Chapter 3915

"What's the situation?"

The three immediately went to check the pile of ashes, but after the red "life fire seed" disappeared, nothing was left in the ashes. And the phrase "life fire seed" also appeared in the heads of Xia De and the two old gentlemen by itself, as if they should have known it.

"That kind of strange and twisted vitality, you felt it too, right?"

To prevent the infectivity from still existing after the two machines that appeared abnormal were destroyed, the three stood still. Mr. Finch asked the other two, and Xia De and old Mr. Munios nodded together:

"Felt it, so it was those 'fire seeds' that caused the activation of the machines? I haven't heard of this kind of thing before, what exactly is that?"

Xia De shook his head again:

"I have been to many places on the Old Continent, and this is the first time I have seen a similar situation."

Old Mr. Finch hesitated for a moment:

"I do remember some past events, but it's not necessarily accurate. In the early days of the steam revolution, the City of Scholars - Arcadia could be considered the most prestigious inventor city of that era. At that time, new inventions were born in this city every day."

The organization I belong to has recorded some things from that era. It was also that machines suddenly went out of control and showed some activation abilities that shouldn't have existed. The most famous accident that year led to three workers being seriously injured and five deaths, but the investigation results announced by the official later were that the structure of the machine itself had problems, coupled with the workers' operational errors, which led to the serious accident."

Seeing that both were looking at him, Mr. Finch continued to recall:

"My predecessors also investigated the events of that year in depth, but the incident was solved by the 【Church of Creation】, and we didn't find any useful clues. Since then, in fact, similar incidents have occurred almost every five or six years on the Old Continent, but we haven't been able to encounter them directly. They were all post-incident investigations, and none of them have been able to find the real reason."

"And the biggest commonality of these incidents is that those metals that had accidents must be thoroughly 'deactivated' through means similar to those used by Mr. Watson. If they cannot be deactivated, only sealing means can be used for containment, otherwise their infectivity will gradually make more machines activated."

Xia De was very curious:

"It sounds like this is not an accident with little harm. After all, although the destructive power of a single machine is limited, once the activated machines form a scale if not handled in time, it is not something that one or two Ringed Shushi can handle. Especially if this kind of machine activation becomes more infectious as the number of special individuals increases, I can hardly imagine what will happen."

But old Mr. Finch shook his head:

"In past accidents, the infectivity was not that strong. Munios's pocket watch 'lived' in just five minutes, which had no precedent in previous accidents... Munios, before that coffin went out of control, did anything happen in the tower?"

Mr. Finch confirmed again, and old Mr. Munios shook his head very definitely:

"Definitely not. At first, someone heard a creaking sound from inside the coffin as if the parts were stuck, so I let them transport it here to prepare for repair. I didn't expect that it suddenly lived while being repaired."

"I wanted to control it and study the reason, and I sent someone to find you. I didn't expect you to come so quickly."

He said before looking at Xia De:

"So, this Mr. Watson is..."

"Yes, the very good young man I mentioned in the letter is the one who wants to obtain 【Active Metal】. But let's talk about this topic later. Now let's guard against whether other machines have also come alive."

They waited patiently for a full five minutes, determined that other machines around did not continue to show abnormalities, and only then cleaned the room and collected the ashes. And the "Black Moon Mark," a standard high-level strange art of the Saint Byron heritage, appeared here. Neither of the two old men asked Xia De for the reason, just treating it as if they hadn't seen anything just now.

Old Mr. Munios shook hands with Xia De after cleaning up:

"Mr. Watson, thank you for your help just now. But I have to arrange for people to block this room first, and then go to check whether other mechanical creations in the tower are abnormal. Finch, you take this young gentleman to the fifth floor to wait for me first, I will find you as soon as possible."

Xia De said very politely:

"The matter here is more important, I can wait slowly."

But until eleven o'clock in the morning, when Mr. Munios appeared in the fifth-floor reception room and interrupted Xia De and Mr. Finch who were discussing the topic of "how to classify mechanical intelligence," no one in the "Wonder Tower" could tell the truth about the abnormality of the coffin. The reason for the accident should be those "abnormal life fire seeds," but no one could explain where they came from. The two old gentlemen still suspected that something went wrong inside the Wonder Tower and would continue to investigate later.

What they were really worried about was that similar situations would occur later. This time, it happened that the coffin was controlled just after it went out of control, but if it caused casualties to ordinary people later because of untimely handling, I am afraid there would be big trouble.

However, this matter was put aside first. After all, Xia De had been waiting for a long time. Because Xia De helped deal with the matter just now, Mr. Munios was quite polite to him, and the old man didn't say any other idle words:

"Mr. Watson, you want 【Active Metal】, right? I do have this relic in my hand. I used it for experiments more than ten years ago. After the experiment failed, the relic showed signs of being out of control, so I contained it. It only finally recovered its activity half a year ago."

