Alien Relic Hunter

Ke Lan sighed with some disappointment. It seemed that he couldn't get any valuable information from the controlled soldiers, so he had to find other ways.

"Well... the soldiers were in a completely unconscious state after being controlled by the things in the castle, but they knew how to use guns and weapons and also used some simple fighting skills. From this, it seems that the things in the castle should have a lot of power. IQ. Then it must be able to tell that I am the leader of this team. The reason why I am not controlled is not because of luck, but because 'it' cannot control me."

After confirming this, Ke Lan finally felt a little more relaxed.

Ke Lan left Ze Luo on the side of the roadbed as an insurance measure, and returned to the guy's control - nothing happened. This once again verified Ke Lan's guess: that thing can only Control ordinary soldiers, but cannot control "elite units" like Ke Lan or Ze Luo.

Ke Lan directly knocked out the controlled soldiers and brought them back. After giving the other soldiers the "standby" order, he and Ze Luo walked towards the castle alone.

Although this castle is not on the only way to the institute, the things in the castle have discovered them and carried out an attack. Naturally, Ke Lan cannot let it go - just in case the things in the castle are aware of the team. If there is a problem with those two "people it cannot control", if it is reported to the Undead Crew Association, there will probably be a steady stream of troubles coming to the door.

…

Ke Lan walked to the entrance of the castle and glanced at a standing sign at the door. It was engraved with retro cursive reliefs, indicating that the castle belonged to the Gustav family.

The Gustav family is one of the most mysterious wealthy families on the Ark. The mystery here not only refers to the fact that the outside world knows very little information about this family. The biggest reason is that this family does not do business, does not participate in government, and no one joins the army. However, It can stand for hundreds of years without falling... No one even knows how this family rose back then.

The Gustav family has many private properties, but most of them cannot bring direct benefits to the family. There is no consortium under its name, and there are no members named Gustav in the joint parliamentary group, nor among the top military officials. The tasks that come out of this family...all the information about this family seems to be hidden in a thick fog, and very little information is disclosed to the outside world. But when those commercial and entertainment magazines counted the wealthy families on the Ark every year, the name of the Gustav family was always indispensable.

Some people on the Internet once suspected that the Gustav family was engaged in gray business, or that they were doing shady things for the government in order to make huge profits... But this statement is simply untenable. This kind of family involved in gray industries is very rare. It is difficult to get on the stage, even if there are a handful of people who can become bigger and stronger, they will eventually choose to whitewash themselves and find ways to use the industry on the surface to cover up those things that can only be hidden in the shadows.

Among the various wealthy families on the Ark, there are those who started their careers upright and relying on their own abilities, and there are also those who are both black and white. But if you say that they have risen completely by gray industries and have not undergone transformation, that is absolutely non-existent... No matter how you put it, , surface work must be sufficient.

This Gustav family is an anomaly.

However, when Ke Lan kicked open the castle door and entered the main hall of the castle, most of his inner doubts were immediately eliminated.

On the most conspicuous place on the main wall of the main hall, there is a portrait hanging. The middle-aged man in the painting, wearing a fine black suit and showing no anger or self-respect, actually looks similar to the virtual projection of "Zeus", one of the members of the Immortal Crew. Nine points of similarity.

"No wonder... the Gustav family can still stand for hundreds of years without doing anything. It turns out that these people are the descendants of Zeus." Ke Lan muttered in his heart.

Of course, the man in the portrait is not necessarily "Zeus" himself, but in terms of time, Zeus can definitely be regarded as the longest-living member of the Gustav family. The Gustav family is also entirely because of him "When one person attains enlightenment, chickens and dogs ascend to heaven." It is not an exaggeration to say that Zeus is the "ancestor" of this family.

"That thing is in the basement of the castle." Ze Luo said to Ke Lan.

"Basement...basement...tsk, there's really nothing new at all." Ke Lan shook his head and asked, "Where is the entrance to the basement?"

"Right under our feet." Ze Luo replied.

