In the depths of the ruins, one of Slayer's beastly mechanical avatars found the remaining explorers and successfully met up with them.
"Your Excellency Slayer!"
The remaining explorers knelt on one knee and saluted Slayer.
Although the Slayer in front of them was only a Rank-6 avatar, as the mechanical warriors of the Mechanical Palace, they could still identify him through his identity code.
Slayer looked at the explorers kneeling on one knee in front of him and felt a lingering fear in his heart. Although he had already learned about the dangers of the mechanical ruins from the feedback from the explorers, hearing about the dangers and facing the dangers directly were two completely different feelings.
Now that he had personally stepped into the mechanical ruins, various accidents had already occurred before he had even started exploring.
As the explorers completed their exploration of the periphery and used their lives to fill up the dangerous traps in the control area, the dangerous force field that had originally prevented the explorers from entering the inner area had been shut down, allowing them to step into the core area of the mechanical ruins for the first time. However, this did not mean that the danger had disappeared.
Perhaps the opening of the core area had triggered some sort of countermeasure in the mechanical ruins. The short-distance communication methods that could be used in the mechanical ruins had all failed.
This directly caused the mechanical avatars that should have been able to communicate with each other to lose contact the moment they stepped into the mechanical ruins. Although each mechanical avatar had its own consciousness and would not turn into scrap metal due to the loss of contact, this feeling of being unable to control still made Slayer feel a sense of danger.
If this avatar had not appeared at the location where it had coincidentally encountered the remaining explorers, it was likely that all of his avatars would still be wandering aimlessly in the mechanical ruins.
Wandering in the mechanical ruins was originally a very dangerous thing to do.
Compared to the periphery, the danger in the core area did not decrease but instead became more dangerous.
The explorers who had completed their exploration of the periphery lost nearly 60% of their exploration force on the first day they entered the core area because they were not familiar with the area. Now, among the remaining explorers, there were only 21 mechanical avatars, among which there were only five Rank-6 avatars.
"Tell me what you encountered when you entered the core area," Slayer said.
A Type 6 humanoid Mechanic lowered his head and spoke softly, "Your Excellency Carnage, after we completed our exploration of the outer regions and closed the Fatal Force Field, we sent 2 Sentinels into the core region to investigate. Not long after they entered the core region, there were fluctuations of a battle. By the time we sent the second wave of reinforcements, the battle had already ended. Based on the traces of battle, the Sentinels should have encountered the mechanical entities in the core region."
"You're saying that there are other mechanical bodies in the core area of this mechanical wasteland?" Slayer frowned.
Although there were many dangers in the outer regions, most of those dangers came from some traps. As long as one was familiar with the rules and did not wander around carelessly, under normal circumstances, there would not be any fatal dangers. Moreover, after those dangers erupted once, as long as one paid more attention, they could completely avoid the subsequent threats.
However, if there were mechanical bodies patrolling the core area, the situation would only be more dangerous.
This was because these machines could search for targets on their own. Even if they hid in a place without moving, they could still be found.
"There are indeed other mechanical bodies," the Mechanic said.
"After we chose to enter the core area, although we were careful enough, not long after we entered, we encountered patrolling mechanical bodies again and suffered heavy losses."
"How strong are these patrolling mechanical bodies?" Slayer asked.
"Every one of them is stronger than us, but slightly weaker than the Army Commander. However, the most dangerous thing is that they seem to understand our structure very well, and their abilities completely counter us," the Mechanic said softly, as if worried that he would attract the patrolling mechanical bodies if he spoke too loudly.
Slayer heaved a sigh of relief. Judging from the danger level of the traps in the outer regions, this mechanical wasteland had the ability to threaten high-tier powerhouses. If these patrolling mechanical bodies had the strength of a high-tier powerhouse, that would be the worst nightmare.
After his disintegration, he had fallen from the Apostle rank and was unable to fight against high-tier powerhouses. If they encountered a high-tier mechanical body patrolling, it would only take a moment for them to be wiped out.
The strength of a Type 6 was still within an acceptable range.
As for these mechanical bodies restraining explorers, this was completely within his expectations. Moreover, they could restrain explorers, but not him.
"How many patrolling mechanical bodies are there?" Slayer asked.
"Usually, there are two in a group. Not long after we entered the core area, we encountered a group of patrolling mechanical bodies. After a bloody battle, we paid a huge price. We had just killed this group of patrolling mechanical bodies, but before we could retreat, we were surrounded by two other groups of patrolling mechanical bodies. We were unable to fight anymore, so we could only split up and escape. In the end, only these people escaped."
"Were the two groups of patrolling mechanical bodies just passing by, or were they called over by the first group of patrolling mechanical bodies?" Slayer asked.
"We can't tell." The Mechanic shook his head.
"However, according to our speculation, these two groups of patrolling mechanical bodies should have been called over because during the battle, we captured some kind of message being released by the two mechanical bodies that were killed. Although we can't decipher this message, I'm guessing that this message should be a distress or warning message."
