Civilization of the Stars: I loaded the mod

Chapter 41 The Suffering Stone Statue

In the early morning of the fourth day, the sun shone slightly from behind the mountain.

Relying on a step-by-step strategy within three days, the archaeological team continuously took away the equipment in batches and established a stronghold along the advancing route.

There is a small stronghold within [-] meters, and a large stronghold within [-] meters.

The relay-like strongholds in the tunnel are densely packed into a line, providing basic guarantee for follow-up activities, and extending a little bit into the end of the tunnel with a vertical depth of 6000 meters.

Even the horizontal distance of the shortest route is 7000 meters long.

It was also because of the long distance that the fifth team, which first discovered the underground world three days ago, hurriedly returned because of the team's poor condition after confirming it far away.

Now after three days of logistics work, the archaeological team has at least the ability to continue digging underground.

The time was ripe for in-depth exploration. After having breakfast early, Aisha led more than 40 people into the ground, hoping to complete the archaeological operation as soon as possible.

After all, the scientific research ship still has the basic job of investigating the planetary profile of the magic star.

Teams of dozens of people traveled through the intricate tunnel system in small transport vehicles.

Effortlessly, through the end of the tunnel, until you reach the underground world.

The two-meter-wide vehicle was parked at the entrance of the tunnel. Aisha turned around the overturned transport vehicle, walked a few steps forward and poked out the hole, staring at the barren land with a sense of novelty.

After all, the horizontal version of the picture on the photo is not as good as the immersive experience.

As far as the eye can see, the earth falls into the sky, and the civilized world is dark.

The molten sea rises from the center of the earth, leaps above the city, splashes sparks, and shines on the abandoned years.

As for why it is said to be a molten sea...

A magma belt suddenly erupted in the distant city, like the shape of the sun setting off a prominence.

Like the VV in the battleship, the Saratoga in the aircraft carrier, gorgeous and eye-catching.

The archaeological team who just got off the bus were caught by the fantastic splashing magma in the city for a moment.

"Hehe, isn't it pretty?" Aisha recovered from the falling magma, the worry in her eyes was fleeting, and her tone gradually became serious.

"But I don't think anyone will want to touch it, cheer up and be careful."

"Yes! Captain!"

Everyone shouted in unison, and a loud response came through the channel, expressing that they followed her instructions.

Aside from her role as a temporary commander, Aisha is usually Captain Pace's deputy. Most of the crew on the scientific research ship have served under her, and her style of conduct is deeply trusted by everyone.

Coupled with an optimistic personality, the reputation is not only one of the best, but it is also among the best.

"The logistics team, follow the road at the entrance of the tunnel, go down the mountain and build a new temporary camp two kilometers ahead."

Aisha marked the location on the projected map, and the maps of other team members also displayed red dots simultaneously.

"Bana, Xinglai... Wood, Fang Yan... Youzi, 20 people whose names have been called, follow me into the city to explore."

"Now, each team performs the scheduled tasks."

After reporting the "dish names" on the list in one breath, Aisha signaled the teams to disband through gestures.

The huge team soon had only twenty thin figures left, and the compression boxes made of various high-temperature-resistant materials were taken away by the logistics team.

"Our goal is to find items of potential value in the city, with the following priorities."

"One, information and craftsmanship related to rare crystals."

"Second, the cultural history of unknown ancient civilizations, the carrier of words and pictures of knowledge, and artworks."

"Three, everything else that might be good for us."

After finishing speaking, Aisha glanced sideways at Xinglai and Bana, and gave a meaningful reminder. "Regulations are dead, but people are alive. If there are other important discoveries, be smart."

"set off!"

The leader Aisha gave an order, and in the underground world with a dark background, the stars flashed azure blue flames.

A group of tiny lights flickered that could not be ignored, fell from the mountain in midair, slid, climbed again, and flew straight to the core area of ​​the city.

The unknown at the exit of the tunnel is probably the outskirts of the abandoned city, and the desolate stone field is sparsely scattered with bungalows.

The uninhabited land is lifeless.

Occasionally flashing buildings leave visual afterimages in the fundus, which look blurry, leaving the impression of simple geometric shapes such as squares, triangles, and circles on everyone.

