The sun is high

In Van'en, the grades of crystallized minerals have long been strictly limited, and the key to influencing these grades lies in the concentration of magic power they contain.

And almost all mages at the stream level and above can be appraisers of crystallized minerals. After all, this kind of work is too simple for spellcasters. As long as they have a certain magic base, they can easily deal with it. Make an accurate assessment of the status of these magic crystals.

For the elite mages of the Legal Committee and Council, this kind of work is even simpler. In addition, many of them have worked in relevant departments within the organization, so they can rely on their first Use visual impressions and basic magic perception to make a preliminary assessment and judgment on a large crystalline mine that has not yet been mined.

But now, everyone was silent in front of the sparkling magic crystal veins.

The magic power in their bodies and the relevant knowledge they possess are revealing to them the fact that the crystal mines in front of them are extremely rare even in the entire Van En. They are so special that just by looking at them At the first glance, the mages have already felt the extremely abnormal magic power in these crystal mines - they are restless, like some kind of invisible life that has life and consciousness and is trapped in the container. They are crystallizing. The interior of the vein is constantly traveling and colliding, but it is always blocked by the solid surface of the crystallized ore.

In the eyes of the mages, this situation should not occur at all, because they have fundamentally violated the rules of the basic magic laws, and also violated people's basic understanding of magic crystal mines for thousands of years.

A Merlinle and a mage from the Legal Committee landed next to a protruding crystal mine with the help of ropes. He had been responsible for matters related to the notarization of crystal mine transactions in the past, and he was already familiar with this type of magic mineral. It was so outrageous that he couldn't help but widen his eyes as soon as he came to these ores.

He couldn't believe that in his lifetime, he had actually seen a mine that was so large in scale, so rich in magic power, but generally stable.

According to common sense, the stability of crystal minerals is inversely proportional to the amount of magic power they possess. In other words, the more magic power is in a crystal, the more fragile they will be, and the easier it will be to crack or even crack due to fluctuations in magic power. explode.

The mage raised his hand, he casually performed a lighting trick, and brought the magic light ball close to the mineral vein. With this action, the originally extremely standard and round light ball immediately began to twist and deform, stirring up the influence of magic power inside the mineral vein. Under this, the light ball could not maintain stability at all, and was directly pulled into an indescribable shape, and finally dissipated on the spot due to the collapse of the magic structure.

"The magic power in the mines has reached this level, but the mines as a whole are still stable, and they have not collapsed due to this... It is simply incredible."

Merlin Lehe's mage murmured, and then he turned to look at the others: "What was written in the logs of the last batch of teams? Who saw this? Retell it!"

Within two seconds, the mage leader of the Plateau Council also landed next to him. He checked the strange mineral veins in front of him, and then responded: "The log of the first echelon did mention large-scale crystallized mineral veins, but they are The log did not mention any abnormality in the mineral vein, but it was recorded that this should be a deep mineral vein of extremely large scale and close to the top quality...other than that, there are no other relevant records."

Facing the questioning eyes of the Law Committee mage, the Council mage said solemnly: "The ones who made these records are your colleagues from Merlin Lehe. If you trust their ability in this area, you should not show such expression."

"..."

When the mage from the north heard these words, his expression froze for a moment, but then he nodded and followed the other person's words and said: "If there is a problem with the mine, I believe they will be able to tell it. But if there is indeed nothing wrong with the content of that log, that means that in such a short period of time, all the ore veins of such an astonishing scale have undergone changes for some reason? Isn't that right?"

"I agree with you."

The leader of the council nodded solemnly: "But if it was just a mutated mineral vein, I'm afraid it wouldn't be enough to cause the first batch of teams to disappear. Moreover, they took the initiative to cut off the ropes, which means they must have encountered some kind of transcendence. The situation we are aware of... report these situations, we need to continue downwards and cannot stop here."

Before others could react, soldiers from the Ymir Legion had already taken action nearby. With the help of two mages, they successfully removed a small piece of mutated ore from the rock wall, and then a A relatively young mage from the Legal Committee was selected. He will take the lead in returning to the camp above with this unusual discovery and explain the situation to the general manager.

So the procession continued downward.

The extremely unstable magic power is constantly exerting strong interference on the inside of the crack. The magic tricks used by the mages for lighting are the first to be disturbed. With the increasing number of abnormal crystal mines nearby, even mages above the stream level are unable to They continued to maintain the stability of the lighting trick. Under the continuous influence, they could not even maintain the integrity of the magic model. The random fluctuations of magic were like storm winds blowing on the sea, tearing apart everything around them wantonly.

Not long after, quite a few of the crystal lamps used for lighting began to flicker and go out. This was a magical chain effect of the magic crystal mine. There is a famous proverb spread in Vann, "A bad crystal mine can destroy an entire vein." , refers to this situation.

Of course, this proverb is still an exaggeration.

The actual situation is that highly concentrated and condensed magic power often subtly changes the properties of surrounding weaker magical things. Now, the magic crystals and magic parts inlaid on those lamps are malfunctioning because of this, and some of them are The lamps worn by Mir soldiers even flashed and cracked.

Faced with such a situation, the team leaders immediately took appropriate measures.

