Before the night fell, Lu Ning and his group of six people had already left the camp.
Before leaving the outer city, Jean had already purchased enough "treasure maps". In the past few days, during patrols, everyone also conducted some reconnaissance on the locations of the wasteland marked by the treasure maps. As for which ones should be It's a bit of a judgment that it's a truly valuable relic.
The final choice was an eggshell-shaped building that was almost buried in a mountain. The ruins located in the wasteland are basically the resources of the black carvings, and because the terrain in the mountainous area is quite bad, not many people usually go there, and it takes a long time to travel.
Near noon, everyone finally saw the "eggshell" on a hilltop. The building part was very inconspicuous among the large white rock formations, not to mention that the main part was almost buried. It took quite a lot of effort just to find it. Sharp eyes.
"In short, everyone should be prepared for what the situation is in the ruins, but each ruin may be different, so it's better to be prepared." Jean warned.
"Okay! Let's go in and take a look now!" Yuan Jie was gearing up and couldn't wait.
Pushing aside the thatch that was taller than a person, everyone finally saw the door that was almost integrated with the rock. From the remaining lines around it, it seemed that this place used to be a relatively high-tech place. Lu Ning scraped off a sign next to the door. After the dirt and dust on it, the writing on it was barely legible.
[Genius Vera’s personal research institute! 】
"Institute?" Yan Rong looked at the house number and couldn't help but frowned, "This kind of place always gives me a bad association, especially if it's abandoned."
"After experiencing so many scenes, you should know that normal scientific research actually has very strict regulations, and many scientific researches have been demonized - but the premise is that it is normal scientific research." Jean said seriously, "Vera is a person I I’ve never heard of it, have you heard of it?”
"It has probably disappeared into history a long time ago." Zhu Qinyuan shook his head, "We have to go in no matter what, right?"
The door had long lost its normal opening and closing function. Zhu Qinyuan and Yuan Jie used weapons to pry the door open. A smell like disinfectant came out, but there was no smell of dust or decay. This also made everyone feel better again. He was a little wary and walked into the research institute.
It's very bright inside.
There are no lights or anything like that, but the walls, ceilings and corridors themselves radiate light, giving the interior of the institute a very pleasant light. Entering from the door, there is a large room after a short aisle, which should be used as a rest area. Some tables, chairs and sofas are placed here as you like. There are also coffee machines, water dispensers, and vending machines next to it. and board game cabinet, spotless.
Lu Ning walked to the coffee machine and didn't see any power interface. She touched the screen, and then the screen lit up. It displayed several types of coffee, including milk, hot chocolate and other drinks. Lu Ning He took out a paper coffee cup from under the glass tube next to it and tried pressing the cappuccino button. Hot coffee and milk were quickly poured into the cup.
"It's still usable..." The bisheng next to him also slowly picked up a drink from the water dispenser, which seemed to be juice. Yuan Jie took out a can of tomato soup from the vending machine. After opening it, there was a hint of slightly sour soup smell in the air.
"Be careful." Yan Rong walked around the vast space and turned back. "This place seems to be still operating normally."
Yuan Jie took a sip of the soup and immediately showed a satisfied smile: "It tastes great! I heard that canned food can be stored for a long time, and it's true!"
"I don't think coffee beans have the same shelf life." Lu Ning took a sip of coffee, and the bitter taste fell into her throat, but the aroma of coffee did not diminish. Even with her meager coffee knowledge, she could tell that the quality of the coffee was not bad, at least it wasn't the instant kind.
"How long has this place not been used?" Jean also looked around. There were four corridors around the wide room, but he hadn't explored it in depth yet. He only investigated them all carefully and concluded that this was indeed a very well-designed place. A suitable place to rest, so suitable that there is nothing to show the time.
Clocks, calendars...including the board games on the shelves and the products in the vending machines do not have anything related to dates.
"Don't you think this is strange?" Jean said after explaining to everyone.
