Alma, the emerald heart of the Kakuri Desert, is known as a desert oasis where the gods are blessed. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

For thousands of years, this has been the forefront of mankind's fight against fierce beasts, until more than twenty years ago, an unprecedented decisive battle broke out between the Thousand Towns Empire and the fierce beasts, the war lasted for nearly seven months, Alma was razed to the ground, and finally, the young emperor of the empire after paying an extremely tragic price, led the heroic soldiers of the empire to completely seal the beast queen, sweeping away the greatest threat to the empire for thousands of years.

However, the price was severe, as the empire lost nearly one-sixth of its population and suffered a great loss of vitality, and since then it has been dormant and slowly licking its wounds to recover, while the influence of the central government on the local lords has gradually become thin and gradually become extinct.

The people of Alma, who had lost their home, benefited from the development of steam science, and with tenacious perseverance, it took almost twenty years to rebuild a new city on the ruins of Alma, and the name of the city still bears the name of Alma, in honor of all those who worked hard in those years of strife.

Alma, Steam Farm

Driven by steam power, huge steam-powered windmills continuously pump water from underground rivers to supply this huge desert city, and the complex transmission gears show the most advanced technology of this era.

More than ten years ago, the steam dynamicist Dahl accidentally discovered the application of this huge energy, based on the unbridled imagination of human beings, this technology has been unprecedentedly developed, just a dozen years, has been fully integrated into all aspects of human life, from the huge steam-driven windmill, to the steam-driven various gadgets, which greatly facilitates the way of life of human beings.

In the storage room of the wheel room of the steam farm, a young man wearing protective goggles and his face covered in oil fiddles with a long tubular machine among piles of strangely shaped parts

"The ratio of gunpowder is fine, but the stability is a little worse," the boy muttered to himself

"Quercus Forest, Quercus Forest, there is something wrong with the steam pipeline in the Lord's Mansion, tell you to go over and fix it"

"Oh, I know, I'll go over right away when I'm cleaned up" The young man who was called to be a tree forest put down the machinery he was fiddling with, threw away his protective goggles, washed his face and tidied up his messy hair, put on an earthy yellow trench coat, took the toolbox and went out.

The lord's mansion is very familiar, and the impression is that the lord of Alma is a very easy-going middle-aged man, and there is no aristocratic shelf, and he has been leading the people of Alma step by step out of the predicament, and he is a rare lord who loves the people, but in recent years, some strange laws have suddenly been promulgated, and a curfew has been imposed, and I heard that some people have been arrested, and it is difficult to see him appear, probably because the security in the city has been bad recently, and I heard that some people have disappeared,

The Lord's Mansion is at the southern end of Alma City, and it is a completely independent area, and the Quercus Forest is familiar with entering the interior of the Lord's Mansion from the back door, just bypassing the annoying interrogation at the main gate.

After entering the Lord's Mansion through the back door, there is still some distance to reach the engine room located in the innermost part of the Lord's Mansion area.,On the way, you will happen to pass by a small courtyard surrounded by low trees.,That's the lord's daughter.,The house where the childhood sweetheart of the Quercus forest lives.,

It didn't take long for Quercus to come to this small courtyard surrounded by low walls, and outside the courtyard, the thousand leaves he had planted with his own hands when he was a child were already surrounded by large and small trees

The oak forest stepped on the tree to use the strength to ring the low wall, and climbed the low wall with both arms to look inside.

The desert has a dry climate, but thanks to the huge steam windmills in the steam farms, the people of Alma have the luxury of watering a lot of greenery with water, while protecting the stability of the land and providing enough shade to escape the heat.

In the shaded part of the courtyard sat a seventeen or eighteen-year-old blonde girl in a navy blue dress, trying to touch the gray hairball that had occupied her tea table and cleaned her body with her hand.

The gray cat seemed to be wary, and the girl slowly retracted her outstretched hand as she exploded her fur and purred menacingly before she could touch her, as if she realized that she was being annoyed.

"Crybaby" Quercus lies on the low wall and calls for the girl who has just been bullied by the cat

The girl didn't seem to expect this scene to be seen, and was slightly stunned to see the oak forest lying on the low wall, and lowered her head with a red face in a little embarrassment

"Tsuba, Mr. Tsuba, please, please don't make fun of me, I'll be seventeen next month" The voice behind it was almost so small that it was completely inaudible

"Na, a gift for you," Quercus said as she threw over a string of things, and the girl hurriedly took it in her hand, and found that it was a string of small gear necklaces

"Miss Alice, who are you talking to?" a voice from the room interrupted the conversation between the two, and when Alice came back to her senses and looked at the low wall again, Quercher had already left somewhere, looked down at the gear necklace in her hand, Alice looked very happy, and carefully put it away.

Lord's Palace, between pipelines,

Truss pushed the line that had leaked steam due to aging and loose screws, and then replaced him with enough durable protective layer and new screws, and seeing Alice made Quercher feel better, and the work at hand became more diligent, thinking about the new things he had conceived in the morning while working.

"Probably need some nitrate and obsidian to increase stability, nitrate is easy to get, obsidian is not very common on the market, but we are a desert, a walk to the west should be able to find"

Quercher Lin thought as he worked, he was the premier steam craftsman and mechanic in the entire Alma, and the mechanics who received the title of master craftsman at the age of less than twenty were rare not only in the Thousand Towns Empire, but even in the entire Vozeka continent

However, just being a second-to-none mechanic is still a little bit off, after all, under normal circumstances, nobles and commoners can only be people from two worlds, unless... Zarin glanced at his left hand, which was covered by a black red-striped half-finger glove, shook his head, and stepped up the work at hand.

