Please Have a Cup of Green Tea

They flew in mid-air riding the phoenix and kept approaching the tree.

And the closer they got, the more they could feel the vastness and enormity of this giant tree. The trunk was as thick as a copper wall and an iron wall, laying in front of them like a moat.

Going up, the clouds were misty, and the end of the tree tops could not be seen.

Going down, the root system is knotted, and the exposed roots are the thinnest and one person wide.

If the Sky Eye system works on this island, this tree will definitely be one of the most conspicuous markers. But the huge fog spores interfered with all signals and blocked the sight of outside prying eyes.

The giant tree seems to have experienced an extremely long period of time. The dark brown tree lines on the trunk record its withering and blooming again and again. Bi Ming wants to get closer to see what species of small fluffy animals are climbing on the tree. , but was stopped by the man behind him.

"Don't move, the airflow here is too chaotic," Phoenix instructed her, the words flowing in her ears, gentle and unquestionable, "We're going to speed up."

Immediately, the phoenix's wings snapped open, making a rustling sound—

"Wait..." She grabbed the man's arm, her fingers clenched, her eyes closed tightly by the violent wind.

Phoenix looked at the shivering girl in front of him. Her hair had been blown away a lot. The strands of hair slipped out of the braids several times, and they were messily attached to her neck and shoulder blades, with freesias in the hair. Fragrance of citrus.

From his angle, he could still see her earlobes, as white as a tiny magnolia flower. There was a thin red that was frozen by the cold wind.

He fixed his eyes, his golden-brown pupils were like a smelted river of gold, quietly flowing past her.

The blond girl looked extremely fragile, but she dared to lean out from his arms to look curiously at an altitude of several hundred meters.

Phoenix suspects at that moment that the wind will take her away from his arms as easily as a flower.

At this moment, the girl was still clutching his arm tightly, as if she was holding a life-saving straw. She took a deep breath and bit her lips again, swallowing her embarrassed exclamation.

Proud she didn't seem to want to make a fuss in front of him, so as not to appear too humiliating.

Fortunately, Phoenix didn't let her endure this kind of roller coaster fright. After a while, the speed of Phoenix's ascent gradually slowed down until it stopped,

"We're here." Above the sky, surrounded by stratus clouds, the dense branches of ancient trees are like huge umbrellas in the sky. The leaves shade everything, and people can only see different shades of green in their eyes.

And the surrounding fog is like a fairyland, set off around the giant tree, looking down can only find a foggy piece.

Bi Ming slowly opened her eyes, only to find that her eyes had changed a lot, and all she could see was a scene of lush foliage.

"Cough...is this the location of the canopy?" Her face was pale, and when she looked around, she only felt that the picture was like a fantasy fairy tale.

This "towering tree" in the true sense hides such a magical secret at the top - countless small houses hang from the branches like lovely "fruits". Some of them were wrapped by wall creepers, with colorful flowers blooming on the vines, which looked like romantic flower houses; some of them seemed to be bitten by insects and ants, and they were tattered, and only half of the door panel was left, revealing the inside. Weird symbols; some are made of glass, neither crystal nor translucent, covered with dust, like an abandoned crystal box…

The small houses that are hard to be counted by the naked eye, without any repetition, have different styles, but they are obviously abandoned for a long time.

They are like colorful little gifts, hanging in a random pattern on different thick branches, sheltered by this giant tree.

Bi Ming's first reaction was, wouldn't this be a ruin?

The red-haired man behind her seemed to think the same way, and the phoenix beneath them also got closer and closer to those treehouses as their master wished.

But when they got closer, they discovered that the dilapidated little houses were not as big as they thought, each no more than 20 square meters at most, more like a temporary lookout station.

Compared with the first underground ruins, this place is too desolate and too narrow.

"It seems that we are not so lucky, the ruins are not here." Phoenix said slowly.

"Why are you so sure..." Seeing that he was so determined, Bi Ming couldn't help but turn her head, and her body swayed with her movements.

Phoenix sighed, and straightened the green plum in his arms: "Look carefully, what's missing here?"

