Struggle in the Steam Age

"Hey, this seems to be something left by our family." The first time she saw the tailband, Fatina found that the coat of arms on the tailband looked very familiar. In heraldry, the coats of arms of the same family will have something in common. It was also because of this that she judged that this thing had something to do with her.

"Androk—this should indeed belong to our family." After looking around carefully, Fatina fell into deep thought as she looked at the name. "After all, this surname is not common among Ratmen, and the design of this coat of arms is completely New World style. In the New World, only our family uses this potion bottle and unicorn as a coat of arms and has the surname Androk. By the way , can you tell me where I found this?"

"It's the last secret base of a cult organization. It's in an abandoned coal mine on the east side of the river. This senior rat man should have joined a team of demon hunters. He died in the battle with the cultist." It is." Lawrence said, "Do you—do you know his specific identity?"

"I don't know, squeak—" Fatina smiled wryly and shook her head. "After all, there are hundreds of people in our family. What's more, this person is at least from my grandfather's grandfather's generation. I don't know him at all!"

"Grandpa's grandpa?" Sai Feier was puzzled. "How is that possible? This thing is only—"

"Zhi, don't forget that I'm a rat man." Fatina smiled and stretched out a paw in front of her face, shaking, "The natural lifespan is different from your human beings, and the age of each age group is naturally different from that of human beings." .For example, my grandfather is 40 years old now, and he is already an old man. Another example is that I am 12 years old now, but I am already an adult. But as a dragon blood warlock, I will live longer than ordinary humans."

"Well, I don't think we are using child labor." Lawrence and Safir looked at each other with a tacit understanding, and at the same time showed a dumbfounding smile. It may be because of familiarity, and most of the intelligent races, except for the rough orcs, are somewhat taboo to directly ask the lady's age. So Lawrence and the others never realized that Fatina, as a rat man, was different from herself in many ways.

It is very common for the many intelligent races in this world to have different perceptions of time and age. For example, some long-lived species will become ancestral friends of certain families, and a big demon may also hate someone because of something. And his heirs for hundreds of years, and then when he jumped out to make trouble, he was killed by a brave man.

"Thank you very much for bringing this thing back." Fatina turned the tailband in her hand and it disappeared in her hand, then she bowed solemnly to Lawrence. "I'm going to send it back now, and let the family send a team to bring my relative back home."

After Fatina left, she went out until the afternoon before returning to the office. According to her, her family successfully confirmed that the owner of the tail hoop was indeed a missing senior in the family, and then sent personnel to negotiate with the Church of Knowledge. If all goes well, her senior will be able to go home tonight.

After finishing this work, Lawrence has been in a state of salty fish for the next whole week. Apart from being bored in the room and reading a book, he just went to the Witcher Guild to buy some potions. Basically dare not practice supernatural strength.

After all, he is now at a critical moment when he will become an official Transcendent at any time, so Lawrence is very worried that he will suddenly break through the current situation because of a simple Transcendent practice and lose his participation in the Black Iron level competition in the New World Nations Competition Opportunity.

Because Lawrence gave back the sword before, the Hunter's Guild was very friendly to him. After a brief chat, he easily bought some medicines that were difficult to buy outside at an internal price, and even magic medicines such as sword oil, which only the Demon Hunters Guild had.

Although Lawrence is not very good at using cold weapons, but because he has learned fighting skills, it is not impossible for him to use them at all. Sword oil is suitable for all cold weapons, except that the sword oil will fall off when the bullet is fired in hot weapons. Of course, this naturally also applies to Lawrence's crowbar.

In addition to buying some potions and consumables, Lawrence also exchanged 600 yuan for standard gold bars in the bank. He was going to wait until he entered that astral plane, and then strengthen it immediately, so as to get more initiative.

According to the information Lawrence has seen in the Church of Knowledge in the past few days, every time he participates in a competition, there will always be someone who is on the eve of a breakthrough or suppresses himself for a short time without upgrading, and then releases the suppression or quickly enters the astral plane. upgrade.

Out of the consideration of how much to gain, under normal circumstances, not many people like Lawrence want to participate in the lowest level of black iron level competitions, but as the level of the competition increases and the benefits increase, those who choose to suppress themselves There will be more and more.

Of course, this is a real world, not playing some kind of game. Therefore, level suppression does not necessarily mean victory in battle. Especially if this sudden surge in strength cannot be perfectly mastered, then the combat power will not only not increase compared to before the upgrade, but will instead decline.

So those who choose this path are only those who have the opportunity to go to these astral planes but are not strong enough, especially those who have sufficient resources.

In many cases, these spaces will have certain restrictions on the power level and the resources carried. And suppressing one's own strength to enter the space and then releasing it is the biggest advantage that can be obtained with resources under these various restrictions.

In this slightly anxious waiting, a whole week passed. Finally, the time came to the day when it was time to leave.

When he set off that morning, Safir and Fatina sent him to St. Gutenberg Cathedral together. According to the plan, he will set off from here to the entrance of the astral plane on an island in the Sea of ​​Stars.

The New World is just a general term, and it is actually divided into Hokuriku, Zhonglu and Nanlu. Among them, the north and south continents are two huge continents, while the area of ​​the middle land connecting the two continents between the north and the south is much smaller, and it is more like a land bridge that looks a little too fat.

The Sea of ​​Stars refers to the eastern part of Central Continent, the semi-enclosed tropical ocean between the northern and southern continents. Islands of different sizes are sprinkled like pearls on the sea. Some of them are independent countries, and some are colonies, noble territories, company territories, or overseas provinces of countries in the old and new continents.

It is precisely because these islands are distributed in the ocean just like the stars are distributed in the sky, so this place is named Star Sea.

If you want to go from Eagle Fort to Sea of ​​Stars, there are not many roads to choose from. If you go by land, you need to repeatedly reverse the carriage and train through the White Eagle Federation and the Erythion Empire, and then take the latest steamboat at the southernmost port of Theodosius in the Erythion Empire for five or six days. The skyship will be there, and it will take about a month.

If you don't want to repeatedly reverse the transportation, the port of Eagle Fort also has a direct ship to the destination. But it may take two months in this way.

Of course, this is all thanks to the development of technology and the application of steam-powered vehicles. Otherwise, it would take five or six months for ordinary people to go there. Not to mention that there are various evil creatures and bandits along the way, and the danger is not low.

However, people with better means like Lawrence still have another option, that is to take the steam airship that has only become popular in the past ten years. There is such an airship landing field in the southern suburb of Eagle Fort. Students who came from a small inland city went there to see the novelty.

But after he met the priests in the church, he realized that his previous thoughts about traveling to the small island in the Sea of ​​Stars were a little too conservative, and the real situation was much bigger than he thought.