Endless route

Chapter 256 26. The ancient city environment and sea route rupture

The scientific research ship rides the wind and waves on the sea, non-stop in the Pacific Ocean, and only takes a day and a half to jump again, officially entering the East Passage of the Endless Sea Route, sailing straight towards the east.

Because the foggy sea blocked the view, the people on the ship didn't even see the mainland. The only evidence that they passed the earth were the seagulls in the sky and the dolphins in the sea.

These intelligent creatures will follow humans along the busiest shipping routes and follow the passing cargo ships in search of French fries.

What follows is a boring journey that lasts for half a month. After passing the earth, the vast sea is no longer attractive. Zheng Yun and others can only watch TV in the room, or go to the deck to feed the seagulls, just like traveling. have to.

Seventh day at sea.

The research vessel enters E-02.

Zheng Yun and others had a meal with Professor Zhang. Unlike them who had nothing to do, the professors on the scientific research ship were very busy and held meetings almost every day to conduct research.

According to Professor Zhang, the biome of the ruins of the ancient city of Nanze is very special. There are a large number of unknown creatures in the swamps, and there are not many research records by modern humans.

Swamp areas have almost no economic value to humans. Even if there are gold mines, it is difficult to mine them. The economic value will affect the research value, and the number of scholars choosing this field is rare.

Nothing to talk about.

But I really don’t know much.

The ruins of the ancient city of Nanze are on the southwest continent of E-07, very close to the northern coast, and can be regarded as an ancient port city.

But south of the ancient city is an extremely large swamp area. In the area where the ruins are located, the depth of the swamp may be close to a hundred meters, and it becomes deeper as you go south. Hundreds of kilometers south of the ancient city of Nanze, the depth of the swamp reaches a thousand meters.

Almost as deep as the sea.

The size can also be called a swamp sea.

The archaeological team speculated from the data obtained that in the early days of the establishment of the ancient city of Nanze, the swamp sea was located far south of the ancient city, and it was only later that the ancient city of Nanze was slowly flooded.

Perhaps this reason can explain why the ancient city of Nanze suddenly disappeared "overnight", because the swamps threatened to flood the city, and the ancient city had no choice but to relocate the people.

But it cannot explain the gaps in the historical record.

Nowadays, the entire ancient city ruins are submerged in swamps. Only when the swamp water level drops during the dry season, the ancient city ruins will be exposed in the swamp, allowing explorers to enter.

But even in the dry season, the depth of the swamp is more than 30 meters. The ruins of the ancient city are buried in the swamp. The exploration environment is very harsh. If you are not careful, you will fall into the swamp and be difficult to escape.

The ecological environment is also very complex.

Many swamp creatures are extremely dangerous. They hide in swamps. Millions of years of evolution have made their body temperatures exactly the same as those of swamps, making them impossible to detect with thermal imaging.

Humans have little ability to spot them.

But they are a deadly threat to humans.

Professor Zhang showed several photos. There are snake-like creatures that are tens of meters long in the swamp area. They hunt for prey through sound waves. If they are dragged around the ankles and dragged into the swamp, they will definitely die.

Based on the habits of this creature, Professor Zhang believes that sound is the core key to the swamp area. The archaeological team should use acoustic equipment to detect it and try not to make any sound.

"The Endless Route has built a passage across planets. In addition to humans, living creatures have also crossed the foggy sea for hundreds of millions of years and entered neighboring planets through natural migration."

"But E-07 is too far away from the earth. The ecological environment here is completely different from the earth. The swamp ecology is a semi-isolated ecology, and there are many weird things."

Professor Zhang kept showing photos.

The creatures above are more bizarre than the last.

The painting style of the Nanze ruins is also very rare. It is located deep in a tropical rain forest. The ancient city wall is buried in the turbid mud, and only the tips of the stone towers on the wall are exposed.

Judging from the photos.