"Let me think about it," Bi Ming pondered, carefully recalling the difference between the seaside ruins and this place, "Is it because there is no protection system?"

"More than that, there is also a lack of believers' faith here." Christian, who was sitting behind the white fox, also came over, just in time to hear Bi Ming's words, and explained with a smile, "The ruins of this island should be from the same group, so we can only find them. The temples and statues of the gods are the most critical."

Bi Ming reacted instantly: "Yes, these tree houses can't hold statues." The goddess statue in the previous ruins was dozens of meters high.

They circled around the tree, saying it was a tour, but in fact it was more like an outing among these colorful broken houses. Bi Ming saw that there was a conical roof, and a brown-grey plush came out of the small chimney above, and the small black eyes looked at her smartly.

The animal gave her a sense of familiarity and a faint doubt: "What breed is it that can live in such a high place?"

"Highland squirrels are extremely cold-resistant." Phoenix sensed her interest. "It tastes a bit like lamb squirrels, do you want it?" While speaking, he took Phoenix and flew towards the small animal.

Birds of prey hunted in an instant, and the brown-gray hairy rat who was still stunned was so frightened that it wanted to get back to the chimney, but it started to catch fire below, making it squeak.

"Wait—" Before Phoenix grabbed the little thing with flaming claws, Bi Ming grabbed the bamboo horse, "I have something I want to verify."

When Phoenix saw her anxiously grasping his hand, the delicate skin was rubbing against his palm, as soft as a petal.

"Well." He didn't break away from her, just looked at her quietly, "What do you want to do?"

During their conversation, the frightened little guy found that the road was blocked, and had already run along the branches to the trunk of the giant tree.

"I want to see where its home is." Bi Ming raised her head and smiled, her blue eyes sparkling, "Maybe you can find a whole nest."

Phoenix mused: "Highland squirrels generally live alone, but it is not ruled out the possibility of reporting groups to keep warm."

Christian also waited for the late Tang: "You are too slow."

The flax-haired boy seemed to recover, his expression was the same as usual: "I found something under the tree, but you are walking too fast, so I will investigate it myself."

"Um?"

"There is an air-raid shelter under the tree." Tang glanced at the phoenix who was chasing the squirrel and the pair of men and women above, "I suspect that there are underground ruins buried here."

The news made Christian settle for a moment: "Are you sure?"

"Go and have a look." The huge airflow generated by the flapping of the griffin's wings under Tang hit the phoenix above, "Hey, are you leaving?"

The phoenix jolted in the huge air current, causing the blond girl who was staring at the squirrel to cry out in fright, and then turned back angrily: "Fini, what is that guy talking about?"

"Don't pay attention to him." The red-haired man touched her head with one hand, and the other hand was firmly propped between her arm and body, as strong as a fence, "Go find the little mouse first. Bar."

Phoenix, who was sensitive to hearing, naturally heard Tang's words, but he was not in a hurry—

Because he saw these tree houses, he had a vague guess.

Seeing that they were still chasing a little squirrel, Don and Christian looked at each other.

"Is he so idle?"

"It should be that we want to test it first." Christian analyzed, "But I also suggest that you take a look at the surrounding area."

Tang raised his eyes and saw the hanging treehouses, but his attention was focused on the wooden planks extending from the door of each hut - which reminded him of the departure station of the mecha team, and the height of these treehouses was just right Can accommodate human exoskeleton mechs to enter.

Although these "decks" are already in tatters and covered with thick colonies, both the number and the distance of distribution make Tang, a mecha expert and combat genius, extremely familiar.

"The place where the ancient humanoid mecha set sail..." Tang quickly cleared his mind and looked at Christian, "Is this why you are staying here?"

Christian smiled without saying a word. These sentries are extremely sensitive to combat facilities. The red-haired man must have also noticed the hidden functions of these small houses, so that the phoenix circled here.

They can almost conclude that this ancient tree is inextricably linked to the ruins, and the entrance is most likely nearby.

