Deep Sea Embers

Chapter 268 Under the Darkness
The bottom of the "model" is growing.

With the spread of Zhou Ming-Duncan's thinking, the structure representing the underground world of the Puland city-state is coming to his mind little by little, and these parts that appear in his cognition are now turned into this "collection" corresponding to the new section.

It was rough, like a rock disc, growing at a speed visible to the naked eye, and covered the entire underground part of the city-state of Purand, and then began to gradually extend, showing more grotesque details—thousands Years of sediment, accretions that look like tiny spikes, and... weird bumps that meander between the layers.

It looks like the rough skin of some kind of echinoderm, or the ugly outer layer of a rock that has been corroded in strong acid.

Finally, this growth process finally stops.

At the bottom of the "model" representing the city-state of Pratt, there is now a disc-shaped base.

However, Zhou Ming frowned.

He could feel... his consciousness spreading in the Puland city-state didn't stop, and continued to extend "downward"!
In the darkness, in the icy cold, in the transcendent perception beyond the ordinary five senses and six senses, he felt that his spirit continued to permeate and flow downward like mercury sunk into the soil, and he clearly felt his " "Look" over the thick cement, soil and rock, over some kind of extremely dense but non-metallic "shell", sank all the way into the cold sea water, and then continued downward, continued downward!
In just the blink of an eye, he felt that he had sunk into a dark deep sea, crossed the 850-meter-thick base, and quickly extended along some invisible but existing "passage"!
And how far after that? 100 metres? 200 meters?

Zhou Ming couldn't be sure, he only knew that his perception was still spreading downwards, he had clearly left the scope of the Puland city-state, and obviously there were no new structures on the "collection" in his hands, yet his thinking was still Flowing along some invisible "medium"!

His first reaction was of course nervous, and subconsciously wanted to control the tendency of his thinking to "fall" into the deep sea, but before he had time to react, this constant "fall" suddenly stopped.

As if suddenly hit some invisible "limit", or reached the end of the "medium", his perception finally stayed in the deep water at a certain depth below the city-state, and stabilized at this position.

Zhou Ming felt his heart pounding. It was a sudden fall, but halfway through the fall, he was suddenly caught by the rope. It took him nearly half a minute to calm down and control his breathing and heartbeat.

Then he regained his composure, and then he slowly picked up the Prand model in front of him, and observed the thick "rock plate" spreading out from under its base.

The structure is rough and ugly, but overall it is quite regular. Its bottom is a jagged fracture surface, which gives people the feeling... as if it was broken from somewhere, or it was "generated" from top to bottom. ” process was disturbed, resulting in an ugly fracture.

And the internal structure of this disk is completely chaotic, difficult to perceive, difficult to pry.

But Zhou Ming's attention was not on the base of the disc, but on the mid-air below the base.

A part of his extended "consciousness" is now hovering in that position.

Zhou Ming closed his eyes slightly.

In the next second, the perception from afar is instantly strengthened.

He felt that he was in the dark and cold deep sea, and the immeasurable sea water was covering him layer by layer. This feeling of oppression was so real that it seemed that even his consciousness was suppressed and bound. Open your "eyes" in this darkness, but you can only see endless nothingness.

But gradually, there seemed to be some small glimmers of light appearing in the nothingness.

Is that some kind of plankton from the deep sea?Some kind of glowing fish?or something else?
Zhou Ming struggled to identify it for a long time before realizing...that was the bottom of Prand.

He was "looking up" at Prand, and saw the base of the rough disc, with tiny glowing structures in the extreme darkness.

But I can't see what it is at all... The information that can be conveyed through such a long distance and thick sea water is too vague.

Then Zhou Ming slowly adapted and tried to turn his attention to another direction: the deeper depths of the seabed.

All he felt was an endless emptiness, an endless darkness.

In the deep sea... there seems to be nothing.

But after a while, he suddenly felt something vaguely.

Something enormous, lifeless, perhaps even as large as Purand, was sleeping in that vast darkness.

Zhou Ming couldn't see it, couldn't hear it, the extreme darkness and silence hid all the details of that huge existence, but he could be sure that there was something there, silent and dormant, as if it had existed since ancient times.

After an unknown period of time, Zhou Ming returned without success.

In the end, he couldn't "see" what was in the deep sea directly below Prand.

