The suspended magic vehicle made by the Erim elves carried a group of people to the center of the floating island known as the "Island of the Rising Sun". The suspension vehicle flew lightly in mid-air, hundreds of meters above the ground. This kind of car should be a very advanced thing in the Arim world, but in addition to its higher technical level than the earth, its interior and appearance are even inferior to the private cars on the earth. Almost all the parts inside and outside the car are made of the same It is cast from a kind of off-white artificial material, the color and material are extremely monotonous, and there are no decorative patterns, no soft seats, and no special materials wrapped around the armrests or window frames.
It is like a cheap industrial product made of plastic in one injection. Although it has high-tech appearance and performance, anyone who has experienced it once can see at a glance that it is only manufactured according to the standard of "just enough".
Arim elves are generally taller and thinner than humans, but overall the difference is not too big (at least closer to normal people than Yzaks), so the internal facilities of this car are suitable for Hao Ren and the others . Y'zaks felt a little cramped when he sat in, but he could bear it. Along the sides of the car are a series of long, narrow windows that extend down below the seats, through which views of the city passing by below can be seen through these windows.
At first glance, those buildings can be called beautiful. They have long arc lines and simple and elegant structures. Most of the houses seem to imitate the image of tree trunks and flower buds. The architectural style of the Erim elves is based on Various tall towers and oval buildings with sleek lines dominate, which makes their city like a city of a thousand towers—of course. It's just the name that makes it so reminiscent. But these elegant buildings hide the reality of resource depletion: all the houses are built from that grayish-white man-made substance. From the exterior walls to the roofs, and then spread to the open spaces and roads between the houses, there are lifeless composites of this tone everywhere. The original and natural building materials should have dried up many years ago, or As the basic structure of the floating island, it cannot be easily mined, so the Erim elves reclaim these things from the ruins through the industrial recycling method to build their own homes. But a completely gray and white city is too depressing, so some plants are planted as much as possible between these elf buildings. However, the number of these plants is not large. It seems that in order to maintain efficient urban functions, most of the plants are planted in special places such as ecological domes. Other than that, there is very little decoration to be seen in the city.
There are no monuments, no street sculptures, no parks, or anything else that has nothing to do with survival and wastes building materials in vain. Wherever you look, there are only monotonous and repetitive houses and straight and simple roads. The elves in a hurry live in this drab and dead city. Like a set of faded slides.
Y'zaks looked at the city scene below, thoughtful: "They are still maintaining an orderly life, it seems that no matter how bad the situation is, they are trying to ensure social order, and... at least the superficial 'normal' '."
Hilda's attention was not on the city below, she had already noticed the anxiety on her son's face that couldn't be concealed: "How bad is the situation? Can't sustain it?"
"If you survive. You can still maintain it." Wim is a young man with a steady voice. He inherited from his mother—or every elf is like this—a near-perfect appearance, handsome and manly at the same time, "The astrologers and magicians at the scene suffered heavy casualties. However, the test site was as far away from the main island chain as possible at that time, so the loss of materials was still within an acceptable range. The supply of the main residential area and the ecological dome were all fine. We The old standard of living can still be maintained, and for a long time to come."
"The problem lies in confidence... right?" Hilda knew the current situation of Aerym very well, so she quickly figured out the reason. "You have finally restored social order, but I can sense a dead atmosphere."
"Yes, this incident has dealt a great blow to the confidence of the public, including some members of the parliament." Wim nodded, "The space-time accelerator is the last large-scale project we can start, and it can be found under limited resource constraints." The only way to reach the depths of the starry sky—the big bang destroyed the last confidence of many people, we still have survival materials, but only survival is left.”
