Volume 13 Ancient Bronze City Ruins Chapter 604 Nuclear Disposal Beacon
"I almost forgot that your human body is a 'mimicry'..." Ke Lan touched the tip of his nose awkwardly, "Then...your original body, has there been no changes?"
"No." said Ze Luo.
One of her arms suddenly turned into a black asphalt-like substance, swayed in front of Ke Lan's eyes, and then turned back into a beautiful limb as white as a lotus root.
"..." Ke Lan couldn't help but fall into deep thought. Although the sight from "God" had seen them, it did not take any action because he and Ze Luo destroyed the things summoned by His believers with sacrifices...
Ke Lan knew that He had the ability to interfere with this world. Apart from anything else, the explosion of Arasaka Yui in front of him that day was the best proof... If He wanted to, he could also wipe out himself and Ze Luo without any effort.
But He just watched.
Ke Lan couldn't understand why He did this... Was it just to kill the boring time over billions of years?
Can God get bored?
Ke Lan had thought that the entire Alpha Planet was a man-made "testing ground", and all the creatures on this planet were "experimental samples" under observation... But the more secrets he learned, the more he felt that the idea of a test ground was untenable: with his ability, he could literally "turn his hand to make clouds and turn it back to make rain", so what was the point of building such a test ground?
For a being that is nearly omniscient and omnipotent, whether it is humans, Alphas, or even those incredible prehistoric beasts, there is actually no difference in essence... This may be difficult to understand, so why not put it another way:
Assuming that humans have completely deciphered the genetic code of a creature and are fully aware of its birth, aging, illness, death, and various future mutation and evolutionary pathways, would humans still spend a lot of time and energy to build an ecological experiment box specifically to observe the creature's every move in daily life?
Perhaps there are such experiments in biology classes for children's enlightenment, but as a research institute that sets the highest scientific and technological standards, it will never waste resources on such things.
When something no longer has any "unknown attributes", it naturally loses its value of exploration.
Unknown attributes... Ke Lan couldn't help but glance at the sky between the gaps between the warships, which was obscured by radiation clouds. Is there something "unknown" in the Alphas, or in human beings?
…
Ke Lan only had a few minutes to be stunned, and a large number of fully armed marines had already landed on the top of the hill. Cao Ge even jumped out directly from the cabin of a transport plane nearly ten meters above the ground, and landed steadily on the ground with the help of the built-in thrusters of his mechanical prosthesis.
"Solved?" Cao Ge walked quickly to Ke Lan and looked in disbelief at the place where the black mummy turned into pieces and then disappeared.
"I guess so..." Ke Lan curled her lips, "This thing feels like a piece of tempered glass to me."
Tempered glass refers to special glass that has been specially treated to produce "compressive stress" on the glass surface. The impact resistance and load-bearing capacity of tempered glass are much stronger than ordinary glass...but it also has defects that ordinary glass does not have: when tempered glass is damaged, even if it is just a small damage like missing a corner, the entire piece of glass will explode because the uniform compressive stress balance is destroyed, and the entire piece of glass will instantly become shattered.
Just as Ke Lan said, the body of the black mummy, which could not even be destroyed by a nuclear bomb, instantly lost its original physical strength after a gap was torn by Ze Luo's spatial stagnation. Ke Lan even felt that what previously maintained the strength of the black mummy's body was not the material itself, but an unknown force field.
This force field restrains the black mummy's body, but at the same time it also gives it a terrifying defense that is almost immune to physical attacks, and Ze Luo's ability can just restrain and destroy this force field. When the force field disappears, just like the stress balance of tempered glass collapses, even if Ke Lan and the others don't attack the black mummy, the black mummy's body will shatter on its own.
Ke Lan couldn't help but feel a little regretful. He had originally thought that through the study of the black mummy, humankind would be able to make some breakthroughs in the field of materials science...
He stretched out his hand and displayed the crystal.
"This is the only remnant of the target." Ke Lan said to Cao Ge.
