Wasteland Development Diary

The encounter with the giant crab was nearly 4,000 meters from the depression.

Zhou Yi led Xie Xun and the Warrior Crabs into the seabed.

Sand rats usually burrow about 2 meters underground, but to avoid high-density death ray irradiation, they reach nearly 4 meters in the seabed. Fortunately, this species is naturally good at burrowing, otherwise reaching this depth would be a very difficult task.

The Hammer Soldiers dug four holes in a row without finding the location.

It wasn't until the sixth hole that a Hammer Soldier's hammer suddenly caused the ground to shake, and something emerged from the sandy soil.

Zhou Yi immediately ordered a retreat to ensure the safety of the Hammer Soldiers.

A large Warrior Crab crawled out of the pit, smaller than a house, but still worthy of being called a Giant Crab.

As someone who spent years with Warrior Crabs, Zhou Yi immediately noticed the difference.

Although the Giant Crab's eyes were also silver, they maintained a rigid posture, supporting each other to the sides. The vertical eyes of a normal Warrior Crab would move, just like a person blinks.

Its black carapace did not have a silver cross, but was covered with a thick layer of light soot sand.

From the [Alert] perspective, there was no luminous reaction on the Giant Crab.

The large pincers and the tips of its eight legs, which were not completely covered by light soot, clearly showed a metallic structure. Not to mention the two obvious crystal lampshades under the Giant Crab's eyes.

This was an artificial machine crab, missing the last two left legs, and in a damaged state.

After being activated, it stopped moving, and the lights under its eyes went out.

Zhou Yi approached, and the lights came on again.

But it seemed to have run out of energy and could not do anything else.

Under Zhou Yi's command, the Warrior Crabs dragged the Giant Crab back to the shore.

In the sunlight, the Giant Crab lay prostrate on the ground.

The black light soot on its body surface was scraped off by the Warrior Crabs with shovels and chisels, revealing the rusty metal shell inside, with damaged white paint on the shell, a drawing of a little man in a bottle on the left, and a number on the right.

A machine crab made by the Artificer Society?

Zhou Yi wondered what this thing was used for.

Weapons Master Xie Xun carefully inspected the Giant Crab and reported: "Leader, I found a hatch that can be opened."

"Open it and see. Also, you are all company employees, call me Chairman."

"Yes, Chairman."

Upon receiving the order, Xie Xun held a shield and used a steel bar to pry open the hatch on the Giant Crab's abdomen.

He crawled into the hatch and came out with two things after a while.

A tin box.

A green stone the size of a fist.

The tin box was very heavy, with a mechanical lock on each of the four buckles. The lock holes were in a strange cone shape, making it impossible to open with conventional methods.

For safety's sake, Zhou Yi told Xie Xun not to rush to break open the box with violence.

The Kestrel flew to the stone and scanned it for a while: "This is the [Water Tako] in its [Dehydrated State]. As long as you water it, you can bring it back to life."

Zhou Yi asked: "What is a Water Tako?"

"A type of Light-Na species, very intelligent. They have multiple brains and are highly talented mental laborers."

The drone judged: "Based on my search and rescue experience, it is the operator of this crab-shaped vehicle. To avoid danger and maintain survival, the Water Tako will dehydrate itself and enter an almost energy-free dormant state to await rescue and rehydration."

"But this does not mean they are immortal. Regardless of whether they are dehydrated or not, physiological irreversible weakening will continue. The average lifespan of a Water Tako is 90 years. Beyond this time limit, even if placed in water, you will only get a pile of fragments."

Zhou Yi thought of the dehydrated Trisolarans.

He asked the Warrior Crabs to bring a wooden bucket filled with water and put the stone-shaped Water Tako into the water.

The green stone slowly expanded, grew larger, and stretched out soft limbs from the inside.

About a minute later.

A small green octopus propped itself up from the bucket, looking around and waving its tentacles. However, it could not make a sound and seemed to want to express something.

