Alien Relic Hunter

"How about I give it a try?" Thirty-three took off his helmet, hung it on his waist, then unzipped his upper body, tied the upper part of the protective suit around his waist, and finally rolled up his sleeves. He made an extremely steady horse stance.

He slowly stretched out his hands forward, closed his eyes tightly, and his facial expression became increasingly ferocious... Although this appearance looked like he was constipated, as Thirty-Three "strength", the two of them contained nicotine. Nuo Alloy's equipment and small accessories were suspended in the air one by one, trembling slightly but with high frequency.

Unfortunately, the door made of Nino alloy on the ground remained motionless.

A line of thick nosebleeds flowed down the middle of the thirty-three people, one drop after another, falling on the sleeves of the protective suit knotted around the waist... He tried for a full ten minutes before he fell to the ground.

At the same time, all the floating things with nino alloy fell down.

"Are you okay?" Ke Lan immediately stepped forward and helped Sansan up.

"No...it's okay, I just lost my strength." Thirty-three casually wiped the nosebleed on his face and waved his hand, "This door is too heavy, and my ability...can't be used in front of it. use."

Although Thirty-Three can control Nino Alloy, there is an upper limit to this ability. When he fought against the military god "Alexander" before, he had controlled Augustus from a distance to jam Alexander's gears... That level was almost the limit of what Thirty-Three could do, but this fan in front of him The door's mass is dozens of times larger than that of Augustus.

Thirty-three can't be shaken even if he puts his life on the line.

But when he saw the blood dripping from Thirty-three's nose, an idea suddenly came to Ke Lan's mind.

Not long ago, Ke Lan used his own blood to activate the floor tiles in the core square. In this case, he might as well try again. It doesn't cost any money to try anyway... It just requires a little blood.

Ke Lan strode to the middle of the gate of the hive city, stretched out a finger, and an invisible space blade flashed past, and a drop of bright blood dropped directly into the fist-sized inscription grooves. .

Almost instantly, the blood beads were absorbed by the inscription.

"There is a reaction!" Ke Lan was delighted. He knew the material properties of Nino Alloy very well, and it did not have any ability to absorb liquids. If liquids such as blood were dripped on it, if it could not evaporate, it would remain in its original state. No matter how long it takes, it will not penetrate into the Nino alloy or react with it.

Even many high-precision scientific research equipment and components in direct contact with test products are made of Nino alloy, not only because of the high hardness of this alloy, but also because of its extremely high "inertness".

Ke Lan's drop of blood was obviously not evaporated, and Ze Luo did not find any small gaps or holes in the grooves of the inscription that could not be seen by the naked eye. In other words, this drop of blood could only be "absorbed" into it. of.

Although Ke Lan didn't know how the Alpha people managed to make a high-density metal like Nino alloy act like a filter that allowed liquid to penetrate easily, it didn't matter -

Ke Lan squeezed out a few more drops of blood from his fingers and dropped them on the inscription of "The Nest".

"Buzz——"

There was a numbing sound of metal friction. The "Nino Alloy Gate" that was tightly connected to the ground slowly rotated. After a few seconds, it suddenly began to sink at an accelerated speed!

"Ouch!" Thirty-three let out a low cry, "I also said how could this thing be shaped like a bottle stopper... Love is not a door at all, but a lifting platform!"

After the lifting platform carried the two people down for dozens of meters, a baffle of the same material was moved out from one side of the shaft, sealing the hole that appeared due to the sinking of the lifting platform, and also blocking the outside. seawater.

"To be honest, I don't like the feeling of the back road being cut off." Thirty-three raised his head and glanced at the increasingly distant baffle above, "But then again, there is seawater everywhere, and there are For monsters sleeping in the abyss, the way out...is almost a dead end."

Ke Lan did not answer the call, but carefully looked at the situation on the four walls of the shaft - the descending speed of the lifting platform was actually not very fast, almost the same as the elevator on the Ark, so he did not use the ability to stop and analyze frame by frame. The naked eye alone is enough to take in all the surrounding scenery and things.

The section about two hundred meters above the shaft is made of high-density rock, and below it is a mechanical structure with a metallic texture - even if he and Sansan San just dug in from the edge of the lifting platform, they would eventually hit these iron bumps. ...Furthermore, it is not difficult to see that there are a large number of fatal mechanisms buried in these mechanical structures. Although these mechanisms are not activated now, if the two people entered the shaft through "irregular means", then these fatal mechanisms are still there. It's hard to say whether it will be as quiet as it is now.

The lifting platform is close to the sixteen slide rails on the shaft. These slide rails do not adopt a mutually exclusive suspension design. Instead, they adopt a gear set mechanism and the sides of the lifting platform that are extremely "primitive and backward" for the Alpha civilization. Biting each other - this mechanical structure filled with the smell of lubricating oil and metal rust made Ke Lan feel as if he was not in the ruins of an alien civilization with highly advanced technology, but in an imaginary dieselpunk fantasy world. inside.

The wear marks on the slide rails and gear sets are very obvious, and the edges and corners of the gears have been polished so smooth and round that they can even reflect the shadows of the lifting platform and the two people on the platform. And in places that are out of reach of the gear sets and movable structures, there is a large amount of engine oil that is caked into blocks, covered with dust and various impurities, just like the scale and accumulated in the sewers that have not been maintained for many years. Like corruption.

Thirty-three naturally also discovered these "irrational" things: "Although as a relic hunter, I should be used to strange things... but I always feel that something is wrong with this place, but I can't tell what is wrong. "

"Generation difference." Ke Lan continued, "This place...these sophisticated and ingenious but not advanced mechanical structures have a huge technological generation gap with the Alpha civilization we are familiar with."