After a while, the duo on the phoenix finally found the squirrel's end point - a small hole in the trunk, where it looked like its old nest was.

Bi Ming looked at the dark hole that was just big enough for one hand to go in, and said softly: "Fini, don't you think it's strange, this tree looks very hard, it doesn't look like it can be bitten by animal teeth. look."

"Well," Phoenix curled his lips, "you think there's something tricky in it?"

"Cough cough," Bi Ming knew that the other party understood her suggestion, and she couldn't help pursing her lips. These sentinels were really too shrewd, "You also found out that there is something wrong with this tree."

Tang also came over to join in the fun: "What did you find?"

"We want to catch a squirrel," Beaming grabbed Phoenix's arm and looked at Tang behind him, "don't make trouble."

"Tsdai, do you think I'm so bad?" Tang snorted, and then in Phoenix's warning eyes, he stretched out his finger, "You want a squirrel, right? I'll just force it out."

A tiny cyclone was poured into the fist-sized cave.

After a while, the squirrel didn't come out, but Tang raised his eyebrows slightly: "Yo, inside... how is it empty?"

As soon as these words came out, the others became a lot more serious.

"empty?"

"Impossible, how can such a tall tree maintain the lushness of so many branches if it is empty?" Bi Ming questioned, but in fact, she had already determined that this is the first part in the original work. Two relics - "Tower in the Tree".

This ancient tree so huge that it was almost invisible when approached, was a tower even bigger than the first underground ruins.

It was also a coincidence that this place was discovered in the original work.

At that time, Cecia was working with Arnold and Sean. When the Sentinels were hunting the aliens, she accidentally inhaled spores and had hallucinations, as if being guided to find the ancient tree.

According to the heroine's later account, she hallucinated herself as part of the tree.

The spores have no effect on the powerful Sentinels, so Sean and Arnold, who have maintained their sanity, began to analyze the problem of the towering tree.

Perhaps it is the characteristics of spiritual beasts. Their scorpions and snakes like to burrow underground, so they found an air-raid shelter under the roots of trees.

In the end, they determined that the ruins were in this incomparably huge giant tree.

And because the scorpion's venom is highly corrosive, they entered the ruins from the ground, triggered the security system of the ruins, and were forced out by the dense alien guards.

The back is the story of Cecia's suggestion to summon all the sentries to gather together to solve the aliens, sweep the ruins, and find the key.

Bi Ming didn't want to wake up the disgusting "guards" in the ruins, so she wasn't willing to force a breakthrough from the ground like the original, and she wanted to induce these sentries to find the real entrance.

And Phoenix also guessed the truth and said with consideration: "Tsdai, if this is a relic, then the use of technology can ensure that this tree will always maintain its vitality."

The sentries looked a little excited, and Tang grinned: "I can feel the steady airflow inside, it's ventilated inside, and there's plenty of oxygen, so it's definitely okay to live there."

"But we need to know how to get in." Christian is more rational. "If you break in hard, you will have to cut the bark open, and there is a high probability that the alarm will be triggered."

Phoenix nodded. "So this cave is a breakthrough point. It's connected inside, but we don't have remote-controlled peeps."

"It's useless if you take it. Those spores around will interfere with the magnetic field. Isn't that how the live broadcast ball is scrapped?" Tang yawned, obviously a little impatient, "We can go down to see the underground air raid shelter first, this ruin can't be destroyed. Is the entrance at the top?"

Bi Ming's face was delicate.

Who would have thought that the entrance to the second relic was really set at an altitude of several hundred meters?

And it's one of those tree houses.

However, there are so many small houses hanging here that it is impossible to count them—even searching for them by exhaustive method will waste countless hours.

This is the only problem that troubles Bi Ming now. After all, it is impossible to describe everything in the original work.

Fortunately, the squirrel gave her a hint just now, she tugged at the sleeve of the bamboo horse and pointed to the small hole in front of her that only one hand could pass through: "Fini, I have an idea, can I let the spirit beast go Look inside?"

Phoenix looked a little surprised, then frowned: "My phoenix can't shrink that small."

