Starting from Zero

Chapter Three Hundred and Fortieth Rescue

The situation in the cave can be said to be very bad. I don’t know if it was a place where these NPCs were held or a special place. The laboratory, in short, there are no less than three hundred people lying here and there, and these people have three common characteristics, one is the whole body is naked, the other is bruised and bruised, and the third is dying. Judging from the wounds, none of these people's injuries were fatal. The wounds were very large, but they were all abrasions or scratches. There were no obvious wounds, just large-area bruises. As for dying, it was not caused by the wound, but by physical exhaustion. As for the cause of physical exhaustion... just look at the air still covered with clouds and mists.

These people in the room seem to be in a bad situation and may hang up at any time, but I don't care about this time. What I really care about is the residual powder of the burning substance in the center. This thing is right in the center of the room. It is a huge bowl-like thing, and the powder reported by the Qilin warrior is at the bottom of this bowl.

The things in the bowl look strange, different from ordinary ashes. This thing seems to condense into an amber-like structure, but it's not all like this. It feels as if the burning residue has become two different substances, one of which is a crystal clear and near-transparent residue, and the other is a very strange ash-gray powder. It is strange to say that these powders are because although they look like ash-gray, they are constantly smoking, but no open flames can be seen.

If charcoal is in some special burning state, it can continue to burn without causing an open flame, but it is a whole piece of charcoal, not the powder in front of you. When some charcoal burns, you can't see an open flame because the flame burns inside the charcoal, and it is very weak. It's not really invisible to the fire, it's just blocked. However, this situation is different now. Those powders have no volume to block the flames. If they are burning, they must be visible.

Because I don’t know if this thing is burning or not, so I can only use eternity to pick the ashes first. As a result, as soon as I touched the ashes inside, I found that the crystals were broken and changed. It became a small piece, and then at the speed visible to my naked eye, a large group of flames burst out of the shattered crystals, and the flames only burned for a few seconds before gradually extinguishing, and the rest is a bowl full of ash-gray powder, you can never see those crystals anymore.

It is obvious that there is a problem with our previous judgment. Those ash-gray powders are indeed ashes, but those crystals are not, they are fuel.

Although I have discovered this situation now, I can no longer collect those things. The crystals were completely burned out when I touched them, and now there is only dust. Although they are still smoking, I think I definitely can't find out anything about this thing.

Put all these powders in a box, seal them, and then throw them into the Fenglong space, and then I summoned out the small dragon and the female helped capture some of the air in the room and poured it into a clean bottle , After finally confirming that there is nothing missing here, I plan to leave this room. However, when I was about to take back the small dragon girl and turn to leave, the small dragon girl over there suddenly walked to the side of the big ashes before and listened.

I looked back towards the small dragon woman in doubt, but the small dragon woman was bent over and held the sides of the bowl with both hands and pushed forward. With the force of the small dragon girl, the huge stone bowl began to slide slowly to one side, and then a huge hole was exposed.

In fact, I said that this thing is a bowl only because its shape is the same as the bowl we eat, not that this thing is really only the size of a bowl. In terms of size, this thing is quite huge even if it is used as a bathtub for one person. Therefore, when the small dragon girl removes this thing, the big hole exposed underneath is not surprising.

Because of the obscuration of the bowl, I didn’t expect a big hole in the ground, but now that the hole has been discovered, we naturally have to go down and take a look, but because For safety reasons, I threw a bunch of ghost bugs down to explore the way as usual.

I originally planned to go down to see the situation alone, but in the information returned by the ghost worm, I found that this idea was a bit unrealistic, because the space under the hole was unexpectedly large. And it's so well-connected, obviously not one or two people can complete the search.

Although the environment below is very large and requires many people to complete the exploration, how to proceed has become a problem. Christina and I have no problem. The key is how Pandora and Ladamantis are going to get off. This hole is located in the center of this huge room full of special gas, and the gas here also has a strong effect on Divine Race, even holding your breath can be effective, so you need a little preparation to pass here.