"Technology difference?" Thirty-three frowned slightly, "I seem to have this feeling... With the technology of the Alpha civilization, this lifting platform can be propelled by an anti-gravity device, or any other technology... Even the rail trains of human civilization in the Earth Age have popularized magnetic levitation technology, but this extremely heavy lifting platform actually uses gear meshing to control the lifting... You are right, these mechanical structures are very exquisite and spectacular. It's magnificent, but it can't be called advanced, and the technological level of the Ark is completely capable of making it. Even if we go back a thousand years, humans in the old era can only create such a machine."

Thirty-three paused for a moment before asking in an uncertain tone: "Speaking of which, isn't this a 'scenic spot' or a 'theme park'? Only this kind of building that does not pursue practical value can Choose this thankless design, right?”

"Dieselpunk theme park?" Ke Lan shook his head, "Just this shaft and this lifting platform consume an astonishing number of Nino alloys. For Alpha civilization, Nino alloys are also precious resources...Have you ever heard that there are people on earth who use gold to build Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds?”

"Uh... I seem to have heard of such stories." Thirty-three dug his ears with his little finger, "For those rich people who are extravagant and lustful, there is nothing they can't do, right? I'm going too far. I'm going too far... Back to the topic, since they are not non-practical buildings, is there a possibility that this place is an early relic of the Alpha civilization, that is to say, it was built before their technology had developed to that kind of process? Things? Assuming that the earth is still around, if aliens come to see the skyscrapers in the metropolis and the ancient buildings in the archaeological excavation sites at the same time, they will also lament the technological generation gap between different periods, right?"

"With the technological level of Alpha Civilization, it is not a problem to transform the entire Alpha Star. Do you think they are the kind of civilization that has the sentiment to preserve ancient ruins?" Ke Lan muttered softly.

What he said was not a rhetorical question, but a question. He was asking thirty-three, and he was also asking himself.

If this place is really the relics of the early Alpha civilization, then... maybe we can find something from it to understand the grudges between the Alpha civilization and the "great god", as well as the reasons for the disappearance of the entire civilization.

If you want to understand the ins and outs of everything, starting from the "original point" in the earliest period is indeed a good way.

I just don’t know which period of Alpha civilization this “hive city” is a “masterpiece” of…

The lifting platform has been lowered to a depth of about 1,500 meters. The surrounding narrow well walls suddenly disappeared and were replaced by a huge flat cylindrical underground space.

This underground space is packed with a large number of rough-style buildings built of metal materials. Countless houses and towers are piled on this plane, and then continue to climb higher, and some places have even touched the ground. The dome of the underground space simply sticks to the dome and expands in all directions... No matter how vast the space is, if it is filled to the brim with messy things, it will give people a feeling of being narrow and suffocating.

The "illegal buildings" that can be seen everywhere are like tumors in this underground city, growing wantonly. Even the most chaotic slums on the Ark can only be defeated by this underground city... There is almost no inch of ground as far as the eye can see. It is exposed, and even the streets can only be built on the roofs and pass through the pitiful gaps between buildings.

Ke Lan suddenly understood the meaning of the word "nest city" - rather than a city for "people" to live in, it was more like a nest of some kind of insect.

Living in this city, you don't have to think about things like "comfort" and "private space", but from the structure of these buildings, you can roughly estimate the population of this city - assuming it rises and falls based on distance The nearest room on the platform seems to be a loft converted from a container. Looking through the open window, you can see that there are fourteen pieces of furniture that can barely be called "beds". So this underground city is full of people. When full, the population can reach about 16 million to 18 million...

For those metropolises on Earth in the old era, this population figure is not an exaggeration, but you must know that those metropolises, even the smallest one, are thousands or even tens of thousands of times the size of this "hive city"... …If we calculate the per capita area without stacked building structures, the residents of the hive city may not even have 0.1 square meters.

Even if it is converted into per capita living area, each person living here can only get a small "foothold".

Ke Lan suddenly thought of a metaphor that has long been used in the field of literature - "crowded like a sardine can".

"Even if it's a prison... no, even if it's a place used to keep livestock, the conditions won't be so bad, right?" Thirty-three couldn't help but sigh, "I originally thought it would be like a 'sandstone ruined city' The ruins can already be regarded as slums in Alpha City, but compared with this place, it would be an exaggeration to say that the 'Abandoned Sandstone City' is a high-end residential area... Is the gap between the rich and the poor within Alpha Civilization that exaggerated?"

Ke Lan didn't speak. He walked step by step to the edge of the lifting platform and carefully observed the underground city.

He had a vague feeling: the architectural style of this city seemed to be closer to the architectural style of human civilization than the Alpha civilization cities on the ground.

Not only the architectural style, but also the internal layout of the building and the living facilities... seem to be very close to human civilization.

If this city was populated by humans instead of Alphas, he wouldn't feel any sense of disobedience.

"Ke Lan, how much do you know about the social structure of Alpha Civilization?" Thirty-three turned around and asked.

"There are very few relevant documents that have been discovered... Even if there are, they are not accessible to me... And I joined the Undead Crew for too short a time, so I can only pick up important things and consult them as much as possible. There is no way at all." Maybe go through all the inventory in the dark well.”

"Although it's a bit strange, I still want to tell you..." There was a look of hesitation on Thirty-three's face.

"Just say it."

"I don't know why, but I always feel that this hive city... is like a... shelter." Thirty-three said, "Although the living conditions on the Ark are now many times better than here, under the circumstances The worst years were actually not much different... I was thinking that after the Ark left the earth, in the last few hundred years before the earth was destroyed by the sun, if humans who could no longer survive on the surface moved underground, they would probably You will also live in a shelter like this, right?”