Chapter 263: Ruins Exploration

The bright yellow flames illuminated the long corridor, and they continued to move forward with heavy footsteps. The two soldiers and Jiang Liu explored forward with weapons in hand. They would be recalled if they died, but the local natives would be irreversible if they died.

They would not let valuable people walk in front of them and take risks for them.

The first exploration team could also be composed of soldiers from the territory. They formed a small team of people and moved inward to cover each other, holding burning torches and moving inward.

The rune lamp was embedded in the bulkhead, and it was troublesome for them to take it down. They quickly made several torches with local materials for temporary lighting. The exploration team holding torches, spears and explosive packs continued to explore deeper along the cold and endless passage.

It was very quiet, as if except for the friction of clothes beside them, the sound of footsteps and breathing, it was difficult to hear other sounds. There was a light source behind them gradually moving away.

This feeling made Jiang Liu quite uncomfortable.

Even though the passage was not narrow, it could accommodate five people walking side by side.

He soon realized the source of his uncomfortable feeling. There was no other equipment except a thick layer of dust that had accumulated on the ground at some point.

Without lighting, they were greeted by turbid and choking air with a slight chill... At least the people in the team had not shown obvious symptoms of falling down, and the environment had little impact on them.

The firelight brushed over the wall, the edge of the wall was as smooth as ink, and a faint light stream flashed like a living thing.

Too clean.

There were no extra equipment, no corpses, and no debris.

This should be a relic, but it was as clean as a well-tidied tomb waiting for people to explore. The civilization that built this building even cleaned it up before leaving and took away what they should take away.

Jiang Liu couldn't help but have this strange idea.

I can't stop myself from thinking about this low temperature environment.

Stop.

A door that is the same as the one in front of me is blocking them. It is made of the same material as the wall, cold and heavy.

It is intact and still keeps itself closed.

Jiang Liu stretched out his hand and pressed it on the wall, wanting to release his source essence to penetrate it for a simple exploration. Concentrate your consciousness to let them move forward like a wave, and then feed all the information back to yourself.

It is not as accurate and extensive as Aina's geological exploration spell, but it almost does not require us to master any spellcasting skills to use it.

The source essence gives feedback, and they touch a hard object in front of them. The next second, a blue light swept across the entire door, and the concave lines began to unfold.

The source essence used for detection seems to touch something, which makes this stone door react accordingly as if a switch is touched... In Jiang Liu's memory, when he uses rune equipment, it will also cause them to react in the same way.

However, the size of this stone door far exceeds all the rune devices that he has touched.

Jiang Liu took two steps back, staring at the stone door and began to move along the two sides. The soldiers raised their muskets and aimed at the depths to warn of danger.

The energy was exhausted and the lines disappeared.

"Click--"

The stone door stopped as if the energy was exhausted, and it was stuck in the slide rail, and there was no sound anymore.

The gap it opened was enough for a person to pass sideways.

After a soldier threw the torch in his hand over the door, the fallen torch suddenly lit up on the ground, illuminating a long downward staircase.

The torch kept rolling while falling until its kinetic energy was exhausted and stopped in front of a certain step.

"Let's keep moving forward."

Jiang Liu hesitated for a moment. It was a miracle that this facility that had been abandoned for who knows how long still had some facilities working stably... Maybe there was something more worthy of exploration in the depths.

As quiet as ever, as if we were moving forward in a cold tomb, and the surrounding temperature was also dropping as we continued to go down.

The ruins were on the west side, and this passage led to the east side.

As we were getting closer to the center of the empty island, Jiang Liu thought so and tightened his clothes. The torches were still providing a little warmth for our small team, illuminating the surrounding environment.

He counted his steps in the air, calculating how many steps he had walked down, and then used this to determine the distance he had moved down. After going deep underground, even the occasional sound of the wind no longer appeared, and the sound of each of our clothes rubbing with footsteps became clearer.

A big door blocked their way.

The energy storage of this door was much better than that of the above door. Jiang Liu watched the door slowly open, and no longer stuck at a certain joint and could not turn.

It was pitch black behind the door. It was two hundred meters deep vertically below the ground, and there was no light source.

As usual, a torch was thrown in.

The flickering torch illuminated a very large room, causing everyone in the exploration team to scream in shock.

"Oh my..."

A spacious hall, in the center of the hall, a spherical crystal object reflecting light under the fire was suspended in the air, and a large number of stone tables and chairs that could not be used were placed in rows.

Everything was very clean, leaving no information for us to view or objects for us to investigate. It was as if the staff who were originally here had calmly packed up and sorted out the items, and then left.

It was so clean that it didn't look like a relic - we had even checked the entire hall and nothing jumped out to attack us, nor were there any parts that we could take away.

Then there is the suspended spherical crystal in the center of the hall.

This is the only thing left.

Jiang Liu reached out and injected energy into the suspended spherical crystal using the method of opening the door before. A line of characters that he could not recognize was projected by the crystal, and then translated by the system into text that he could understand.

"The orbital program is running stably, and the trajectory of this node is running in the established direction."

"The self-circulating system is running stably, and all subsystems are offline."

"If you need to adjust the trajectory, please enter the corresponding coordinates. If you need to offline the orbital system, please enter the command. If you need to adjust the trajectory, please inject energy into the core."

He was stunned, as if the blood flowing in his body was frozen along with the temperature.

How much of this sky island world is truly natural, and how much is mixed with unnatural elements.

————

"Are you coming out?"

Aina looked at the team members holding torches and walking out from the depths of the passage. She couldn't hold back her curiosity and stood up to ask questions.

Jiang Liu nodded, a little hesitant about whether to explain to Aina what he found deep in the entrance of the ruins... His lord must be very interested in his discovery.

In the center of the sky island, there is a control center that controls the path of the sky island.

Its movement is unnatural. It runs along a predetermined trajectory, and of course a predetermined moving position can be predicted. Think about it carefully. Sky islands are not planets that will be locked by gravity. How can they move along a predetermined trajectory?

Although he didn't know what the purpose of the people who built this facility was, Jiang Liu soon realized another very important problem.

Since each sky island can be planned and predicted to have a predetermined moving path, does it mean that each sky island has a control core like this that can control its path movement?

This information may be more important than the cargo we carry on this ship.

Much more important.

All attempts to control the movement of the sky island ended in failure. The core was ruthlessly reminding me that the energy supply was insufficient and the subsystem was damaged. The territory may have a solution to this kind of thing, and perhaps these sky islands can be reactivated...

"Hmm..."

Jiang Liu thought for a long time but couldn't come up with an excuse to fool Aina, so he hesitated to tell her his discovery.

Then he took a deep breath and adjusted his attitude.

Jiang Liu looked at Aina standing in front of him and Hackett who came to eavesdrop, and felt a headache.

The other party would definitely not be able to run away, so he could only reluctantly let them stay in the territory for a while longer.

In any case, they must return to the territory with this message and the seeds on the ship as soon as possible, which will take about seven days. It will take more time to order the soldiers to commit suicide to pass the message back to the territory... They don't lack these four days.

"Let's take a break, I'll go and re-plan the shortest route."

Jiang Liu looked at the soldier beside him, pressed his shoulder and asked.

"How much dynamite is left? Blow up this exit, or at least cover it with rocks."