The ancient city of Nanze has a subtle sense of lethality, and the mysterious and dangerous atmosphere created by the complex environment rushes towards you.

"How can such a big snake not cause casualties?" Hu Ruihua became extremely worried when he saw the picture.

As an old rescue team.

He knew the dangers of the swamp.

"Is there no detection method?" Liu Ming asked.

"This kind of snake-like creature is not a snake. It has no visual organs and can penetrate into the depths of the swamp. It also makes no sound when it moves, making it difficult to detect." Professor Zhao shook his head.

"It's really dangerous."

Zheng Yun was also worried.

The environment is so bad that it is really difficult to achieve the goal of zero casualties. Fortunately, not all areas are flooded by swamps. The ancient city of Nanze has paved stone pillar roads in the swamps.

"Why did the Ming Dynasty build a city in a place like this? In fact, this continent has better ports." Professor Zhang looked at Zheng Yun and asked, while showing photos of small Western countries.

There is a city to the west of the ruins, which is very rich in gold mines and natural gas and biogas resources. It was originally a British colony, and later became an independent small country and modernized.

"Not sure."

Zheng Yun shook his head.

Professor Zhang asked this question as if he knew everything. He had to let Ji Dao read the book on this matter.

They also made some preparations in the past seven days. Zheng Yun asked Jidao to go back to Tiangong to look for ancient books, and found the construction drawings of the ancient city of Nanze from the Haiwei City Annals.

Tiangong even has the drawings of Hongwu Ancient City, so it is logical to find the drawings of Nanze Ancient City. This is undoubtedly a major discovery and the greatest advantage of the contemporary Jianxian Division.

This drawing is very detailed and well-preserved. It has not been bitten by mice or mosquitoes. It is slightly less complex than the Hongwu Ancient City, but it is still a thick volume.

Yellowed paper is more fragile.

Ji Dao captured it all with a camera, and it is now on Zheng Yun's mobile phone and tablet, and can be viewed at any time.

As long as Zheng Yun and others get into the ruins of the ancient city from the swamp, they can use this blueprint to reach the core of the ruins, such as the capital command office of the ancient city of Nanze.

But the crux of the matter is that the drawings are just construction drawings. The internal structures are detailed and clear, but they are not maps after all.

There are drawings of the ancient city.

But I don’t know where the ancient city is.

There was a slight discrepancy with the information provided by the archaeological team. They only found a drawing of the ancient city, which was not divided into three ancient city districts at all, but only one city.

This city is smaller than Hongwu.

It is difficult to accommodate millions of people.

Therefore, Zheng Yun suspected that there had been informal expansion of the Nanze Ancient City ruins in history, which was not recorded. The drawings in their hands were only those of the main urban area.

It could be another case.

Other ancient urban areas are not urban areas at all, but some other types of buildings, such as the ancient buildings of gods and ghosts or the ruins of Haiwei.

The ancient city chronicles only record the city.

It does not remember the ancient buildings built by Haiwei.

Judging from the many ancient ghost buildings they had seen before, Haiwei's construction of ghost buildings was also very generous, and it could also be compared with "no historical records".

If it is true as Zheng Yun guessed, then there may be a large ancient ghost building in the ruins of Nanze Ancient City, and it is unknown what is inside, making this exploration even more dangerous.

In the past, when they were active on the Western Route, most of the dangerous places with ghosts and ghosts could find some information on the Immortal Mansion Map. The Immortal Mansion Map did not appear many times, but every time it was crucial.

Hades Pavilion can be found in La Maine Town.

Hanxian Cave can be found in the extremely cold mountains.

You can also learn about Ba Yuan Cave in Qixian Island.

Due to the age when the Xianfu Map was drawn or some reasons, the Xianfu Map does not record the transformation of Hanxian Cave and Ba Yuan Cave by later generations of sea guards, but it at least records the source.

Source is very important.

