The little boy named Glick stared blankly at the robot floating between him and his sister. The miniature autonomous robot, which was less than half a meter in diameter, was like a mischievous pet, doing somersaults back and forth in the air. It was familiarizing itself with this strange world, changing its body structure and energy circulation to adapt to the local environment. This kind of amazing adaptability and pseudo-evolution ability made it the ultimate robot in the eyes of ordinary civilizations. However, in the various mechanical facilities of the Xiling Empire, it was just a pipe cleaner, with the same value as a wrench.
However, it seemed that to the little boy, its value was different.
Glick's eyes widened as if he had never seen such a magical machine before. This made me a little worried. Did the thing my sister took out happen to be something that didn't exist in this ruined world? This would scare away this local that we had finally met. At this moment, the autonomous robot also completed its' rapid evolution '. It adjusted the angles of its mechanical arms and let out an indistinct beeping sound. It briskly carried out the order my sister had given it: move closer to its new master.
"Ah!"
The little boy, Glick, screamed in fear. The autonomous robot that had suddenly pounced on him made him fall to the ground. The latter immediately braked in midair and circled around its new master in confusion. Then, it let out a series of beeping sounds at us.
These little robots that Gaia had created were simply too fun.
Glick clumsily got up from the ground, and the autonomous robot in midair immediately moved closer to him again. However, this time, it was smarter. It didn't pounce on the boy, but stopped about a meter away from him and kept making beeping sounds. The little boy didn't even bother to pat the dust off his pants (actually, I was curious if there was a need to pat his pants. They looked much dirtier than the ground here). He stared blankly at the shiny new machine in front of him and then turned to look at us. "A brand new 'master craftsman'? For me? You guys must be joking! I know, I heard from the old people in the town that the people in the big city would play this kind of joke on the children in the countryside. If I touch this, I will get beaten up … "
I heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed like this thing existed in this ruined world as well. It was just that its value here was probably different from the machines that were everywhere in my mind. "Of course, in exchange, we have some special requests. Don't ask too many questions, cooperate with us, and don't casually tell others about us. Can you do that?" "That's right. Don't ask too many questions, cooperate with us, and don't casually tell others about us.
The little boy Glick carefully looked at my eyes to make sure that there wasn't a sly smile. Then, he looked at the autonomous robot that was carefully flying around him with dizzying eyes. Finally, he nodded firmly. "Old Glick's family is the most trustworthy. The entire Condenser Town knows this!"
Here we go again. That strange town name. This world was full of ruins. Even the planet was made up of the remains of a huge spaceship. Not only did it look like something we had never seen before, even its name was strange. Let's not talk about the so-called 'big city' for now. What's with this town called 'Condenser'? "
"Condenser Town is the name we gave it." Glick led us to another road. This road could bypass the almost ninety-degree slope covered with sharp metal fragments and lead to the main gate of the town below. It was just a little further away. "Most of the temporary settlements don't have names, but this settlement has lasted for decades. So, the old people in the town decided to give the settlement a name. They looked up a lot of information disks and found that the big metal disk under the town is something called a condenser. So, they called this place 'Condenser Town'. I think there must be more 'Condenser Towns' in this world because many temporary settlements are built on metal platforms similar to the one under our town. Those metal platforms are always condensers. If those towns can last long enough and have a group of smart old people, they can also be called 'Condenser Towns' … "
Glick was obviously trying his best to be a qualified tour guide. But maybe he had never done this before, or maybe there was no tourism in this world. Although he tried his best to tell us the history of his town in vivid words, the things he said were all jumbled up. Fortunately, we didn't care about the origin of this town. Everyone was most curious about what this ruined world was like, its origin, its residents, and how it had changed in the past 720,000 years. It was hard to imagine that the indigenous people here were survivors of the doomsday war 720,000 years ago. They were still struggling in the ruins even after the end of the world and lived such a strange life in the wasteland. If it wasn't for the fact that the Church of Life's judgment couldn't be wrong, I wouldn't believe that the people here survived hundreds of thousands of years after the end of the world. Everyone's original goal here was to find Visca's lost fleet and to find the truth behind the Army of Destruction's invasion 720,000 years ago. But now, these two goals didn't seem so urgent. Everyone's interest shifted to this ruined world.
"Very interesting. Probability and statistics."
Lin Xue suddenly glanced at Glick and said in a calm tone, "Tell us about this place. In a big city, you won't see such a dirty place. I'm quite curious about this place."