Christian also glanced at his fox: "You don't want to drill a hole? Okay." The little fox seemed to be a bit clean.

Tang was even more helpless: "Don't look at me, this is the smallest form of a griffin."

The spirit beasts of the Sentinels are almost all large beasts, predators of nature, extremely aggressive, and they are all good detectives, but at the moment they are facing a fist-sized cave, which seems useless.

"Then let my pigeon go." Bi Ming pulled out the little fat pigeon who was hiding in the backpack and was lazy again. Panicked, it flapped its wings and Doudou's eyes widened in horror.

It can't seem to believe that it will be sent to scouting the unknown.

The spirit beasts of the guides are relatively small, mainly submissive herbivores. Once attacked at the spiritual level, their self-protection ability is insufficient and it is easy to collapse.

So Bi Ming who decided to let the spirit beast explore the ruins alone can be said to be quite brave.

Even Don and Christian thought it was a bit risky because no one knew what might be hidden in the ruins.

And Phoenix also rejected her plan.

"I'll just let it go around inside and see the situation. Will it come out soon?" Bi Ming was a little tired, and it seemed that the bamboo horse was too protective.

With repeated promises, Bi Ming finally got one minute of reconnaissance time for her pigeons.

"Okay, darling, go for a ride and see if there is an entrance." Bi Ming stuffed the little fat pigeon into the cave, and then found embarrassingly that the little thing seemed to have gotten fat, and it stuck after only half of it entered. in the hole.

"Pfft—" She could clearly hear the chuckle of the sentries behind her.

"Cuckoo!" The plump white dove protested to its owner angrily, but the eldest lady was obviously annoyed and pushed its **** into it.

"It did grow up a bit." Bi Ming cleared his throat, "You said, the evolutionary period."

In order to avoid Ome being too embarrassed, Phoenix nodded: "It is indeed a few inches larger than the first time I saw it."

However, Tang giggled and said, "I'm right, the more your spiritual beast evolves, the fatter you will get."

There was a rose-like blush on the eldest lady's face, which was out of anger: "Shut up, it won't get fatter and fatter. It's growing, developing..."

Tang blinked and said lightly: "Don't get excited, I believe you—"

"Does it matter whether you believe it or not?" Phoenix interrupted Tang directly, casting an extremely cold glance at him, "Her spirit beast has nothing to do with you."

The atmosphere suddenly became strange.

Probably, the prodigal child molested the innocent lady, and suddenly met the old cadre who was rambling across the bar.

Fortunately, Christian still remembered the key points and reminded Bi Ming: "How is the situation inside now? Can you find any clues?"

Bi Ming put her hand on the back of Bamboo Horse's hand to show comfort: "The structure inside the tree is very similar to what we saw in the first ruins, but it is much larger... The stairs are all spiral, my pigeon is a little dizzy, just fly up-"

As she said that, she frowned: "Well, I seem to really see an exit."

From the white dove's point of view, the inside of this giant tree was completely hollowed out. It was larger than the hall of the underground ruins, and the point was that it was still very high. If the first relic is thirty stories high, then this relic is equivalent to those skyscrapers in the earth age.

The entire ruins were developed completely according to the giant tree, showing a conical shape, which became narrower as it went up, and there were many forks, and each fork was a sturdy branch.

Simply full of magic.

The top of the spiral staircase leads to a door, which looks like a corner of the tree crown. It is carved with fine patterns, which is the same style as the temple pattern in the first ruins.

Bi Ming asked the little pigeon to stay by the door obediently, while she led the others to the entrance.

Perhaps because of the gentle soothing of her fingers, the coldness in Phoenix's eyes also subsided and returned to calm. Phoenix traveled very fast, and under her guidance, they came to the middle of the canopy.

There were various tree houses hanging from the branches, including many very similar places buried by green leaves and crawlers, and small beetles squatted quietly on the rotten leaves, watching these strange visitors in silence.

"It's here," Bi Ming said, pointing to one of the extremely dense leaves, "I'm pretty sure."