His and Ze Luo's every move was being watched by the surveillance cameras on the battleship. Not only Cao Ge and others, but also the people from the Undead Crew should be paying attention to the situation here. They must have seen this crystal as well - instead of being asked to hand it over later, it would be better to hand it over now.
Moreover, Ke Lan didn't know whether this thing was dangerous or not. In the old days, some people would often treat radioactive materials picked up from garbage dumps as treasures. Little did they know that in their eyes, these glowing and emitting heat "night pearls" were the beginning of a nightmare. When they realized that something was wrong with their bodies, it was usually too late. What awaited them was only death...
"I'll have someone bring a safe container over right away." Cao Ge said carefully, "What should we do with this thing? Send it back to the Ark... send it to the research institute?"
Before Ke Lan could answer, Pan's voice rang out in the headphones worn by him and Cao Ge at the same time: "This is your trophy, just keep it for yourself."
"I keep it for myself? You don't have any conspiracy, do you?" Thinking of the living armor in his body, Ke Lan suddenly became alert. He even felt that the crystal lying in the palm of his hand suddenly became hot.
"What conspiracy could I have? Please don't imagine me as a bad person, okay?" Pan's tone was somewhat helpless.
"It hasn't been long since the incident with the living armor." Ke Lan said immediately.
"That was to save you. Can you think of a better way? Besides, aren't you using the power of the living armor very well?"
"But no one likes to have a bomb planted inside of them, right?"
"As long as the bomb has not exploded, it is safe." Pan argued, "For example, if you are a heart patient and you will die soon if you don't get a heart transplant, but there is only one artificial heart that can be used as a replacement, and it contains a bomb that cannot be disassembled and may explode at any time. Would you choose to die immediately or get a heart with a bomb?"
"Then I will choose to have a second heart transplant surgery in the future." Ke Lan answered without thinking.
"That's it... If you can find a way to separate the living armor, no matter how you deal with it, the Undead Crew will not interfere with your decision. We have always respected everyone's freedom..."
"You can skip the second half of your sentence... When you say this, it's easy for me to think of a rogue country located between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in the old era." Ke Lan refuted mercilessly, "Also, tell me what this crystal is and what it does - don't tell me you know nothing, do you think I will believe you?"
"This is really just a piece of waste core." Pan said, "It was originally the core of the sacrificed Corruption Seed. The flesh and power in the core have been drained away, leaving only this empty shell... Although it is useless, it is actually quite cool to keep as a souvenir, don't you think?"
"If I plan to auction this thing, will you stop me? I think the rich and stupid masters on the Ark would be very interested in this kind of thing, right? The God Hunter Group is a bit short of working capital recently, so this thing should be able to fetch a good price..."
"You'd better not." Hearing that Ke Lan was going to sell the crystal, Pan quickly said, "Well, to tell you the truth, this thing is indeed a useless waste core, but the only special thing about it is that it has a beacon branded on it."
"Beacon?" Ke Lan stared at the crystal in his hand in confusion, "What beacon?"
"It's related to the 'great god' believed in by the Alpha civilization... We have found hundreds of objects with beacons like this on Alpha, but until now, we have not figured out what the beacon does."
"Anything related to that 'God' is never a good thing. I think I'd better throw it away." Ke Lan looked at the cliff not far away. "It should be okay to throw it in this valley, right?"
"I suggest you keep this thing with you. Although we haven't discovered the function of the beacon yet, every beacon is under our close surveillance. This way, even if any beacon changes , we can respond immediately."
"Why don't you take this thing away?"
"Because we want to see if something interesting will happen if you have this beacon in your hands." Pan said bluntly, "You can think of this as an experiment, but you have no right to refuse."
"Who just said that they would respect everyone's freedom?"
"You can just pretend that I farted." Pan said shamelessly.
"Will this thing suddenly open a portal while I'm sleeping, and then a bunch of alien monsters will come out of it?" Ke Lan asked.
To be honest, he really wanted to throw the crystal out with force - but he also knew that even if he lost the beacon, the undead crew would send it back to him in no time... They would even give him more beacons.
Since they have already boarded this "pirate ship", it is useless even if Ke Lan wants to refuse.
