Alien Relic Hunter

Regardless of whether these caves are qualified to be called a "relic", what is certain is that they were definitely not dug by humans... As for whether they are Alpha civilization, there is no way to know.

Unfortunately, there is no information such as writing or symbols left on the walls of these caves, and Ke Lan has no way of judging their purpose.

In this section of the outermost few dozen meters of the cave, there are some simple sheds set up. The outside of the sheds is wrapped with a large number of plastic sheets and straps, and inside are piles of dirty and worn bedding and some equally tattered clothes. .

There were several rusty Type 01 rifles against the wall. Next to the gun was a box of ammunition that looked like it came from a handmade workshop. The tolerances were so large that whether it would get stuck in the bolt was a problem - but it was different from the one beside it. Compared with what can barely be called a "magazine", these bullets can be considered "well-made".

Those magazines are simply made of two pieces of rolled-out rotten iron sheets, with several circles of dirty tape wrapped around the surface. Even the ones sold on the black market are called "disposable items." Junk goods are much better than these things.

Everything Ke Lan has seen so far is very different from the appearance of any exile settlement in the wilderness.

If there is any difference, it is probably that the spatial planning of these caves is too neat, and even the originally messy sheds seem to be very orderly - most of the exile settlements in the wilderness have no layout or structure at all. , from the perspective of directly above, it looks like a tumor growing randomly. All the sheds here are built against the rock walls, giving people a very orderly feel.

Ke Lan walked a dozen meters further, and an extinguished bonfire appeared in front of him.

"When you light a fire in a place like this, and there is no smoke exhaust device, you really don't have to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning." Ke Lan muttered while bending down to dig through the blackened remains in the campfire a few times, and a sense of warmth suddenly came through. The armor was passed to his hand, and he immediately pushed aside the ashes underneath. A few pieces of coal that were not completely extinguished and were still emitting black-red light were immediately exposed.

He was not surprised that the heretical sect could obtain coal. Swamps accounted for about 9% of the area in the wilderness of Alpha Planet. In these swamps, a large number of coal mines were buried under the shallow peat layer. People don't even need heavy machinery to excavate. One person, a shovel and a pickaxe can dig out dozens of kilograms of coal in a day.

It is precisely because of these rich coal mines that equipment using fossil fuels as energy sources, which had almost disappeared on the Ark, has become popular again.

But what made Ke Lan feel vigilant was that these still-burning coals proved that not long ago, there were people sitting around this campfire to keep warm - whether it was unmanned reconnaissance aircraft in the sky or zero-individual units surrounding this area. USS Fleet Marine Corps, none of them found anyone leaving this place, so where will these disappeared people go?

Ke Lan couldn't help but cast his gaze deeper into the cave.

Did these people go in with the prophet?

Ke Lan picked up a can next to the campfire. It was a can of luncheon meat produced by the military food factory of the Ark Field Force. The production date was 945, and it was four years past the two-year shelf life... But military cans As long as the food is sealed well, it can still be eaten even if it has expired for decades, but the taste may become worse.

This can has been half dug out, and is stained with a ring of white lard that solidified due to the low temperature, but the meat inside still maintains a certain degree of softness, compared to the other one next to it that has not been opened and is frozen. The contrast between the cans, which are still stone-hard, is striking.

These people must have been eating...if they stopped in the middle of eating, there must be something important.

For the exiles in the wilderness, there are probably few things that are more important than filling their stomachs.

Even if the leader of the heretical sect, the "Prophet", arrives, he will not just throw the uneaten cans next to the campfire.

Ke Lan felt more and more that something was wrong with this place... Not only was something wrong with this place, but even Dr. Renee's defection seemed to be full of conspiracy.

First of all, judging from the surveillance video of the New Dawn and the traces at the crash site, Dr. Renee's defection was purely a temporary act - she did not expect that the incident would develop to that extent at first, but when the metal can was among the crowd After exploding, everything began to slide into an uncontrollable abyss.

