Alien Relic Hunter

"One tree is not enough. Generally, in order to reduce errors as much as possible, it is necessary to detect the annual ring density of at least three to five mist trees, whether they are trunks or pillar roots." Mo Jue said.

Swish, swish, and with the heart-wrenching sound of wood fibers breaking, four more thick foggy trees fell down.

Mo Jue immediately used the tool that looked like a vernier caliper to measure the growth rings of the cross-sections of the fog perch trees, then took out a pen and a notebook to do some simple calculations, and finally nodded to Ke Lan: "No. Wrong, the depth of where we are now is exactly five hundred meters, and the error is no more than ten meters."

"It's really five hundred meters?" Thirty-three muttered, "Just now I felt that we walked at least three or four kilometers. Even if these twists and turns don't count, there is still at least one or two kilometers, right?"

"We have spent several years verifying this measurement method, and we have never missed it," Mo Jue said confidently.

"Let's not talk about this first," Ke Lan raised a hand, "By the way, during that exploration operation, your father and that Uncle Hong disappeared here, right?"

"The depth is five hundred meters, but not in this direction." Mo Jue spread out a somewhat wrinkled, hand-drawn map. On this map, the outline of the entire gray fog forest was marked by a bold black pen. Traced it out.

Looking down from a high altitude, the shape of the gray fog forest is like an old rag that has been thrown on the ground with irregularly wrinkled edges. Ke Lan, who saw the real map captured by the drone, had to admit that this hand-drawn The map was drawn so accurately that he even suspected that the person who drew it covered the electronic map with paper and traced it.

At the top of the map is a scale bar. This is a map with a scale of one to one hundred thousand. In other words, one centimeter on the map is equivalent to one kilometer in reality.

At the edge of the gray mist forest, blue dots are used to mark several camping spots and forest entry points frequently used by the lumberjack team. Five centimeters within the edge are marked with eye-catching red lines along the border of the forest. One circle - this circle of line is naturally the famous "red line".

This map is indeed well drawn, but its "accuracy" is only limited to the edges and peripheral areas of the gray fog forest, while the interior of the forest is completely blank.

"The location where we entered the forest is Camp No. 6." Mo Jue pointed to a blue dot in the southwest, and then moved his finger nearly thirty centimeters to the upper right, that is, in the northeast direction, "And the location of our exploration operation The location where we enter the forest is Camp 11, and the straight-line distance from here is more than 20,000 meters."

"In other words, even if we just walked in a straight line, we still wouldn't be able to reach the place you originally explored, right." Thirty-three concluded.

Mo Jue nodded: "Yes, that's right."

"But maybe the corpse will come 'on its own'... The missing golden retriever was also far away from where we entered the forest, but we still ran into it." Ke Lan smiled, "Be optimistic, at least we We are not in any danger now, we don’t have to worry about getting lost, and we have plenty of time.”

"You have plenty of time, but if you want to find the traces left by the original team of lumberjacks in such a large forest...it's like looking for a needle in a haystack." Ivan sighed, and he subconsciously took out the compass from his pocket, but The magnetic needle on the dial was spinning wildly at the moment and couldn't stop at all.

"The method of judging the direction based on the density of annual rings is of no use here." Thirty-three looked at a tree stump that Asano Akira had just cut out, "The mist perch here can't be seen in all directions of the annual rings. If there is no difference between density and density, even if there is an extremely small gap, the arrangement of density and density will all be chaotic."

Ke Lan raised his head and looked directly above. Above the dense canopy of the fog perch, there was a thick gray mist that was so dense that sunlight could not penetrate it. It was obvious that this plant could synthesize its own photosynthesis even without photosynthesis. Nutrients, in the periphery of the gray fog forest, sunlight and rain may also play a certain role in guiding the growth of fog habitats, but in the area after the red line, these external factors are completely isolated from the fog miasma.