Everyone is a Supervisor, and their brain circuits are basically the same. They can guess the purpose of Triton, Lock Yuhanxian and Deep Sea Trash Can by looking at the source. No matter how outrageous it is, they can roughly guess it.

But not this time.

The map of the Immortal Palace that Zheng Yun dug out from his adoptive father's basement was a fragment. It only recorded things about the Western Air Route, starting from W-06 and probably up to around W-15.

The belt tag left by his adoptive father said that the Western Region Commandery was the commander, and the Western Region Commandery was in charge of the Western Route areas, so the Western Region Commandery only had the Western Route portion of the Immortal Mansion Map at hand.

If nothing unexpected happens.

There are still two fragments of the Immortal Mansion Map, one from E-05 to W-05, and the other from E-06 to the east.

Judging from the location of the Immortal Mansion Map on the Western Route, it is speculated that the other Immortal Mansion Maps may be on Earth and in a certain capital on the Eastern Route.

There is also a key message.

The ‘key to the city gate’ as Nia and others call it.

They directly found the blueprint of the ancient city, but they couldn't find any place that required a 'key' to open it.

Continuing previous speculation.

The key could be a fairy door.

They focused on studying the underground waterways of Nanze Ancient City, trying to find the same structure as the Fuci Museum and Hongwu Ancient City, and find the location where the Immortal Gate is suspected to exist.

The possibility of having a fairy gate is very high.

There are five black jade gates on the left hand side of the secret realm, which lead to places such as Fu'en and Blessings. There are also five black jade gates on the right hand side, which must lead to certain five places along the Eastern Route.

The Ming Dynasty built a small number of cities in E-07, and the ancient city of Nanze is huge. Maybe there really is a fairy gate in Nanze.

The fairy gates are all in the underground waterways.

They were forced to drill in every time.

The ruins of Nanze Ancient City also have sewers. Due to the special environment of the ancient city, this sewer system is very complex and its size is much larger than other ancient cities. It can be called an underground city.

Zheng Yun is not afraid of complexity.

I'm afraid of this even if I have drawings.

But the key point is that Nanze was flooded by swamps. The sewers were in the deepest part of the ancient city and must have been buried by the swamps.

If they want to find the fairy gate, they may still have to put on a closed diving suit, carry an oxygen tank on their back and crawl into the swamp.

The swamp is completely different from the deep sea. The visual distance is completely zero, and the pressure is much greater than that of the deep sea. In addition, the giant swamp snake that Professor Zhang just mentioned makes people's scalp numb.

Really worried.

Not yet arriving in Nanze, Zheng Yun could only make a rough plan. Their first goal was to find the Immortal Sect.

First, use the ancient building drawings at hand to find the main city on the drawings from the three ancient city districts, and then find a way to go in and take a look. If you find the fairy gate, you will find a teleportation point.

If necessary.

Zheng Yunhui shared the drawings with the archaeological team.

This drawing only depicts the main city and should not involve dangerous places. They could 'accidentally discover' this drawing during the expedition and give it to the Western Archaeological Team Xu Yu.

This move has several benefits.

The first is to return Xu Yu's favor and discover that the blueprint of the ancient city of Nanze must be the most critical major archaeological discovery in the early stages of exploration, which can make Xu Yu come out on top and gain face.

Second, once this blueprint is obtained, the exploration cores of the four archaeological teams should be biased toward the main city, away from other ancient ghost buildings, to reduce the risk of exploration.

The archaeological team can save a few lives.

Try to complete the feat with zero casualties.

Zheng Yun had no objection to asking the Cultural Relics Bureau to explore the main city and take away all the cultural relics in a protective manner. He only wanted magical weapons and artifacts of gods and ghosts, and everything else was useless.

"It's hard to tell if you don't know." Professor Zhang sighed deeply when he heard that Zheng Yun didn't know the purpose of Haiwei's construction of the city: "The archaeological team can't explain the purpose of Haiwei."