"Of course, people in big cities are sometimes curious about the various collection stations and workstations because you guys don't usually do this … Oh, I don't mean anything else," Glick said as he walked briskly in front. As he gradually approached the light in front of them, his tone became more relaxed. "This is a metal station, and it's a Level 2 Recycling Station. As you can see, there are small pieces of scrap metal everywhere. They're all taken from machines that have been scrapped. Everyone knows that the world's resources come from the land under our feet, but not all resources can be used. Moreover, things that have been scrapped have to be reused to avoid waste. This metal station was the place where all kinds of resources were collected and sorted. Every week, there would be a lot of scrap metal collected from other places and resources that needed to be dismantled thrown here. The adults would sort them on the working day and send the useful things to the big factories or small factories — but most of them were sent to the small factories. After all, most of the parts here were smaller, and the big factories would not accept them. If it's a Level 1 Recycling Station, it's different. They deal with big things. There are even bigger metal mountains, and the things on the mountains are bigger than the small piles around us. Some Level 1 Recycling Stations can even dig up resources that can be used directly near the residential areas … "
Glick rambled on and on about what he knew, but it sounded a little confusing to us. I couldn't ask him for more information, so I could only try my best to restore a society that was struggling in this ruined world according to his description.
Mercury Lamp lay on my shoulder, bored. She looked at the dilapidated piles of garbage around us and couldn't help but shrink her body. She hugged my head even more tightly. I felt her petite body moving back and forth on my shoulder. I gently patted her leg and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Stupid human, I don't like this place," Mercury Lamp said in a low voice.
Mercury Lamp said in a low voice, "I … hate the atmosphere here."
"Do you want to return to the spaceship?" I could roughly guess the reason why Mercury Lamp wasn't in a good mood. It might have reminded her of some unpleasant things. Although she had already overcome those things, she was still a little unhappy when she suddenly touched them. "Be good. Listen to me."
"Don't treat me like a child." Mercury Lamp knocked my head in dissatisfaction, but she still shook her head firmly. "That would be even more boring. The ship is filled with rigid soldiers and that scientist who places clones everywhere. If I were with you, I could even fight with Liliana …"
I was speechless.
I always felt that the problem of the children's education at home was going to become a serious problem in front of me.
After walking for a while, we arrived at the main entrance of the town called 'Condenser'. Although it was called the main entrance, it was actually just a triangular frame supported by three crooked alloy frames. This triangular frame was welded to a meter-high wall that surrounded the entire residential area. It was the only entrance to the wall. The wall's material seemed to be the soft metal lining of the spaceship's corridors. I could faintly see the Empire's characters that were almost worn out. The triangular door seemed to have come from an abandoned gun stand. It was at least five to six meters tall, which was a little too much compared to the wall.
Unexpectedly, the triangular door also had an automatic access control system. More than a dozen uneven high-energy gratings blocked the door. I carefully observed them and found that they came from two tall pillars at the entrance. The pillars were tied to many pairs of light beam generators with unknown metal wires. Their energy circuits were crudely exposed outside, extending from the low wall all the way into the town.
The wall was more than a meter tall, and the access control was completely exposed. There were also cracks everywhere on the wall that were on the verge of collapse. I couldn't help but think, just how stupid would an intruder have to be to be blocked by such a security system? In all fairness, with this level of security, even my high school classmates who jumped over the wall with me to play games outside of school could break through it. Instead of installing such a high-tech grating wall, they might as well put a teaching director at the entrance …
Glick was already used to the simple facilities here. He only gestured for us to wait for a moment, then took out a small crystal card from his pocket. The crystal card looked crudely made, and it didn't seem to be something of the Empire's style. He swept the little thing against the light beam generator in front of the door, and the intercepting light beam disappeared.
"Welcome to Condenser Town. People from the big cities are rare here. The last time we welcomed a guest from the big cities was three years ago." Glick happily waved his thin arms. It was obvious that he was in a good mood after returning home.
We followed behind him with a sense of curiosity. The dilapidated and messy environment around us might not make people feel relaxed and happy, but the novelty of this strange world had greatly diluted the negative effects. I looked around and found that this was indeed a settlement built on a large metal surface. The "ground" under our feet was a whole piece of alloy. The surface of the alloy was extremely rough, and there was almost no trace of its former glory. Everywhere we looked, there were pipe joints or cable joints that extended from the metal ground. These joints were reused, and after being tied with ropes, they became fixtures in the shanty town, used to reinforce the roofs of the iron houses that could be seen everywhere.
When we were on the high ground earlier, we had already seen the messy iron houses in this settlement from afar. At that time, it felt extremely dilapidated, but now that we got closer to take a closer look — it was even worse than when we first saw it.