Back outside the cave, they talked to Kristina about the following situation. Pandora and the others immediately understood my intentions. Without my explanation, Pandora and Ladamantis immediately used them separately. A protective magic creates a closed environment that absolutely isolates air circulation around me. This small gas shield can play a role in isolation. As for the impact on the battle, I don’t think it is necessary. After all, this thing only Just let them enter the hole below.

Pandora, who entered the room wearing the protective cover, did not feel any discomfort. After confirming that the protective cover was indeed useful, they followed me and walked to the vicinity of the hole.

It can be determined that this hole is not set aside for personnel entry and exit, it should be used for other purposes. The reason for this judgment is that there are no stairs or any passages for ordinary persons to walk under the cave. The entrance of the cave is located at the top of an underground karst cave, and the nearest wall around it is also five meters away. There is no place to borrow at all. Unless you can hang upside down on the top of the cave like Spider-Man, this place is simply impassable to most people. As for jumping directly off this kind of thing, don't even think about it. The bottom of the cave is at least more than a hundred meters above the ground, and the bottom is all stalagmites growing upwards, just like rare beast teeth. The biggest probability of jumping from here is not being thrown into meatloaf, but being worn into meat skewers. Of course, if you can fly, it's a different matter.

In order to facilitate everyone's actions, I directly summon a sickle to clear the way for us. Thunder spiders are also spiders. Weaving webs is instinct for them, and it doesn't take much effort at all. With the help of the sickle, we built a huge interception net directly above the bottom of the hole below, and then everyone jumped down in batches.

There was a huge spider web interception, and we easily landed on that huge web, and then we were thrown high. Because it is a web used to catch people, not a web used to trap the target, there is no mucus attached to the spider silk used this time, so the spider silk will not be sticky.

Following a spider silk that was completed in advance by the sickle, we quickly slid from the edge of the web to the ground. Although when I looked down from above, I felt that there were stalagmites erected everywhere below, but when you really reach the ground, you will find that the gaps between these stalagmites are still very large, at least not affecting our travel.

Although the hole we just came down is not prepared for people to walk through, there are obvious signs of human activity in the place below. Not only is there an obvious road on the ground, but it is not far ahead. There is still a flash of light in the place.

Since the flash can be seen, it means that there is something in the place not far from here. In this case, we unconsciously slowed down and tried our best to be cautiously Close to the turning point ahead.

This turning point is quite narrow, and probably only allows two people to walk in the middle, but it’s a good thing for us, because the narrower the opening, the more it means that the road is not important, and it’s not important. There will inevitably be fewer people on the road.

After carefully approaching the corner, Radamantis and I leaned in first. Of the five people here, only two of us are men, and the only melee personnel besides us is Aphrodite. However, considering that it is now under investigation, Aphrodite is obviously out of time. Her armor, which is gorgeous enough to participate in a costume exhibition, and her blond hair that can dazzle people's eyes are too eye-catching things. As long as she shows her head over there, I promise you will be spotted immediately.

Aphrodite also knew that he was not suitable for this, and did not bother us. He stayed obediently and stared at us whether someone was coming from behind, while Radamantis and I were He quickly approached the corner over there and quietly stuck out his head and observed the situation outside with one eye.

To our surprise, the previous care was obviously wasted, because there was simply no one there. The reason for the flash is that there is a large field in front of the corner. That's right, it's the field. Rows of mushrooms grow in this obviously artificially tidied field. Each of these mushrooms has a height of nearly one meter, and the shape does not look much different from most mushrooms. The domed top and a stem are very standard mushroom shapes, except that they are slightly larger. What special place. However, although the shape of this mushroom is not strange, it is still very strange, because the top of these mushrooms, that is, the part of the cap, is densely packed like the seeds on the strawberry, embedded with a lot of yellow crystals. I recognized at a glance that these crystals were the kind of burning objects I had seen before. In other words, the burning material in the cave was probably produced by the mushrooms here. Moreover, if that is the case, the function of the hole we came down before will be understandable. That should be the cargo aisle, and the person who might burn those things lifted up something like citrine below from that hole. Of course, if you want to do this, you will definitely need someone to help. After all, these mushrooms don't grow directly under the hole.

