The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

For people living in the Old Continent, there has never been a definitive conclusion on the size of the Old Continent. There have been a large number of adventurers, geologists, and cartographers who have ventured around the continent more than once, surveyed and mapped the continent, and calculated the area of ​​​​the continent. , but what is puzzling is that the results of each of them are different, some are big and some are small. This situation even happened to two scholars of the same adventure team. I feel that their perception of the size of the continent There are problems.

This is not only true for the surveying and mapping of the entire Old Continent, but also deviations in the surveying and mapping of each country's land area, border position, etc., without a unified and accurate answer. Therefore, so many conflicts and conflicts that broke out in the Old Continent Half of the wars stem from issues of land size and borders.

However, the so-called land issue is generally not a problem in front of a powerful country. For a regional power like the Kingdom of Teresa, its national boundaries are completely designated according to its standards, and the surrounding countries are only qualified to obey.

But most of these powerful countries come from the east and west sides of the mainland, close to the coast, and the mountainous north of the mainland and the densely forested south have not appeared for so many years. Have an influence on the entire northern region There is no strong country in China, not even a small regional power.

The southern continent is relatively better, because of the isolation of the virgin forest, most of the southern countries are separated. The so-called national border is an entire piece of uninhabited virgin forest where wild beasts are rampant. There is nothing less or more the difference.

However, most of the northern continents are mountainous. Although the land in these mountainous areas is barren and the roads are dangerous, they are not suitable for human habitation, but there are a lot of mineral deposits in these high mountains, and most of these mineral deposits are open-pit mines that are easy to mine.

The original political structure of the northern continent was an alliance established by individual mine owners. Only after numerous break-ups and reorganizations did they finally form individual countries. No matter what beliefs these northern countries have, no matter what the ethnic groups of the citizens are The economic pillars supporting these countries are all kinds of metals, precious stones and various raw material mines without exception.

It is also because of this that these countries attach great importance to the mineral deposits they own. It is not uncommon to deliberately modify the national borders in order to occupy newly discovered mineral deposits, and then go to war with other countries, which has almost become the norm in various northern countries.

And the actions of these countries have also made other countries in the Old Continent ridicule these countries with ironic words such as "any agreement signed by these countries can be discarded at will like toilet paper" when referring to the mountainous countries in the northern part of these continents. Behavior.

After Leo left the Middle Kingdom, he entered the territory of the northern continental countries. Although he had a clear understanding of the northern continental mountainous countries from various materials, it was only after he really entered these mountainous countries that he really realized I learned that the descriptions of these countries in those materials are not exaggerated at all, and there is no discrimination, and there are even suspicions of beautification.

If the old continent is divided according to the level of civilization, the countries on the east and west continents are the most enlightened and have the highest level of civilization, followed by the Middle Kingdom and surrounding countries, which are equivalent to feudal kingdoms, and the countries on the southern continent are more like primitive societies, with a national system It is still established according to the oldest lord system, and the whole is more like a tribal civilization.

The countries in the northern part of the mainland are completely like uncivilized barbarians. There are only two things they love to do every day, robbing and drinking.

Leo saw more than 50 robberies along the way, seven of which were local noble lords leading people to rob passing caravans, and the caravans going to the northern mainland seemed to be familiar with this. The robbers they encountered were either killed by the robbers, or all the robbers were killed, and the robbers pretending to be noble lords were no exception.

Like the noble lords in other places who are captured, they can still be redeemed by means of ransom. However, if the noble lords here are captured, his position will be immediately replaced by his direct descendants. A successor was selected from among the strongest nobles in the territory, so no one would be willing to redeem a former lord, even if the former lord was redeemed, he would be killed on the spot to sacrifice to the gods.

The robbers that can be seen everywhere are one of the characteristics of the mountain country in the northern continent, and another characteristic is also very special, which is the underground church of evil gods.

Along the way, although there are temples and churches of the Church of the True God in the big cities of the countries in the northern mountainous area, but outside the big cities, the Church of the Evil God occupies an absolute advantage in the mountains and towns, which is different from other places. , the evil god churches in these villages and towns preach openly, and often the entire town is a believer.

Leo once secretly observed the sacrifice ceremony of the evil god church in one of the towns. This evil god claims to be the god of the earth, and his church power is not small among the many underground evil god churches in the old continent. one.

The sacrifice ceremony in that town was mainly to pray for a good harvest of grain in the coming year, and their sacrifices were not sacrifices to livestock, but sacrifices to living people. The person selected as the sacrifice was a death row prisoner, and they , and carried out some passionate activities that are considered extremely evil, which is one of the main reasons why the Church of the Earth God is regarded as a cult.

What's interesting is that during this sacrifice, the so-called God of the Earth did appear at the sacrifice site, and he also possessed one of his believers to perform certain celestial movements.

At that time, Leo almost couldn't help but wanted to capture the incarnation of the God of the Earth alive with his tentacles, and put it beside him to study the mysteries of the gods, because the power aura displayed by the God of the Earth was not strong, and Leo was completely sure to capture it. capture.

But in the end he resisted the urge, because he discovered that the god of the earth might be inextricably linked with the mother of the shadow world, because the divine power fluctuations emitted by the god of the earth and the mother of the shadow world Very similar, almost can be regarded as the same kind of divine power.

After giving up capturing the incarnation of the god of the earth, Leo also found that the sacrifice ceremony of the evil god in front of him looked extremely evil even if he used living sacrifices to perform some passionate activities, but the degree of evil was not the same as in other places in the old continent. Compared with the evil rituals performed by believers of evil gods, they seem so insignificant, even judging from the casualties caused by the rituals, they are even more kind than some religious rituals of the Church of True God.