All around us were those kinds of houses: crooked shanty towns that were connected by worn-out twisted metal plates. The most messy shanty towns were directly tied together with metal wires and willow nails. The gaps between the metal plates were enough for people from the outside to see what was inside. The slightly better shanty towns had signs of welding. It was not easy to weld the metal plates that were dismantled from the Empire's battleships. Perhaps they used laser cannon focus tubes that they picked up from the garbage, because I didn't remember Schilling's technicians using electric welding guns when repairing spaceships. Of course, it was also possible that they found an autonomous robot that was originally used to repair the spaceship's pipes (according to Glick, it seemed that it should be called a "master craftsman" here). These autonomous robots could learn to do any kind of work, including turning themselves into electric welding guns.
The houses with the best view were large metal boxes that were neatly arranged. After looking at them for a long time, I finally recognized them. They were the living cabins that were prepared for the soldiers on the spaceship. However, they had been stripped from the spaceship's hull, leaving behind only a bumpy shell.
Our arrival seemed to have attracted the attention of the townspeople. Some adults and children dressed in the same shabby and dirty clothes as Glick poked their heads out from the nearby metal houses or the corners of the "alleys" and looked at us from afar. Their expressions were tense, and their eyes were alert. When they saw Glick standing beside us and waving to the surrounding people, some of them muttered something and retreated back into their houses. More people gathered their courage and walked out, but still, no one came close to us. It was as if they had seen a fully armed tank suddenly appear in the quiet mountain village. They were extremely vigilant and curious about us. Even so, no one dared to approach us.
Of course, Sandora was very impatient with this kind of situation. She looked around and suddenly snorted. Then, everyone's face showed a blank expression and they turned around to go back home.
Glick didn't feel the change in the atmosphere around him. He began to introduce us to the most important place in the town, which was the circular plaza in the center of the town. It seemed that the short contact with the people in front of him had made him realize that the people in front of him who seemed difficult to get along with were actually very easy-going. In addition, the gift of the seemingly precious "master craftsman" made this thirteen-year-old boy relax his vigilance. He pointed to an open space not far away from us and told us that that was the most important place in Condenser Town: the circular plaza.
In fact, it was just a circular open space, but it was quite clean. The area was even smaller than a basketball court. There were four lampposts around it, and the crystals on the lampposts were emitting a bright light. Everything looked very simple and crude, but in this dirty and poor place, it seemed that this clean and well-lit plaza was quite an amazing resident activity center.
"Look, this is our plaza. Every week on a rest day, the adults will sing hymns in this plaza. The children can play at the edge of the plaza and get one or two sugar cookies." Glick excitedly pulled me (it seemed that he already knew that I was the leader of the group and also the easiest to talk to) toward the center of the plaza. "Today is a rest day, but there is still some time before the gathering starts. The adults are all preparing. Today, I will also bring my sister out. I can still get six sugar cookies, and then I won't be a child anymore. Of course, I won't be an adult anymore. At the age of fourteen, I will have to do half of the adult's work and stop receiving the child's food quota. But for the son of the old Glick family, this is a piece of cake. I was able to feed myself two years ago!"
"You have a sister?"
I asked casually. Then, my gaze fell on the ground.
In the center of this so-called circular plaza, there was a circular area that protruded out of the ground by about ten centimeters. On this small circular platform with a diameter of one meter, there was a clear symbol that was particularly eye-catching.
It was a blood-red triangular emblem.
Visca's cat-like blood-red pupils flashed with a faint radiance. Her pupils instantly shrank into two narrow slits. She squatted down and gently stroked the triangular blood-red emblem on the ground. After a long time, she took out a piece of chalk and drew a chessboard on it …
"The ground here is very clean. Who wants to play Gomoku with me?"
The cat-eyed loli happily invited everyone. We were dumbfounded. "…"
Alright, it seemed that the scenes earlier were just my imagination. This girl didn't even have the slightest bit of emotion when she saw her own army emblem from back then!
Before I could make a move, Pandora had already pulled Visca by the ear and dragged her to the side for tutoring. Sandora touched my arm. "These are the remains of Visca's former subordinates."
"Maybe before we understand the situation in this space, we should find a way to find out who Visca was fighting with back then," I replied softly. "Let the mothership release some invisible probes to search this space thoroughly for the ancient remains … Oh yeah, Sandora, if it was the army emblem of another Emperor, would you be able to recognize it?"
"If the Empire's database still existed, there would be no problem. Unfortunately, it's hard to say now," Sandora shook her head regretfully. "The Empire's territory is vast and I didn't care much about the other Emperors back then, so I never recorded their army emblems. I think Pandora's situation is even more serious than mine. She probably doesn't even remember the name of the Emperor in the neighboring sky zone … "
Once again, I was speechless.
Just what kind of weird situation did these two war maniacs survive back then!
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