Chapter 9: Ruins
After leaving the Fu family, we returned to the mountain villa and used the six-star magic circle to enter the Orc territory.
There were more than twenty Orcs guarding the perimeter of the magic circle, half to prevent anyone from destroying the magic circle, and the other half probably to guard against enemies suddenly emerging from the other end of the circle.
“Hello, Your Excellency, I will go report to the clan leader,” said one of the guards, saluting me. It seems that the five clan leaders have done a good job of keeping secrets and have not revealed my identity to the people below.
“Okay, go ahead,” I nodded.
I looked around, taking in the surroundings with my head turning. I hadn’t had time to properly observe it the last time I was here. The room was not big, but it was certainly not small either. It could fit forty or fifty people without a problem. It was surrounded by dark brown stone walls, and the six-star magic array was in the center of the room. Talismans hung above it, and there were about twenty or so orcs around it. It looked like they were all quite skilled in martial arts . I don’t know how good their magic is (when a demihuman is not yet bestialized, they can use spells of ranks 1 to 4; once they are bestialized, they can no longer use spells, but their strength will suddenly increase by 20 times. At this time, their thinking is similar to that of a beast, and they will keep attacking all races that are not demihumans).
Just as I was surveying the situation, the leader of the Lion tribe arrived and said, “Young master, come with me.” That was new. In order not to reveal my identity, he had replaced “Your Highness” with “Young master.”
The group followed Bachxiang in silence as they walked forward. After entering another cave chamber, Bachxiang said, “Your Highness, next time when there are other people around, let’s just call you Young master.”
“No need. In the future, unless it’s a formal occasion, just call me Young master,” I said.
“Is that okay?“ Bachxiang was a little hesitant.
”It’s fine, just do it,“ I said.
”I wonder what your Highness is here for?“ Bachxiang readily agreed.
”I found that the brain development of your orcs is not fully developed, so I specially came back to pass on your heart refining technique. As long as you can achieve something, I believe you can use magic even after you have transformed into beasts, and it can also increase the level of spells you can use when you are not transformed. As for how far you can use it to what extent depends on the extent of your cultivation. This method also has the benefit of calming the mind. I estimate that as long as you cultivate this method, you can still distinguish between friend and foe after you have beastified. I don’t want my people to have to retreat after you have beastified.”
“Thank you, young master.” Bachxiang was overjoyed. Spells were a major weakness for orcs. First of all, they could only practice spells of fourth rank and below (there were nine ranks of spells in total), and they could only practice magic. Somehow, orcs could not practice Taoism or Buddhism, and they could not even practice witchcraft or sorcery. Orcs were originally unable to practice magic, but after the Third Territorial War, when a large number of skills were lost, in order to quickly increase the strength of the clan, some of the elders of the clan began to study magic (during the war, in order to better study the enemy, the orcs looted a lot of magic books and items). After hundreds of years of research, they finally made it possible for orcs to use magic, but only limited to magic of levels 1-4.
“By the way, young master, the Bull Clan discovered an ancient ruin a few days ago. The ruin is buried in a cave and is full of iron and steel. I sent someone to take a look, and they said that it is all high-quality steel, even better than the steel made by the Dwarves.” A flash of envy crossed Bachiang’s eyes. After all, if these pieces of steel were used to make weapons, the strength of the Orcs would immediately be substantially improved. “That steel has already been made into other things, very strange things. I don’t quite understand what they are, but Paganini didn’t remove the steel to make weapons, but instead ordered the place to be sealed off. The five of us have discussed it and want the young master to go and have a look.”
I was interested as soon as I heard it. It was an ancient ruin, and I might be able to find some artifact from it. “Then I’ll go take a look. I’ve already taught the Heart Refining Technique to Baku and the others, so they can pass it on to you first. As for us, we’ll go take a look at that ruin first.” After pondering for a while, I immediately made a decision.
“Okay, I’ll notify the other clans to go together,” Bach Xiang said.
…
We looked down as we walked through the dense forest in the mountains. In the dense forest, we could see orcs practicing their skills, from all five tribes. It seemed that the five tribes had already mixed together. The Changbai Mountains are relatively cold, but the orcs’ strong bodies are not afraid of the cold. Relatively speaking, they are more afraid of the heat. Each person only has a piece of animal skin, and some even have clothes made of leaves, but they don’t seem to feel the cold at all. Only a few people are practicing, but some are also farming and picking wild fruits.
