39: Chapter 39 Remaining Map of the Abandoned Warehouse

The rusted door was still vibrating gently, and the ancient Hatching Pool Alignment Platform behind the door had already lit up.

Circles of white patterns crept outward along the surface of the platform, as if a bloodline that had been dormant for many years had been suddenly awakened.

The half-map fragment in Lu Jin's sleeve was burning with pain, and even his finger bones felt as if they were being scorched by the heat.

The Master Crow on Ning Yanqiu's shoulder had its feathers puffed up, its grey-white eyes staring fixedly at the center of the circular platform.

A sudden "click" sounded from the top of the vault.

A black-silver light curtain descended over their heads.

【Deep Vault Sampling Rules】 【Time Limit: Sixty breaths】 【Sampling Limit: Three core fragments】 【Violent destruction of the platform is prohibited; violators will be judged as having lost and will have their trial battle gains confiscated】

As soon as the rules finished glowing, a dense sound of metal interlocking rang out from outside the door.

"Seal the Deep Vault door!" "They've reached the inner layer, deploy the locking grilles!" "Senior Zhaoting said, the clear tokens can be lost, but the Master Pattern cannot be taken by them!"

Ning Yanqiu's gaze turned cold, and she had already lifted her mirror box.

"The people outside are more anxious than before."

Lu Jin didn't answer her, his gaze sweeping from the outermost ring of the circular platform to the innermost layer, moving extremely fast.

Five items were floating on the platform surface.

Three black gold authority tokens, with the academy's current school seal pressed into the corners; the score they held was certainly not low.

Two Sun Gold seal fragments hung in mid-air, their light dazzlingly bright, as if they had been deliberately placed there for people to snatch.

Lu Jin didn't even reach out.

His gaze landed on the blackened narrow grooves on the outermost ring of the circular platform, his eyes sinking little by little.

"Don't touch these obvious ones."

Ning Yanqiu looked at him: "You recognize them?"

"I recognize them a little."

Lu Jin crouched down, his fingertips pressing onto a black-silver pattern on the outermost ring.

That pattern was too similar to the Furnace Cave outer wall map he had bought earlier, only thicker, deeper, and with an extra circle of inward-converging fire groove lines within the base of the pattern.

This was a wall. Not an ordinary wall. It was the inner ring furnace wall built to press down on the Breeding Cave hub.

Compared to this thing, those few outer wall sections he had just erected in the Dead Ash Mine were like a circle made of stones by a child.

Lu Jin said in a low voice: "Grey Pupil, lift the outer ring."

Grey Pupil pounced onto the circular platform in response, inserting its sacrificial staff horizontally. Four Cart-pulling Rats immediately darted out from behind it, biting onto the tail of the staff and the cracks at the edge of the circular platform, prying outward.

Crack! A half-foot-long black iron page on the outermost ring was forcibly pried open.

Beneath the iron page, there was no golden light, only a layer of old fire patterns that had darkened with age.

The patterns were coiled together, like the skeleton of an entire underground nest city.

Grey Pupil only took one look, and its grey eyes lit up.

Ning Yanqiu also saw it, her voice very low. "City wall map?"

"Inner ring type."

Lu Jin grabbed the black iron map page and tucked it into his arms. 【Furnace Cave City Wall Map · Inner Ring Type】

Just as the text flashed in his Sea of Consciousness, the entire circular platform shook violently.

The movement of sealing the door outside drew closer.

A golden locking grille was forcibly pressed in through the crack of the door, sweeping across the floor with a clattering sound.

Ning Yanqiu tapped her toes, and she had already soared into mid-air.

She flipped her mirror box, and six Frost Crows swooped down at an angle, their cold feathers pulling out three vertical mirrors in front of the door.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The locking grille slammed into the ice mirrors, scattering a large amount of gold and white debris.

Ning Yanqiu stood behind the mirrors, her black clothes pulled tight by the cold wind, yet her speech remained steady.

"It can hold for another thirty breaths. You continue."

Lu Jin raised his eyes and looked at her for a moment, wasting no words, his hand already pointing to an inconspicuous groove on the lower left of the circular platform.

"Fire Oil, burn this seam."

Two Fire Oil Throwers knelt down and swung their arms, smashing fire bladders against the edge of the groove.

The grey-red fire pulp drilled inward along the black-silver engravings, roasting the layer of old rust inside until it cracked and popped.

With the heat pushing up, a pale white object was revealed deep in the groove, looking like a bone, yet also like a pipe.

A glimmer of light finally appeared in the depths of Lu Jin's eyes. "Drag it out."

Four Cart-pulling Rats immediately swapped positions, bone ropes winding around the white pipe, while three Tunneling Rats behind them burrowed into the lower cavity, arching out the accumulated dead grey rust and broken bolts.

The object was buried extremely deep; when they dragged it the first time, it didn't move an inch, instead breaking half a row of teeth off one of the Cart-pulling Rats.

Grey Pupil stepped directly onto the end of the pipe, using its sacrificial staff to pry hard along the seam opened by the Fire Oil.

