Mysteries: Arcana Wars

As a merchant in Evernight Harbor, Evan and Miss Christine traded not only material goods but also intelligence in the dungeon. Although Evan usually looked strangely silent and always mumbled when speaking, he showed some strange eagerness in some occasions where there might be business opportunities. Selling the right intelligence in the right scene was also one of the professional qualities of an intelligence dealer.

However, in Klein's opinion, Evan's information about the "Underground Well" might not be very in-depth, and might not even be as useful as Leonard and Pales' information. The more confidential information should be in the hands of the owner of the Earthworm Island Bar. As for some more specific details, it would not be too late to pay when you encounter them.

Based on my experience of dealing with the intelligence dealers in Yongye Port in the past few days, vague questions will only give them the opportunity to fool you. If you really want to make a good deal, you must state your most precise needs directly.

There seemed to be some strange noise coming from above, and spiritual warnings immediately struck the minds of everyone present except Fors.

"careful!"

Miss Christine exclaimed.

Everyone immediately moved to the side, hugging the curved wall. Then they heard a loud noise from above.

boom!

A huge steel beam smashed through the ceiling of the partition like a cannonball, and then smashed through the hard floor with broken steel and dust, and continued to fall downwards with a roar.

It happened so fast that it was over before Fors could react, leaving only the pain in her eardrums from being crushed by the noise.

Klein asked Fors to stand by the wall and not move, while he carefully walked to the side of the hole and looked inside. The entire hole was more than one meter wide, and the huge collapsed steel beam continued to fall into the bottomless well, gradually disappearing from Klein's sight. Only the loud noise of the partition layer breaking was left, echoing over and over again in the dark cavity.

After a long time, a faint sound came up from the black hole below. Perhaps the steel beam finally fell to pieces on the next partition layer or some obstruction, or perhaps it smashed a big hole in the obstruction below and fell deeper into the well.

Compared to Fors's horrified look, Evan and Miss Christine's reactions were a little too calm, as if what had just fallen was not a huge collapsed steel beam, but a large-scale meteor shower.

"Relax, ma'am. It's just that the facilities above that have been in disrepair for a long time finally collapsed and fell down. This is a very normal thing in the underground city."

Miss Christine flicked her tail lazily and turned back to urge Evan on.

During the conversation, Evan somehow opened a door in the corner of the platform. A row of rusty steel ladder steps were crookedly hidden in the solid wall, and together with the floor door, they formed a secret tunnel.

This is obviously a masterpiece of barbaric development by the residents of the underground city. The original transportation facilities of the [underground well] have been destroyed, and only half of the stairs for climbing down are left. The only relatively intact ones are two tracks attached to the wall. They seem to be made of special steel and embedded in the wall, tightly connected to the heavy outer wall, which is how they survived the ravages of time.

The two tracks were built facing each other. Klein walked closer and took a closer look. The steel components of these rails seemed to be intertwined with the steel bars of the wall before the concrete was poured, forming a whole. Klein didn't quite understand the specific details.

Evan asked everyone to keep going. They carefully climbed down the unreliable ladder and finally landed on the next platform.

Compared to the relatively intact partition platform just now, the place where they were standing now was really dangerous. This place seemed to have once been a partition, but now only a quarter of the ground was left, and the other structures were destroyed, leaving only some twisted and exposed steel beam sections. On this quarter of the remaining plane, there was also some area built by the residents of the underground city using other ruins, which looked precarious.

Only then did Klein realize that there was actually no shortage of broken partition debris beneath this black hole. The ones that were relatively well preserved like the one just above were actually a minority. Most of them were like the one under his feet, with only small platforms left along the wall.

Even so, there are even platforms built on these walls by the dungeon residents!

Klein was not only ashamed of the underground city residents' limited hands-on ability, but when he turned around, he saw that Fors was attracted by an old machine.

"what is this?"

Fors turned around and asked the guide Evan, but Evan looked at Fors without saying anything, just grinning with a few crooked yellow teeth showing.

"..."

Fors looked at the adventurer, then at the detective, and after getting tacit approval, he took out two banknotes from his wallet and handed them to Evan.

“Great price, thank you for your patronage!”

Evan carefully put the banknotes into his pocket. This small business can bring him real pleasure. The money has been received and the transaction has been completed. Evan introduced it methodically.

“This is a signal station that you can use to connect to the internet.

"This type of signal equipment was originally a standard feature of the construction of the [Underground Well]. We have also found some such signal stations in other places of the [Underground Well], but they are all damaged to the point where they cannot function. Judging from the traces, we believe that there should be more such signal stations in the underground well, but most of them have been destroyed or fallen into the ground.

"In short, as far as I know, this is the only usable signal station in the [underground well] at the moment.