"We can't even determine the direction, and we can't even get closer to the direction that the loggers explored." Ivan sighed, "It's like finding a needle in a haystack, but we can't even determine whether we are sinking or floating. "

"Like a headless fly." Thirty-three added.

"Ke Lan, can your 'navigator' determine the direction in the forest?" Mo Jue looked at Ke Lan with a hint of hope.

"No, I can only take you along the route given by the 'navigation', but if we go somewhere without the 'navigation', it won't be of much help." Ke Lan said.

"Then I think it's a bit confusing... The fact that we are not lost currently is based on the premise that Ke Lan has obtained the 'navigation', but if we break away from the navigation..." Ivan pondered.

"No, no, no, you misunderstood what I meant." Ke Lan shook his head repeatedly, "This 'navigation' is actually equivalent to a hard insurance - no matter whether we are within the scope of the navigation, as long as we want, we can always We were guided back to the original route. Although navigation to other places is useless, if we want to go back, we can do it anytime and anywhere. As long as our depth does not exceed thirty-five kilometers."

"So that's it?!" Ivan's eyes lit up - for him, the words on the stone tablet were just a string of undecipherable "ghost symbols", but for Ke Lan, with this thing, It is equivalent to getting a switch that can be turned on infinitely... No matter they are lost or encounter other obstacles, as long as no one is separated from the majority, Ke Lan can bring everyone back to the navigation route at any time.

"You are right, this is indeed a hard insurance." Ivan nodded, "With this thing, we can explore without restraint at a depth of thirty-five kilometers."

"Then let's just pick any direction now and go straight forward?" Thirty-three raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah." Ke Lan took out a game coin from his small bag, threw it upward, then grabbed it and spread his palm.

The pattern on the game currency is a cartoon-shaped Zero-1 rifle, with the muzzle pointed at Ke Lan's one o'clock direction.

"This is it. Let's explore along this direction first." After saying that, Ke Lan did not forget to drive a steel pile with a direction arrow on the spot. If he couldn't find anything in this direction, he would 'Navigation' will be activated to bring everyone back here, and then find another direction to explore.

This method is clumsy, but very stable... Anyway, they have plenty of time, and the supplies they carry are enough for everyone to stay in the gray mist forest for three months.

…

"I feel like we are not out to explore, but rather like we are on an outing." Thirty-three is holding the safety rope with one hand and pillowing it behind his head with the other. "People are always like this. When they hear something hard, After insuring something like this, your emotions will relax involuntarily and you will no longer be as nervous as before.”

"There should be many ruins you have explored that are more dangerous than this one, right?" Mo Jue asked Ke Lan, "I heard that for those A-level and S-level ruins, the first few batches of advance teams that entered, out of ten people It’s not necessarily true that one person can come out alive, is it true? I always feel it’s a bit exaggerated…”

"It's not an exaggeration at all." Thirty-three put away his relaxed expression and said seriously, "On the contrary, in order to get more people to join the industry of relic hunters, Ark has been trying to exaggerate the treasures in the relics. Downplaying the dangers of exploring the ruins... There are a lot of stories about a poor boy becoming rich overnight and a person with huge debts making a fortune after paying off the debt in one trip. However, those who enter the ruins will People who never come out rarely come into public view.”

"There are indeed many people who get rich overnight, but compared to the number of hunters who were buried in the ruins, they can only be regarded as rare. But the public media will hardly report such data. You want to know the specific inside story , you can only find it on professional relic hunter websites or forums." Ivan explained to Mo Jue, "But you need to pay to register an account on such a website, and those more high-end and professional websites basically have It is invitation-only, and it is impossible for non-industry people to get an account... Of course, ordinary people prefer stories that have been processed through art rather than cold data and reporting records."

"Not even one out of ten people can come out alive. Not only is this statement not an exaggeration at all, the reality is even crueler than this... But as far as I know, there is a legendary hunting group in the ruin hunter circle, which is an exception. Exception." After Thirty-three finished speaking, he showed a meaningful smile.