The flashes we saw before are actually caused by these mushrooms here. The citrines inlaid on the surface of the mushrooms are all shining with a uniform frequency. When they shine, their brightness may be close to that of a car headlight, but when they are extinguished, they retain the weak brightness of a night light.

Although these luminous citrines are all grown on different mushrooms, the strange thing is that their shining frequency is exactly the same. There are at least tens of thousands of crystals distributed on hundreds of these mushrooms in this mushroom field, but there is no crystal shining rhythm of even a second in them.

Radamantis and I went out first after confirming that there was no danger, and Pandora and the others automatically followed us when we went out. The mushrooms outside naturally attracted the attention of Kristina and the others, but after a little observation, everyone picked a few mushrooms as samples, and then temporarily lost interest in these things.

There are three roads extending from this mushroom cultivation room, one of which is the road we came in, while the other two are completely unclear where they lead. After thinking about it a little bit, we plan to go away separately, Pandora and Ladamantis plus Christina, and I and Aphrodite. This division is to ensure the balance of battle strength output.

Although Aphrodite is a god of beauty, she is a god of righteousness, which is different from the servant gods of Pandora and Ladamantis, so Aphrodite’s battle strength is actually The above is above Radamantis and Pandora.

After the teams were separated, Aphrodite and I chose the leftmost road. Anyway, the routes on both sides are unknown, so both sides are the same.

Not far along the passage, we came across another mushroom house, which is similar to the room just now, it is still planted a lot of mushrooms, and the area of ​​this mushroom house this time Bigger. This mushroom house is only connected to two passages, except for the one we came from, there is only one way. Passing through the mushroom room and continuing forward, we found that this place is simply a mushroom cultivation base. In the next passage, we ran into at least six mushroom cultivation rooms in a row, all of which were full of mushroom cultivation rooms without exception. Plant a huge mushroom, and we did not find any personnel in these rooms.

After checking many rooms like this, we found that in addition to mushrooms, there are still mushrooms. The entire passageway is not far away from a mushroom cultivation room. The mushrooms we have seen so far have been at least There are hundreds of thousands of them. The number of terrifying means that these mushrooms must have special uses, because generally speaking, no one will plant a completely useless thing for no reason.

After continuing to explore for a while, just when we thought there was nothing but mushrooms, suddenly a small mushroom cultivation room in front of us finally appeared a little different. When we approached this mushroom cultivation room, we heard someone talking inside.

Because we heard each other's voice ahead of time, Aphrodite and I both immediately became concealed, and then began to approach the mushroom cultivation room carefully. After carefully moving to the door of this mushroom cultivation room, we finally saw the situation inside.

The inside of this mushroom cultivation room is also full of yellow mushrooms like other mushroom cultivation rooms, but the difference is that at one end of this mushroom cultivation room, two people are bending over in it. Those yellow crystals were dug from a large mushroom, and most of the mushrooms in this room had been dug away, leaving only holes filled with yellow liquid.

It is obvious that these people are collecting crystals, but I wonder what exactly these crystals are for. If it only produces some special effects, the output is too big. After all, that thing does not work for the player, and if it is to deal with NPC, it is obviously wasteful to grow so many mushrooms. Besides, the previous formidable power is because it is in Underground World, so it can have such a good effect. If it is on the ground, the volatility of the gas is very strong. If it cannot be concentrated, the concentration will naturally decrease, and then count some appropriate ones. For protection, no matter how large the formidable power of this thing is, the effect it can play is bound to be limited, and it can only be used once suddenly without the enemy knowing it. Once everyone knows the characteristics of this thing, they want to use this thing as a shadow. People are not so easy. After all, although this thing is very effective, it is also very easy to protect. If it is in an open place, a gust of wind is enough to deal with the gas.

The two guys who were digging into crystals didn’t even notice the appearance of Aphrodite and I. We listened for a while and determined that these were two NPCs, not players, because they The discussion is obviously not what the player will discuss.

