The corridors of the underground archives fell silent.

Located beneath the city-state university, the highest level in Breeze, it is the equivalent of the central cathedral of the entire city by analogy with the city-states under the administration of the Deep Sea or the Church of Death - the "seals" that can be contained in such a place are of course unusual, at least if they are among the top 100 "anomalous" or similarly dangerous pollution carriers like Alice.

This level of anomaly and contamination vectors share one common characteristic: living animal characteristics.

They may have incredible thinking abilities, they may have the means to communicate with people, they may have a tendency to move and escape, and regardless of the strength of these "living creatures", they can at least achieve the instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm—just as Alice instinctively behaved when she didn't know Duncan at all.

In short, it's a little bit of a brain, although it's not much, but it's afraid of death.

Duncan likes this kind of somewhat cerebral and saves a lot of trouble a lot of the time.

Lucretia glanced at this side with a hint of awe, and Nina and Shirley widened their eyes in surprise before raising their faces triumphantly—not knowing what the two of them had to be proud of.

Ted Lear was stunned for a moment, and then looked at Duncan with a somewhat complicated gaze - not as fearful as ordinary people, but also not vigilant and hostile, he seemed to be thinking about something, and after a few seconds suddenly said: "You can come here more when you stay in Breeze." ”

"Oh?" Duncan was a little surprised, "Other city-states wished I could stay away when they first dealt with me, and a place like the Central Cathedral was heavily guarded at the first time, why did you take the initiative to invite me?" ”

Ted raised his hand and pointed to the quiet hallway, "You're here, I can take a vacation." ”

Duncan: "......? ”

However, the "Keeper of Truth" in front of him didn't care about the subtle reaction of others after his words, he just mentioned it, and continued to walk deeper into the corridor.

The others raised their heels, but this time Duncan deliberately took a few steps behind, and he came to Lucrecia's side, and asked in a low voice, "I can't remember anything about this 'Keeper of the Secret', he always did?" I mean...... This kind of resentment seems to have added a lifetime of class. ”

Lucretia also lowered her voice: "Lord Ted has been leading the graduating class recently. ”

Duncan was stunned when he heard this: "...... Is the leader of the city-state's guardians still responsible for this? I remember when Vanna was a judge, she didn't have any extra jobs like that. ”

"The power of God is closely related to the words and deeds of the believers, and the study and dissemination of knowledge is a necessary process for the believers of Rahhem to 'perform the sacraments', so the entire priesthood system of the Truth College is composed in the form of a 'college', and the higher the priest must serve as a mentor to teach the students, and the higher the level, the heavier and more difficult the teaching task will be—therefore, the truth keeper must lead the graduating class, and it is the most difficult class to lead."

Duncan: "......"

Listening to Lucrecia's wonderful new knowledge, he couldn't help but feel some strange feelings in his heart, and he couldn't help but raise his head and look at the secret keeper not far away.

Ted Lear, who was walking in front, instantly noticed this gaze, and he glanced back, and a trace of doubt flooded the heart of the keeper of secrets-

Why did this "Captain Duncan", who had lost his memory due to the influence of subspace and was like a stranger to him just now, suddenly look at this side with inexplicable understanding, nostalgia and sympathy?

After a brief moment of doubt, Ted Lear shook his head and stopped at a door near the end of the hallway.

"That's it, Containment Chamber 24." He raised his hand and pointed to the door in front of him.

This door depicts many sacred runes, the whole seems to be made of black steel, and the surface is inlaid with dots of silver-white metal particles, Shirley looked at this door curiously, and then felt as if her eyes were about to be attracted by the deep black and a little bit of silver white, a feeling of feeling out of her body spontaneously appeared, and she was so frightened that she hurriedly withdrew her gaze.