When Wim said these words, he finally couldn't help looking at the group of "foreign guests" sitting in the back of the car. What he reported was the current social situation before Hilda's return, but a group of people from outside the stars … No, the incredible guest from outside the universe completely disrupted his world view and also disrupted his grasp of the current situation. The first thing he thought of was that the embarrassment of the Erim elves for thousands of years finally ushered in the dawn, and now a group of highly civilized visitors who knew how to travel between the stars appeared in front of him, which might break the deadlock, but at the same time he Worrying about a more realistic problem:
Is it too late? Will they help? Was their help helpful
Hilda also turned her gaze to Hao Ren and the others, but she didn't ask anything, she just turned her head to look at Wim again: "First announce the news of the visitors from the other world, and then say that we have the key to the long-distance voyage. Although the space-time accelerator It failed, but it was a big success from a technological advancement point of view — anyway, it was announced, and the first task was to reinvigorate people's hearts and restore people's confidence."
Hao Ren nodded slightly, but did not make a clear statement. He was still thinking about the best solution, so he didn't promise anything hastily, but at least what Hilda said was achievable. Wim seemed to gain some confidence from this slight nod, and the expression on his face stretched.
"Island of Rainbow... how many are left?" Hilda asked about other situations.
The Island of Rainbow Light is the floating island where the space-time accelerator test was conducted. It is the last space test site of the Erim elves with complete facilities and a large-capacity energy system. For a long time, because these elves have only one planet, and they can't find other places to stay within tens of millions of light-years around them, they have been unable to carry out many super-large-scale experiments until they dismantled the planet and turned it into pieces. After making countless space islands, they began to test some dangerous projects that could not be carried out directly on the parent star. Thousands of years of struggling on the blank technological fork road caused them to lose one such test site after another, and most of the accidents were enough to pollute the entire planet—only the loss of a space floating island is already a relatively optimistic situation. But even so, the number of space floating islands is still limited, and the continuous consumption of thousands of years has finally come to an end.
The Rainbow Island is their last hope.
"The Island of Rainbow Light is gone," Wim replied in a low voice after a few seconds of silence, "Mother, you should have looked towards the end of the island chain when you were in space, right? There is a new piece of gravel there... that is Rainbow The Island of Light. After the big bang, the debris flew around, some were thrown towards the sun, and the other part rushed into space. We only had time to salvage one-fifth of its material. The debris was temporarily placed in the debris pile of the island chain, Maybe some resources can be extracted from it, and the test site is gone, but its wreckage will probably allow everyone to live a good life for a few years."
"I saw those rubble, but I didn't expect..." Hilda frowned, "Where is the Island of Stars?"
The Island of Stars is another space floating island. It is an important industrial center and energy furnace. It receives and stores the energy from the corona station. In order to prevent the threat to the residential area, but the island of stars must be nearby to provide energy, it is so close to the test site, Hilda is very worried about the fate of the island.
She didn't dare to carefully observe the situation of the entire island chain in space, so she didn't know if she saw the island of stars at that time.
"The Isle of Stars is still there, but it suffered some injuries. Some fragments broke through the anti-aircraft firepower network, crashed a part of the gravity generator and propulsion device of the Isle of Stars, and a piece of debris was almost inserted into the energy hub—but Fortunately, it was a little bit off. The situation there has been brought under control, and the Technical Council of Elders is trying to restore its function. The magicians have removed some equipment from the death ground, and they seem to be still usable... at least better than the completely broken ones. Much better."
"Well, the situation is better than expected," Hilda breathed a sigh of relief, "Let Cadylan come to see me after we go back. He, I, and our friends from other worlds have a lot to discuss."
"Elder Kadylan, he..." Wim suddenly dodged Hilda's gaze, "Elder Kadylan went to the 'Praying World'."
"What?!" Hilda's voice suddenly rose, "Who allowed it?!"
"He voluntarily wished that something went wrong in the world. The 'Paradise' organization two hundred years ago seems to be active again... a part of the parliament..."
"So the current social order is just superficial?!" Hilda's face was very ugly and stern, "I will hold a meeting of elders immediately after I go back, and I want to restore order!" (To be continued~^~)