Approaching the depths of the city, the nearby buildings began to gradually increase in height, and their geometric shapes became more complex.

As far as the eye can see, the architectural style of ancient civilizations tends to be geometric, and there are no high-altitude obstacles or "sky-reaching stone pillars" buildings.

There were few obstacles in the parallel layer they were flying in, and after just over ten minutes of straight flight, they officially approached the central area.

The aerial view can already glimpse the lava moat ahead.

The hot flames under the gully plowed open the earth, the city was divided into yin and yang in the flames, and the broken stone bridge tightly grasped the two sides of the cliff.

Stagnating a kilometer away from the lava sea, after circling twice, Aisha successfully found a larger open space - a semi-open-air low pyramid-shaped building.

"Squad members, prepare to land."

The communication channel repeated the landing instructions twice before Aisha took a deep breath, and dived obliquely with her legs, controlled the height of 20 meters, and adjusted her posture and jet angle.

The silky-smooth operation ended at the end of the arc, and it landed smoothly under the action of the recoil, and then checked the situation of the teammates with ease.

Seeing her teammates landing one after another, Aisha smiled slightly.

"Huh~ It seems that the lighter gravity of the magic star did not interfere with my flight, and it was even easier."

Bana, who landed a little slower, slowed down and agreed with the captain's words.

"Well, although the gravity difference is not much, objectively speaking, it does save a lot of effort."

"Hey, do you think this place is a bit weird?" Xing Lai's voice suddenly sounded in the channel.

Just after landing just now, her back felt a little cold.

You must know that this is a high temperature environment of nearly two hundred degrees, so there will be no feeling of coolness.

Turning around, she saw a crystal sculpture staring blankly in her direction.

"Strange?" Aisha glanced around, there were 30 team members and more than [-] heads.

Well, nothing out of the ordinary.

"If it is a sculpture made of these rare crystals, it is indeed a bit scary."

The scattered sculptures nearby are of the same origin as the crystal palms found in the mine tunnel, and the materials are all rare crystals that she is familiar with.

As the crystal palm is an orphan product, the material analysis only conducts surface analysis.

But seeing the number of crystal sculptures around her, the value of the rare crystal forehead plummeted in her heart.

Some destructive research seems to be possible.

Thinking of this, she made up her mind to ask a group of teams to pack and send one back.

"Yuzi, you pick a crystal sculpture, drag it to the logistics team, let them bring it back to the camp for in-depth analysis, maybe they can find something."

"The three-person team acted together and delivered it as soon as possible."

"Yes! Guaranteed to complete the task." The members of the seven groups received the order, their tone filled with excitement, and they carefully selected the sculptures, wanting to pick out the most perfect one.

The three transported the statue out of the big team, and Aisha started the personnel assignment for this operation.

With the map scanned during the flight, this abandoned city is divided into three most special buildings.

Aisha leads the first group and the second group, one of which is her group, and the second group, led by Fang Yan, is responsible for the A area of ​​the landing point.

Three or four groups investigated area B, and five or six groups investigated area C.

The other groups that received the assignment left one after another, and only the six of them remained in a group of crystal sculptures.

"Aisha, I'm afraid I will be promoted after this mission. Congratulations first."

Fang Yan, a sociology expert in the group, looked at his new friend and smiled sincerely.

Obviously she has already heard the news that Aisha's promotion is guaranteed.

"Did Master Pace say that?"

Aisha was stunned for a moment, the question of promotion was only possible in her opinion, after all, can the promotion of the captain's deputy defeat the captain?Mr. Pace is still too early to retire, and he has no intention of leaving.

Now Fang Yan's blunt blessing is a certain degree of convincing.

"Well, I have talked with the captain about this in the past two days. She said that the latest scientific research ship built by the empire is about to complete the recruitment of crew members from all civilizations, but there is still a shortage of a scientist."

"It just so happens that you are capable and experienced, and Lord Gudu also agreed with the captain's suggestion."

Going to the captain's position on another ship... Then I'm going to leave here.

Hearing the news from her colleagues with her own ears, Aisha's original joy of being promoted suddenly disappeared.

Bitter emotions grew, and she suppressed them in an instant, and her heart was entangled.