"The first beacon object we found was a stone tablet. It was found in Ruins B-009 in 902 New Era and is now stored in the underground ice storage of the institute . Along with this stone tablet, there are 94 other beacons. In addition, there are 31 beacons that are left inside the ruins because they are too large or cannot be moved. But no matter whether it is the beacon in the underground ice storage or the beacon in the ruins, there has been no movement in the past few decades."
As he was speaking, Pan added, "We believe that they will remain the same for hundreds of years to come. Hundreds of years is equivalent to several or even dozens of generations for humans, but for the existence of these beacons, it is just a blink of an eye."
“…”
"You can rest assured that this beacon will most likely be a dud that will never explode during your lifetime."
"What about the small probability...Besides, if there is no movement, why did you let me carry this thing?"
"Out of curiosity."
“Curiosity kills the cat.”
"So do you think you are that cat?"
"How come even you have started to be a riddler?"
"You were the one who started talking about cats," Pan argued like a child. "Well, I can promise you that as long as you carry this beacon, you can directly become a member of the crew in six months - all the previous assessment tasks will be considered as you passing them, how about that?"
"Three months."
"Five months, no less."
"Four months, one price, this is my bottom line."
"Four and a half months. If it's shorter, you'd better throw this thing away." Pan said angrily.
"make a deal."
Carrying this "dangerous item" with him for four and a half months can be exchanged for the opportunity to join the Undead Crew. For Ke Lan, this is a very good deal and he has no reason to refuse.
Even if Pan rejected his bargaining at the beginning, Ke Lan would eventually agree to the six-month condition.
Faced with the absolute power of the Undead Crew, he had no right to refuse. He might as well use this as a bargaining chip to gain more benefits for himself.
Even if I have to sell myself, at least I have to sell myself for a good price.
There was no change in the expression on Ke Lan's face. Instead, Cao Ge, who had listened to the entire bargaining process, stared at him in astonishment - if nothing unexpected happened, four and a half months later, this young man who looked less than 30 years old would become a member of the Undead Crew!
This is an organization that symbolizes the highest power of mankind, but to Cao Ge, it felt like the two of them were just buying vegetables at the market...
This was the first time Cao Ge saw the real bodies of the Undead Crew members. An indescribable sense of unreality surged up from the bottom of his heart. He stretched out a finger of his prosthetic limb and placed it on the arm of his other biological body. Sparks flew across his body.
“Hiss… It hurts…”
Looking at the burn marks on his arm and the piercing pain, Cao Ge realized that everything he had just heard was true.
"This, this is too frivolous... No... This is too crazy, right?" Cao Ge couldn't help but say in his heart, but he didn't dare to show any abnormal expression on his face, for fear of being noticed by the young prospective member of the crew in front of him.
"Oh, by the way, there's another thing." Pan said again.
"What's up?"
"According to the route of the hijacked Hercules transport plane, we found signs of activity by the heretical sect north of the White Ridge Mountains."
"The stronghold of a heretical sect? Can't we just attack them with missiles? They don't have any hostages anyway." Ke Lan said.
"No, it's not the kind of stronghold you imagined. They occupied an A-level ruins... According to our estimation, the heretic sect has most likely taken control of the core defense module inside the ruins." Pan said in a serious tone.
A-level ruins north of the White Ridge Mountains? A map of Alpha Planet suddenly appeared in Ke Lan's mind... The only A-level ruins north of the White Ridge Mountains is the "Ancient Bronze City Ruins" numbered A-009.
This is one of the earliest A-level ruins discovered by humans. Because the materials used in the buildings in this city ruins are mostly an alloy with copper as the main component, it is named "Ancient Bronze City". There are not many valuable relics in the Ancient Bronze City, but various defense facilities and mechanisms are emerging in an endless stream. To use a saying in the hunter circle to describe it, that is, "the risks of A-level ruins, the benefits of D-level ruins"... Over time, few hunters went to explore this A-level ruins.
But who would have thought that this forgotten A-level relic would now become the stronghold of a heretical sect.