After confirming that these two were only NPCs, Aphrodite and I had no scruples anymore, and ran over to knock them out one by one, and then ran away. After retreating more than a dozen rooms in a row, we put the two people down and woke them up with water. The two were ready to yell as soon as they woke up, but neither Aphrodite nor I were kind-hearted people, so these two hapless guys were threatened and attacked by us immediately, and they were honest as soon as they got a kick. A lot.

In fact, I still have many ways to deal with NPCs. I didn't even use Aphrodite's sexual entrapment to get these two NPCs and get all the information they knew directly.

According to the confession of these two NPCs, this place is indeed a mushroom cultivation base, and the output of this place is basically all collected by the Russian players. These NPCs do not work here as hired workers, but as slaves. According to their description, this place is actually a huge prison. The hole we came down before is the only way out here. Although there are many ways to connect to the outside in other places, they are very small or impassable for some reasons. The only way to go is really. Of course, now because the hole is sealed and the distance from the ground is so high, people here simply can't get out. For this reason, the people here are actually kept in captivity.

According to their own description, their NPCs' daily work here is to take care of these mushrooms, and then start collecting them when the crystals on the mushrooms grow large enough. This kind of collection is carried out very frequently, because the crystals on those mushrooms can actually grow back in just two days, so their work is actually very much.

The collected crystals will be piled up in one place by them, and then transported to the hole we came down once every other day. The Russian players above will use the hanging basket to pull the crystals up, and then Put down enough food for them for two days. In other words, they are actually exchanging crystals for food, and if they refuse to work, there is no food. This place is located underground, there is no sunlight, and ordinary plants can't grow at all, so they are impossible to get food by themselves. If the Russians above don't provide food, they can't live at all.

Because we used a special divine technique to confirm that these guys were telling the truth, we didn’t say bad things about them again after we knew that they and the Russians weren’t the same, and those two guys After hearing that we weren't the Russians, the attitude towards us came to a 180-degree U-turn, and we excitedly asked us to rescue them.

Of course I fully agreed to this kind of thing, and then asked them to take us to their residence.

In fact, the cave we saw when we first discovered them is not far from our settlement. Just a few tens of meters from here is another quite huge cave. The only difference between this cave and ordinary caves is that there is an underground stream passing through it. The stream is very small and comes out of a crack in the rock. It is impossible to let people leave the waterway, but it is enough for the people here to live and practical. On the other side of the stream was a row of tents. A bonfire was burning in front of each tent, and the fuel surprised us, because it was clearly the crystals we saw before.

"Are you burning this kind of yellow crystal?" I asked, looking at the fuel in the fire in amazement.

The guy who led us obviously knew the purpose of this thing, so he explained specifically: "In fact, Sigma crystals don’t produce any hallucinogenic effects. Their real effect is very powerful. Just smell the smoke."

Because this guy has been detected by Aphrodite’s divine technique and has not lied, and the smoke is not intended for the player, so I just Courageously leaned in and sniffed it. I didn't care about it, but the moment I smelled it, my eyes widened and the boss suddenly retreated and stared at the thing in surprise.

I never thought that the smoke produced after this vigilant burning turned out to be a kind of comprehensive strengthening medicine. Just when I inhaled this thing, I felt that my strength was rising sharply, and when I turned on the attribute Later, I discovered that the increase was not only the power attribute, but also my health, mana, magic attack power, success rate, stamina, resistance, and sensory sensitivity. It can be said that this is a kind of all-attribute strengthening medicine, and the effect is immediate, and it takes effect in almost one second.

"How long can this thing last?" I turned my head in surprise and asked the guy who led the way.

"About one minute, but this is unprocessed primordial smoke. If you add some appropriate medicine ingredients after some processing, the effect of this thing can be extended."

"Do you know a lot about these things?" Aphrodite asked.

The guy who was asked heard this suddenly frustrated and said: "Actually, I used to be a Potion Master, but after being caught here..." He did not finish the rest of the words. , But we all understand the meaning. The Russians want slaves instead of Potion Masters, so this guy can only do some physical work here. Of course, collecting that kind of sigma crystal itself is not so hard, it just takes some time.

"Isn't this your gathering place? Why is there no one?" Because this guy's mood was obviously depressed, so I changed the subject.