Lu Ning put the coffee on the table. She didn't really need it to keep her mind clear. She was already a little too sober.
"Not surprisingly."
"If there is no sense of time in a place like the Institute, a lot of troubles will happen." Jean said.
"So as I said before, this is not a normal research institute. Since the things here will not be damaged no matter how long it takes, then maybe time is meaningless here." Lu Ning said.
"We have to move on, there is nothing here." Zhu Qinyuan pointed to the four corridors, "Fortunately there are street signs here. These four corridors lead to the Research Department, Collection Department, Liaison Department and Processing Department respectively. From the name We can't tell where the treasure will be."
"I'm going to go to the collection department to take a look first." Lu Ning made a judgment immediately, "I want to know what this research institute is used for."
"Should we act separately?" Yuan Jie asked.
"If the treasure can really attack, I think the number of people in itself means little. After all, we have encountered both treasures that can completely separate people and bring people together."
"If this is a place where time is played, we have to be careful." Yan Rong said, "Don't just attack everything you see. There are too many ways to attack each other through time."
"You can rest assured about this. I can extract the time track here at any time to observe whether there is any time disorder here." Lu Ning waved her hand, and a ball of gray fluid coiled around her fingertips. "But in order to prevent anything from happening, it's best to add a few more Individuals act together.”
"Then let's go to the collection department with you first. We have to explore everything here." Jean also rubbed the ring on his hand.
The styles of the four corridors are also different. The corridor of the collection department is decorated with many paintings, but the paintings all look very abstract and it is impossible to tell what the content is. There are numbers composed of numbers and letters below the frame. Lu Ning memorized a few of them, and then came to the stairs at the end. After going up the stairs, there was a room with many metal frames neatly arranged. Some of the metal shelves are covered with black curtains, while others are not, and the uncovered shelves are empty. The metal shelves take up only half of the room; the other half is occupied by a few desks and many empty glass boxes.
Lu Ning walked to a glass box and took a look. The craftsmanship of the box was quite unique. It did not use any material other than transparent glass. The glass itself had a light green color, but it was not obvious. She looked at the desks again. The things on each desk were neatly arranged and looked quite orderly. There were unfinished documents on some tables, and there was even a cup of coffee on one table - the same paper cup as the one Lu Ning took before.
"Phenomena Observation Report T-13-0873, 'Time Series Heteroscedastic Diffraction'." Yan Rong picked up a report on the table and read, "What is being done here is indeed time-related research."
"The research institute of Genius Vera... It seems that Vera is the director here." Jean also picked up a report, "This one is about the derivation of the space conversion matrix under fault time."
"Oh~" Lian Bisheng drawled his voice, holding a report stamped with the word "Rejected" in his hand, "Regarding the calculation of the multi-dimensional time mechanism, it seems that there are many calculation errors that have been checked out... …I can’t understand these things.”
"Then how do you know there is a calculation error?" Zhu Qinyuan asked.
"They've all been circled."
While everyone was checking the desk, Yuan Jie had already walked to a metal frame covered with a black curtain, stretched out his hand and opened it a little.
"Wow!"
His scream immediately attracted everyone's attention, and Jean immediately walked over and pulled Yuan Jie away from the curtain. A faint white halo enveloped his body and also spread to Yuan Jie.
"what happened?"
"No, it's just... in short, this is really the place where the collection is collected." Yuan Jie didn't know how to describe it for a moment, but finally he gently opened the curtain. As expected, there were indeed glass boxes placed on these metal shelves. Different What's interesting is that these boxes have something inside and are completely sealed.
There is only a glass box in the opened area. Inside is a meat ball. It is suspended in the center of the box and is getting bigger and bigger. Judging from the purple and black color, it looks like something is happening. mutation. Deformed eyes slowly appeared in the middle of the mass of flesh, and the cells were differentiating into different organs and tissues, but without exception they all grew in the wrong place. This was not entirely a human being, it also had many animal parts.