Nina looked up at the corridor where she came, and then around the containment chamber of Sample 24, frowning slightly and curious: "You can't even see a guard here?" Such an important and dangerous place, is it not guarded? ”

"There are guards at the necessary points, but the fewer people near the various containment chambers, the better," Ted Lear casually explained, glancing at the curious girl, "Because some 'anomalies' have the ability to parasitize and jump minds, too many guards near the containment chamber will make it possible for those things to breach containment." ”

"For the vast majority of 'anomalies' and contaminants, the correct sealing method is far more important than the number of security personnel," Lucrecia added, "A properly placed stone or metal powder sprinkled on the ground can keep some anomalies quiet for years, but an additional 'person' can cause an invisible and insubstantial force to breach containment, so many of the core areas of the sealing facility have the least number of people, and many sealing measures are self-imposed when no one is around." ”

"The guards outside the core are not so much to deal with the monsters inside as they are to deal with outside invasions and prevent anyone from coming in and disrupting containment conditions," Ted Lear nodded, reaching out and pressing his hand against the door to the specimen's containment chamber, and the door opened with a soft "click" from nowhere, "but ...... This sample was the most special I've ever seen, and I'm not even sure if I should put it in the sample containment chamber or somewhere else. ”

The door opened, and a brightly lit but not very spacious room appeared to everyone, the floor and walls were full of intricate and intricate sacred symbols, a surprisingly large number of oil lamps with special grease and gas lamps on the walls, but other than that, there was no superfluous furnishings or furniture, except for a boxy platform in the center, on which the strange ...... "sample" was placed.

A clergyman in a college robe, with a strange black mask on his face and his hands tightly locked in locks, was standing next to the platform, seemingly the caretaker of the containment chamber - when Ted Lille walked into the room with the group, the "caretaker" with strange locks on both hands glanced up, then fell on Ted and nodded slightly.

"Is there any sign of activation in the sample?" Ted asked.

The caretaker shook his head in silence.

"Are the shackles showing signs of opening?" Ted asked again.

The Warden raised his hands, showed the shackles to the Keeper, and shook his head.

"Alright, good work, let's go rest first," Ted said with a sigh of relief and a slight nod, "I'll take over here - remember, put the 'shackles' back on the 'stone statue' yourself, don't try to swap places with the stone statue, and don't react to its 'help' in any way." ”

The caretaker nodded without saying a word, and turned to walk out of the room.

"The shackles are part of the Anomaly-087 'Stone Statue'," Ted Lear explained to Duncan and the others after the Keepers had left, "Through a special 'protocol' ritual, we can borrow the shackles from the 'Stone Statue' for a certain period of time, and the wearer of the shackles cannot speak, and can imprison and restrain a chosen entity in front of them for the duration of their wear, and we usually use it to assist in the control of dangerous objects of unknown nature that have just been discovered." ”

"For example...... A 'reality intruder' who suddenly appeared in the bazaar and whose origin is a mystery. ”

Lucrecia muttered softly, looking up at the strange, quiet-looking mass of iron-gray metallic "matter" on the platform in the center of the room.

The thing looked like a lump of cooled and solidified steel, but the outline of the surface lines had a strange soft, smooth feeling, as if it had once wriggled and undulated like some kind of mollusk, and then quickly solidified into this, and on its smooth "skin" there were occasionally angular protrusions, and those raised structures gave the impression of ......

It was as if something was about to break free from the inside of this mass of "matter".

"These bumps appeared after the specimen was sent to the containment chamber," Ted Lear explained, "and in the minutes after it was sent to the containment chamber, it suddenly became more active again, and the surface structure changed so much that we thought it would try to break free from the seal here, and even considered sending it to a higher level of containment, but after a few minutes, its activity fell off a cliff again, until it was now like it is now—almost a piece of hard metal." ”

"Almost?" Duncan was keenly aware of the key point in the other party's diction.

"Yes, almost, because it's actually still 'alive,'" Ted Lear nodded, "There's always a faint 'signal' of activity in the core of this mass of matter, and even if the whole mass of matter has solidified like this, that core is still active, and you can even hear it-"

As he spoke, the keeper opened his large and magical book again, flipped one of the pages, and tapped it lightly with his fingers.

A stethoscope-like device emerges out of thin air above the page.

Ted Lear casually put the book under his arm, picked up the "stethoscope" and hung it around his neck, and carefully pressed the other end of the stethoscope against the surface of the "solidified metal".

In the next second, a rhythmic sound echoed throughout the room—

Puff, puff, puff......

"It has a heartbeat," Ted Lear looked up, "and inside this mass of metal, there's a heart that's still alive. ”

(End of chapter)