(At this juncture, which is neither the end of the month nor the beginning of the month, I plan to ask for a ticket without going up or down—because I suddenly remembered this)
As if it was specially designed to confirm Sandora and I's premonition, when Sagina found the crystal plate suspended in mid-air, the first thing that caught our eyes was a very familiar cross-shaped mark: the cross rhombus crystal , the Empire logo.
Theoretically, I should have been surprised at this moment, but for some reason, this time I could only feel powerless, as if I had already become immune to the occasional encounter with imperial heritage in a different world, I shrugged and showed a helpless smile to Sandora: "Look, it really is the incombustible garbage of the empire. You really threw things everywhere back then."
Sagina and Sona both had puzzled looks on their faces. Of course they couldn't understand what I was talking about, but they didn't ask much. And Sandora had another expression on her face: neither surprised nor happy, but serious doubt and disbelief, she stared at the imperial logo on the crystal panel, as if to force the latter to speak He spoke the same way, and then squeezed out a few words from between his teeth: "The situation is abnormal!"
"Huh?" My sister glanced at her, "What's going on?"
"Already here, the empire logo has appeared in front of my eyes," Sandora bit each word heavily, expressing her seriousness and anxiety in this way, "but I still haven't found anything similar to the old empire here." Related things, everything here is strange. Strange matter, strange energy array, strange technology, even strange atmosphere... It's too abnormal, even if it's something on the mysterious side, this strange feeling is too abnormal It's almost as if they have nothing to do with the Empire: except for this mark. Jun, you may not understand how I feel. But now I feel as if I see a group of completely strange civilizations, but one by one they use the Empire's Mark, and claiming to be the Apostle of Xiling, it's like... like I'm an outsider myself. It's a terrible feeling."
I put my eyes on Alaya, she is the only expert here who has a deep understanding of the mysterious side of the empire, facing my questioning gaze, the dull cat angel also nodded slightly: "Brother Monarch, I have similar feelings .”
"Brother, me too." Pandora nodded without waiting for me to ask. But Viska looked around the circle of adults curiously: "What are you talking about? Why am I the only one who can't understand? Brother brother, can you understand?"
"Viska is not a Xiling apostle who has been initialized normally, so I may not have a similar feeling." Even Bubble, who is always out of shape, temporarily jumped out of her two-dimensional world and explained to me Dao, and by the way pointed to Little Bubbles who was looking at the crystal cluster and biting his finger, "Although I can't say it, my daughter also feels that the environment here is very strange, and she expressed that she is very confused. Of course, she is more concerned about Or when can these shiny things be carried back."
Outsiders can't empathize with the strange dissonance that Sandora and several authentic Xiling apostles present at the same time, but through their descriptions. I can also roughly imagine what the situation is now. But no one can explain how, why the Empire's logo appears on a group of things that are so strange that they have nothing to do with the Empire - of course. I also wondered if this might be the remains of a family from the old empire (we don’t consider why the family from the old empire appeared in such a remote and broken world for the time being), but Sandora immediately vetoed this conjecture: "Impossible, the empire The emblem cannot be used by the Familia at will. Only the imperial armament and the apostles can use the standard crusader emblem, and if the Familia want to use this emblem, they must transform it and add their own race mark. This is the old crusade. The iron law of the empire. It is the same even now, haven’t you noticed that the imperial emblem printed on all the equipment of the servant army has the coat of arms of the military command department.”
I'm really ashamed to admit that I didn't notice-it seems that I have a lot to learn.
"Go ahead, some things may have answers at the top."
Sandora exhaled suddenly, seeming to temporarily put the pile of fog aside, she looked up at the dome of the hall tens of meters high, and frowned, "Although there is nothing related to it in memory, But my gut told me it was time to move on."
There is a complex space division system in the Sky Tower. It is impossible to move in this tower through the physical staircase corridor. Unless the space transmission system here is cracked violently, we can only use the hall according to the rules here. Central crystal cluster to move.
Of course we considered brute force at first: it's very Empire style. But now that the situation has changed, brute force cracking is no longer suitable. The Sky Tower was built by the Empire, so it must have hidden high-end technology. Brute force cracking may make mistakes: we can’t treat it as a simple facility made by a low civilization. treated. After a little analysis, Alaya judged that the crystal suspended next to the crystal cluster was something called a "node converter". Well, the name is very high-end, and it is actually an operation panel. There are complicated lines, and these lines are the things that control the Sky Tower's transmission system-this thing is just an elevator switch after all.
Since it's just an elevator switch, it's not surprising that generations of explorers in this world accidentally stumbled upon some of the instructions sent in the Sky Tower. After all, it's not encrypted and it's not difficult to operate. The permission identification system of the Sky Tower has also been disconnected. Primitives may not be able to fly a plane, but is it wrong to drive an elevator
Sagina compared the pictures in the notebook and slid her finger on the panel, while Alaya watched from the side: According to the instructions that the explorer had summed up, she could decipher the transmission ciphertext of the entire Sky Tower faster.