Hiss! A golden thread suddenly shot out from the bottom of the platform, stabbing straight at Grey Pupil's ribs.

Ning Yanqiu was at the door; hearing the sound of the wind, she didn't even turn her head, but the Master Crow had already swooped down, swiping the golden thread aside with one claw.

A bloody gash was grazed onto Grey Pupil's shoulder, but it didn't loosen its grip on the sacrificial staff, using the momentum to pry upward.

With a boom, the white pipe was finally pried out by half a foot.

The moment it appeared, the entire Deep Vault seemed to take a breath along with it.

The pipe was covered in dense nest patterns from the old era, the patterns sharing the same lineage as the Hatching Pool fragment map and the crystal core serial numbers.

Deeper down, there was an extremely thin dark red serial number, the prefix identical to the fire code in Lu Jin's black box.

Lu Jin's gaze sank suddenly. This place was more deeply connected to the sacrificial furnace than he had thought.

"Again!"

The Cart-pulling Rats exerted force together, the bone ropes stretching as if they were about to snap.

The white pipe was finally dragged out completely, as long as a person, thin at the front and thick at the back, with three diversion ports connected at the tail, clearly something that could only be used for a Breeding Cave main trunk.

【Old Era Breeding Cave Conduit · Main Diversion Section】

Ning Yanqiu caught a glimpse of that line of text, and her eyebrows twitched slightly.

This time, she didn't even ask, instead backhanding two more slanted mirrors, deflecting all the cutting nails that were being pressed in by the second wave from outside the door.

Three Frost Crows circled back and forth above the mirrors, and as crow feathers fell, new frost immediately formed on the door crack.

She already understood that the items Lu Jin was picking were all the foundations of this vault.

The senior students outside also sensed something was wrong, their voices changing.

"He's pulling out the conduit!" "Break the door first! Any later and the Master Position will be empty!" "Sun Gold Locking Puppet, enter!"

The door panel shook with a boom, and two half-man-sized Sun Gold Locking Puppets smashed through the ice mirrors, rushing in while pushing their locking shields.

They jammed the entrance from the left and right, the locking disks on their chests spinning, and twelve golden nail chains rattled open, sealing the four corners of the circular platform directly.

Ning Yanqiu dropped from mid-air, her mirror box striking horizontally onto one of the chains, the cold air crawling wildly along the chain, freezing the entire golden chain until it turned white.

But the Locking Puppet's strength was too great; as soon as the ice solidified, the second chain whipped toward her waist.

Lu Jin raised his hand and pressed down. "Grey Pupil, the left puppet's knee disk." "Ambush Rat, bite the chain's loop." "Fire Oil, don't hit the people, hit the joints!"

Orders fell layer by layer, and the rat swarm moved instantly.

Grey Pupil, with four Ambush Rats, cut along the ground into the left blind spot, the sacrificial staff aiming at the loop axis under the Locking Puppet's knee... no, it smashed down heavily.

The Fire Oil Throwers accurately flung two globs of grey-red fire pulp into its ankle joints; once the fire poured in, the locking disk immediately emitted a piercing, shrill sound.

The Ambush Rats pounced along the line of fire, specifically biting the thinnest and most fragile section of the golden spring.

Crack! The left puppet's knee disk broke first, and one leg snapped off by half on the spot.

The Locking Puppet still wanted to sweep back, but Grey Pupil had already pressed into its chest, the sacrificial staff flicking from bottom to top, forcing the entire chest locking disk open by a slit.

On the other side, Ning Yanqiu suppressed the right puppet alone.

She stepped on broken ice and chains, her mirror box opening and closing extremely fast, each strike hitting only one spot.

First sealing the eyes, then breaking the neck, and finally pressing down on that tiny, almost invisible air vent above the main chest locking disk.

The Master Crow swept past her shoulder line, digging a claw into the Locking Puppet's eye socket, and the three Frost Crows behind followed closely, pecking through the same spot.

Bang! Half of the right puppet's head exploded, and the golden chains whipped across the floor like crazy snakes, making a clattering sound.

One Fire Oil Thrower was struck in the chest by the tail of a chain and flew out on the spot, smashing against the edge of the circular platform and not moving again.

Two Cart-pulling Rats were also disabled, one with a broken hind leg, and one with half its mouth crushed by a locking spring.

Lu Jin saw it; his eyes didn't change, but his voice became even deeper. "The last item, the Alignment Pattern."

The egg-shaped Master Pattern in the center of the circular platform was breathing, brightening and dimming, like a living creature.

Lu Jin pressed the half-map of the Hatching Pool onto it. It only lit up halfway.

The remaining half was buried in darkness, as if locked tight, refusing to move no matter what.

Ning Yanqiu turned and looked, immediately understanding where the problem was.

She didn't say an extra word, lifting her mirror box, the cleanest Cold Mirror on the box face facing the half of the Master Pattern that had already lit up.

The mirror light refracted. The white patterns on that half-map fragment were completely reflected onto the other side by her.

In an instant, the entire ancient Hatching Pool Alignment Platform lit up completely with a boom.