Zhou Yi went over and held out his hand to it. The other party hesitated for a moment, and then grabbed it with its suction cup tentacles.

Energy input.

Consciousness synchronization activated.

Zhou Yi said: "I'm glad you're okay."

"Telepathy? Or some kind of implanted device?" The octopus was taken aback, and it immediately realized: "It seems that you saved me. I am very grateful for your life-saving grace."

"My name is Bichi. I am an Artificer from the Artificer Society, and my research direction is ossified fossils under the Dead Sea and the civilization of the Age of Gods. Where is my submersible? It's still there, great. It looks intact. Have you seen my research ship?"

It spoke very quickly, with plenty of desire to express itself.

After Zhou Yi introduced himself, he told it that he had not found any ships except for this crab-shaped device buried in the seabed soil.

Bichi propped up its eight tentacles all the way to the tin box, inserted its tentacles into the buckles, and opened all four locks.

Then it opened the tin lid and took out a suction cup and stuck it on its smooth head.

"The voice transmitter is broken, what a pity."

Then it took out a silver badge and showed it to Zhou Yi: "This is my badge, which can prove the authenticity of my identity."

Zhou Yi had seized a copper Artificer Society badge before.

This one of Brother Octopus was silver—or rather, silver-plated. There were some black oxidation marks on its surface, but the other carved details were exactly the same.

The Kestrel said: "It belongs to a high-level Artificer of the Artificer Society. Ordinary Artificers have only passed the Artificer Society's rating and hold copper badges, also known as copper badges."

"Silver badges represent outstanding achievements in a certain aspect or field and are high-level Artificers."

So it was a high-level talent.

He then realized that there were not only human enhancers in organizations like the Artificer Society, but also other Light-Na species.

Zhou Yi began to think about how to keep Brother Octopus.

The company was currently lacking talent in the field of scientific research.

But Bichi asked again: "Where is this? Can you help me contact Fengdu City? I am from Fengdu City. The submersible ran out of energy and encountered a serious malfunction before..."

Zhou Yi was stunned.

Fengdu City.

That was Qian Su's hometown.

"I work at the Artificer Society in Fengdu City. Can you help me contact them? The Artificer Society will send someone to pick me up and will also pay you a generous reward. There may not be enough time. I still have to participate in the year-end report, otherwise next year's funding will be troublesome... Please help me, I am very grateful! !"

Brother Octopus chattered.

Zhou Yi told it: "Fengdu City is gone."

"Fengdu City... is gone?"

The other party did not understand: "Was it merged with other cities, or renamed? That's too sudden."

"No, it was completely destroyed."

Zhou Yi repeated the information given by the Kestrel: "Nine years ago, a huge explosion occurred in Fengdu City. The high-energy radiation caused by the explosion and shock wave covered Fengdu City and the surrounding four towns, causing a large number of deaths."

"The explosion caused nearly 3,000 deaths, and more than 27,000 people had to take inhibitory drugs to curb physiological changes. The entire city was completely abandoned at that time."

Qian Su almost died in this accident when she was a child.

"Fengdu City was destroyed..."

Bichi's big eyes suddenly shrank, its smooth body tightened for a moment, and its eight tentacles moved restlessly: "The high-energy explosion in the city... Damn, damn thing! It must be the 'Light Burst Experiment'!"

Zhou Yi was a little surprised: "You know the inside story? The explosion was only said to be caused by a factory accident."

"What factory can cause radiation covering several towns? It can only be a light burst experiment."

Bichi gesticulated with its eight tentacles and said angrily: "Fengdu City secretly introduced a very risky project in order to get a lot of investment. The one with the highest destructive power and danger level was the 'Light Burst Experiment'."

"This experiment was to simulate a light burst through technical means, so as to create a specific light-imprint device. It was also a project that the Artificer Society headquarters has been promoting. However, because the radiation leakage hazard is very high, and the light burst itself is prone to causing devastating damage, the Artificer Societies in other cities have refused."