The moment the half-dragon girl finished the operation, the crystal cluster beside us made a clear sound, as if the sound of knocking a tuning fork reverberated, and the next second. The surrounding scene changed.
It is still a hall, but it is completely different from the hall on the first floor. It is full of things: as far as the eye can see, there are all piles of neatly stacked crystal stone bricks, which are about a foot long and several inches thick. , pure crystals with a blue-white crystal luster, were neatly stacked into a square pile with a side length of about three meters. There are dots of light in the hall, and some of the light falls into these stone bricks, and the latter will suddenly brighten, as if responding to the energy in the surrounding environment.
Pao Pao sighed, and continued to hold his daughter desperately from behind: a certain little girl was already crazy with joy.
"Warehouse?" Sandora looked at the same scene as the warehouse around her, talking to herself, and she waved casually. A crystal stone brick flew from a distance, suspended in front of us and slowly rotated. "It looks like an energy crystal. It stores arcane and other magical energy... I still can't see the shadow of imperial technology. It's of no value, it's just energy." After finishing speaking, she threw the crystal aside.
Sagina looked surprised: "How did you do it? Many explorers want to collect the crystals here, but no one can move those things. They seem to have infinite weight."
"Because this is our property," Sandora said lightly, "Well, it is our property most likely."
"Is this the second floor?" My sister looked around, trying to find things like the building number: If there were all such halls in the Sky Tower, it would be a bit boring. And we don't even know where we are.
"No, this is the sixty-seventh floor." Alaya pointed upwards diagonally. It was only then that I noticed that the upper part of the crystal cluster was surrounded by a circle of holographic projection-like images, but unfortunately there were characters I didn’t recognize on them, “That’s a magic pattern character, which is not only used to express meaning, but also can be used as a unit of a magic array Use. The entire tower is a precisely designed array, and every brick and stone here is part of the magic array."
As Alaya said, she couldn't hide her admiration for the exquisite design here. After continuing to collect energy samples here, she asked Sagina to continue to transmit to the next known area. One floor should be able to grasp the transmission rules here.
Unlike the native residents who can't understand this kind of complicated mysterious knowledge at all, Alaya has mastered all types of magic circle algorithms. As long as Sagina demonstrates a few known operation procedures, she can easily The system will soon be cracked.
The second teleportation, we came to... the fifteenth floor.
"This elevator kicks up and down," Sandora looked up at the holographic projection on the crystal cluster with a faint tone.
The fifteenth floor is worthless. The hall is still a dead and dull hall, and this time even the stacked goods are omitted. There are only cylindrical stone platforms protruding from the ground in all directions. The stone platforms are only more than one meter high. On average, there is one every ten meters, with a shimmering metal ball on the top. "It's just a relay point of the magic circle, for diversion." Alaya explained.
Sakina activated the crystal cluster again, and after the familiar scene changed, we finally came to a place that looked worth investigating: what appeared in front of us this time was not a rotunda, but a hexagonal space, Surrounded by silver-white alloys, there was a low hum from behind these alloy walls: this might be a place to store some important equipment.
Sandora looked up, and her tone was very subtle: "The two hundred and sixty-ninth floor." This is an unreasonable elevator...
Sagina was quite happy, and looked at Sandora with admiration: "It's amazing, we never know which floor we have reached in the Sky Tower. Many old-timers have a legend that there are actually people in the Sky Tower. There are countless layers, and there is no distinction between upper and lower, teleportation will never be able to locate..." She just said that, Xiaoxue interrupted: "It's just that you can't understand the manual."
This brat speaks with the same precision as her mother.
"I found the key information." Alaya was fiddling around the crystal cluster for a long time, then raised her head and said happily, then she flew straight to the nearest alloy wall, put her hand on it, and muttered a phrase in a low voice, at the same time Released his power.
The hexagonal closed wall that originally seemed to have no gaps, let alone doors and windows, suddenly appeared countless criss-crossing blue and white light streams, as if a machine that had been in standby for a long time was reactivated, and the low humming sound behind the wall also Then the voice suddenly increased, and then a soft and gentle synthetic female voice sounded around: "The defense system is re-initialized. The outer closed system is connected online, and the inner defense system is all shut down. Try to reactivate the authorization authentication... Error, the authentication target does not exist , Permission authentication failed. Enable the default backup scheme... You will log in to the system as a special user, and administrator privileges cannot be enabled."
"It can only be like this," Alaya smiled apologetically at me, "For some reason, the defense system of this tower has been shut down for tens of thousands of years. After restarting, the only thing that can be used is to close all the entrances and exits. Function. In addition, I turned off the internal defense device here, the tower can no longer identify outsiders, I am worried that there will be a defense facility like the colossus on the square outside, so I simply turned off the system."