On the way back, Alice was no longer there when she passed by Alice's yard, she was frail and sickly since she was a child, and she was not allowed to stay outside for too long.

Because of the curfew imposed at night, Quercus did not return to the steam farm, but to his home outside the city.

Generally, the Alma people will not live outside the city walls, because even if the empire completely sealed the beast queen more than twenty years ago, but did not succeed in exterminating this powerful natural enemy, there are still many fierce beasts still living in the form of tribes in this harsh western desert, although it is not a climate that will not come to attack human cities, but it is still a mortal threat to travelers who are alone and caravans that connect various cities,

Quercus hopes to get obsidian as soon as possible to continue the experiment, and if it is still early to set off over the crescent sand dunes to the black desert, it should be in time to be in time, there was originally an abandoned iron ore mine there, Yaoshi itself is a companion mine of iron, where to try your luck should be good, otherwise it will take next month until the caravan transporting ore comes, so that the time cannot be completed before Alice's birthday,

At the speed of the steam desert motorcycle, it will take about two hours to get there before it gets completely dark, which should be enough for the oak forest to explore before returning.

Quercher put on his goggles, filled the desert motorcycle's fuel tank with water, and then stuffed a special fuel rod into the combustion chamber, the main body of the fast fuel rod is a large piece of fire crystal, which heats the water to produce steam to propel the engine to turn, such a large piece of fire crystal is enough for the desert motorcycle to run for seven hours, enough for four round trips.

Wrapped in a windbreaker and scarf all the way through the desert, the desert vision on a sunny day is particularly good, and you can also warn in advance if you encounter problems.

In addition to the fierce beasts traveling in the desert, the more serious threats are actually quicksand and storms, although steam technology is becoming more and more popular, but people are more inclined to use the method that has lasted for thousands of years around their own safety.

No matter how cutting-edge science and technology are, in the face of nature, human weakness and ignorance will be revealed, and people who are in awe of nature still follow the way of traveling in the desert for thousands of years, camels.

But because of this, the caravan only comes once a month.

Most of the goods Alma was fully capable of self-sufficiency, but some special metals and products were indeed not provided by the Emerald Heart of this desert, and could only be supplied by caravans, but fortunately, the demand for these things was not as great as food, and the caravans could fully meet the amount they brought in every month.

Crossing the crescent sand dunes, what catches your eye is the black desert, the sand of the desert here contains a lot of iron, so it looks like the whole is black and gets the name, the compass in this desert can not be used at all, basically you can only rely on the naked eye to recognize the way, fortunately, the mine is not far away, so far is the finish line of human activities, and it is the territory of the beast in the future,

Quercus took off the goggles and identified the traces of the mine, and the shacks and huts he had built before had not been able to withstand the wind and sand, and had all collapsed and been buried under the black sand

Fortunately, the fluidity of these sands mixed with a large amount of iron is not high, and there are no traces of completely destroying the mine, although it took a lot of effort, the tree forest is fortunate to find the previous mine, but because the technical level is limited more than ten years ago, and it is a mine in the desert, the mine has collapsed most of the time, and you can only try your luck near the mine head.

However, neither the goddess of luck nor the god of craftsmen favored the forest, although it took a lot of time, the forest did not find anything valuable, seeing that the sky was getting dark, so he had to give up, maybe go to the chamber of commerce or the auction house to see, maybe someone will make a move.

Querca comforted himself and rewrapped his trench coat to prepare to go back

Because of the delay in the mine for some time, the sky is also getting dark quickly, the desert in the dark is extremely dangerous, I hope there is still time to rush back, Querca Lin thought to himself

The monotonous scenery all the way, over the half-moon sand dunes, the desert has turned golden again, making people feel a little brighter again.

In this state of mechanical rush, it is easy for people to be distracted to think about other problems, and they are thinking about some things that they don't have.

Suddenly, my mind was attracted by two small black dots on the desert in the distance, this prominent color was particularly conspicuous on the golden sand dunes, and I stopped the desert motorcycle and took out my glasses to look in that direction, and found that it was clearly two people who had fallen on the desert.

The desert motorcycle can't travel on the sand dunes, although Querca doesn't want to admit it, but it's really a mechanical disadvantage, but fortunately, the distance is not far, only two or three kilometers away, Querca quickly took the backpack prepared in advance from the motorcycle and carried it on his back, which was filled with water and things prepared just in case,

It didn't take long for Quercus to run to the two people lying on the ground, and the physical strength consumed to run two kilometers on the desert must be more than double that consumed on the usual road surface, Quercus took a breath and observed these two people,

One of them had messy curly hair, and wore a withered yellow coat wrapped in a shabby cape, which looked like a raunchy uncle in his forties, and a shabby cowboy hat lay not far from him, and the other was a little girl who looked to be only seven or eight years old, wrapped in only a rag, and not even wearing shoes.

Quercus tested the pulse of the two people's snorts, and it seemed that the two people were still alive, they should have gotten lost in the desert without knowing what happened, and then passed out here,

Looking around, the footprints of the two when they came were completely covered with yellow sand, I don't know how long they have passed out here, it seems that the two of them are not armed, I am curious how this uncle-like curly-haired man took this little girl through the forbidden area infested by fierce beasts and fainted here.