The guy also reacted and did not continue to complain, but explained: "We have sixteen people in total, but the area here is too big. We are all divided into two people to work. One person Responsible for picking, one person is responsible for transportation back and forth. Now everyone is scattered in various cultivation rooms to collect sigma crystals. If we didn’t meet you, wouldn’t we both be working?"

"Then you have a way Call them back?" I asked.

This guy shook his head and said: "There is nothing wrong here. Naturally, I don't want the means of communication for convening people, but after a while they will definitely come back when their pockets are full."

I nodded and asked: "If I save you, would you be willing to work for me? Don't worry, not in the way of slaves. You can continue to be a Potion Master, and work is to study the rational use of this sigma crystal. I give You pay, and you can move freely. Of course, you can only do it during holidays. You still have to work hard during working hours."

This guy nodded and said immediately after hearing this: "As long as there is no sunshine from this Even if you let me continue to be a slave when you go out of a place, I am willing, those damn guys actually let us Sigma people live underground, how can they do such a cruel thing? We are a race that yearns for the sun!"

"Sigma? Are you not Human Race?"

"No, we are Sigma, an independent race, very close to humans, but not humans. We have our own civilization In addition, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Hirseth. Next to me is my younger brother Carl, but he is a very boring guy and usually doesn't talk to people."

I nodded and continued: "Hillseth, do you know how the sigma crystal you mentioned came from?"

Hills nodded said: "Sigma crystal is actually sigma The condensed product of mushroom secretions. Although we call it Sigma crystal, it has nothing to do with crystal. It is a natural substance, just like amber. You know amber, right?” Speaking of which Hill Seth asked uncertainly.

My face was replied with black eyes: "Don't worry, I'm not from Fire Star. Of course I know Amber."

"That's good." Hilseth said "You know, the demons who held us before were just a group of guys with muscles in their heads. They didn't understand anything. They used Sigma Crystal to make psychedelics. This is a blasphemy against Sigma Crystal!"

"No matter what they do with this thing, they will have no chance in the future, because this place no longer belongs to them. I will take away all of you, and also take away those sigma mushrooms, a fragment will Not leave it to them."

Hillses suddenly shook his head when he heard this: "It's useless. This is not their only place of production."

"What?"

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Hillseth explained: "We were also transported here recently. We used to grow sigma mushrooms in another prison."

"You know Where is that place?" I asked excitedly. If this Hilses knows the exact information about that place, we might be able to follow the vine to find the real old nest of the Russians. The other party always evacuates immediately when one is found. This makes us too passive and feels always too passive. It's like running behind someone's ass. Although the Koreans and Russians have lost several cities for this, they have gained time, and what is worse is that they seem to be planning something and will soon implement it. If I can't stop them before then, I have a foreboding that very bad things will happen.

Although I very much hope that Hillses can give me a positive answer, the Russians are too cautious. Hillses directly shook his head and said: "I only know that it is cold, but I can't take you to find it, because it is also a hole in the ground, and they will knock us unconscious during the transfer process, until we wake up. It’s in another place. In fact, we’ve already been transferred to two planting bases before, but we don’t know the location of them. We only know that it’s a very cold place, because when we were pulled out of the cave I feel that the air outside is very cold."

Hearing such an answer, I can only give up the hope of finding the Russian nest through them. Fortunately, there is still a lot of information in the city on the ground. It has been cleaned up, and now some of my familiars are searching for information on the ground. Of course, this process will probably take a lot of time. After all, this is a city and the area is there.

In our chat with Hirseth, Pandora and Ladamantis soon came here, and a large group of Sigma people followed them. They were also captured and captured. After interrogation, it was discovered that they were just slaves.

After some explanation, we picked all the sigma mushrooms here with the help of these sigma people, and then destroyed the parts that could not be taken away, and then all went to the ground. Because there is still psychedelic gas in the upper room, I had to prepare a sealed armor for each of these Sigma people. In addition, Kristina’s gas spell also helped a lot, otherwise I really don’t know how. Get these people out.