"Under the feet? The entrance to the basement is in the main hall?" Ke Lan's expression suddenly became a little weird, "Okay, I take back what I just said and apologize to Mr. Zeus. The location of this entrance... is really... quite fashionable."

"There are no traces of human habitation in this castle." Ze Luo continued, "The things in the basement are the only living things in the castle."

"Except for that thing, is this an empty city?" Ke Lan glanced at the shiny new ornaments in the main hall with some confusion. There was no dust on them, and they didn't look like they had been idle for a long time. "Is it possible? Are all the people living in the castle dead, or have they turned into corpses?"

"No, I can't feel any human breath... At least in the past few years, no one has lived in this castle." Ze Luo shook his head.

"It seems that they should be employees who clean regularly... No, if the entrance to the secret passage in the basement is set up in the main hall, this castle should not easily allow outsiders to enter. Then there will only be smart robots that clean regularly..." Ke Lan glanced at both sides of the main hall and walked up the spiral staircase to the second floor of the main building. There were two covered bridges more than 20 meters above the ground connecting the main building with the two towers on the left and right. Three buildings appeared. An inverted triangle. Inside this triangle is a perfectly trimmed lawn. In the center of the lawn is a fountain statue. The theme of the statue should be some mythical story from the old era, but which one is it? Ke Lan couldn't remember the story for a while.

Since no one has lived in this castle in recent years, the priority of exploring other rooms is very low. Ke Lan lightly stamped his foot. Ze Luo understood immediately, and a majestic power of space instantly penetrated the price. Expensive hand-woven carpets and solid wood floors, along with a half-meter-thick alloy secret door underneath the floor!

The two of them sank underground and came to a dark tunnel.

"There is a strange fishy smell... This fishy smell makes me feel familiar, as if I have smelled a similar smell somewhere." Ke Lan said softly.

But he couldn't tell where he had smelled such a smell... For a relic hunter, the fishy smell was too common, whether it was the nests of indigenous creatures or the smell of blood in traps that killed countless people. , or the fishy smell of the sea with slight neurotoxins drifting from the sea... There are too many similar smells, and for a person who is not particularly sensitive to smell, the fishy smell can be smelled together. , maybe you can tell one or two apart, but if you smell different fishy smells on different occasions and at different times, the feedback given by the brain will become very close.

I really want to describe what kind of smell it is, but I can't organize the words.

"If the old dog were here, he would probably be able to smell what this smells like...but only if he has smelled it before." Ke Lan thought as he walked along the tunnel, while Ze Luo kept a close eye on him. The ground followed behind him, and an invisible space barrier surrounded the two of them, not even missing the top of their heads and the soles of their feet.

After walking less than twenty steps along the tunnel, the surrounding environment began to become very humid. The walls of the stone tunnel were wet, as if water was constantly seeping out of the stone...

Logically speaking, there should be moss in this environment, but this tunnel is very clean, with nothing except the seepage on the stone walls.

Ke Lan took out his dagger and scraped off a bit of the liquid attached to the stone wall - he soon discovered that the liquid was not water, but a thin mucus similar to egg white.

The fishy smell in the tunnel is caused by these mucus.

Ke Lan suddenly remembered where he had smelled this fishy smell - it was the smell of LCL's "Water of Life". After he escaped from the undersea city, he was in a medical cabin filled with this liquid. Soaked for three full days...but when the liquid fills your nose and lungs, you can no longer smell the fishy smell. Only the LCL liquid exposed to the air will release this smell that looks a bit like Rotten eggs are fermented and have a faint fishy smell, a bit like serum.

"LCL liquid... It seems that this castle should be a breeding ground secretly set up by Zeus, and the thing to be cultivated should be the guy with the ability to control mind." Ke Lan analyzed, "Ze Luo, that guy must know that we are coming in I found it, did it react?"

"I can't feel it. Its 'emotions' are completely blocked by that special power." Ze Luo responded, "But its heartbeat frequency has not changed significantly."

