who stayed on the ark...

If the crew members knew that they had gone to the Gray Mist Forest, would they control the hound, Zofia and others?

No, probably not.

Those who can join the Undead Crew Club are all smart people. They know very well that even if they control these people now, they will only make up for it. It will not prevent Ke Lan from continuing to explore the Gray Mist Forest. On the contrary, it will easily cause conflicts with Ke Lan. , leading to a rupture within the crew association.

For the mysterious "Seat Zero", a rupture within the Immortal Crew Association is probably the last thing he wants to see, right?

No matter how undercurrents are surging, members of the Undead Crew must "obey the rules" on the surface... Once the rules are broken, the organization will completely lose the meaning of existence.

The current Ark and current humanity cannot withstand any civil war.

It is also very simple for Ke Lan to ensure the safety of the hound, Zofia and others - as long as he can return to the Ark alive.

No matter what secrets are discovered in the core of the gray mist forest, as long as he can return alive, the undead crew will never attack the people around him.

But if he died in the gray mist forest, then those people who stayed on the Ark might become the targets of revenge by some bad-tempered guys... For the members of the crew association, ordinary people on the Ark Among human beings, even those with high authority such as congressmen are nothing more than insects that can be easily crushed to death. And people like Miss Soma, who came from an ordinary wealthy family, and Ye Yan, who is now "in decline", are even less of a person.

Unknowingly, the lives of these people were actually tied to Ke Lan.

"I can't die, so I won't die here." Ke Lan recited silently like a psychological suggestion, and then walked to the front of the team.

"Everyone lines up in a vertical row, and the person behind puts his hand on the shoulder of the person in front. The mecha continues to maintain the self-disciplined following mode." Ke Lan said loudly, "One thing you should pay attention to is that the navigation route is not straight. , some places even require turning back or even retreating, everyone must follow my course of action and never make a wrong step."

"Perhaps we can understand it in another way." Ivan added, "We should not think of ourselves as walking through the forest, but think of the ground as a screen large enough to solve an extremely complex drawing lock."

"That's a good summary." Ke Lan gave Dr. Mao Zi a thumbs up.

"Hey, I just took two big gulps of vodka, and my mind suddenly became bright." Ivan smiled and shook the silver flask in his hand.

Ke Lan took a deep breath, activated the "navigation circuit" that had been "stored" in his brain, and said: "We will set off now, the first target point, at a depth of 500 meters."

The end point of this navigation route is at a depth of thirty-five kilometers, but Ke Lan decided to explore first at the depth of five hundred meters where "Mo Jue's father disappeared" - perhaps, this is where Mo Zhuorui discovered something. clues, and then decided to leave the team and go to the depths of the gray mist forest alone...

It has to be said that the efficiency is indeed different after having "navigation". It only took everyone less than twenty minutes to reach the depth of 500 meters that was previously considered an "absolute restricted area" by the outside world.

The fog here is much thicker than a hundred meters deep, and the trunks and pillar roots of the fog perch are also much thicker.

Other than that, there is nothing more special about it.

"Are you sure this is five hundred meters deep?" Thirty-three asked with a frown, "We went in circles and back and forth... I think my sense of direction and space are pretty good. , almost fainted..."

Ivan looked at Ze Luo and asked in a low voice: "Miss Ze Luo, do you have a way to determine our current location?"

Ze Luo shook his head: "Although I left signs along the way, I can't sense them after a certain distance."

"Then it's better to ask the professionals." Ke Lan asked Mo Jue, "How do you woodcutter determine the depth of your position? Is it based on the concentration of fog?"

"It is difficult to quantitatively measure fog concentration. We generally rely on the density of annual rings of fog perches - the deeper the place, the denser the annual rings of fog perches, and they increase in a linear trend. This calculation method The error can be controlled at about ten to fifteen meters." Mo Jue said, taking out a tool like a vernier caliper from his backpack, "But limited by the accuracy of the tool, we can only measure within three thousand meters at most. For deeper places, you need to use laser equipment... We don’t have that thing.”

"Got it." Ke Lan waved to Asano Akira, who immediately drew his sword out of its sheath and cut off the middle of a foggy tree in front of him that was as thick as two people's arms.

[P.S. Thanks to the useful soap and reading giraffe for the 1,500 starting coins; thank you to the book friend 20220104211832727 for the 400 starting coins; thank you Genji Xian for the 100 starting coins. 】