Steel steam and flame

Cassia shook her head: "There are more questions. There should be no similarities between us."

"It's understandable to be careful, but please listen to what I'm saying, Mr. Tussos." Anticipating such a reaction, Zimmer paused to think of his next words, "I think Mr. Tussos must know "Stories of Strange Creatures" are all written by the first head of the family, Perkinz. His identity, Mr. Tussos must have long suspected what the creature in the book is. Needless to say, he is not an ordinary person. Things that can be seen and tracked. Even though many stories in the book are collected, I can clearly tell one thing here. The first family of the Pekins was a very good and qualified adventurer. These stories have been handed down. The story is what interests him and he will actually confirm it. So every chapter in it is true, there is no doubt about it."

"Then according to the time written in the book..." Cassia continued.

"As you might think, our Kiris family is not a member of the empire. We came from other continents, but due to special circumstances in the subsequent period, the first head of the family, Pekinz, did not go back. He stayed in the empire, so gradually there were It’s just that there are many small episodes in it. Just like the two sets of books that are most widely circulated in a certain range, it is difficult to find the second, fourth and sixth volumes of "Records of Ancient Ruins" in the empire. The same is true for "Strange Creatures", which is a matter for other countries. For adventurers, maps only have borders, not national boundaries. Perkins traveled most of the Houxiang Continent and saw everything he wanted to see things and compiled them into books one by one.”

"In the end, he chose to live in the newly born empire. Originally, with his ability, as long as he had the will, the empire at that time would definitely have a stage for him to perform, but he did not do so, out of the soul of an adventurer, no The bound soul, exploring the unknown mysteries was his lifelong pursuit. The result was the same, he boarded a giant ship in his later years and disappeared forever into the endless sea."

"This is probably his life." Zimmer said this with a serious expression. "As his descendants, we have inherited his characteristics to some extent. Not completely, but over a long period of time, every Everyone has found something they are interested in, and they have always been the most interested in exploring this area. Among them, there are also people who are engaged in business, doing business openly, which is the main source of funds for the family's operations. Gradually, after all, Hou Xiang Dalu is dead , after all, the places that can be explored cannot withstand the slow erosion of time. The areas that cannot be entered will never be set foot by us. So in a period of time, the word 'previously' entered our field of vision, or in other words, observation History, relying on the accumulation and inheritance from generation to generation, gradually declines and we have a new direction."

"Ancient ruins and what happened before the birth of each country?" Cassia said, "As long as it is recorded properly, words alone can really make people feel the shock of the historical process to a large extent. It takes a limited life to appreciate more than this The landscape of time is full of temptation and attraction for everyone.”

"As a textbook that has been carefully crafted by many excellent writers, I have to admit that there is really no room for refutation of this sentence. But compared to looking for these things from books or pictures, it is inevitable that the accumulation of quantity will Losing the sense of reality. Surgery happened to help us make this possibility hopeful. Eternal life is unrealistic, but it also greatly extends our aging time. Because of the first head of the family, we always spend time in recording and exploring. Period We have learned a lot from it. The evolution of the empire can be said to be from new life to maturity, and then to a complete entity that is unpredictable. Our experience comes from thousands of years of history. Please allow us to call ourselves observers. Observation means learning. It taught us a lot. Information manipulation comes from this.”

"Except for this deal, we have nothing in common. Mr. Zimmer, I agree with what you just said, but it is not my purpose."

"No, no, the above are all things we have always insisted on, but as time goes by, we are also changing. It is not a big family, but it has a history as long as the empire. What we know can be converted into money with just a little processing. and other things. Just like these two books, we sell them ourselves, have our own printing factory, and are also one of the family's sources of income." Zimmer smiled, took a sip of the wine brought by Ni Liya , "Some of us can't keep up with the current pace, and we have gained experience over a long period of time - we alone cannot accomplish the things we want to explore by ourselves."

"Relying on the control of information, waiting until you find the people you want and screening them, is one of the changed strategies?" Cassia said, "You should not be short of manpower."

"We are not lacking in quantity or funds, but quality is lacking. That is to say, as far as the Chilis family is concerned, the quantity is not large. Even if everyone undergoes surgery, the final growth is not optimistic. It requires a huge base to be able to We have absolutely failed in building a high pyramid structure. I would like to ask if Mr. Tussos knows how to expand the family of the Twenty-Third Grand Duke?"

Seeing Cassia nodding, Zimmer showed a satisfied smile: "Then our conversation may be much simpler. We didn't use that method, but the quality must be increased at this time. So we, who often operate in the dark world, chose The method between suppliers and middlemen. You can refer to the middle agents, Mr. Tussos, you can understand."

"But you don't have substantive goods. Knowledge and information can spread to each other, and steel barriers can't stop it."