Slayer's eyes flashed. The entire core area had a powerful force field interference that prevented him from contacting his other parts. However, these patrolling mechanical bodies were able to send out messages to communicate. This meant that within this strange interference force field, there must be an undisturbed communication channel. If they could decipher this force field and disrupt this communication channel, it would definitely be of great help to the exploration of the core area.
"Where are the two patrolling mechanical bodies that you killed?
Are there any remains left? "Slayer asked.
The Mechanic shook his head.
"We split up and escaped. After we regrouped, we also sent people to the battle site to investigate. The two patrolling mechanical bodies that were originally killed had disappeared. They should have been taken away by the patrolling mechanical bodies that came later. There were only the remains of our dead army soldiers at the scene."
"However, before I left, I found this among the remains of the two patrolling mechanical bodies that were killed."
The Mechanic opened the armor on his chest and took out two fist-sized crystals from within.
The crystals emitted a faint silver glow. Through the silver glow, one could vaguely see bits of starlight in the center of the crystals. These starlights were connected to each other, forming a mysterious rune that was both divine and strange.
Slayer stared at these runes for a long time before finally placing them in his palm.
"What a wonderful piece of work. Just these two crystals alone are priceless," Slayer said with a sigh.
As a Tier 7 Mechanic, although Slayer was not a full-time researcher, his eyesight was very sharp. Naturally, he could tell at a glance that these two crystals were the core of the patrolling mechanical bodies. Those mysterious runes formed by the starlight were the unique energy matrix of this mechanical ruin.
However, even with Slayer's eyesight, he could not tell the function of these energy matrices. They looked far simpler than the Tier 6 energy matrices of the Mechanical King Court. However, within this simplicity, they emitted a powerful energy wave that was far more powerful than an ordinary Tier 6 energy matrix.
This meant that the energy matrix within these crystals was able to unleash a greater effect with fewer energy nodes!
Fewer energy nodes meant that resources would be saved, and the construction difficulty would be reduced. It also meant that more advanced technology would be available.
If these two crystals were sent back to the Mechanical King Court, it could push the energy matrix technology of the Mechanical King Court to a huge leap forward.
The reason why the Mechanical King Court's mechanical and energy technology was able to surpass others, other than the existence of the Supreme Master, was because of the excavation of mechanical ruins.
Every time they successfully excavated a mechanical ruin, the Mechanical King Court would be able to absorb the excavated data and complete a technological leap.
For such results, the Supreme Master was never stingy with his rewards!
These were merely the cores of two patrolling mechanical bodies, and it had already brought such a surprise. If he could find more valuable things and bring them back to the Mechanical King Court, not only would he be able to make up for this failure, he might even be able to obtain an even greater reward. Perhaps he could use this mechanical ruin to take another step forward and step into Tier 8!
For the mechanical bodies of the Mechanical King Court, after becoming a high-tier mechanical apostle, if there were no special rewards, they would never be able to take another step forward. In order to obtain special rewards, the simplest way was to explore the mechanical ruin and obtain what the Supreme Master wanted.
Within the Mechanical King Court, most of the Tier 8 and Tier 9 apostles had reached that step through this method.
Slayer stored the two crystals into his body and said in a deep voice, "Be careful.
Try your best to avoid clashing with the patrolling mechanical bodies. First, find my other clones. After we meet up, we will hunt the patrolling mechanical bodies and explore the core area. "
Slayer did not notice that after he absorbed the two crystals into his body, the Mechanic kneeling on one knee had a slight change in his eyes.
He was one of the first explorers to step into the mechanical ruin. The reason he took the risk to enter was to accumulate enough merit points to exchange for the Supreme Master's reward and step into the high-tier!
Throughout the entire exploration process, he had encountered countless dangers. He had personally seen countless companions turn into wreckage during the exploration process. After changing batches of explorers, he was the only Mechanic in the first batch of explorers who had survived until now. Naturally, he had also become the leader of this exploration team.
He was also very clear about the value of these two crystals. If Slayer had not stepped into the mechanical ruin and he had brought these two crystals out, he would have at least received half of the exploration reward. That would be a large amount of merit points, and he would definitely be able to exchange for enough to step into the high-tier.
But now, these two crystals that represented a large amount of merit points had been taken away by Slayer!
It was completely conceivable that in the subsequent explorations, all the exploration results would fall into Slayer's hands.
Although he, as a member of the exploration team, could also share some of the rewards, it would only be a very small portion. It would not be enough for him to step into the high-tier.
During the long period of exploration in the outer regions, when faced with all kinds of dangers, Slayer did not enter. Now, as soon as he stepped into the core area, Slayer came in to harvest the exploration results.
Not only did this break the rules of exploration, but it also destroyed his chances of stepping into the high-tier!
Slayer's actions caused him to have thoughts that he should not have for the first time.