Bertila's words made Gawain and Belsetia fall into thought at the same time, and it was like a flash of light, suddenly guiding Gawain to notice some details that he hadn't noticed before—

If the cultists in the depths of the wasteland are no longer "human", and they no longer care about the "great plan" carried out by their compatriots outside the wasteland, and they no longer care about the outside world, then why should they cooperate with the actions of the "outside church"? And since they have been cooperating with the actions of the outside church for 700 years, it shows that ......

"They've been providing us with data, even helping us infiltrate the Sentinel Tower, and they've bebehaved like loyal colleagues for centuries, which has made us ignore the underlying anomalies and never consider whether such a group of 'fellow citizens' who are physically and mentally mutated still have values similar to ours," Bertila's voice rang out beside her, "until the body of the false god spirals out of control, everything is gone, and the church outside the walls is crumbling, and I finally have a chance to stand here, Calm down and think about something without being disturbed, and I will have a chance to see the problem clearly......"

"They're not helping you, they're just helping themselves," Gawain said in a deep voice, "and the only explanation for their cooperation over the years is that this 'cooperation' is beneficial to them, or that you have something worth using...... Recall what your plans may have been exploited by the cultists in the depths of the wasteland, and it may help us to understand their purpose. ”

"It's too much, biochemical engineering, environmental modification, divine factors, divine evil...... We have so many projects going on, and each of them could be useful to them," Bertila said in thought, "The very different environments inside and outside the wasteland mean that many experiments can only be done on one side, and each of the studies we and them do is an extremely valuable source of information for each other......"

"Then let's assume that all of this is their purpose," Blasetia broke her silence, "Lady Bertila, all the plans you just mentioned should be carried out by you 'outsiders' and then share the data with the 'insiders' inside the barrier, right?" What all these projects have in common is that they are all related to the survival and modification of organisms in the environment......"

"What do you think of?" Gawain immediately looked at the Silver Empress, his expression becoming serious.

"Technology aside—if you think of the cultists living inside the Great Wall as a bunch of 'new species,' what do you think this new species wants most right now?"

"New species? What do you want most? Gawain subconsciously frowned, Belsetia's words gave him some new thoughts, he broke his mind out of the habitual thinking of "conspiracy to destroy the world" and "cult worship", and when this question returned to the simplest premise, he suddenly thought of something, "Wait, what you want is actually a living environment......

"Survival environment, simple but dangerous answer," Belsetia nodded slowly, "The Gondor Wasteland is a living land for them, but this habitat is probably not so comfortable to live in now - the central area of the wasteland is the ruins of the Deep Blue Well controlled by the Iron Man Corps, and the edge area is the guard strip under the watchdog of the Sentinel Tower, and they can only do limited activities in the area between the two, so ...... They may not be happy with the situation. ”

Gawain's eyes became deep and serious, he thought about a lot of things at this moment, and Bertila, who was not far away from him, silently turned his head to look at the magic net terminal, the mutated tree man image projected above the terminal was slowly rotating in midair, those twisted limbs and plausible human faces contained inhuman minds in the depths, and after staring at it for a long time, the former dark female imam sighed softly, as if to say to herself: "We have deviated too far......"

Gawain was awakened from his contemplation by this sentence, but when he raised his head and was about to say something, he saw that Bertilla suddenly appeared as if she was listening, and after two seconds she stopped listening, but her tone became extremely serious: "The monitoring team just sent an emergency call, and they caught some ...... Very special information, we would better go to the listening center and see it in person. ”

"Listening group?" Gao Wen quickly reacted to the long-term monitoring project that the other party was referring to to capturing "mysterious signals" in the major magic network hubs, and his expression suddenly changed - according to Bertila's character, if it weren't for the fact that the situation was really a bit special, she wouldn't be so urgent, "Okay, let's go now." ”

Belcetia next to her was stunned by the sudden change in the situation, and she cast a curious look at Gawain: "What are you talking about?" ”

"Remember what we just talked about in the square?" Gawain glanced at the Silver Empress, "That antenna device - that's right, now I can take you directly to see what this 'listening' project is up to." ”

As he spoke, there was already a "click" sound of the wooden structure moving and deforming in the living room formed by the giant Thorin tree, and the wall at the other end of the living room slowly opened, revealing the pipe-like structure inside and a transportation device with seats that was anchored in the pipe, and Berthira said as she walked over there, "We can go to the listening center through the vascular passage, which is a little faster than the passage outside." ”

Gawain glanced up at Beltila in surprise as he walked towards the transportation pipeline with Belsetia: "You also built a pipeline transportation system inside yourself?" ”

"It was General Margarita who suggested to me. The size of the Solin Tree and the complex three-dimensional arrangement of many facilities inside it, which could not be commuted by conventional lifts or exterior corridors, so General Margarita suggested that I design a 'chute' that would allow for the rapid transfer of people and supplies between the facilities – she seems to have been inspired by the barns of farms in the South, where farmers use similar slides to transport grain dried on high platforms directly into the warehouses......"

Gawain listened stunned, surprised and relieved that there were so many creative things happening in a field he didn't know about, and he pondered the prospects of such things in other factories and compared them with similar things on Earth, and then saw Berthira stop at the entrance to the pipe, and seemed to have no intention of going in.

He was a little surprised: "You don't want to go with us?" ”

"I'll make a new 'avatar' waiting for you at the exit," Bertila said, while the cloak-like flower vines behind her gently swayed to show their presence, "You see, my avatars have a limited ability to move, and they can't take the 'vehicle' - these vines don't allow avatars to move quickly over long distances. ”

So is Berthira wired?