“What are the rest doing?” I’m a little surprised that there are only these people in front of me.
“They have all gone out to find food.“ The sadness in his words was impossible to ignore.
I sighed, not realizing that the orcs had such a limited food source.
”How many orcs can normally practice normally?“ I asked.
”There are about 10,000 orcs from the five tribes.“
”This is not good. If this is the case, when will you be able to have a strong strength?”
“Young master, don’t worry. Once the orcs become bestialized, they will be impossible to resist, even for the berserker army,“ Yuri said.
”Anyway, personal strength should still be increased. How about this, when I go back, I’ll ask the Hidden Dragon Squad to teach you the Tian Xing Jian mind method and the technique of focusing on two things at once, so that you can practice while you’re working in the future.”
After a long silence, Bach Xiang said, “Young master, I have nothing more to say for your kindness in passing on your skills. I can never thank you enough. From now on, the Lion Tribe will always obey your commands.” Although I didn’t know what the Heart Method was that I was talking about, I knew that it was martial arts that could increase the strength of the orcs. This time, I did not intend to do this, but I finally made them completely submit to me. If last time I taught them the special skills in order to form an alliance, but this time? (In fact, I was just acting on a whim.) Why did I give them food, clothes, salt, and tea? If I was just using them, the Orcs would definitely not want the Orcs to become too powerful, so I definitely would not have taught them too much martial arts, and I would definitely not have considered things from the Orcs’ perspective and solved some practical difficulties for them.
“And there’s us, the Tiger Clan,“ said Shuman, the Tiger Clan leader, excitedly.
”And of course there’s us, the Leopard Clan,” said Arcado, the Leopard Clan leader, smiling at me.
After walking for more than an hour, we finally came to a wall. In front of us stood the Ox Clan guards. Paganini, the Ox Clan leader, and Romanlan, the Wolf Clan leader, were also there. There was a large hole in the wall, big enough for four carriages to walk side by side.
Paganini led us inside while explaining the process of discovering the cave: it turned out that when they practiced the bull clan’s wild bull qigong and earth-splitting axe, they mostly used the stone wall as an imaginary enemy. As a result, one of the stone walls suddenly collapsed after being attacked for a long time, revealing a cave. After entering, they discovered that the cave was very wide, so they sent someone to report to the clan leader while widening the cave again. As we talked, we entered the cave. The cave obviously had human traces, and the ceiling was very high, as high as two large trees. The ground beneath our feet was made of something else, definitely not stone, and it seemed to be one piece (actually, it was a cement road). The air in the cave was not good. Paganini said that when they first entered, they could not breathe at all. They specially sent several hundred people to use wind magic to circulate the air in the cave for a whole day. They also placed lighting magic stones (very common) in various main places in the cave. There are quite a few other side caves in this cave, but there are three main ones, and we are now standing in one of them.
“That’s the steel we found,” Paganini said, pointing to a pile of steel. In fact, this pile of steel didn’t need to be found at all, it was just sitting in the middle of a hall, next to some strange-looking things made of steel.
I nodded and looked at these things carefully. My database told me that they were the products of a mechanical civilization, but exactly what they were needed further detailed inspection and searching of the database. It was clear that the two largest piles of steel were the same thing, so I only observed one of them. After a full circle, I think I understand what these are. This is a production line, and the things next to it are some transport vehicles. This is clearly a factory. I quickly looked at the two production lines again and found that they are both in working order. The steel is not damaged. On the one hand, the steel has been treated to resist corrosion, and on the other hand, it is sealed in the stone wall and cannot come into contact with the air.
The people nearby saw me running around, their faces showing a mixture of surprise and joy. They knew that these things must be a good thing, and Paganini was a little relieved that he hadn’t dismantled them.
“What is this thing, young master?” Romainland couldn’t help but ask me.
“I don’t know what it is either,” I smiled mysteriously at them, “but I know it must be good.” Then I buried my head and continued to check it out.