"The legendary hunting group you are talking about...is your 'God Hunting Group'?" Mo Jue's expression was a bit complicated. She wanted to complain about the other party's self-promotion, but the actual situation made it impossible for her to find anyone who could use it. To refute the point.

The Hunting God Hunting Group can indeed be regarded as a "legendary hunting group". What is legendary is not only its rocket-like rise in the points rankings, but also the fact that they have set a record that has never been set by any hunting group.

Since the creation of the Hunting God Hunting Group, they have explored two S-level ruins (Yagunaktor and the bottomless sinkhole), and one A-level ruins (the molten mining area after the earthquake) that are as difficult as S-level ruins. There are also rumors claiming that they even participated in the Battle of the Ancient Bronze City Ruins between the Ark and the heretical sects, and played a vital role in the destruction of "Alexander"... The dangerousness of this battle was completely It can be equivalent to exploring three S-level ruins...

And all this was accomplished in just one year.

This is not the most outrageous thing... The most outrageous thing is that after exploring so many high-level ruins and even participating in the battle at the ruins of the Ancient Copper City, this God Hunting Group did not lose a single member!

For anyone familiar with the level of ruins in the industry, this can definitely be called a miracle!

The first casualty among the official members of the Hunting God Hunting Group occurred after "Alexander"'s "Ultimate Judgment" hit the Ark, but those casualties were only the logistics staff who stayed at the hunting group's base, and the real core staff was alone. None have been damaged.

Based on this record alone, no hunting group that has appeared in the history of Ark can match it.

"Then how did you get involved with Ark officials?" Mo Jue couldn't help but ask.

"If you know about this matter, even if we don't silence you, you will be 'physically erased' by the top management of Ark after you go back." Ke Lan made a silent gesture, "You just need to Just know that what we are doing now is crucial."

Just when Mo Jue was about to ask something, Ivan, who was holding a pile of mostly malfunctioning detection equipment, suddenly stopped and said, "A large amount of metal reaction has been detected ahead."

"Massive metal reaction?" Ke Lan also stopped, "There should be no mineral veins under the gray mist forest, right?"

"At least no mineral veins have been found in the places we have explored." Mo Jue said immediately.

"Go and have a look."

Everyone walked forward, and the space barrier pushed away the fog. A rusty "Type 906" light tank, half buried in the soil, appeared in everyone's sight. Next to the tank, a "walking tank" appeared. The "Walker" bipedal tactical mecha leans diagonally on a thick pillar root. Most of the cockpit of the machine body has been "swallowed" by the pillar root. Countless slender vines pry the "Walker" cockpit cover. He opened a finger-wide gap and got into the cockpit.

"This should be the equipment of the armored force that was buried in the gray fog forest." Mo Jue said, "We have also found a broken leg of a mecha before, abandoned in the forest... But to be honest, we have never No trace of this force has been found at a depth of five hundred meters."

"Where is the deepest trace of this troop found before?" Thirty-three asked casually.

"It's less than three hundred meters deep." Mo Jue said, "For people who are not familiar with the Gray Mist Forest, it is already a great thing to be able to go deep one hundred meters behind the red line."

"By the way, didn't you find anything wrong?" Ke Lan walked around the wreckage of the tank, "Although the Type 90 tank is a light tank, its body width is still 2.8 meters, and this place is full of forest The space is not wide enough for this tank to pass... How did it get here?"

"That's right... If the bodies of the killed soldiers were moved by indigenous creatures or foggy trees... who would move something as heavy and inedible as a tank?" Thirty-three Ivan Ye Lost in thought.

[P.S. Thanks to Aedes for the 10,000 starting coins, the 82nd helmsman of this book was born - the author Baimeng, the big brother, is just starting out. If I am a rusher like me, if I can get a hundred helmsmen before the end. , I am very satisfied...]

[P.P.S. I am going out to go rafting with friends tomorrow. I will get home very late. If I don’t have time to type, I will probably ask for leave (as we all know, the B of Dark Dust is not saved...)]