Dr. Renee was eager to return to the Ark in order to get Professor Smith's first-hand research data - although Ke Lan knew that those data had long been destroyed by the "Seraph", even if there were some clues left, they had been dropped by now. If it fell into the hands of the Undead Crew, it would be impossible for Dr. Renee to pick it up.

But Dr. Renee didn't know these things. Judging from her enthusiasm for research and her crazy energy, it was completely reasonable to make such a move, and it didn't look like acting at all.

The possibility of Dr. Renee colluding with the heretical sect in advance is extremely low, especially after uncovering Park Sang-woo, the mole. The Undead Crew will definitely carefully investigate the members of the research team sent to Yagunaktor to avoid similar incidents as much as possible. The incident happened again.

There may still be secrets of the heretical sect lurking among the ordinary members, but for a person in charge like her, if there is a problem, it will have been discovered long ago. If there is any abnormality, she will have been subdued or suppressed by the people who are secretly watching her. He was simply shot dead, and there was no chance of snatching the transport plane and escaping.

And the time when the prophet...or the prophet's substitute appeared was really coincidental. The crash site of the transport plane was not far from Fleet Zero, and it only took more than an hour for the Marine Corps to arrive at the crash site. But in just over an hour, the Prophet not only found Dr. Renee before the Marine Corps, but also He also took her away without leaving any trace.

If this was just a coincidence, Ke Lan felt as if his IQ was being pressed to the ground and rubbed hard.

The prophet clearly knew in advance that Dr. Renee would defect. He even planned the approximate location of the transport plane's crash, so he appeared at that place in such a timely manner!

Apart from Dr. Renee herself, there are only two people who are the most suspect - the researcher who smashed the metal can out and the researcher who was sitting in the co-pilot and died after the crash.

The former became the fuse of the conflict. He used his "mistake" to directly detonate the conflict between the two parties, successfully forcing Dr. Renee into a situation where she had to seize the plane to escape, while the other researcher was on the transport plane. During the crash, the crash site was controlled as much as possible to an area where the prophet could arrive - according to the records on the black box on the transport plane, Dr. Renee fell into a coma after the transport plane was hit by a laser. During the crash, the researcher sitting in the co-pilot seat was controlling the aircraft.

Although these two people are already dead, Ke Lan feels that death will not clear their suspicions - if he can contact Fleet Zero or the Undead Crew Association now, the first thing he must do is let them focus on the investigation The background and details of these two researchers.

What makes Ke Lan even more puzzled is not how the heretic sect planted these hidden seeds on the Ark, but the reason why the "Prophet" forced Dr. Renee to defect - to sacrifice two hidden seeds buried so deeply, and also to At the risk that the entire transport plane might be blown to pieces (if Fleet Zero had not chosen to keep anyone alive at that time), could it be just for Dr. Renee?

If Dr. Renee died directly in the crash, wouldn't they be trying to achieve nothing?

It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it at all!

Although Dr. Renee is the top person in charge of the Yaguna Kotor research team, Yaguna Kotor's exploration has not even begun, and the research results that the research team can produce at this time are very thin. It's just a thin stack of A4 paper. Although this does not mean that these documents have no value, if the prophet is interested in this thing, there is no need to go to such trouble to "arrange" a scene of defection and plane crash, just place it in The "hidden child" in the research team can steal this little thing.

As for Dr. Renee herself, apart from her body that can easily arouse primitive male impulses, she is at best a professor-level researcher. A professor-level researcher like her, before anything happened in the institute, would have had at least one or two hundred people.

Every professor-level research institute can indeed be regarded as a person with amazing talents, but without the help of the team behind her, without the favorable conditions and research environment provided by Ark and the institute, she may not be able to do research by herself. Come up with something.

The prophet couldn't have taken a fancy to this woman's beauty, right?

One is not for ability, and the other is not for body, then what is he for?

Wait a moment? !

Ke Lan was suddenly startled - because he remembered something crucial.

Yagunaktor is not open to the public yet, so what project was Dr. Renee working on before she defected?

