If a superior mage soars in the sky and looks out at the ground, the lush landscape of the Nogo Mountains can be seen in this place with a gray color that is very different from the surroundings. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoThis is the Ampton Mine, and a large circle of mountains has long since lost its original appearance due to years of mining. In the center is a flat land that was originally used to pile ores, and the nearby sparsely vegetated hillside is dotted with some scattered buildings, if you look closely, the winding roads on the hillside lead to the dark and dark mines, and at the entrance of the caves, you can also find some scattered thick wooden strips.

This is the sleeper of the minecart track. Minecarts loaded with ore are extremely heavy, and the efficiency of the miners alone is undoubtedly very low, and the ore can be transported out of the mine with relative ease with the use of cables and slides. However, after the outbreak of the Sixth Eta War, the miners of the Ampton mines fled, and they were completely abandoned without maintenance - until a bandit group of farmers, routs and vagrant civilians took over the area.

But they didn't mine, they just did some remodeling work in the mine and settled here.

A pipe clings to the mountain wall and protrudes into a certain mine, and in front of the mouth of this cave, three figures appear at the moment when the sun rises.

Oliver led the way into the mine with a torch, and behind him, veterans Scott and Miss Ladia followed. Veteran Scott observed the rock wall of the mine in the light of torches, with obvious marks of knives and axes, and thick wooden planks nailed together in an "X" shape on the top, like a long snake, extending from the hole to the depths of the mine - in order to protect the safety of the miners, the nobles who first developed the mine built good support facilities for the mine.

"This place, I haven't been here for a long time. Since last year I went down with Glo to replace a part of the water system. ”

Oliver stepped on the steel bars of the minecart's tracks, the rusty, uneven surface losing its original color and being buried in rubble and dirt. With his other hand, he swept away the cover with his broadsword, revealing a section of pipe in the corner of the tunnel.

The three of them continued to walk forward, and soon came to a crossings with multiple branches. On the nearby rock face hangs a worn wooden plaque with a line of standard Elantra script written in black ink paint.

Radia looked at it and immediately recognized it, it was the handwriting of the bandit leader, and she said softly: "The second one from the left hand." ”

"I know."

Oliver replied. Although most of the bandits were illiterate in terms of literacy ability, Oliver barely had a certain cultural foundation under Glo's demonstration and teaching. A sentence spelled together by a few simple words, he easily recognized it. What's more, when the water supply system was first built, he was still very impressed.

They had exterminated a nest of bats in the cave - there were so many bats hanging upside down on the top of the cave that there was no telling how many of them, and the wind even echoed in the cave when these supposedly blood-eating animals flapped their wings with thin fleshy membranes. A dense web of arrows, flames, and wire, after two days of fighting, the ground was covered with foul-smelling flesh.

The boots stomped on them, and there was a crunch of "squeak, squeak" bones shattering, and the pulpy shredded flesh made the ground wet and slippery, and he remembered that a guy had fallen on his head in one of these disgusting things, and everyone was heckling and gloating—until now, he could still find bits and pieces of bat bones in the dust.

The three of them gradually came to the depths of the mine.

Scott and Oliver walked ahead, and Miss Lady, Lady, Radia, cast [Illumination], which is a level 0 application spell, which does not belong to the professional skills of the inaugural mage, of course, the premise of other professions is to have a mana pool - after the two men found out that Radia had the function of a humanoid walking oil lamp, they smiled and immediately extinguished the torch in their hands.

The sound of the water can already be faintly heard.

"This is it?"

Miss Radia asked.

Oliver nodded. In front of the three of them, there was a long winding staircase downward, and in the distance you could see a large puddle of water reflecting the light. The space was open, almost the size of the flat field in the middle of the mine, and at the end of the staircase, in the corner of the slippery rock, a vertical, metallic pipe was buried straight into the water.

"This is the sump."

Oliver paused. He had no intention of getting to the pipe and needed to run water, and Miss Radia took out a small notebook from her bosom, glanced at the pipe, and bent down on her knees to record it.

"Is this where the water goes to the mines?"

"Yes."

Scott also recalls his impressions.

"Glo seems to have said that this is using a principle called siphon."

Oliver added. When the water supply system was built, there was no one in the bandit group who was curious, and when those people gathered around the bandit leader Glo to ask this question, he answered it like this. As for what exactly the "siphon" is, Oliver doesn't know.

Miss Mage buried her head in the calculations, but after a while, she suddenly raised her head again: "But I think that if this puddle had not been replenished by water, it would have dried up long ago." ”

"I thought so at the time, but the facts contradicted me."

Veteran Scott said. Under Ladia's influence, he regained his old curiosity - the water supply system was completely contrary to his common sense and cognition, and he almost thought that it was a miracle that only a mage who was proficient in engineering alchemy could create.

But the bandit leader who presided over the construction of this project was not a mage. It's clear to everybody.

"There's definitely something weird about it."

Still not satisfied, Miss Mage, who had a penchant for evidence, made her way up the stairs, wanting to get a closer look.

She began to take off her boots, revealing her white feet.

"Wait! Ladia. ”

Oliver shouted. He finally remembered that there was another important part of the project, the place where he and Glo had replaced parts and had been connected to the puddle by a pipe through the rock face.

"There's also a place called the lifting room, and Glo says that using water hammer to maintain enough water levels in the sump is the key to the stable operation of the system."

Scott looked at him with a hint of disdain as he uttered some technical terms that he didn't know he had, but it caught Miss Mage's attention.

She put her boots back on and lowered her tied pant legs.

The trio, led by Oliver, returned along the same route......