"This should be a signal station manufactured by the Steam Church's industry, but it's an older and rarer model. Even in the market in the dungeon, you can't see this model. But if it wasn't developed by the Steam Church, it wouldn't have lasted until now.

"But after so many years, this signal station also has some minor problems: its key control system failed, and the mainboard seems to have some problems. In short, we can't control it to turn on or off now, it always turns on and off irregularly. When it is turned on, this small area can receive Internet signals, so sometimes some people come to knock on this machine specifically to see if they can be lucky enough to get free Internet signals."

As he spoke, Evan began to mutter again.

"After all, Internet cafes in the underground city are not cheap."

This made Klein curious about this machine. The "Programmer Klein" of the Sixth Epoch did not have a deep understanding of hardware. Although Klein was familiar with the communication hardware technology of the Old Era, due to the difference in underlying technology, he could not directly apply the knowledge of the Old Era to the equipment of the Bright Moon Era.

But whether from the perspective of the Sixth Epoch or the old times, this signal station seemed very unreasonable. It seemed that there were no other line interfaces on its body except for the fixed interface and the charging interface. Klein thought that its network cable was buried in the wall, but from the side, there seemed to be no corresponding interface. Similarly, no one maintained this machine. In such an abandoned situation, it is difficult for the cable to have a long life. If he hadn't made a mistake, this machine would most likely not use a wired network.

But if this signal station uses wireless signals, and there is no second working signal station within a few hundred meters around it, where does it receive the wireless signal on the ground more than 2500 meters away?

As a programmer, Klein couldn't understand how this thing actually worked. The signal station screen in front of him was flickering like a twitch. Compared to network equipment, this bulky shell with a small screen looked more like a dangerous item.

“As a programmer, you should always be in awe of [the Internet].”

This was the advice Scott left at the end of his conversation with Crane at church a few months ago.

Fors didn't think so much. Her work was closely related to the Internet. Even if the paper media was kept in physical form, it would be distributed electronically on the Internet. Life was fast-paced during this period, and she was embarrassed to ask the two busy people to go to the Internet cafe to surf the Internet.

Now that the opportunity is in front of her, and it's free, she wants to give it a try.

After a quick divination, Klein agreed and turned off all the electronic devices on his body. Leonard did the same thing and even took out some batteries.

Fors didn't quite understand, but she still mustered up the courage to knock on the signal station.

Bang bang, bang bang.

The screen flickered and there was no response.

Bang bang, bang bang.

Bang bang, bang bang.

After knocking for the fifth time, the screen of the signal station suddenly went dark.

After a brief silence, a few bright words suddenly lit up on the screen.

[Network is connected]

【Stable signal】

A burst of joy blossomed in Fors' heart like fireworks. She couldn't wait to take out her cell phone from her pocket. The square representing the signal lit up after a long time, illuminating Fors's nervous and helpless mood. With the constant vibration, the stranded messages finally found their way forward and gathered on her cell phone from all directions.

The network speed two hundred years ago was simply unable to meet today's transmission needs. It wasn't until two minutes later that her mobile phone downloaded all the stranded messages.

Fors opened the notification bar, clicked on a message with her eyes closed, and opened her eyes with anticipation.

[Ms. Fors Wall, we are very sorry to inform you that we have to reclaim the apartment because you have not paid the next monthly rent for five weeks without any communication with us, and a major accident occurred during your lease. In addition, since the damage to the apartment is an external force majeure, according to the contract, you do not need to pay for repair compensation, but we will not return your deposit. I hope you are satisfied with your living experience during this period and wish you a happy life. ]

These lines of black characters were like a soul-stealing monster, instantly taking away all of Fors's strength. Her legs went limp, and she slowly slid down the wall, finally falling into the corner with empty eyes.

One piece of information made her homeless.

She could already guess what the other messages were. They were nothing more than editors' requests for manuscripts and junk advertisements. There might be some caring and concern about her loss of contact, but most of them came from those editors, as well as her former editors and friends. The former just wanted her manuscripts, and if their care didn't bring her manuscripts and responses, they would transfer to another person. The latter, instead of caring about themselves, were more like comforting the deceased.

Helplessness and bitterness burst out of her heart. At the same time, Fors realized that the apartment had been bombed, and she had left the apartment and came to an underground city that was very different from the ground, living a "new life" as bizarre as movies and novels. Now she has become an adventurer's small radio station, and she should think about bullets, intelligence and satellite calls. But these nightmares from the "old life" can still cause substantial harm to her. She can't let go of her bills, manuscripts and rent, and can't stop her fear and sadness about losing the apartment and not being able to hand in manuscripts, even though these things have already happened. They are like ghosts that can't be dispersed, even if they are thousands of miles away, they can drag her into a cage of oppression at any time and anywhere. This makes Fors feel even more desperate and helpless.

Her heart was still locked in that tiny apartment.

After exploring 2,500 meters down, Fors still couldn't leave Backlund.