"Phenomena number T-9-2902." Jean glanced at the label marked below, "Can you check if there are any similar records in the files over there?"
"Easy to handle." Lu Ning flicked her fingers, and the surrounding items immediately began to enter the "past". As a treasure, suddenly yesterday still faithfully reproduced Lu Ning's vision. She used this time to quickly browse the table and files. All the documents in the cabinet then released the retroactive state, and reached out to pull out the document with the same number.
"Phenomena T-9-2902, a multi-temporal composite variant, has been safely included." Lu Ning read the title, and then began to browse the difficult and obscure text in it. Even now that all her energy can be used to think, she still It makes my head hurt to watch.
Let's close the curtain again, and it's better not to come into contact with these weird things before we understand what's going on here. Everyone continued their investigation, and Zhu Qinyuan quickly pulled out a memorandum from the corner of a table where a suspected new researcher was pressed by a book.
"The institute has classified all phenomena into sixteen categories, using numbers from 0 to 15 to distinguish them." Zhu Qinyuan glanced at the number explanation on the memo. This was obviously because the newcomer was afraid that he would not remember it and wrote it here first. Yes, there is no such thing on other tables.
"What is number nine?" Jean asked.
"Multidimensional time phenomena."
"As expected."
Lu Ning put the document back and asked, "What is No. 0?"
"Time loop phenomenon." Zhu Qinyuan answered quickly.
"This research institute really studies various time phenomena... The most outrageous thing is that there are so many phenomena to study here." Yan Rong flipped through and found that there were all kinds of reports and records here, and he started to feel overwhelmed. These things are a bit too advanced, and I don’t know what the typical words mean when put together.
"Obviously even if there is treasure here, it must be the things covered over there. If it is a time-based treasure, of course it is very strong. The question is... can we deal with it?" Lian Bisheng curled his lips, "I don't think so. We can look at these reports as geniuses.”
"No Vera." Lu Ning flipped through a few more documents.
"What?"
"The owner of this research institute, Vera, there is no relevant record of her here. Even all the researchers have numbers. Vera has not even signed any documents." Lu Ning said.
Lian Bisheng grinned: "Then I have a very interesting idea. Since this is a time research institute..."
"Bringing together the selves from different time periods?" Jean quickly realized, "It's not impossible. This is indeed Vera's personal research institute, and there is no need to use signatures for you and yourself, just make a distinction. .
"I don't think so." Zhu Qinyuan shook his head.
"Um?"
"The living habits left behind on these desks are different. Although the environment will have some impact on people, if Vera does that, she will definitely give priority to herself within a fixed period of time so that the cooperation can be more tacit, but these people Some of the personal marks left on the desk made a noticeable difference."
Some of the handwritten fonts, arrangement, position of the pen holder, and the style of some small decorations on the document - a person may have one or two changes at different times, but all of them are different, which only means that they are not the same person.
"Researchers should have been recruited here, but it probably once belonged to Vera personally." Zhu Qinyuan said.
"So, should we lift the curtain and see what happens, or should we explore other places first?" Lian Bisheng asked.
"Seeking stability." Lu Ningyan said concisely and concisely.
The collection department has not found nothing. The numbers of the paintings in the corridor also correspond to some collection phenomena here, but the specific meaning is still not clear.
"I'm afraid there will be a lot of things in the research department. Let's go to the liaison department first." Jean made the next choice for the team. This department is probably the one with the lowest scientific research content in the entire institute.
Different from the corridor of the collection department, there are many screens in the corridor of the liaison department, and some strange black and white videos with unknown content are still playing. Lu Ning always feels that these are like some inferior midnight horror movie clips. In fact, there are no monsters on the screen. It's the distorted, blurry and weird images and subtle screeching sounds that are unsettling.
But Lu Ning doesn't feel uneasy.