Now I know that this is an assembly line and it should be fully automated, which is considered heavy industry. It should use electricity, but I don’t know where the energy control room is. So I started looking along the production line and finally found something in another room. It turns out that magnetic energy is used. There is an oversized magnetic energy reactor here (you’ve played Red Alert, right? It’s the magnetic energy reactor in there), and there are also two medium-sized magnetic energy reactors and a computer next to it, but they have all stopped operating. It’s understandable that the computer isn’t working because it’s out of power, but why aren’t the magnetic energy reactors working? That doesn’t make sense, as long as there is a magnetic field, it will operate. I took the Illuminating Magic Stone and carefully inspected the magnetic energy reactor but didn’t find anything broken.
“What is this thing and what is it for?” Shuman, the Tiger Clan leader, asked.
“This is a magnetic energy reactor, which uses the magnetic field generated by the magnetic poles to generate energy for lighting,” I replied.
Wait, what did I just say? Magnetic poles. Right, it’s probably the magnetic poles that are set incorrectly. Maybe the ancient magnetic poles are different from today’s. But how do I change it? There’s no electricity, so I can’t even start the computer, so how can I change the original settings? Oh, that’s right, there might be batteries or a generator in the transport vehicle outside. I rushed into the hall and found a vehicle, opened the hood, and there was no generator inside, but there was a battery pack. I carefully removed the battery pack. It was a storage battery that could be charged by solar energy or electricity. I returned to the energy control room, connected the battery pack to the computer, and then used my powerful mental energy to gather electricity and input it into the storage battery until it was one-third full. I then started the computer, but it was password protected, so I used my mental energy to hack into the computer. My super brain began to perform fast and complex calculations, and in less than ten minutes, it cracked the password and successfully entered the system to modify the magnetic pole settings.
As soon as the settings were complete, I restarted the computer and heard the magnetic energy reactor start to beep. After a while, a green light on the reactor started to shine, making a hissing sound.
“It’s done,” I stood up contentedly and said to everyone, “if I’m not wrong, in a while, we won’t need these lighting stones.”
“Why?” Romalan asked.
“Something else will take over the lighting, and you’ll see it in a moment. Now let’s go and see the production control room and find out what exactly is being produced here,” I said with a smile, but I felt that these people were looking at me with strange eyes.
They were looking at me like I was some kind of monster, wondering how this young lord knew everything and could even figure out how to operate this strange contraption.
I found the production control room. As expected, there was also a computer here, but at this time, the magnetic energy reactor still had not accumulated enough energy, so I had to stand there and wait. It didn’t take long before the room suddenly lit up, as it turned out that the lighting system had finally turned on. But my people panicked, thinking that something had happened. Even the experienced Wuzhang and Zhang Zhengli used all their strength, and the others even nervously drew their weapons.
“Don’t panic, didn’t I tell you that there would be something to replace the lighting stone? Well, here it is.” Compared to everyone else, I was really calm and composed, unruffled even when faced with a mountain collapsing before you.
The expressions on everyone’s faces changed, and they all withdrew their weapons.
I paid no attention to this, but instead turned on the computer, entered the password I had just obtained, and immediately entered the system, browsing through the information (the super brain had already imprinted this language in my brain). I finally understood that this was a factory that produced high-quality steel, and all the information about this factory. However, one piece of information aroused my curiosity. This information vaguely pointed out that there was still a part below this factory.
“I think we’ve found a treasure,” I said triumphantly to everyone.
“What good things are these,“ even Bachiang was intrigued this time.
”See this steel,“ I led the group out into the hall.
The group nodded.
”This,“ I pointed to the production line, ‘is what can produce this steel.’
”What the young master means is,“ Bachiang swallowed hard, ‘that if we have this, we can have countless pieces of this steel?’
”More or less, as long as we have enough iron ore,”
The crowd cheered.
“Iron ore is not a problem. There is nothing else on these mountains but iron ore,” said the wolf Romanland excitedly.
The orcs’ desire for steel was naturally for a reason: most of the weapons the orcs currently possessed were ancient goods from over a thousand years ago, and a small number were looted from the mountains. Apart from the wolf tribe, which could equip 7,000 people, the other four tribes could only equip 5,000 people each. And most of the weapons were unusable due to their age. Although there were countless iron mines on this mountain, the orcs did not have the ability to smelt good iron, let alone steel.