I nodded, even though the shelf life of the things made by the Apostles of Xiling is generally horribly long, there is always the possibility of accidents in a long time. This sky tower is even more weird everywhere, and it is not inconceivable that its protective devices fail.
In fact, it is also thanks to the fact that the protective device of the Sky Tower has been shut down for tens of thousands of years. Otherwise, it is impossible for explorers of this world to find a way to enter this tower. Just look at the Gundams that are still active in the square at the back door of the Sky Tower... Ahem, you can know the Gundam Colossus. The arcane explosion with the same rate of fire as a machine gun and the collapse point of mass, this thing is used to deal with imperial soldiers. Ferocious, let alone an expedition team composed of ordinary people like Sakina, if the defense system of the Sky Tower is still in effect... I guess we only see layers of corpses of adventurers when we come here.
"Can you tell what this place is for?" Seeing that Alaya put his hands on the nearby wall, he closed his eyes and did not move for a long time. I couldn't help asking out loud.
Sister Angel opened her eyes, a little light flashed in her golden pupils. Then he shook his head: "Without administrator privileges, I can't connect to the database. But I got a part of the structure diagram of the Sky Tower. Look, that's it."
As Alaya said, he spread his wings and fluttered lightly, layers of dreamlike light mist immediately floated in the surrounding air, and these light gradually condensed into a model of the sky tower, which was no more than one meter high. Delicate, dizzyingly detailed, the translucent model is clearly incomplete: its upper end ends abruptly, with only a thin black shadow over which floats the words… .
"Wow, so it's like this inside the Sky Tower?" Sakina approached the holographic projection curiously, looking at the dizzying lines inside, "Eh? Why are so many things moving?"
"This model is connected to the transmission system of the Sky Tower in real time," Alaya explained. "The space in this tower is not fixed. Except for the same layer, each floor has independent corridor structures and belts. Places with small rooms are constantly changing positions. As I said, the Sky Tower is originally a huge magic array, and this array is the most complicated one: it adjusts itself, and it has never stopped for tens of thousands of years. "
Bingtis curled her lips: "I can't understand it at all... Technical geeks also specialize in art. Your research on occultism back then seems to be no less advanced than that of the Protoss."
Alaya smiled foolishly: "It's very strange, I still can't remember when there was a branch like the Sky Tower in the Empire's mysterious technology - it obviously came from a complete magic system, but unfortunately I haven't seen it... "
At this moment, Sandora's exclamation came from the side, interrupting Alaya's words: "Ah Jun, Alaya, come quickly! Look at this!"
Sandora stood beside the teleportation crystal cluster, pointing at the various data that appeared on it. After Alaya partially activated the facilities of the Sky Tower, the holographic projection around this thing is not limited to the floor, but a lot of text, some of which are runes that cannot understand the meaning, and some are constantly refreshed The data should be showing the operation of the sky tower or the like. When Alaya was studying the structure diagram of the Sky Tower, Sandora was watching these holographic projections. Although it was just some operating data, it might contain the key secrets of the tower.
But now, she obviously found the secret: it was a line of Xiling text that was not very obvious, as if it was used as the header of the data table, and the position of this line of words never changed when other information was refreshed. The content of the text is very simple, only one sentence: Energy Transmission Protocol No. 776, in stable operation, the person who issued the agreement: Alaya Nolei Kerita.
The three characters Alaya are particularly conspicuous: because I have never heard of the last string of names.
"Me?" Sister Angel pointed at herself foolishly, looking at the name on the holographic projection in a daze, while Qianqian grabbed the dumb cat's shoulder in amazement, with a cheerful look: "Wow, so your name is so long ah!"
Sister Angel scratched her hair: "I almost forgot, not many people usually call me that."
Everyone: "..."
"Is this really Alaya's name?" Lin Xue swept her eyes between the holographic projection and the dull cat angel in disbelief, and then nodded without waiting for anyone to answer, "Oh, it's really you. Could it be?" Renamed? How many Alayas are there in the old empire?"
"Every angel is surnamed Kryta, but there is only one angel named Alaya." Pandora, who had been silent all the way, suddenly spoke, explaining carefully, and she couldn't see anything from her small face that hadn't changed for thousands of years. Emotions fluctuate, but I feel that she is no more calm than the rest of us.
"Okay, let's make sure one last time." Bingtis slapped the angel's sister on the shoulder, startling the dumb cat, "You really really don't know what's going on with this tower?"
"I don't know." Alaya answered very simply, and then looked at me pitifully, "Brother Monarch, is my brain broken?"
Bingtis staggered, and then walked away clutching her stomach: "No, this girl is too cute, I go to the side and laugh for a while."
At this moment, I can't care less about complaining about Angel's sister's dull head and Bingtis' gags. Looking at the flickering holographic projections around me, listening to the buzzing sound of equipment running behind the wall, I feel for no reason that maybe It's going to be rough today. (to be continued) RQ