While doubting whether his active personality is suitable for being a leader, he restrained his emotions with the image of a leader in advance.

After a lengthy silence, Aisha raised her head and pretended to smile.

"Is that so? I can be promoted to the leader, what else is there to be dissatisfied with?"

"Okay, let's continue the task." Without giving others a chance to interrupt, Aisha walked directly towards the core building in Area A.

Stepping on a fast pace, Aisha kept going around the creepy crystal statues that could be seen everywhere, and the team members followed in silence.

The deep emotional aura fits perfectly with the extremely sad and distorted charm of the statues.

When looking closely at the face of the statue, it seems that from the lifelike expression, you can experience wailing, grief, astonishment, and ferocity...

The emotions before dying were frozen in time, frozen in the desolate and lonely underground world.

"It's hard to imagine how superb the workmanship of the stonemasons who created these crystal sculptures is, and there is nothing better than this to carve out souls."

Fang Yan observed the large number of statues all the way, with emotion and affirmation in his tone. "These statues clearly held great significance in their society."

"That's what I thought too. Messages from other groups say these crystal statues are everywhere in the city."

Aisha put away the virtual projection screen of the terminal, and told what the other captains had seen and heard on the low-altitude flight.

Then pointing to the conical landmark building in front, a huge stone tablet was erected in the open space at the entrance of the building, engraved with words.

"Fang Yan, the text found in the tunnel should have been analyzed two days ago, right? Can this be deciphered?"

"The general meaning is fine, let's see mine." Mentioning the areas he is good at, Fang Yan proudly wanted to push down his glasses, but his fingers slid across the visor.

A red cloud rose in embarrassment on his face, pretending to be nonchalant, and began to decipher the text.

The time passed by every minute and every second. Thanks to the preparation in advance, Fang Yan took an hour to complete the translation work without guessing.

Aisha's team took advantage of the time to go around the conical building and found more stone glyphs, guessing that this building is probably the city's library.

"Ahem, Aisha, I finished reading it, can you come back?"

"No problem, wait for me."

Knowing that Fang Yan's translation work was completed through the headset, Aisha replied, and quickly returned to the huge stone tablet, pretending to be listening to a story.

Sitting and watching the six people present, Fang Yan began to speak eloquently.

"Translations of the glyphs show that their content revolves around a race called "Kalanka", which is also the race name of the statue, and the masons who built the statue themselves are not mentioned at all."

"This Kalanka race has a strong mythological color in the narration of the stele. They breathed out to create life on the mountain, and bred a new Kalanka from the flames and rocks deep in the melting planet's core."

"Except for those embarrassing words of over-praise, there is only so much effective information on the stele."

Fang Yan spread his hands and said that it took him 1 minute to finish the work of an hour.

"End?"

"Yes, it's over."

"That's all?"

"only these……"

After confirming again and again, Aisha looked up at the tall stone tablet. The fonts were dense and varied, and the characters on the heights were flying up to read. Thousands of words were scattered, but they were all boastful nonsense.

"Real water." Aisha complained softly.

"Indeed, how do you think they became extinct." Fang Yan could hardly disagree with this point of view, and asked another question.

"Uh... I guess this city was used by stonemasons to commemorate this race named Kalanka, so it must have been extinct for a long time."

Aisha thought seriously about the reasons for Kalanka's extinction, and paused for a moment to guess.

"Maybe it was extinct due to a great geographical discovery, so the stonemasons built this kind of city in the underground isolated from the world."

"I don't think so." Fang Yan stretched out his index finger and shook it left and right.

"Then what's your opinion, my alien expert friend."

"I guess, the underground water was drained by the masons, and then the Kalanka people died of heat."

"Hehe." For some reason, Aisha felt that she was cold.

Because there are too many hydrographs, the creator drowned other people, and the secret room murder incident belongs to it.

"Ding ~"

Suddenly, a notification sound came from the headset, which saved the increasingly cold atmosphere.

"It seems that other teams have discovered it."

Aisha laughed twice, and hurriedly turned on the projection of the personal terminal, a large sharing screen that is completely outside, and other people can easily see it.

[Grapefruit: Master Aisha! ! 】

"It turned out to be Grapefruit. She went back to deliver the statue earlier. According to the time, she should have found our position and returned?"