“Elders, please also send some people to dig up some iron ore. Don’t worry about food, the 30,000 gold coins from the Winged Clan can support us for a while, and once the steel is refined, we can sell it. Of course, if we can make weapons to sell, the price will be even better. In addition, a group of people may also be needed to participate in the mining of gold mines to increase annual production.“
”No problem, we will send people right away.”
“Okay, you go ahead, I still need to take a look. There seem to be quite a few secrets here. By the way, you need to step up security here in the future,“ I said.
”Okay,” said the clan chief, and he turned around and hurriedly left.
I led Zhang Zhengli and his apprentice, the Yuri siblings, and the five orcs on a search, but I was really the only one searching. I wanted to find the room with the underground passage, and after two hours of unremitting efforts, I finally found it. But unfortunately, we couldn’t get in, as there was an energy shield blocking the entrance to the tunnel.
What kind of energy could still be in effect after so long (the legendary ancient civilization is at least 20,000 years old)? Light energy? Highly unlikely, as it would be too much of a loss to transmit solar energy collected on the surface underground. Magnetic energy? The magnetic poles have already changed, and the magnetic energy generator should not be spinning. Energy from anti-space? Judging from the factory outside, their civilization has not yet reached that level, so it seems that only nuclear energy is left.
How do I get in? If this energy shield is controlled by a computer, and if my spiritual power can penetrate this energy shield, I can control the computer and order it to remove the energy protection. I sat cross-legged and concentrated my spiritual power to penetrate the energy shield. Unfortunately, my spiritual power was completely unable to cut into this energy shield. This energy shield was like a slippery ball. As soon as my spiritual power touched it, it slipped to the side. It seems that I have made a wrong assumption. This is not nuclear energy, but magnetic energy, and only magnetic energy can block my spiritual power.
I sighed and stood up from the ground, helplessly looking at the energy shield.
“Young master, do you want to break the thing in front that is blocking the way?” Baku couldn’t help but ask me.
I nodded dejectedly
Baku took a breath, gathered his Lion King Qigong, and shouted, slashing the energy barrier with a powerful green Lion King Slash. Sparks flew from the barrier, which only fluctuated for a moment. Baku’s face turned red as he threw out his hands and slashed three more times, but to no avail. I quickly pulled Baku back, because I was delighted to discover a tiny gap in the fluctuating energy shield. Really, what’s wrong with me, why don’t I just use the easy way out and think about how to infiltrate the energy shield with my mental energy?
Seeing Baku’s blushing face, I smiled and patted him on the back, “Baku, thank you this time. I’ve already figured out how to open this tunnel.” I said to everyone, “Wait, Baku, you use Lion King Slash to bombard the energy shield. When you can’t hold on anymore, Zhang Lao, you take over. Below is Lu Weixian, and finally Yuli. If I haven’t called a halt, you’ll bombard again. Remember, don’t bombard in a hurry, just like the kind of interval Baku just used to bombard three times in a row. Got it?”
“Understood.”
I sat on the ground, channeled all my spiritual energy, and signalled Baku to attack. A gap was formed in the energy shield by Baku’s Lion King Slash. My spiritual energy successfully penetrated the energy shield and entered the tunnel. Following the source of the energy, I found the computer, entered it, and the super brain began to calculate to crack the password protecting the computer. After a while, the password was finally cracked and the energy shield was immediately lifted. I withdrew my spiritual power, opened my eyes, and was shocked to see that everyone in front of me was panting heavily. I hurriedly asked why.
“Young master, we didn’t think it would take twenty minutes. Our spiritual power cannot last for too long. Although special skills like the Lion King Slash are extremely powerful, they also consume an incredible amount of energy. The most we can do is to continuously use the technique for a hundred times, which is about one and a half minutes. My brother and I can only support it for two minutes, and Zhang Laoshi can only last for four minutes. So these twenty minutes really exhausted us,” said Yuri, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
After hearing this, I hurriedly thanked everyone, but I was still filled with fear. Once the bombardment stopped, almost all of my primordial spirit would be trapped in the tunnel. Although my original spirit was still in my brain, the loss of my primordial spirit would not kill me, but it would affect my spiritual power and my cultivation. Losing the data in my brain with my primordial spirit would mean that I could never retrieve it again (there would not be enough energy, and I would no longer have a guide).