"Damn it! What this woman has been studying...is me!"

Ke Lan suddenly felt a chill spreading down his spine - the people in the institute have actually been studying their own cells, genetics and other things. Professor Smith on the Ark made a big mistake and fiddled with it. Things like "memes" came out, so much so that the entire institute was almost destroyed at the hands of Seraph.

Ke Lan is still glad that Dr. Renee didn't cause anything fatal. The defection and crash happened. Dr. Renee, who survived the crash, was also given "by the prophet" Got it.

Ke Lan remembered very clearly that when Dr. Renee defected, she brought a silver-white suitcase with her. That suitcase contained the results of her research during this period of time - and she only studied one object during this period of time.

That is Ke Lan.

That suitcase must contain something related to me, and maybe some of my "clone cells" are also sealed!

Moreover, according to the Marines who searched the crash site, they did not find such a silver suitcase in the wreckage of the transport plane.

Not only was Dr. Renee taken away by the prophet, but the suitcase filled with "lethal things" was also taken away by the prophet.

Ke Lan even suspected that the prophet's first target was this suitcase... As for whether Renee was dead or alive, it actually wasn't that important.

If Renee is not dead, that would be good news, but even if Renee is dead, as long as he can get the contents of the suitcase, his goal will be achieved.

Professor Smith created such a troublesome monster by simply injecting cells from the Seed of Corrosion into the cloned tissue of Kelan cells. If this cloned cell fell into the hands of the prophet...

Ke Lan didn't dare to think any more. He immediately quickened his pace and rushed into the depths of the cave.

…

…

Finally, after about three hundred meters deep into the cave in the horizontal direction, Ke Lan finally saw something different - on the passage wall at the other end of the maze, there were many cylindrical jars two people high embedded in them. These jars were similar to Energy crystals are made of the same material, which is hard, highly transparent, and has excellent conductivity... And the bottoms of these jars are indeed connected to a large number of metal wires.

It's just that these jars are empty, there is nothing inside, and they are as clean as new.

There is a sealing lid made of metal on the top of the jar. The sealing lid has a serial number marked in Alpha characters - this is also the first Alpha civilization that Ke Lan saw after entering the cave.

Unfortunately, apart from these serial numbers, he could not find any more information, nor could he determine the purpose of these crystal jars.

"The factory of Alpha Civilization? Or...a laboratory?" Ke Lan speculated wildly in his mind.

He suddenly recalled that Commander Ken had mentioned a similar "Iwai" in the black box of the 776 Special Forces Team on the "desert island" in the Undersea City.

The wall of the rock shaft was cut very flat, and there were passages reinforced with metal structures... At the end of the rock shaft, there was a huge underground space, and the 776 special effects team also discovered a large number of "more than ten meters high" inside. Quartz jar”…

The "quartz jar" Commander Ken refers to should be this kind of jar made of energy crystals. After all, after polishing, this material is indeed very similar to quartz glass if you don't look carefully.

Only when you get very close can you see the tiny filamentous crystal structures.

Ken also mentioned that those huge tanks were filled with turbid liquid...but here, the black box recording was interrupted.

Something must have happened in that underground space... But at least one thing is certain, the 776 Special Forces Team was not wiped out there, otherwise he would not have found their remains and the black box in the cave.

Moreover, Ken also mentioned one thing - the erosion seeds on the desert island seemed to dare not approach those rock wells. It was for this reason that the members of the 776 Special Forces Team were able to survive the pursuit of the erosion seeds.

Why don't the Seeds of Erosion dare to approach Iwai?

Are they afraid of the well itself...or...what's in it?

What does the rock well on the desert island have to do with the cave he is in now?

A lot of question marks poured out instantly, turning Ke Lan's thoughts into a mess.

[P.S. Thanks to Zidu and Qiuyu for the 197 starting coins; thanks to Mao and Qiuyu for the 100 starting coins. 】

[P.P.S. I haven’t been feeling well recently, and my overall condition is a bit off. The update time may be unstable, so please bear with me. 】