I rely on copies to build infrastructure

The stairs leading to the lower deck seem to be endless, spiraling all the way down into the darkness.

Qin Lu counted silently in his heart, and the two walked for more than 20 minutes before seeing a metal gate at the end of the stairs.

This boat...is the underwater part this deep?

Qin Lu, who was suffocating doubts in his heart, did not dare to speak out.He found that the world from the first deck down was completely different from before, everywhere there was deathly silence, not to mention, there was also a vague smell in the air, although the smell was not obvious, but it was always irritating. Feeling vaguely uncomfortable.

The further you go down, the more the temperature drops, and it is even colder when you walk in front of the door.Fortunately, Qin Lu has a contract with Fenghuang, and has traveled in the world of the Yu clan for many years, and his tolerance to temperature is far beyond ordinary people, so he was not injured by the cold in the bottom warehouse.

In fact, Qin Lu didn't realize that he was much stronger now than before. Although he couldn't be said to be invulnerable, he couldn't be hurt by ordinary hot and cold attacks, and his reaction speed and strength had also been greatly improved.

According to the standards of the Blue Stars, his physical fitness is far beyond the category of excellence.

"How do I open this door?"

As soon as Qin Lu opened his mouth, he was taken aback by himself. The warehouse was too quiet, and the metal door was connected to the stairs. The sound gathering effect was not so good, and the volume, which was clearly a whisper, sounded like thunder.

Xi Ren's hand touched the door, but he didn't know what kind of switch he found. With a slight effort, the door slowly slid to one side, leaving a gap for one person to enter and exit.

A gust of cold wind rushed towards his face, Qin Lu was unprepared and shivered from the cold.Fortunately, he stabilized his body in time, adjusted his state, and probed his head to look inside.

Hmm, can't see clearly... But it looks like a big cold storage.

"Let's go."

Xi Ren said in a low voice.

"If you feel cold, you can hold the ring to block the cold."

Qin Lu shook his head.

After walking through so many worlds and dungeons, he has somewhat comprehended.The body is not the same as before because of the system. If you can adapt to the difficult environment of the dungeon, you will improve after returning to reality. The more dangerous you are, the greater the improvement.

He acquired the ability to tolerate temperature changes in the Yu Clan world. Although the cold wind here is cold, it has not reached the limit of his tolerance, and he was caught off guard because of lack of preparation.

"It's okay, I can do it."

Qin Lu said in a low voice.

He can't always be a sticky card, and he has to fight a little bit to be a human being.After all, what others give can't be completely transformed into one's own real strength, and one has to accumulate step by step to achieve solidity, otherwise wouldn't one be like that fake phoenix who wanted to reach the sky in one step? !

When he said this, Xi Ren didn't continue to persuade him, but reminded him to be careful, saying that it would be colder inside.

This seems to be the cold storage of the Aurora Goddess, and there are miscellaneous ingredients piled up in it, most of which are meat products of unknown origin.

I don't know how long these ingredients have been frozen, and the original color and material can no longer be seen, and they will shatter if dropped a little, obviously losing their toughness completely.

Is this what restaurants do?

Qin Lu glanced at his mouth.

No wonder there are strange questions, these things may have passed the shelf life long ago.

But walking further inside, the strange smell that was in the air before suddenly became stronger.

Qin Lu covered his mouth and nose, feeling that the gastric juices that he had calmed down for less than half a day began to surge again, and his throat began to roll involuntarily.

He saw a strange sight that he had never seen in his life!

"This...this...what is it?"

Qin Lu's voice was a little erratic.Because in the deepest part of this cold storage, there is still an independent space!The ground, walls, and ceiling here are all painted with a red pentagram pattern, with many strange symbols attached, some new and some old, layered upon layer, looking very gloomy and permeating.

Between these talismans, there stood one translucent glass vessel after another, filled with a cloudy unknown liquid, soaking one naked human body after another!

These people are either physically incomplete, or have fatal injuries to key parts, and the expressions on their faces are very hideous.These turbid unknown liquids seemed to be repairing their bodies. Qin Lu saw that someone's ruptured abdomen was already covered with granulation bubbles, and the tissue was gradually entangled. Given time, sooner or later, the hideous wound would be completely healed.

It's just... the process is disgusting.

Qin Lu suppressed the discomfort in his stomach, and didn't turn his eyes away from that horrible scene.

This is definitely not a normal body repair process. Those granulation bubble-like tissues are undergoing abnormal hyperplasia. Even if the wound can be filled in the end, that part is also a strange combination of buds and bubbles.

He began to turn his attention elsewhere.This is really a discovery.It turned out that although these glass jars were weird, the people soaked in them, without exception, had a complicated emblem printed on the left chest.

This emblem is not unfamiliar, it is exactly the same as the contract Qin Lu saw in Xi Ren's room, representing the so-called "God".

"Are they all signed players?"

Qin Lu asked softly.

"Not necessarily a player."

Xi Ren shook his head.

"It's only been two days since the dungeon started. I've never seen these people appear on the ship. They probably stayed in the bottom warehouse all the time."

Always stay in the bottom warehouse...

Qin Lu rolled his eyes, and suddenly a flash of inspiration flashed in his mind.

Due to the inertia of the previous repair copy, combined with the abnormality of the personnel in the field analyzed by Xiao Ren, he had an incredible guess.

"Will the gods replace the players' places with their own people?"

"Ok?"

"I mean……"

Qin Lu sorted out his thoughts.

"Although I don't know how it does it, is there such a possibility that the 'gods' used some method to replace the players captured by the system with their own troops, and then secretly collected A wave of energy?"