Tang snapped his fingers, and a gust of wind instantly rolled up the branches and leaves that were entangled outside the hut, revealing the wooden door inside—it was indeed concealed enough, surrounded by so many similar tree houses, with dense foliage as cover.

If it wasn't for the little pigeons "inside and outside", I'm afraid the four of them might not be able to find this out after a whole day.

It's just that when they came to the door of this small house, they didn't find any guard stone statues like those in the ruins.

I tried a few passwords at random, but the door didn't respond.

In the end, a few people in Phoenix thought that it was okay to attack directly. What could a thin wooden board stop?

"I'll come." In order to avoid too much movement, Christian decided to use his superpowers to test it, such as "transfer" the door to another place.

However, when the blond man's hand touched the door, the door creaked open, revealing a dull little pigeon.

The four and one pigeon looked at each other, so embarrassed.

"So... you can enter directly without a secret order?" Tang tutted, raised his hand and teased the fluffy little head of the white dove, "It's so interesting."

Bi Ming was very hesitant. The original work did not mention how to get in and out of this entrance, but she still felt that it was not good.

There will be no pie in the sky, maybe some organs have been triggered.

The little pigeon angrily made a "gu" at Tang, avoiding the opponent's hand, and threw himself into Bi Ming's arms. The fluffy body even bounced in the middle of the girl's towering height.

"Stop moving." Bi Ming pressed it into her arms and followed the other men inside.

As detected by the pigeons, as soon as you enter, you can find a spiral staircase leading to the foot. The hundreds of meters of circular stairs are like nested rings, which makes people dizzy when they look down.

And the spiral staircase surrounds a glass tube—a pale blue, unidentified liquid with small bubbles is surging in it, like a central blood vessel providing nutrients running through the entire tree.

There are no sphinxes here, and no weapons that fire lasers, but it gives Bi Ming a more dangerous premonition.

After descending a few steps, Tang at the front suddenly said, "Come and see..."

In front of Bi Ming and the others, there are not only spiral stairs that continue to descend, but also countless forks in all directions—

They are all walks after hollowing out the branches of this giant tree.

And everyone is now faced with a choice - continue down the road, or choose one of the fork in the road and find out?

Phoenix stood beside Bi Ming and suggested in a calm voice: "Let's split up, it will be faster."

Tang sneered: "How to divide?"

"It's very simple, me and Tesdai, you two are free." The red-haired man standing on the stairs overlooked the two in front and wrote lightly, "After all, you like danger, and I don't."

Bi Ming found that the position they were standing was very delicate, the light from the dome just shrouded her and Phoenix, while Tang and Christian stood in the shadow half, with deep eyes.

It's almost like two camps.

After a long time, Christian smiled and sighed meaningfully: "Phoenix, what are you watching out for? Aren't we in a group?"

"I don't mind splitting up," Tang also waved with a smile, "but it's safer to have Tstedt stay by my side? After all, in the event of danger, I can run away quickly with her, and if you get into a fight, There is no distinction between the enemy and me.”

Bi Ming clenched her fingers, she had a premonition that the danger was getting worse and worse.

The sentries seemed to hear something and turned their heads one after another.

From the nearest fork, there was a rumbling muffled sound, as if something heavy was approaching them.

"It looks like it's coming, and it's useless to leave now." Christian shrugged, and his blue eyes looked sharply at the fork in the road.

Tang flicked his wrists, looked at Bi Ming who was pulled behind by Phoenix, and shouted with a smile, "Testen, are you sure you won't come beside me, that guy will burn you when he fights."

Bi Ming: ...So no matter which way you go, the guards of the ruins will be triggered indiscriminately?

Phoenix stood in front of Bi Ming and said softly: "You leave here on the same path now, we will call you after we solve it."

Bi Ming looked at the half-closed wooden door above, and said "um".

Thinking of those dark, well-developed aliens gave her goosebumps.

Whether it's for force or sanity, she doesn't want to see those things.

The author has something to say: Fini: It looks dangerous, Ome and I are safer

Don & Chris: ? This guy doesn't think about the world of two people, right?