"Heartbeat?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment, put his ear against the stone wall of the tunnel, listened carefully for a while, and then said to Ze Luo, "Turn on the shared senses."

Ze Luo put a hand on the back of Ke Lan's neck, and the five white and slender green jade fingers turned into five black tentacles in a few seconds, penetrating the skin of Ke Lan's back neck, along the He climbed up along his spine... After a while, the rhythmic "heartbeat" sounded in Ke Lan's head.

After listening for only half a minute, a clear expression appeared on Ke Lan's face: "This is not the heartbeat of a living thing, it is some kind of artificial heart, or in other words, a device that pumps blood to various organs. Since it is a machine , so it’s not surprising to maintain a stable heartbeat.”

As for when Ze Luo first discovered it, the reason why its "heartbeat rate" accelerated might be because it wanted to activate its mind control skills, so it needed to increase its blood and oxygen supply. But now, its control skills are ineffective for two people, and there will naturally be no change in the supply of blood and oxygen.

"Although it is an 'artificial heart', you must always pay attention to the changes in frequency. When the frequency speeds up, it means what skills this thing is going to activate." Ke Lan said to Ze Luo.

The shared sensory state is not suitable to be maintained in a combat state, because Ke Lan only "listened" to the heartbeat for Ze Luo to release the shared state - when Ze Luo pulled his fingers out of the back of Ke Lan's neck. , the wounds left by the five punctures healed in the blink of an eye, the process of connecting the scabs was omitted, and the healed areas did not leave any scars or discoloration.

Although Ke Lan has self-sealed the ability of the body, the strengthening effect on the body is still real. His current self-recovery ability has been greatly enhanced compared to when he entered the hive city - even if the owl leader is seriously injured now , he can also regrow a body from his broken neck.

For him, the so-called fatal injury probably required crushing the entire head, or throwing it into the fire and burning it like the "corpse" of the men in black. Otherwise, as long as there is sufficient energy, Ke Lan's body will be reborn indefinitely.

The two continued to walk forward. There were five half-meter-thick airtight doors in the tunnel. However, in the face of Ze Luo's space power, even if the thickness doubled, the high-strength alloy was about the same as plasticine and would deform when pinched. After passing through the five doors without any hindrance, Ke Lan finally saw the true face of that thing.

It was a huge brain soaked in a glass jar...or rather, a mass of crazy brain tissue...It had broken through the shackles of the glass jar and spread everywhere. Even the life-support equipment nearby was covered in pink. The soft tissue is wrapped in it. As for the machine used to replace the heart and pump blood to all parts of the brain tissue, it has been integrated with it.

"Core Mastermind? No, this should be...a copy of the Core Mastermind?"

[P.S. Thanks to the reading giraffe for the 1,500 starting coins. 】

[P.P.S. I was going to be hospitalized last month because some things delayed it for a while. I just went through the admission procedures today. I will be hospitalized tomorrow for a bone puncture. In addition to the bone puncture, I have been feeling a little unwell recently. Do a more comprehensive inspection. After all, it has been more than half a year since the last inspection.

What I have posted in the past two days should be part of the saved manuscript (actually it is not a saved manuscript, it is some monsters, enemies and other things that were previously set, and some battle plots set in the outline were pulled out in advance. ). Originally, these chapters were intended to cover Ke Lan entering the root system of the giant tree. Everyone has also seen that the chapter title is "The Root of the Giant Tree".

But because there have been a lot of things recently, I have been putting it off again and again, until we get to the Root of the Giant Tree (Part 2). The protagonist has not yet reached the root of the tree... but it is very troublesome to change the chapter name at the starting point, so everyone will just make do with it. Just pretend you didn't see it.

Also, let me state that these battles are not plot-delaying elements, they are mini-BOSSs that were originally set up, but the encounter time has been advanced in terms of plot arrangement. Because the tree root part is a relatively important plot, I want to wait until the situation is adjusted before I write it. Please forgive me for a moment. 】