The Eternal Saint of Alchemy

The disc had not been buried for long, and the surrounding soil was loose, so it must have been buried a few days ago.

Xiao Fan conducted a detailed analysis of the spiritual energy traces on the disc in the array room and found that the residual spiritual energy structure inside the disc had many similarities to the standby waveform in the Twin Realms Platform array room.

The waveform was simply adjusted slightly, masking the core pulse pattern and leaving only the part near the edge.

The disc itself does not have offensive capabilities; it is a passive data collector used to remotely monitor the operating status of pipelines. If it is continuously installed on the pipeline, it can record the pipeline's operating status for a long time.

Master Cheng expanded the search area to the pipes between the Rust Rift and the tower, where he discovered two more identical bronze discs. All three discs were brought back to the array room for analysis.

Judging from the waveforms of the two copper plates from the same batch, they are exactly the same, and it is very likely that they were transported to the same place by the same group of people and buried in the same pipe.

Xiao Fan compared the analysis results on the disc with the visit records of the merchants in late spring, confirming that a merchant had visited once during this period. That is, the placement time of the three discs coincided with the arrival of the merchants.

During the time this caravan stayed at Shuangjietai, at least one of its attendants went out.

One morning during the fourth week of summer, the spiritual energy transmission at the Anvil Village suddenly stopped for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn. The interruption happened so suddenly and without warning that after the transmission completely disappeared, the red crystal in the array room began to flicker.

Xiao Fan rushed from the main hall to the array room and activated the emergency backup line, thus restoring the spiritual energy transmission between the anvil and the ironwork. No material shortages or equipment shutdowns occurred during the interruption of the connection at the ironwork.

That afternoon, Master Cheng led a team to conduct an on-site inspection of the intermediate pipeline between Tiezhenji and Shuangjietai.

Ten kilometers south of Tiezhenji, there is an open-air pipe foundation. At the joint of the pipe base, signs of tampering were found. There are several parallel scratches on the surface of the base, the scratches are of uniform thickness, and they do not appear to be natural wear and tear, nor were they caused by the gnawing of a spirit beast.

Old Man Pei examined the marks and determined that they were pried open with some special tool, stuck to the base of the pipe at a certain angle and with a certain force, and the transmission of spiritual energy was temporarily cut off by prying open the contact surface of the base.

The pipeline will only be interrupted momentarily after a slight displacement occurs on the surface of the fixed base. After the skid is removed, the base will quickly return to its original position, preventing any continuous damage to the pipeline.

After the pipe was cut off, the flow of spiritual energy at the bottom of the pipe was restored, and no new structural cracks appeared.

Xiao Fan checked the flow of spiritual energy in the repaired array room and confirmed that there had been no structural damage during this time; only one transmission had been forcibly interrupted. However, judging from the shape of the engravings, the fractures of these copper plates and the ripples on the discs had many similarities.

The array room archives the morphological characteristics of the keyhole traces along with the waveform diagrams on the CD, providing auxiliary clues for the same deployment.

During the first week of autumn, new unusual changes were observed in both northern and eastern Taiwan.

During a routine patrol earlier in the fall, the tower patrol team discovered signs of long-term heavy loads along the pipeline base; the patrol team continued to observe and found a small team of about thirty people about two days away from the tower.

The campsites are arranged differently from those commonly found in the region; they are lined up closely together rather than scattered, and instead of having torches lit around them at night, they are all gathered in the center of the camp.

On the same day, news came from Qinglu Village that the patrol team of Qinglu Village had discovered unusual activity at the edge of the woods northeast of Aurora Plain.

Some people searched for suitable observation points outside the forest edge and lingered briefly in open areas without entering the woods or touching the forest dwellers' markers.

In the third week of autumn, when Bai Ye arrived at the Twin Realms Platform, the Silver Frost Sword had already completed a scan of the spiritual energy surrounding the platform.

She compared the data on the Silverfrost Sword with the recent pipeline status parameters and found that there were multiple contact signals near the pipeline base that lasted for several days to a week, and these signals were not causally related to the current pipeline status parameters.

"They are testing the reaction speed of the dual-stage platform. The water cutoff in the pipeline is the first test, the disc is the second test, and the team to the north is conducting the third test."

Inside the main hall, Xiao Fan looked at the new markings on the map. The location of the northern team's camp, the contact signal observed at the eastern forest edge, and the marks left by the pipe foundation were presented in three independent directions on the map.

Brother Cheng recorded the next action plan in the patrol log. The patrol team would continuously observe the area around the northern camp, record the entry and exit of personnel in the camp, as well as the cycle of material transportation, forming a continuous record of the situation.

The patrol frequency along the eastern forest edge will remain at its current level, with no increase in visible activity along the border of the forest dwellers; the array room will adjust the monitoring of the entire pipeline to once a day and keep comprehensive records.

In the fourth week of autumn, the young master of Qinglu Manor arrived at Shuangjietai. He looked at the map in the main hall, then at the camp to the north, and then at the new markings on the eastern edge of the forest.

He said, "The group to the north isn't a single team. They've been operating in the central Aurora Plains for half a year without any official markings, and their methods of operation are different from other teams in the central region."

Pei the Hunter stated definitively, "I've seen this combination many times in the middle section of the Aurora Plains and the border area between the northern frontier—mixed squads under unified command, with one person leading multiple peripheral squads, exerting pressure on the Twin Boundary Platform from all directions."

Inside the main hall, Xiao Fan discussed the upcoming tasks with the young master of Qinglu Manor and Old Master Pei.

The tower was overseen by Elder Hunter Pei, while Cultivator Cheng was responsible for transporting supplies between the Anvil Collection and the Rust Rift. Green Deer Manor was responsible for maintaining contact with the eastern edge of the forest, and the Array Room was in charge of intelligence gathering.

On the fourth day, the Forest Dwellers sent a message through the boundary marker, confirming that they had noticed the activity outside the forest edge and pointing out that the team had been locked onto when it appeared at the edge of the forest.

On the fifth day, its movement trajectory, wind direction and other characteristics were included in the observation record and compared in layers with the live sensor data shared by the two stations.

In the fifth week of autumn, the northern contingent moved their position, advancing their camp two days north of the tower, and was now close to it. The camp layout remained tight, with tents close together and a consistent frequency of movement in and out.

The patrol found a trail of footprints around the camp, leading from the camp to a nearby water source. The width of the footprints corresponded exactly to the location of a team's encampment.