"So we need people like you, Mr. Tussos, here. On the one hand, as a collection source of supply information, we can share it. Everyone can get what they want from it without interfering with each other. There are too many things revealed in history and ancient ruins. , I have already said that it will take an unspecified amount of time to fully explore it by yourself. So far, the content obtained through continuous research has long surpassed that of the first family, the Perkins."

"Now, I, as well as other members of the Kiris family, want to have these unknowns clearly appear before our eyes while we are alive. So we need people with common interests or profit goals. This can be seen as an alternative to some extent. The 'blood' connection, I think this connection is sometimes much stronger than blood. On the other hand, it is also as an executor. Because everything will change, even after screening, accidents will happen. The Chilis family has been around for so long Here, I have seen too many similar things, and not everyone can maintain their original mood in the face of temptation. Speaking of which, we have also changed too much. But at least our goals and starting points have not changed. .”

"Let the people you screened out turn into gray names again? Erase it, or... hypnotize it?"

"It's probably all obliteration. Please allow me to say this. You can probably understand the value of this kind of thing in the empire. So this is a two-way decision. If you agree, Mr. Tussos, it will be like signing an agreement with us." , like an intermediary agent in the dark world. As long as you abide by the rules, we will pay you the corresponding remuneration, which can be money and materials, or information and historical and ancient site materials that you are interested in. "

Shortly after leaving the tavern, Cassia injected dragon blood into her body, and relied on her increased perception to make sure that no one was following her, and then she joined Delya and the others.

"Is everything going well?" Seeing Cassia's thoughtful look, Delya asked.

Waking up from thinking, Cassia nodded. The black box had been discarded and the books inspected, with no traceable source of signals on them. Zimmer's words made him think a lot. He had this idea when he started collecting books on the black market, or when the other party wanted to meet the buyer himself. Maybe it's a bait. The book itself doesn't hide anything, but the information revealed in it can indeed make people think of a lot.

Pekinzkilish was not a member of the Empire. He came to the Kingdom of Mano before the establishment of the Empire. It is unknown whether he had any other identity besides an adventurer and a zoologist and botanist. It will definitely not be simple, and the Kiris family extended by him is not what Zimmer said. It is true that exploring the unknown is their purpose, but it does not affect the inclusion of other things.

Cassia remembered the specific area of ​​the Houxiang Continent. During the Mano Kingdom and the early days of the empire, it was probably impossible to travel through most of the Houxiang Continent without institutional and material support behind him.

If you delve deeper like this, you will be targeted sooner or later, but you didn't expect that you would get in there yourself. It's okay for certain things to always be known by a small number of people. But Cassia hopes she is in the minority.

,,,,,,

Zimmer took Ni Liya to the second floor of the basement of the pub. Inside are common types of analysis machines and self-modified communication machines. After entering Tusos's name into the analysis machine, a line of coded values ​​appeared, and a simple piece of information was spit out from the printer.

"Is it really worth doing this?" Ni Liya asked, handing over the information.

"Is it about Tussos himself, or something else?" Zimmer asked, looking at the thin piece of paper.

"Maybe a little of both."

"There is no worthiness or unworthiness. One can be regarded as a means, and the other can be regarded as the responsibility of Kiris starting from the first head of the family, Pekinz. Don't forget our identity. Even if we have been completely assimilated by the empire, sometimes , this kind of hidden game is what we like. Isn’t it precisely because of this special system that the first family member Pekins was selected? The surgery strengthened the characteristics, and the subsequent environment and instilled education, we They can all be seen as replicas with similar features but different characteristics.”

"But as long as we complete the Pope's order and conduct our research at the same time, it will be fine. Observe history, obtain data from real cases, find weaknesses, find solutions to some problems, and then feed it back to ourselves - I have to admit Very smart. When the situation in mainland China was completely out of control, I used this method to prepare myself and take advantage of the situation to obtain non-substantial benefits. Looking at it now, I may not have the ability to reverse it out of thin air, but history does not lie. If used properly, there will always be success. It has unexpected effects.”

"An example of the second-generation Knight King?" Ni Liya asked, "The most dazzling achievement that is often mentioned in our mouths has a huge gap in strength, shaped like a soft snowflake, but the snowball formed by rolling still has a good impact. The reverse direction of information formation gave a choice, and the people in power of the empire at that time did indeed choose. We have survived for so long by relying on the history of hundreds of years ago, otherwise we would have been withdrawn or abandoned long ago."

"As long as you know, the data records that hundreds of years ago after the death of the second-generation Knight King of the Empire, there was a great purge against us. The Empire cannot tolerate us existing in the body. It is not easy to survive. Fortunately, we have that The help of the Holy Emperor of the era. It can be regarded as a flaw created by the empire itself. Compared with the Theocracy, it was only established more than six hundred years later. But it is precisely because these six hundred years have changed too much that the Theocracy has And the giant countries on the continent have always stood in a dominant position."