CH 459

POSTED ON DECEMBER 2, 2022 BY JACK RUSSELL

Suuankou looked around and couldn’t help but sigh in a low voice, “It’s actually a subway.”

He was in a wide underground space that was only accessible by going down four flights of stairs from the subway station. Since the roadbed was unstable, lamps lit by the product of alteration magic, “Green Fire”, were installed at this place.

Although there was a unique sense of the steam era in the architectural style, this was indeed the subway station in his memories.

Apparently, it was not a subway powered by electricity but an underground rail train with a magic-modified, elf-style engine with alteration devices. It operated by extracting the Gray Mists as energy.

Otherwise, it would be almost impossible to develop subway technology hundreds of years ago. Recently, various countries had begun to study how to create a subway that could be used effectively without using the engine technology of the Underground Federation.

On the Noah Kingdom’s side, they planned to use an improved version of the steam engine with more power — at least to be able to drive the train. For this, the Black Fire made by Swamp’s Black Tower was used as the power fuel.

The biggest problem with ordinary steam engines was that the waste gas they produced could not be discharged, and the windows could not be completely sealed. Eventually, the conductor and passengers would be killed by the exhaust gas in the carriage. There would be excessive steam appearing in the waiting hall too.

In response to this problem, the ​​Noah Kingdom technicians intended to use the technology of Swamp’s Black Tower to create an advanced exhaust fan to extract the exhaust gas into a gas tank. Then, the disposed gas would pass pipes leading to the surface to discharge exhaust gas at deserted ground.

Another by-product of this technology was the so-called “overground rail train.”

With the addition of a powerful steam engine, the only downside was the exhaust.

So as long as it was used on the ground, would there be no problem with it?

Salvatore did not need to return to Black Tower to teach recently. Instead, he was invited and stayed in Noah’s royal capital to participate in the construction of the ground railway. As a result, there was significant progress on the project. The officials predicted that it would be opened to use within this year. A large-scale overground railway centered on the Noah Kingdom would be built, allowing the transportation from the east of Noah to the west directly.

If the outcome were great, they would proceed to expand the railway, which was a simpler task than developing subway lines. They could even use some rituals to speed things up on a massive scale.

What they planned to do was to get rid of the status quo where the Underground Federation had complete control over freight and passenger transport.

Even though it was Noah’s underground…

“Strictly speaking, they are no longer Noah’s land.”

Lin Yiyi, who had already taken the subway once, explained, “According to the “Underground Act”, except for the mining area and the coal area, the area 40 meters below the ground is under the Underground Federation.”

“But isn’t it less than 40 meters deep?” Jiu Er keenly felt where they were now, “It should be about 33 meters.”

“That’s because we’re in the capital, the royal city of Noah.”

Annan, who was wrapped in a cloak, tried his best to control himself not to look around. Instead, he said in a low voice, “Only this place is a special case. Under the royal city, it belongs to the joint rule area of ​the ​Noah Kingdom and the Underground Federation. I will take the subway later. At that time, we have to take the ‘deep well’ to dive further.”

“Deep well?” Jiu Er repeated.

“Unlike the world overground, the underground living space is wide. There are areas labeled differently according to their floor level.” Annan explained.

In fact, this was what he had just learned from the book.

He had never seen the subway in this world or been to the Underground Federation. But, this was not suitable to say to the players.

Until the end, Father Stone did not tell Annan where Nicholas went. Was it the Austere-Winter, Underground Federation, the Papal Kingdom, or the United Kingdom? There were no hints given.

But if Father Stone was right, he might run into Nicholas if he roamed around aimlessly.

As a result, Annan was not in a hurry.

Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack to find Nicholas, it was better to stick to his plan first.

First, let’s set up the teleportation waypoint in the Underground Federation.

There were currently only four teleportation waypoints: Freezing Water Port, Roseburg, Noah, and Swamp’s Black Tower. Except for the teleportation waypoint of Swamp’s Black Tower that only allowed departures, the others met the corresponding requirements and were directly “activated”.

Still, activating the teleportation waypoint was not hard.

In a medium-sized and above the city, the players needed to have a local residence and a stable job, living there for more than a week and completing three nightmares. Then, they would be regarded as “residents”. As long as an area had three residences there, the teleportation waypoint there was activated. After the residents left, others could still be sent over.

Although Annan’s Constitution had not fully recovered, it was no big deal. In his plan, not only would he not have conflicts with people these days…

He wasn’t even going to continue using the “Annan” identity.

Annan’s identity and secrets had been disclosed to a considerable extent to support Kafni ascending the throne and to reach a deal with Silver Sire.

Noah Kingdom was unlike Austere-Winter. The Three-eyed Crows were not Winter’s Hand either. Their job was surveillance, not assassination. This made it difficult to prevent the leak of some intelligence.

What’s more? If Kafni outperformed Princess Royal, Annan’s identity must be semi-disclosed in Noah’s royal city. Only when the top and middle managers from all walks of life could understand the relationship between Kafni and Annan could she use her power to defeat Princess Royal.

This was equivalent to the fact that “Annan Austere-Winter is about to succeed Austere-Winter’s Grand Duke, and even will be the future deity”. Not only would it spread in Noah, but outsiders would also get this piece of intelligence soon.

Thus, Annan’s identity restricted his actions.

His status was noble, and the underground world was too chaotic. No matter what others thought of him, or afraid of something happening to him… In short, it was not easy for plots against him to take place secretly.

It was not a big deal for Annan.

He planned to use Annan’s identity to take the three players through the subway ticket checkpoint. After leaving Noah’s royal city, they would pass through the deep wells of subway stations in other areas, dive into the second-floor urban area, and find a relatively stable and large-scale city.

Then, Annan would leave them and let the three players build the teleportation waypoint. With that, he could send the other players down in batches. After all, it was complicated to gain access to the subway in Noah. However, it was only a matter of money for the residents of the Underground Federation if they wanted to take the subway.

This was equivalent to smuggling the players out of Noah Kingdom. In this way, players in the Noah Kingdom could be secretly transported to other countries. However, re-entering the Noah Kingdom could prove to be challenging later.

It was difficult for unofficial transcenders to enter other countries.

That was why Annan needed immediate power instead of summoning new players.

When the players just arrived in this world, their default level would be Level 5.

In other words, when the players first arrived, they had yet to embark on the path of transcendence.

This was equivalent to having more than 300 undetectable spies. Annan could use them as his eyes and hands to infiltrate other countries.

Then, the best time to summon players should be in Underground Federation when the teleportation waypoints were almost finished.

At that time, Annan could summon a certain number of players in the underground areas of major cities in different countries and let them enter different countries.

To provide players with the motivation to activate the teleportation waypoints, Annan also delegated rich experience points to each player who performed the task. Of course, these experience points were distributed equally to the players.

That was the essence of having players form teams of four.

It would avoid players moving in a conspicuously large group, thus increasing the efficiency of setting up the teleportation circles.

Jiu Er’s group was selected because of their reliable capabilities. They could keep their daily life undisturbed while adventuring new parts of the game as quickly as possible.

At that time, Annan would find a place and switch to another identity. Then, he would get to seek out treasures in the Underground Federation.

—Why are you looking for Annan Austere-Winter and “Ghirlandaio David Buonaro”?