But he was vaguely aware of one thing——

The huge structure hidden directly under the city-state is probably the reason why the Frost Queen, Leh Nora, insisted on advancing the Abyss plan half a century ago!

There are under Frost, there are under Puland, and there are under other city-states... I am afraid there are also some!
Zhou Ming breathed a sigh of relief, stood up, picked up the city-state model of Prand, and slowly walked to the shelf at the end of the room.

Now the model has an extra "base", but it still fits in the storage compartment on the shelf - as if there was enough room for the model and the grid from the beginning.

But before putting the model in, Zhou Ming's eyes fell on the bottom of the base again, and he couldn't help feeling a little doubt in his heart.

His consciousness can spread in the city-state, but in the deep sea, his consciousness obviously exceeded the physical boundary of the city-state model... Its bottom structure stopped abruptly after 850 meters, but after that his consciousness went back to normal. Extending down for 200 meters... How did the subsequent 200 meters extend?What is that invisible medium?
Zhou Ming slowly put the model back on the shelf.

……

The sun rose into the sky again as usual.

In the small open space in front of the antique shop in the lower town of Purland, Duncan watched Nina happily ride her bicycle around, then cycled back and forth in the street, and finally stopped firmly in front of him.

"Uncle! I'm already very skilled!"

Nina propped one foot on the ground with an excited and proud expression on her face.

There was a slight smile on Duncan's face: "Yes, you are really skilled in riding—but your car stopped on my feet."

Nina hurriedly looked down, and immediately moved the wheel away in a panic: "Ah! I'm sorry!"

"It's okay." Duncan smiled and waved his hands, then heaved a sigh of relief and looked up at the street under the sun.

The city-state remains the same.

Below the street illuminated by the sun, the deep darkness and huge shadows seemed to be something from another world, without affecting people's daily life at all.

But since completing the exploration of "below" Prand, he can't help but think of the cold and dark deep sea and the huge structure he perceives in the deep sea.

It distracted him from time to time.

He couldn't help but wonder, was the Frost Queen half a century ago also like this?Did she ever peek into the secrets of the deep sea through some means...even, more than she peeked into?
"Uncle, are you distracted again?"

Nina's voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting Duncan's wild thoughts.

"Are you all right? Been distracted since morning."

"I'm fine," Duncan quickly waved his hand, then looked up at the end of the street, as if to change the subject, "But then again, Alice hasn't come back yet."

"She just left not long ago," Nina said casually, "And you don't have to worry about it, you just went to buy a newspaper, and it's not like you're traveling halfway across the city, so you shouldn't lose it, right?"

"I really don't feel relieved," Duncan sighed, "This is the first time she really went out alone—although it was only to the newsstand at the corner of the street."

"I think it's fine," Nina thought for a while, and said with certainty, "I've practiced with her many times before we set off, including how to explain to people what you want to buy, how to get change, and how to say thank you when you pick up the things. ...she's learned it all."

"Well, I hope," Duncan sighed, "mainly because she was beaten by the pan when she went to the kitchen to get a plate at the beginning of the ship."

Nina was stunned: "I don't think these two things can be generalized..."

While speaking, Alice's figure appeared in the sight of the uncle and nephew.

Miss Doll was holding a newspaper in her arms, with a bright smile on her face, she was jogging towards this side with her neck straight, shouting as she ran, "Mr. Duncan! The newspaper is back!"

Nina laughed: "Look, I said Miss Alice must be fine!"

Duncan was startled when he saw Alice running over, and he rushed to meet her and reminded loudly: "Don't run! Slow down!"

What to say, what to be afraid of, just talking like this, he watched Alice fall down less than five meters in front of his eyes, and fell to the ground.

However, in the next second, the puppet got up like a normal person, patted its skirt, picked up the newspaper that fell on the floor, and came to Duncan with a smile: "Newspaper!"

Duncan didn't take the newspaper right away, but looked at the puppet lady whose head was still there with disbelief on his face. After a long while, he choked out a sentence: "...you fell like this, why didn't your head fall off?"

Alice continued to maintain that confident posture with her neck straight, with a bright smile on her face: "I found a good way to strengthen it!"

Duncan looked at the puppet suspiciously: "A good way?"

Alice: "I put glue on it!"

Duncan: "...?!"

After being dumbfounded for two or three seconds, he couldn't help asking: "Who taught you?"

"Sherry!"

(Because of the day of silence, I moved tomorrow's update to today.)
(End of this chapter)