Gao Wen couldn't help but make a strange comment in his heart, and then asked with unbearable curiosity: "I'm suddenly a little curious, what if these vines are really suddenly cut off when you maintain this incarnation?" ”

"There will be a vivid Beltila doll, wooden," said Berthira with a blank face, "she is essentially just a medium for dialogue with people, and when the nerve cords are broken, all that is left is an empty shell." ”

“…… It makes sense. The corners of Gawain's mouth twitched, and he could only comment like this.

Bertila looked at Gawain very seriously: "Are you interested in this kind of puppet?" I can cut one out for you if you want – unlike other wood products, she's easy to care for, you can soak her in a cream herb for two hours, take it out and dry it, and you can keep it for at least half a century. ”

"No, thank you." Finding that the topic might be going in an unexpected direction, Gawain hurriedly waved his hand, pulled Belsetia and got into the transport device in the pipeline, but Berthira didn't say anything, just stood in place with a wooden appearance, and then the protective shell of the pipe closed smoothly, and the soft light lit up in the cockpit at the same time.

Belsetia watched all this calmly the whole time, as the Silver Empress, she had seen a lot in her long life, and in most cases she could maintain this calm and calm posture, although the private personality of the "Wanderer" and the current appearance of Berthira were somewhat beyond her expectations, but these things were not bad.

It's just that after the traffic cockpit in the pipeline began to slide, she couldn't help but ask: "Is it really okay to take me directly to that 'listening center'?" Sounds like you've just achieved something great - this kind of thing doesn't involve secrecy? ”

"It does have a certain level of secrecy, but as I said before in the square, the project itself is open source to the surrounding countries and to the Silver Empire...... It will also be open source," Gawain explained, "In fact, we have even sent a technical team to proactively engage with the Duchy of the Holy Dragon and the Typhon Empire, in the hope of establishing a larger-scale, data-sharing listening network......"

The Silver Empress couldn't help but widen her eyes in some shock, she had indeed heard Gawain say that this "listening" project was open to neighboring countries just now, but she didn't expect this matter to be open to such an extent, this was even beyond the technological exchange between the Cecil Empire and the Silver Empire, it was a kind of joint action at the technical level that had never appeared in the mortal kingdoms before, which made her can't help but ask: "Why do you want to do it to this extent?" What the hell are you listening to that you need to ...... Across the continent to do this? ”

Gawain looked into Belsetia's eyes, and the silver queen's eyes were full of curiosity in the light of the flashing light.

"We're tracking a signal of unknown origin, unknown significance, and vague interpretation, but we can confirm that it's a man-made signal, and I think it's ...... It may bring us something that can subvert everyone's perceptions," Gawain said slowly, "We have been tracking it for more than two years, and the recent increase in data has made experts realize one thing: it is impossible to track and lock this signal with the information gathering efficiency of the Magic Web Hub in Cecil alone. ”

Belsetia's eyes widened, but before she could say anything, there was a slight shaking, followed by the sound of the pipe casing opening.

As Berthira said, the pipeline system is very convenient.

In the brightly lit listening center, mysterious signal fluctuations still echo in the equipment, paper tapes and cardboards used to record signal waveforms and images have been piled up on the recording table, printers are constantly outputting more continuous paper to record every subtle change in that signal, and in the holographic projection in the center of the room, a large geometric pattern and dot matrix is still expanding.

Bard's eyes were fixed on the image until a sudden voice in his ears woke him from his musings: "Your Majesty is here!" "Lady Bertila is here, too!" "It's the Empress...... Silver Empress ......"

Bard quickly looked up and saw three figures coming from the exit of the commuter pipeline, but before someone could salute, Gawain was already waving to stop him.

"Back to work," Gawain's voice rang out in the room, "the person in charge of the listening channel can come over - who picked up the signal?" ”

Bard immediately got up and left his post and came to Gawain, and after saluting, Gawain looked at the familiar man in front of him with some surprise: "It's you?" ”

"Yes, Your Majesty," Bard said, bowing his head, "I'm in charge of this listening group. ”

"Good, well done," Gawain smiled and nodded, his gaze falling on the holographic projection in the center of the room, "What's going on now?" ”

"The transmission of the signal continues, and it is much more stable than before, with no interruptions and unresolved clutter," Bard said immediately, "and with the decoding method created by Ms. Bertila, we were able to output these graphics – the graphics were clear and regular, which shows that the decoding idea was correct, but the content was ......"

Gawain stared at what was being shown in the projection, his eyes with a seriousness that no one else had ever seen.

He saw the basic geometry neatly arranged in the first row, including squares, triangles, circles, and polygons.

He saw smooth curves, spiral lines of gradual aperture, and closed intersecting geometry begin to appear in the subsequent patterns.

A lattice grouped according to the law of increments, a coordinate system with horizontal and vertical axes, on which undulating dots are distributed.

The discussion in the room was very low, and the most obvious sound came from the magic machines running everywhere, the equipment that outputs the printing paper made a clicking sound, the printing paper stored in the paper bin was exhausted, and the staff on the side hurriedly stepped forward to replace it with new printing paper.

"Your Majesty, look ......at these things," Bard whispered, "These things seem to be ......"

"It's math." Gawain finally exhaled softly, his heartbeat calming down in a deep breath.

Bard was silent for a moment and whispered, "...... And so you see. ”

Gawain stared at the holographic projection in the center of the room, and at that moment, the continuous output of geometric figures, lattices, and curves seemed to have finally come to an end, and something emerged from it, but it was no longer the "mathematical" content that everyone at the scene was familiar with.

It was a bunch of weird, symbol-like things.