Countless tiny white lines surged from the center of the platform, exploding along the conduit grooves, city wall grooves, and nest protection grooves that had just been emptied.

A palm-sized silver pattern core slowly floated above the circular platform, inside which was a very faint curled humanoid shadow, while all around it were dense nest lines and warm-trough lines, like a heart that could command the entire Breeding Cave system.

Ning Yanqiu saw the curled shadow, and for the first time, her gaze truly paused. "This thing..."

Lu Jin reached out and grabbed, taking the silver pattern core directly into his palm. 【Ancient Hatching Pool Alignment · Master Position Fragment】

Master Position. Ning Yanqiu pressed her lips together slightly, and she understood everything.

Once this thing was raised, it would definitely not just be an extra hero unit.

Someone outside finally broke through the last ice mirror, saw the scene on the platform, and their face turned pale.

"They took the Master Position!" "The authority tokens are still there!" "Idiot, who still wants that stuff!"

Lu Jin didn't pay any attention to the shouting outside the door, grabbing the Breeding Cave conduit and tossing it onto the bone cart; the city wall map and the Master Position fragment had already been put away.

"Go through the lower right maintenance well."

Ning Yanqiu frowned: "That's a dead end."

"Not anymore."

Lu Jin raised his hand and pointed. Three Tunneling Rats had already opened the old maintenance well entrance under the circular platform; it was pitch black underneath, but a very steady warm air was pushing upward.

That was the backup transport line of the old era's Breeding Cave system, dedicated to moving nutrients and young nests; outsiders were staring at the score tokens and wouldn't think of this place at all.

Ning Yanqiu looked at him for a breath, then immediately retracted her crows. "Retreat."

Grey Pupil jumped first, dragging the injured Ambush Rat, while the Cart-pulling Rats bit the bone ropes to guide the Breeding Cave conduit into the well. Lu Jin brought up the rear, and Ning Yanqiu blocked the door.

The last large mirror she struck sealed the entire rusted door and the two senior students rushing from outside in frost. When the cold light cracked, they were already gone.

By the time that group of Sun Gold senior students smashed through the ice mirrors and rushed into the Deep Vault, only five bright authority tokens were left spinning on the platform.

The leader looked at the empty conduit groove, the removed outer ring position, and the extinguished main platform, his face turning pale little by little.

"Senior Zhaoting..." "The things they took are the three most valuable items in the Deep Vault."

The underground maintenance well was very narrow, and the bone cart scraped along the well walls as it slid all the way down, sparks and ice debris mixing and flying everywhere.

Lu Jin pressed the Master Position fragment with one hand and held the front of the bone cart with the other, until the old drainage gate at the bottom of the well was smashed open by Grey Pupil's staff, and the cold wind rolled in, only then did he truly heave a sigh of relief.

When they returned to their residence, the sky was already pitch black.

Lu Jin didn't even treat his wounds first, his divine sense sinking directly into the Dead Ash Mine.

The black fire of the Return Fire Well was still steady, and the few newly erected outer wall sections pressed quietly into the night.

As soon as the rat swarm smelled the scent of the Deep Vault on him, the entire mine became agitated for a moment; hundreds of Gray-tailed Burrowing Rats, Red-Eyed Rats, Cart-pulling Rats, and Fire Oil Throwers prostrated themselves in unison, and even Grey Pupil knelt on one knee, its grey eyes glowing hotly.

Lu Jin first pressed that page of the Furnace Cave City Wall Map into the outer side of the new wall.

Boom. The black stone wall lit up in its entirety, and the ground fire groove lines that had been dormant for a long time beneath the wall were instantly hooked out, slowly spreading along the edge of the mine.

The outer wall, which had originally only consisted of three sections, actually reflected a complete outline underground, as if a real Furnace Cave Fortress had already pressed its skeleton into the ore layer.

The faith line sank suddenly. The group of Red-Eyed Rats by the well all lay even lower, but the red in their eyes lit up little by little.

Lu Jin then sent the Old Era Breeding Cave conduit into the Breeding Cave.

As soon as the conduit touched the modified warm trough, the warm patterns at the bottom immediately flowed along the pipe wall, and the chill in the entire Breeding Cave was pushed away.

The mother rats guarding the outer layer all raised their heads, their nostrils twitching rapidly, their tails pulled straight.

Finally, Lu Jin pressed the Ancient Hatching Pool Alignment Master Position fragment before the crystal core.

The White-Bellied Mother Rat had originally been lying down, motionless.

The moment the fragment landed, its entire back arched violently, and the layer of white patterns on its abdomen lit up completely, as if a ball of moonlight was propping itself up from within its flesh.

The half-map fragment stuck to the crystal core heated up, and white lines crawled in circles along the surface of the crystal core.

Thump. An extremely faint heartbeat sounded in the Breeding Cave. All the mother rats froze simultaneously.

Thump. The second sound was clearer than the first.

Lu Jin stared at that crystal core, his fingers tightening little by little. That was not just a random beat.

That incubation crystal core, which had been dormant for so long, had already begun to beat continuously.