"Before the Year-End Festival, I originally thought about whether to sell it to the 【Church of Creation】 through the black market. If you had come a month later, I'm afraid you wouldn't have seen it."

He was very happy to do this business with Xia De, and didn't make things difficult for Xia De by proposing "barter" when talking about the price, but directly stated a number.

Although 【Active Metal】 is now classified as a Keeper-level (Level 3) relic, because of its scarcity, the price is far beyond the average level of Keeper-level relics. Old Mr. Finch also explained to Xia De that this price was quite reasonable, and Mr. Munios and old John were not the same type of person.

So Xia De didn't raise any objection to the price and agreed to the deal very readily:

"Okay, 280 crowns, deal."

However, 【Active Metal】 was not carried by Mr. Munios. He didn't want to bring that kind of relic directly into the "Wonder Tower" before knowing whether the deal could be reached. Therefore, after the two agreed on the price, they agreed to trade the goods and payment here again on Sunday. Xia De had no objection to this, after all, the key was only used on Wednesday.

Although Xia De knew that the origin of the halfling girl might be problematic, he still decided to bring the relic over first. He still needed more clues to know the real reason why the other party entered the "Pantanal Xiewu."

The conversation between the three was very pleasant, but the two old men were still thinking about re-checking the dangerous machines that might have problems in the "Wonder Tower," so they didn't keep Xia De for a meal. However, they warmly invited Xia De to come to the "Wonder Tower" for a walk again if he had time:

"There are not only machines designed and assembled by us old guys here, but also the whims of young inventors. In the past few decades, there have been quite a few inventions with real value discovered by investors here. This can be considered our contribution as older people to the new generation of inventors."

With nothing to do at noon, Xia De threw the crystal shoe and returned home for a meal. After all, he didn't want to visit someone else's house without an appointment.

In the morning, Luvia promised to come and take care of the cat at noon. When Xia De returned at noon, Luvia was chatting with Winnie, who was preparing lunch. The girls welcomed Xia De home, and Xia De also talked about the strange things he encountered in Arcadia today.

"Unexplained mechanical out-of-control without a cause? And also discovered 'life fire seeds'? In the early Fifth Era, similar things also appeared."

Winnie explained to the two while serving the hot food to the table:

"The steam wave like today appeared very early in the Fifth Era. Because the number of extraordinary people at that time was far more than now, the civilization of the material world chose the development direction of combining machines and secret arts."

"The inexplicable mechanical out-of-control related to 'life fire seeds' was called 'mechanical plague' or 'inventor plague' in the era of Her Majesty Chloe. The frequency of such strange events with no origin changed periodically with the development of civilization. However, compared with other dangerous events in the Fifth Era, the danger of such accidents was not high, so it didn't receive too much attention."

Luvia was very interested in this:

"What exactly is the 'life fire seed' that Xia De mentioned?"

Winnie thought for a moment:

"Her Majesty Chloe talked to me about this. That is something that shouldn't appear. Normal life doesn't need external force to survive, let alone 'fire seeds'. Life and death are the rules of the world, and 'abnormal life fire seeds' are things that can give 'non-life' life without a known origin. It can activate the creations of intelligent life and break the rules to give dead objects life."

As for why people can know its name when they see it, it is because the resonance between life and life is the inherent logic of life itself.

It's just that it must depend on life to exist, but it cannot appear before life dies, so no witch has ever really captured it. I only know so much. Compared with the crazy and dangerous threats left over from the Fourth Era that existed in the early Fifth Era, mechanical out-of-control is really not a big deal."

"Then Winnie, have similar events occurred in Chloe's territory?"

Xia De also asked, and the ice maid shook her head:

"Her Majesty's territory is located in the north of the Northern Continent. Although there are a large number of mechanical creations in the kingdom, there are more ice and snow-configured items. It is cold all year round there, and ordinary mechanical creations will be affected by the extreme cold."

Xia De nodded to show understanding, and then scanned his home. Although he had never deliberately added mechanical facilities at home, metal utensils such as steam pipes and gas lamps were impossible not to have in most families in this era.

Xia De didn't know what the essence of the so-called "mechanical plague" and "abnormal life fire seed" was. He just hoped that this abnormal phenomenon could really only appear once or twice every five or six years. Otherwise, the world would probably become even more lively.

"Will this be a disaster of 'creation'? Giving dead objects life, giving creations intelligence..."

This thought jumped into Xia De's mind, but the clues were insufficient at this time, and he couldn't explain it clearly.