"There is no record in history?"

Zheng Yun asked tentatively, wanting to know how much the archaeological team knew about the ancient city of Nanze and what information the Cultural Relics Bureau had. Maybe they knew more than he did.

In fact, he can also sit in on meetings of the archaeological team.

But during this period, Jidao had to go back to Tiangong every day, and Zheng Yun had to stay in the room. Besides, he didn't want to be in the limelight. Once he went to a meeting, everyone would look at him a few times.

"The entrance of the Eastern Passage is in the east of the Pacific Ocean. You can jump all the way eastward. It is slightly different from the Western Passage where you have to turn around and turn back. Logically, it symbolizes the distance."

"Since the Qin Dynasty, rumors of immortals in the east have spread more widely. Therefore, from the 15th to the 17th century, the Eastern Sea Route was the most important direction of exploration for the Ming Dynasty. The naval forces, mainly Haiwei, headed eastward. Qiu Xian asked."

"From Earth to E-09, everywhere is the territory of the Ming Dynasty. It is almost a private land of the Ming Dynasty. Outsiders were once prohibited from entering. It was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that Western ships entered. No one knows what the Ming Dynasty did on the Eastern Sea Route."

Professor Zhang also shook his head.

This is what the archaeological team said. Triton did not leave these records, and no one knows what is on the Eastern Sea Route.

"That's true." Zheng Yun roughly understood.

Nia previously said that the Royal Museum determined that the ancient city of Nanze was built when Western navigators discovered the abandoned ancient city in the late seventeenth century.

That navigator was among the first to enter E-07 and recorded all the scenery along the way.

The Earth is only over 14,000 kilometers away from E-07. Compared with the 40,000 kilometers away from the Earth's equator, it is not that difficult to get to E-07. Even E-09, which is 18,000 kilometers away from the Earth, is not that difficult. How many.

In fact, with human capabilities, it would not be difficult to physically travel to W-42C, which is 84,000 kilometers away, unless we encounter several planets with extremely harsh sea conditions.

Nothing more than circling the earth twice.

In ancient times, fleets could do this.

This is actually a question of reasons and motivation for exploration. For any ocean-going fleet in ancient times, it was more difficult to enter the east route than the west route.

At least before the development of America and Australia, the ancients could only enter the Western Route along Asia from the Japanese Islands. It was very simple for Triton to control the route with the help of geographical advantages. The Western Route was accessible at will, but the Eastern Route was not allowed.

Ming Dynasty control forced the West to develop the United States and Australia.

After the United States and Australia were developed, the situation changed. The route from the west to the east became easier, and Triton could not defend the two to three thousand kilometers of the Mist Sea.

The key question here is that there are few natural planets from the earth to E-09, and even the extremely cold ice sea of ​​W-08 does not exist. The ancients could reach E-09 unimpeded.

But no one knows whether the Eastern Sea Route has always been broken or whether it just broke at a certain moment.

The Endless Route breaks off at E-09 on the Eastern Route. The foggy sea in E-09 is not an inverted V, but has only one path. After entering, you can only return and there is no other exit.

Compared with the W-42C, which is about to cross the Milky Way Cantilever on the west route, the break on the east route seems very strange.

Not only is there no record of Eastern Triton.

There are no relevant records in the entire West.

The earliest historical record of discovering the E-09 fracture was discovered by Westerners in the early 18th century. It was the navigator Niya mentioned. His name is very famous.

But it stands to reason that Triton should have been to E-09 a long time ago, even in the 16th century, because the ancient city of Nanze in E-07 was built in the 16th century.

1572 to be precise.

Triton City has built a city in Nanze, how could it be possible that they haven’t been to E-09? But the rupture was discovered by Westerners first. There must be something wrong with this. Maybe Triton deliberately concealed it.

before the eighteenth century.

What is the situation with E-09?

Is the other side of E-09 the abandoned place?