"But Fengdu City is one of the territories of the Light-Imprint School. There are a large number of people from the Light-Imprint School in the Artificer Society. Their style is very radical, worshiping and studying the power of death rays... Even if we tried our best to oppose it, the light burst experiment was finally implemented in Fengdu City."

Bichi closed its eyes in pain: "I was very worried before. The light burst experiment was originally supposed to be carried out in a special radiation tower built in the wild, but in order to get new funding as soon as possible, they forcibly carried it out in the basement of the city, using living rats and dogs for experiments. Fengdu City also turned a blind eye to it."

"We wrote letters of complaint to the headquarters, reflecting on the supervision issues and requesting to stop the experiment for process inspection... I didn't expect something to happen."

Zhou Yi then learned the reason.

Judging from the time, Bichi had been sleeping on the seabed for at least nine years.

Zhou Yi asked it: "How did you fall here?"

"I study the civilization of the Age of Gods and regularly go to the bottom of the Dead Sea for investigation and excavation."

Bichi pointed to the immobile mechanical crab: "This is a submersible that I commissioned the Artisan Guild to customize to imitate a Warrior Crab. The reason for making it like this is to avoid causing the Warrior Crabs to attack."

"They are a group that is easily irritated, and it is difficult to deal with them when encountered on the seabed. This appearance will reduce their hostility, and the structure is also suitable for the environmental requirements of the Dead Sea."

"At that time, five of our Artificers wrote a joint letter and transmitted it to the headquarters through the equipment of the Machine City. The headquarters responded that they were verifying it, and then I went to work in the Dead Sea as usual."

"I drove the research ship to hover over the Dead Sea, raised the flag of the Artificer Society, and then drove the submersible all the way down."

Brother Octopus recalled: "This time, I entered a previously confirmed underwater Age of Gods site, where there were several well-preserved buildings."

"I found nothing in those buildings, but I found a previously undiscovered burial pit under the adjacent mud."

"In those pits, there were well-preserved prehistoric human skeletons. They were all juvenile bodies and looked similar to humans of this era. Most importantly, there was a special ritual for this collective burial, that is, each young prehistoric human had a statue buried with them."

Brother Octopus took out two items from the tin box.

"These are them!"

"These two are the most."

Zhou Yi took a closer look.

Brother Octopus had a plastic Ultraman wrapped around one tentacle and a plastic monster wrapped around the other.

"Similar images can be found in various Age of Gods buildings. In the past, we often thought that this was an image of a patron saint that could protect prehistoric humans."

"However, there are many types of patron saints. Like these two, they may represent different camps and tendencies."

"Some people think that the gods of the Age of Gods were just servants and tools controlled by prehistoric humans, so the prehistoric humans of that era created billions of gods. In the end, humans were also overthrown and betrayed by the gods they created, leading to complete destruction, being submerged by the Dead Sea, and the remaining descendants also lost their former power."

Bichi paused and said, "I also have a bold idea."

"Is it possible that some of the gods or prehistoric humans underwent a dehydration-like change, just like our Water Tako, shrinking into this appearance to avoid the unrecordable disaster? Perhaps these are their true appearance and body. It's just that we haven't found a way to restore them yet."

"Of course, this is just my guess, and the theory and technology cannot support it."

Zhou Yi looked at Ultraman and the little monster and could generally guess that the place Brother Octopus found was either a kindergarten or a nursery.

However, such things are indeed incomprehensible to later generations.

Brother Octopus can only infer the behavior of prehistoric humans based on his own situation.

"I further collected records in that relic, but my submersible suddenly couldn't move, and the energy inside was rapidly consumed and overflowing..."

Brother Octopus suddenly froze.

It ran to the outside of the submersible with its eight feet and checked it, and then cursed.

"Damn it, the Light-Imprint School tampered with my submersible! It's to prevent me from talking nonsense again!"