“Thank you all,“ I once again sincerely thanked everyone, without explaining the dangers involved. ‘But I have already opened the tunnel, let’s go take a look.’
”Wait, young master,” Baku stopped me, ”I’m afraid it’s impossible to breathe down there right now, we should send someone down there to use magic to ventilate the area first.”
“Yes,” I suddenly realized. I’m increasingly finding that Baku is quite attentive. ‘In that case, you guys use magic to clear the underground first, and I’ll go open the ventilation system.’ With that, I hurriedly left.
When I returned, they were still fighting below. The underground lighting system had been turned on. In fact, the underground ventilation system was connected to the surface. After a while of airing the place out, the air below was barely breathable, so I entered the tunnel. The underground was similar to the above, with many rooms and several production lines, but larger than the above, and full of corpses. After I entered the main control room and checked the data, I realized that this tunnel was actually a base with three floors. The ground floor was a steel factory, which covered the two underground floors. The first underground floor was an arsenal, producing magnetic shields, broken sun blades, combat robots, and even computer chips. The second underground floor was a comprehensive laboratory. Somehow, this underground facility was abandoned, and many of the staff died. I think it might be that a spy infiltrated and caused sabotage, but it doesn’t seem likely. Everything critical here is intact, and if sabotage was really going to happen, these things would definitely be the first to go.
However, this weapons production line can be modified and simplified to produce weapons of our time. This is great, we can connect the above-ground and underground production systems, produce weapons from steel and sell them. Weapons are worth tens or even hundreds of times more than steel, if we can sell weapons, we won’t have to worry about money anymore.
I sat in front of the main control computer and looked through the data, trying to see how much this base had left for me. Unfortunately, it was like someone had ransacked the place, leaving nothing behind. I didn’t give up hope, and led a group of people to the armory to see if there was anything left. Unfortunately, there was nothing. However, I found that there was still a batch of military materials in the material warehouse, which were the raw materials for making magnetic shields, broken sun blades, alloy battle armor, and chips. However, only a few hundred copies of each could be made. I suddenly had a thought: There might still be some on those corpses. I quickly summoned the orcs and told them to search the corpses (since there was no air, the corpses had not decayed). Sure enough, as I expected, I found 297 magnetic shields, 354 Yang blades, more than a thousand pieces of alloy battle armor (almost one in every two bodies), and more than 300 robots that had been completely destroyed on the bodies of more than 2,000 people. These armaments are very strange. There are microcomputers in each one of them. If the data does not match the settings (such as fingerprints or blood type), these things cannot activate their functions. Although I have the ability to eliminate this mandatory computer order, I have not done so yet. Instead, I opened the portal to the second basement level and entered (I had already been briefed beforehand). The second basement level is relatively small compared to the first level, with one large hall, one control room, six laboratories, and three storage rooms. In one of the storage rooms, I was delighted to find more than 300 robots, and surprisingly, each one had a broken blade, a magnetic shield, and a light (electric) beam weapon (but no energy). I used my psychic powers to connect the cyberbrain to the robots’ computers and modified their settings, making them absolutely obedient to my commands. Although the combat effectiveness of these robots cannot be compared to that of a master like Zhang Zhengli, if 40 or 50 of them go at it together, even a master like Zhang Zhengli will probably have to flee in defeat. This is because the computers of these robots are connected in some miraculous way, so that no matter how many there are, they work together like a single person, like a person with dozens of hands. How can one person cope?
But what they saw in the other storage room was uncomfortable. There were more than 100 crystal coffins, each containing a corpse. Half of the corpses were male, half female. The men were handsome, the women beautiful. The whole room was filled with a deathly atmosphere, which was chilling. The group quickly exited and went to the third storage room, where there were boxes of chips.
There was nothing much to say about the other six laboratories, one being a virus laboratory, one an operating room, one a nerve research laboratory, one a muscle research laboratory, one a bone research laboratory, and one a gene research laboratory.