Chapter 2001
The secret passage led to a narrow chamber. Below was a long bridge flanked by towering gears and transmission shafts, interspersed with dangling iron chains.
Fang Hong judged that this was a part of the steering room—the airship's rudder surfaces were formed by the large horizontal wings and vertical tails, requiring equally complex transmission devices to control the wing surfaces. Even with the use of magic guided technology, mechanical transmission was still necessary.
The Seven Seas Traveler also had such a steering room at the stern; the steering room of this ship must be even larger, allowing for such a secret chamber.
The design was very ingenious; it was difficult for an average person to think of such a thing.
However, in Fang Hong's view, this could only guard against their own people. The airship was only so large; if an external enemy invaded and wanted to uncover secrets from the ship, tearing it apart plank by plank wouldn't consume that much time.
But upon descending below, he realized he had been naive.
As he walked down the stairs, under the dim light of the illumination crystal, Fang Hong inadvertently noticed some strange patterns on the ceiling. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a part of a giant alchemy array.
It was an impact array, similar to the detonation matrix on a Magic Guided Gun, but he had never seen one so enormous.
Cold sweat broke out on his head at the thought that this array was possibly connected to the Nine-Star Sequence array outside. If he had made a careless mistake before, or someone had accidentally triggered that array, its power might be enough to blow the rear half of the ship along with the people inside sky-high.
This was the steering room, after all.
Fang Hong was almost certain that the ship's owner left this array to guard the secret here, not hesitating to blow up his own ship—even going down with it.
Feeling both a sense of trepidation and curiosity, he withdrew his gaze, took out a short knife, and made a cut on the array, severing its magic transmission.
This array was extremely dangerous to invade from the outside, but once inside, it was easy to dismantle if one understood the principle.
Only after completing these actions did Fang Hong feel safe letting the others come down.
The long bridge below was not spacious, allowing only two people to walk side by side. He and Ai Xiaoxiao led the way, with others following behind.
After just a few steps, Fang Hong stopped.
Walking alongside him, Ai Xiaoxiao looked at the object ahead, uttering a soft "ah."
"There, there's something there," she turned around and said, stammering.
Fang Hong naturally saw the slender silhouette emerging in the darkness.
Identical to the previous construct, with an arthropod-like trunk and a pointed hat. However, they hung their heads; their eyes did not glow red, and their hands were naturally drooping, holding the Eleventh Magic Guided Guns upright on the ground. Even the magic guided reactors behind them were dark, in a dormant state.
These constructs were arranged opposite each other along the sides of the long bridge, with a total of ten units.
"These constructs haven't been activated," Fang Hong thought, surprised at the quiet constructs. When that previous construct fell off the cliff, he actually felt a bit regretful, but didn't expect to find so many of its counterparts in this secret room—and all in an inactive state.
Perhaps this was the true legacy that the pirate leader recorded in the logs.
However, he remained cautious, as he had never encountered similar constructs using magic guided reactors, and there could be some external energy source. Fang Hong moved closer, and when the others saw that these constructs seemed not to be a significant threat, they followed one by one.
Especially Ai Xiaoxiao behind Fang Hong, who looked curious, blinking her eyes.
Fang Hong gradually entered the range of the construct's long blade attack, paused, looked up—and seeing that the constructs remained motionless, he felt slightly relieved, took another step forward, and raised his hand.
He glanced again at the constructs, all ten with their heads hanging low, motionless.
Feeling completely assured, Fang Hong gently placed his hand on its chest and closed his eyes, activating the resonance crystal in his control gloves.
But the next instant, the feedback surprised him greatly:
Though magic power was injected, the sensing felt empty. Neither could he connect to the opposing resonance crystal, nor could he sense the location of the core crystal.
Could it be that these constructs haven't been equipped with core crystals? The thought emerged in Fang Hong's mind.
He quickly opened his eyes, scanning the shield-shaped chest plate. Alchemists' work often had similarities, and this construct seemed to be the handiwork of Imperials, so Fang Hong reached for the habitually placed mechanism behind the chest plate according to Imperial artisans' habits: there indeed was a latch.
He gently flicked it open, reached his hand back, and pulled down the chest plate with a "whoosh"—usually, this would be where the core crystal is installed, and the resonance crystal wouldn't be far. But the actual view left Fang Hong momentarily stunned: inside were dense circuits, gear sets, and some nameless devices—no core crystal or resonance crystal to be found.
Was the core crystal really not in the center? Didn't they consider the efficiency of magic power conduction and loss in the process? But judging from the previous construct's performance, it didn't seem too cumbersome either.
Could it be a distributed core crystal system? But were the Imperials still using such outdated and inefficient designs?
Fang Hong retreated to carefully observe this construct again. Its slender limbs also seemed to lack places for core crystals. The only possible location might be the pointed hat on top of its head.