From some sacrificial ceremonies performed by the God of the Earth, it is not difficult to see that these underground evil gods also know the importance of believers’ family members. Almost most of the religious ceremonies are related to livelihood and fertility. Surviving in this harsh environment, and multiplying and preparing believers in large numbers, is completely different from the evil events full of destruction, death, and destruction led by these evil god churches in other parts of the mainland.

For a while, Leo became curious about the underground cults in the northern mountain countries, so he delayed for a few days and secretly observed the activities of several churches of evil gods. In the end, he couldn't tell the difference between the church of true God and the church of evil gods. The difference is that there are so many similarities between the two.

It was precisely because of Leo's delay for the past few days that his original plan to go to Movit Road with the big snowfield caravan was cancelled, because when he crossed the northern mountains and entered the snowfield boundary, all the snowfield caravans Already set off, Leo had to go alone in the end.

Leo didn't know the exact location of the Belmont family's migration place. When he was in his territory, the Duke of Belmont didn't tell him. The reason why he was sure that the Belmont family's migration place was in the extremely low mountains north of the snow field , because he sensed that Sylvia was right here.

However, I don't know if it was caused by the interference of some mysterious power hidden in the extremely low mountains in the north, or because there was a problem with the spiritual imprint he left in Sylvia's body. After entering the snowfield, his sensor became somewhat blurred, and he could only sense a general direction, and it was a little erratic, as if Sylvia was moving. They were all lost, wasted a lot of time, and finally did not get out of the snowfield before the black storm that ravaged the snowfield arrived.

After encountering the black storm, Leo originally didn't intend to find a suitable refuge to avoid the black storm. After all, this kind of black storm, which is extremely dangerous to ordinary people, does not have much lethality to Leo at all, similar to the breeze.

But while he was on his way, while memorizing the books scanned by the universal recorder, the universal recorder suddenly received a signal, which should have come from an alien spaceship, and Leo didn't know what was displayed on the universal recorder. Signal text.

For this reason, Leo tracked the position of the signal through a general-purpose recorder, and finally came to Palm Rock, a signal with a reputation in the snow field.

Through the mental network scan, Leo discovered that the hill that looked like a huge palm was actually a fallen subspace interstellar spacecraft, and what was even more amazing was that the spacecraft remained intact as a whole, even the subspace engine of the spacecraft It is not broken, and it is still operating normally, which is why there is heat under the Palm Rock. The geothermal heat that melts ice and snow all comes from that subspace engine.

In Leo's view, this spaceship is very advanced, many times more advanced than the best spaceship of the Earth Federation, and there are interference devices for psykers inside the spaceship. With the powerful face of Leo's eighth-level psyker There was still nothing he could do about the interference of this device, and in the end his scan was just a scan of the outermost layer of the spacecraft.

It is different from the initial judgment. After scanning and analyzing the surface of the spaceship, the spaceship did not fall to the ground, so the spaceship as a whole has no damage caused by the impact, and the spaceship can still be intact after so many years. At least Leo No visible damage was found in the scanned areas, which surprised Leo too.

What was even more surprising was that he had no idea what the material used to cast the spaceship was. It looked like rock on the surface, but if he really thought that the spaceship was made of rock, he would be a fool.

In any case, this spaceship cannot be manufactured by a medium-level cosmic civilization, so some secrets from a high-level cosmic civilization may be hidden in this spaceship.

While Leo was curious about the spaceship, he also hesitated to explore the spaceship, because he could feel that there was something threatening him in the spaceship, and the intensity of this threat was not much worse than that of the wizard tower.

At that time, he was considering whether to find someone to be a pathfinder, but his bonfire was seen by the bandits who were also avoiding the black storm, and rushed over to take over the bonfire. As for Leo, he tried to use what he had just learned. The witchcraft hides his sense of existence, just like disappearing in front of these people.

Afterwards, Leo considered finding a suitable opportunity to let these bandits know that there was a treasure in the palm rock behind him, and leaked the entrance to them so that they could become their own pathfinding stones.

As a result, before Leo started to act, he felt a powerful presence outside the woods, and then he saw Filoria riding an ice bear.

Leo felt a bit of curiosity about Filoria, not because of her identity as a war bear priest, nor because of her companion animal ice bear, but because Leo felt a trace of whiteness in Filoria. Deer breath.

Leo is no stranger to war bear priests. On his way into the snowfield, he accidentally encountered a tribe living in the snowfield, and that tribe also had war bear priests, but because of his age, this war bear The priest's companion animal, the ice bear, was already very old, and the power breath Leo felt from this war bear priest was more of an ice-like energy fluctuation.

Now Leo can not only feel the flow of ice energy in Filoria, but also feel the special natural force from the white deer running in her body, and this natural force is only in the dryad. I have felt it.

It was precisely because of the curiosity and doubts caused by the natural power in Filoria that Leo could not prevent Filoria from solving all the bandits he was going to use as pathfinding stones in time.

However, it doesn't matter even if there is no pathfinding stone, Leo has found a better substitute, this substitute is the Filoria in front of him, or more correctly, the natural treasure in Filoria's body. force.

So after introducing himself, Leo asked straightforwardly: "This palm rock contains a treasure of an ancient civilization. Are you interested in exploring it together? Priest Filoria."

"What did you say? Treasure?" Hearing Leo's question, Filoria was stunned. She stared at Leo dumbfounded, as if Leo's question just now was a shocking question. After returning to normal, he couldn't help wondering: "Mr. Leo Dodd, are you sure you know what you are talking about?"