The originator of the news was somewhat beyond Aisha's expectations. According to the time, the pomelo team should have completed the escort mission and asked her to return.

Could it be that something happened?

The idea came up, and Aisha quickly tapped the projected keyboard with her fingers.

[Aisha: Did something happen? 】

The message is sent, and the other party replies again after receiving it in just a few seconds.

[Yuzu: I'm at the shuttle camp now, and Holly and the others just finished the deep material scan. 】

Shuttle camp?Aisha looked up at her teammates in surprise.

"How long did it take us to get down?"

"Four, five, 10 minutes." Xing Lai, who reacted the fastest, replied.

"In a little over an hour, Yuzu and the others ran back to the ground from here and completed a material scan." Aisha was surprised by Yuzu's speed.

"Yuzi is like this, she always does her best when asked to do things." Xing Lai is not surprised.

Even if she and Youzi belong to different working time groups and are both junior crew members, of course they sometimes work together.

"I've heard about her character, but I didn't expect it to be so...responsible."

The ding sounded again, and Aisha didn't say any more. This time, Yuzu sent a lot of content.

The first few sentences made her almost petrified.

[Grapefruit: Master Aisha!Those crystal statues, they're alive!Anatomical material scans of the statues reveal that they were actually once living creatures, and theoretical silicon-based life at that. 】

[Yuzu: We have observed the silicon-based cells in the body of the statue, and the cells on the body surface are completely crystallized. 】

[Grapefruit: Holly and the others speculate that this silicon-based life originally inhabited depths where oxygen would not naturally appear, and developed an anaerobic life form. After exposure to oxygen in the surface air, its silicon-based molecules combined with oxygen Rare crystals will form and die in excruciating pain. 】

The bombardment of three consecutive heavy news made Aisha stay in place in a daze.

Kalanka statue is a kind of life?
Therefore, the city was not built by the 'masonry' they thought, but the habitat of the Kalanka people.

There has never been any masonry to carve any crystal statues, because every statue is a dead Kalanka, and those swan-song expressions before death are also true?
Aisha looked at the team members a little uneasy, but only saw an unnatural and far-fetched look.

Turning to the nearest two-person statue in the open space, the half-height Kalanka child is held tightly in the arms of the adult. The adult’s expression is full of horror, staring in her direction. The five senses of the hell scene make up the soul, and the mouth is hysterical. shouted, leaning over to protect the child firmly.

Kalanka bred by flames and rocks, tunnels dug into the ground, stone temples carved from the mountain, and multi-layer sealed giant stone gates.

Many clues were miraculously connected together, and the rise and fall of a race seemed to come alive in her mind.

The miracle of silicon-based life was born from the accident of lava, and they thrived in the comfort of the lava sea.

From ignorance to the germination of civilization, until you have a certain technical foundation.

The Kalanka people began to be curious and wanted to know the world above the "earth", so the intricate tunnel system was born.

And 200 years ago, in the mine explosion of the magic star, tasted the "very poison" of oxygen, and turned to seal everything in the sky and the earth.

Under the threat of oxidation, they desperately collapsed the mine, wrapped the stone hall in two layers, and returned to the underground paradise fortunately.

Until... the arrival of Gu Duren, the sound of knocking on the rock formation was the whisper of death in the stone.

This is a "Great Geographical Discovery" made by Gudu, which proves the existence of silicon-based life system.

But for the Kalankas, it's 'geographical discovery'.

……

"Zi~Zi~ku..."

Aisha settled on the scorching ground, staring coldly at the group of stone statues.

The channel of the headset received a signal from nowhere, and there was a noisy noise.

It's like talking about the statue's raving...

(Whispers in the stone, end)

　Catch the release at 23:59, no pigeons today! !

　　[Whispers in the Stone] The actual number of words in the ending chapter is 5180 words!
　　[-] words for the first time in my life.

　　Ask for a monthly ticket, ask for a recommendation, the first tomb is finished and sprinkle flowers, give me one~

　　ヾ(≧∪≦*)ノ〃

　　……

　　Although the rhythm is suddenly accelerated and the shortened plot is a bit difficult to deal with, but fortunately it is written, and the plot should not be abrupt.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)