"Just like when we were in Wasteland City before, didn't Master Yun give Zhang Hongtu the chance to die three times? Maybe this time it's an upgraded version, which can swap players, NPCs and its own troops. , so that on the surface, the number of copies is not a problem, but in fact there are many fewer real players, and the ship is full of its words, which is convenient for it to control the situation."

He paused, and looked up at Xi Ren beside him.

"How? Is it possible for it to do so?"

"Of course it's possible."

Xi Ren nodded.

"Isn't the eggshell we saw in the Phoenix ruins only half left? If the other half is in the hands of that thing, it is indeed capable of creating such a situation."

"But why does it do that?"

Xi Ren's voice was very soft, with a rare trace of doubt.

"If you just want to extract the power of the dungeon, relying on the contract is enough. There is no reason to exchange the tribute for a recycled product that has no use value."

He pointed to the glass jar in front of him.

"These are dead players, and exchanging corpses for living people is a loss-making business."

When talking about losing money, Qin Xiaolu immediately regained his spirits.

"It's not necessarily a loss!"

He touched his chin.

"If players who exchanged to other dungeons can extract more value, and if the exchanged corpses can be recycled, this is actually more profitable than business."

"If the gods tell them that as long as they sign a contract with him, then even if the mission fails, they will not really die, but will be transformed into another life form. As long as they accumulate enough energy, they can regain their lives, then they..."

Having said that, Qin Lu suddenly closed his mouth, and his smiling eyes quickly turned serious.

He heard a strange sound, a bit like the pumping of water from a sewer pipe. The sound of rattling was not loud, but it was very clear in the silent cold storage.

The two looked at each other, and both hid in the darkness.

The sound fades away and is replaced by a strange "click".It is like some kind of metal axle lacking oil lubrication, which is blunt and harsh, making the listener feel uncomfortable.

over there.

Xi Ren stretched out his fingers, signaling Qin Lu to pay attention to the direction of the northwest corner.

There was originally a set of glass jars there, one of which was emptied of liquid at some point.A thin black figure was struggling to open the bracket at the bottom of the bottle, and crawled out from below with a strange gesture.

Qin Lu remembered him, it was a thin man with red hair, half of his head was patched out, and the position of the crown was not fully grown.

He climbed out of the bottle with the missing piece of head on his head. As the mucus exposed to the air dried up, the speed of the black shadow became faster and faster, and he was able to stand normally after a few minutes.

He found a suit of clothes in the box behind the glass bottle, and put them on awkwardly.

It was a low-level crew uniform.The "specimen" that was still soaked in the bottle before turned into a crew member of the Aurora Goddess. The man tidied up his clothes, gave a few strange giggles, and left the cold storage without looking back.

Qin Lu, who witnessed the whole process, was in a mixed mood.He had roughly guessed the trick of the "God" before, but

Having witnessed this scene with my own eyes, I was still shocked mentally.

Speaking of it, the core of this routine is not complicated, which is recycling and reuse, which is similar to the "tool player" set by Gouba for himself.

It's just that I am working legally, and the "god" is playing smuggling and illegal detention. It not only squeezes the lives of players, but also repeatedly intercepts oil and water from the rules of the system. It seems that they have thoroughly understood the operating mode of the system.

Sign a contract, obtain the player's power, and then send the player to another copy to go to the NPC. The gods are deliberately creating a mini version of the inner loop.

The copies of power fragments that appeared before are the support of this inner cycle. It even created a relatively independent subspace in Cold Spring Harbor, pretending to be a system copy.If it weren't for the Cold Spring Harbor incident that attracted the attention of the system and cleaned up a large number of obviously problematic dungeons, it is unknown how many players have been entrapped.

This step by step, imitation, copying, penetration and erosion, is it going to replace it?

There are layers of doubts in my heart, but now is not the time to be entangled, I still have to deal with the troubles in front of me.

"Then what about these people?"

Qin Lu pointed to a row of jars in front of him.

It is now certain that the jar is not a real player, but a corpse that has lost its life in some instances.Although they occupy the number of players, they don't participate in card games on the ship. As long as they don't provoke players, they will hardly be wasted.

But they are all the living dead who signed a contract with the "God", and they are promoted by devouring players, so they are naturally the power collectors of the "God".If you add players like Fire Dragon Girl who take the initiative to sign contracts, as well as the attrition of players caused by deliberate provocation, I believe that without waiting for fifteen days, the ship will be full of "god" believers, and these people it masters will be loyal even if they pass the level The dungeon that entered earnestly, continued to enshrine energy for it.

Qin Lu now finally understands why the two players in Wasteland City are desperately collecting two-legged snakes.Master Yun and those two people are probably also the contractors of the "God", and if they want to survive, they have to work for the "God", and they will never stop dying.

In this case, these people cannot be kept.Their existence is the help of the "God", and one more will make the "God" stronger.

"I want to destroy it all, and it's a disaster to keep it."

He said coldly, without the slightest pity in his heart.

Xi Ren glanced at him, eyes full of surprise.

The little servant is rarely so cold, most of the time he is gentle and soft, Xi Ren sometimes even feels that he is a little indecisive.

"Okay, I'll listen to you."

With a wave of his hand, countless light chains criss-crossed and shattered these glass jars soundlessly.

Qin Lu watched blankly.

I don't know why, but he is very afraid of things that try to control the system.It is not because I am controlled by others, but because the owner of the system is someone else. That is the basis for the existence of the system, and no one is more qualified than him.

Strange, who is it?