The first thing these people did after they got outside was to cry desperately, and then they began to worship the sky. According to Hilses’s previous statement, their race is a race that believes in the sun and light. , They first cultivated those sigma mushrooms because those things glowed and can also produce light at night. As for those strange functions, they are completely by-products. Of course, this kind of thing is actually quite normal, because if you really ask some people to cultivate plants with enhanced attributes, it will be very difficult, and try one's luck hits some plants with magical functions. possible.

While these guys vent their excitement about seeing the sun again, I was listening to the reports of the demons. The search results were not as smooth as expected. Although the Russians were killed a lot by us, they were just giant players. During this period, the average players still evacuated a lot of people, and they did enough for clues. Destruction. However, such a big city is evacuated in a hurry, and no matter how it is destroyed, it will inevitably be left with something.

Under the careful search of my familiars, we finally got a lot of useful information.

"Damn, you can find this thing too. It's really hard for you!" I looked at the gem with a special structure that Bailang picked up, and I said in surprise.

This gem is shown to any player in the game, and he can recognize it at a glance, because this thing is so common. This thing is actually a sensing crystal, which is usually installed on the Transmission Formation. When you want to use Transmission Formation, you need to operate this thing, use it to operate other magic gems to achieve the effect of starting Transmission Formation.

As an item with such a high usage rate, there are naturally many people who know it, not to mention it. However, although most people know this thing, few people know some of the hidden functions of this thing. This may also be the main reason why this thing was kept.

As the control module of Transmission Formation, this kind of induction crystal needs to be connected to different blocks on Transmission Formation, including the recording crystal used to record the other party’s Transmission Formation information. When Transmission Formation is started, it needs to communicate with the other party's Transmission Formation first, and then transmit and receive one by one to complete the transmission. Therefore, each Transmission Formation has a unique set of codes like the mobile phone. This code will be used to identify different Transmission Formations. . However, unlike ordinary mobile phone numbers, the encoding of Transmission Formation is actually meaningful. It includes some key information such as the physical location of Transmission Formation and the frequency of magic fluctuations. These things can be said to be very important. As long as you have this information, you can send it to a designated Transmission Formation.

Because of the importance of the information, the Russians, of course, first destroyed the record crystals on the Transmission Formation when they evacuated. The purpose was to prevent us from knowing where they were sent. However, although they destroyed the recording crystal, they didn't know that the recording crystal was actually equivalent to the hard disk in the computer, and this sensing crystal played the role of memory. In other words, although most of the transmitted data was destroyed together in the recording crystal, this sensing crystal actually still retains the most recent hundreds of records. These records are refreshed on a rolling basis, that is, every time a new message appears, the oldest message will be squeezed out, but no matter what, the last hundreds of messages will be recorded in this sensor crystal.

When those Russian players evacuated, there must be a lot of people who used Transmission Formation to leave, and then left one or two people who used the scroll to leave after destroying the Transmission Formation. On the one hand, they interfered with Spatial Teleportation information, and on the other hand, they were responsible. Sweeping, but these people in charge of sweeping are obviously not Transmission Formation experts. They don’t know that induction crystals can also record information, and they can also record hundreds of messages. Therefore, they did not waste time destroying this induction crystal. As a result, let us Caught a little tail.

"With this thing, can I know where the other person is?" Aphrodite asked, looking at the crystal in my hand. Although the battle strength is very strong, Aphrodite is a Divine Race and does not know much about magic technology.

Christina explained to the side as a senior mage: "This crystal will record how many people have been sent by Transmission Formation, so we can know where the other party went when they ran away. ."

"So what are you waiting for? Hurry up and have a look?" Aphrodite urged: "Aren't we in a hurry?"

I shrugged helplessly Said: "I think too! It's a pity that this thing requires special equipment to read information."

"Special equipment?"

"A Transmission Formation." Kristina once again Explained: "Only the connection magic array on Transmission Formation can interpret the information on this thing, but Transmission Formation in this city must have been destroyed."

I heard Christina say so. However, Aphrodite did not give up, but suddenly said, "Isn't there a city next to it?"

Aphrodite's words made us all stunned. Then I suddenly reacted.