The mages immediately gathered together and began to use the secret ritual tools they carried with them to actively build a ritual field that could stabilize the magic environment. Although the coverage of the ritual field was very limited due to the influence of the mineral veins, as long as they stayed within the range, the magic And the use of tools can be restored to normal, and the relevant information is quickly transmitted back to the camp above.

Faced with this unexpected change, the orders issued in the camp were equally firm.

"Down, keep going down."

Before the response arrived, all the volunteers in the team already knew the answer. After the due process was completed, they immediately started taking action. So under the protection of the ceremony venue, the team continued to move deeper into the crack. March everywhere.

The number of this second team of volunteers is much larger than that of the first team, but even so, it still looks extremely small in this extremely astonishing huge crack. This dark world underground is simply like some kind of terrifying The scars created by the existence on the land of Van'en with sharp blades. Dozens and hundreds of people were thrown into this darkness. It was like pebbles falling into the ocean, unable to stir up any water at all.

Ten o'clock in the morning.

Five hours have passed since the second group of volunteers came into contact with the abnormal crystal mine. During these five hours, they rested several times, ate simply, and also made several trips to the upper camp in accordance with regulations. Pass on the information you have discovered.

The traces left by the previous team can still be found easily, and several of the mages even found two sentences left by a certain forerunner on the cracked stone wall.

"I stole into the night, and the wine glass fell into the morning light."

This is a poem left by a famous northern poet a hundred years ago. It is said that it was the last work he left before he committed suicide by drinking poisonous wine. Now that it appears here, it has a different meaning.

There is a determination to step into a perfect scene alone and never come back.

And this is exactly the state of most people in the second team at this time.

Although they have not encountered any dangerous accidents so far, being in such a weird and depressing dark environment for a long time will cause some changes in anyone's psychological state, even the usually silent Ymir The soldiers now couldn't help but communicate quietly with their comrades in order to relieve the invisible huge pressure surrounding them.

"Down, keep going down!"

The orders in the camp have not changed at all. Everyone can feel the determination in this short order. Therefore, the volunteers under the abyss have no other choice. After briefly boosting their morale, they continue Go deep.

Now, they have crossed the last rest stop left by the first team, which means that danger may appear at any time during the next "journey".

The team's progress began to slow down. Now, they finally crossed the abnormal mineral vein. However, strangely, the interference and influence of magic still existed.

After receiving the order from the team leader, several Ymir soldiers took out sets of metal parts from the packages they carried. Soon, an extraordinarily huge crystal spotlight was assembled. As the magic crystal was embedded, bright light Heading directly towards the bottomless darkness below.

At the same time, a mage drank a potion that could enhance vision. With the bright spotlight, he immediately made a discovery.

"Look there! Move a little further down!"

He gave the command quickly, and then the light spot of the spotlight stayed on a stone wall diagonally below. Everyone immediately discovered that there was a slightly narrow path on the stone wall. It looked like the ground was cracked. It occurred naturally at this time. On this platform with extremely limited space, traces of the activities left by the first batch of teams can still be seen.

This is a very surprising discovery.

Because almost everyone saw that at this temporary rest site, a simple secret device had been set up to communicate with the camp above. However, judging from the logs, they did not use this secret device in the end, or in other words, There was a problem with the Mystery itself, resulting in their message not being successfully delivered to the Rift Camp.

What is even more frightening is another fact revealed by this temporary resting point - the first team was still operating normally until this depth, but shortly after they arrived here, due to some reasons Actively cut the rope and disappeared.

Two mages and ten Ymir soldiers took the lead in landing towards the temporary site. They carefully checked the nearby situation and verified the status of the simple secret instrument. Then they discovered with confusion that everything inside the temporary site Normally, they also found cans piled up in a corner. This showed that the first team took a long rest after arriving here. Judging from the number of empty cans, they did not appear unexpectedly at that time. other than attrition.

Soon, the two mages used a simple secret instrument to convey the new situation to the camp above. It didn't take long for the camp to respond.

"received."

"Down, keep going down!"

It was still the two extremely brief answers, but this time, it made almost everyone frown.

This is not a normal response. Now they have found the last traces of the first group's activities, which means that the second group of volunteers are very close to the unknown source of danger. In this case, the camp At least corresponding reminders should be given and some new instructions should be given, rather than being pushed down blindly.

Therefore, the Legal Committee and the two leaders of the Council had a quick discussion, and then they immediately decided to re-build the secret ritual themselves and use this new secret ritual to send another message to the camp above.

Soon, everything is ready.

Then a magical message with a specific secret word to test the situation was successfully sent.

"At 10:46 in the morning, we arrived at the resting site for the advance team. There were casualties on the way due to an accident. They were escorted by two soldiers to evacuate. May the Sinar Sea remain peaceful."

Most of the time, the messages within the Legal Committee will end with "May the Goddess Mel protect us." However, before setting off for action, the two parties who need to communicate can realize certain messages by changing the ending text. transfer.

Of course, this is not a secret or superb method of testing, but it is extremely simple and effective at certain times.

After waiting for a while, the old and new mysteries in the temporary site received the response messages at the same time.

And its content made everyone shudder.

Faced with the pre-arranged code that symbolized "encountering an unknown threat and need to confirm the situation", the camp above did not make any statement. The message they sent back did not change at all, and they did not even inquire about the vague casualties.

The message simply repeated the previous words.

"received."

"Down, keep going down!"