Wow! The item-dropping rate is really high!

The red light symbolizing the life of the personnel wearing monitors was still on, which meant their owner's life was safe and sound.

It could only detect whether a person was alive, unable to monitor more detailed information—this was a temporary technological limitation.

After all, high-volume information transmission technology had been cut off for more than four hundred years; picking it back up wasn't so easy.

Therefore, the information that could be transmitted back through sensors was limited—first, the fairly accurate life feedback, and second, the not quite real-time map location.

Logically, the red light symbolizing life should always be on... or to say, it should either be on or off without flickering.

Their research center's voltage was absolutely stable, unlikely to cause the lights to flicker due to voltage issues.

An illusion?

But the researcher was sure there was no hallucination; for that brief moment of a second or two, the five red lights symbolizing the entire team flickered rapidly twice.

Now it had returned to normal...

After hesitating for a long time, the researcher still raised his hand hesitantly, shouting without turning back to Minister Likok, "Minister, I think I just noticed a problem here."

"What problem?" Accompanied by the muffled sound of leather shoes on the floor, Minister Likok's voice echoed from afar.

"Just now this light, it seemed to flicker twice."

"Seemed to?"

The researcher gritted his teeth lightly, tone firm, "It did flicker twice, I'm certain."

"Tap tap tap!" Minister Likok arrived at the researcher's console, tapped a few keys on the desk, data streams reflected a fluorescent green light on his glasses, his eyes scanned quickly, and a trace of confusion appeared on Minister Likok's face, "I don't see any issues... "

"Could it be that the signal isn't stable enough?" Someone nearby offered their opinion.

Gazing at the data stream in front of him, Minister Likok crossed one arm over his chest and pinched his chin with the other hand, pondering, "It's not without that possibility..."

The signal station had just been established, and it was normal that some old technologies had not been fully recovered.

Plus, the occasional natural phenomena that occur in nature could also interfere with signals.

Over the past few centuries, everyone had been using close-range local area networks with limited transmission rates; encountering some issues while rebooting this branch of technology was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Continue observing; we can't overlook any doubts," ordered Minister Likok.

Not long after, another researcher's voice rose from a corner of the now quiet room, "I just saw the light seem to flicker twice."

It was another squad.

"I saw it too," another researcher's voice confirmed conclusively.

With their teammates' support, they were convinced of what they had observed.
Stay tuned with empire

Minister Likok, frowning, gave a cold command, "Take note of the time."

"Yes!"

...

"I've noticed it too."

"I saw it as well..."

As time passed, voices rang out everywhere.

The red lights symbolizing the life of the members of ten squads had the same occurrence.

Minister Likok seemed to be waiting for this moment, standing in the middle with a serious expression, "Pull up the log records of the flickering times."

In the waiting time, Minister Likok muttered softly, "Position..."

Before long, on the large central display of the room, summary data transmitted from each computer was received—namely the positions on the map where the squad members were when the red lights flickered.

Of course, not very accurately.

Without accurate global satellite positioning, the distances calculated by other means appeared on the map only as a rough and vague collection.

'Not on a straight line?'

The rate of advance of the ten squads varied in distance; naturally, everyone was responsible for different areas, the terrain was different, and the linear distances covered after departure were also different.

"See if there's a central point for these circles."

"Tap tap!"

Upon hearing this, the operator manipulated the controls, and simulated circles flashed into existence, trying to incorporate all the locations into a collective whole.

However, they failed very easily.

"Is it the influence of some natural minerals?"

Some natural minerals in the wild have a natural shielding effect on electromagnetic signals, so it's normal to experience some fluctuations when passing through their range.

In any case, there were too many influencing factors, and it wasn't possible to make a determination with so little information.

'Once this team returns, ask the military to dig deeper at these locations for exploration...'

Likok decided and then moved on from the matter.

"Continue monitoring, and report any other anomalies just the same."

...

Sitting in the vehicle, Bai E suddenly lost focus and subconsciously looked back in the direction of the base.

Just now, he felt as if the connection with the base had momentarily severed, but this intuition flashed by in an instant, and without any evidence, it was purely a profound and mysterious "feeling".

"We're almost at the nearest marked location." You, holding a map, identified the current location of everyone.

Places where worm-like creatures had been active and left burrows were marked as key points, and they were the first spots everyone needed to investigate and make contact with.

No amount of reading could compare to witnessing it in person, even the traces left by the worms helped everyone to establish a more concrete understanding of them.

"Look! Ahead!"

Ying, who had the best eyesight, spotted the faint traces of holes on the horizon from afar.

"Vroom!" Dasheng stepped on the accelerator, the tires whirling up sand and stones as they sped towards the nearest signs of worm activity.

"Hiss!" The large vehicle slowly came to a stop, and five agile figures quickly jumped down from the high sides of the cabin.

The team gathered around a hole made by the burrowing of the worm, peering down into it together...

"Wow~" Dasheng was the first to express his astonishment.

The deep hole had no visible bottom, with darkness so impenetrable that not even the sunlight could reach, twisting and turning into the obscure depths.

The first thing they guessed was the depth, and only then did they have the capacity to observe more details—

The edges of the hole were not smooth, and the overall shape was not a perfect circle but a slightly flattened oval.

The brown sand and rocks did not seem to be of a hard rock structure, yet where the sunlight could reach, there were silver "threads" attached to the rocks, appearing like residual secretions that had dried out.

Looking at the large hole wide enough to fit two or three soldiers walking through at once, Bai E's mind seemed to conjure an image of the worm that had once dug this tunnel, speeding through the pitch-black underground accompanied by a rapid whooshing sound.

"Click~" The sound of metal gear rang in their ears.

The teammates decided to go down for a look.

Dasheng and You had thick ropes tied around their waists, while the other end hung from You's body.

She was the team's master in outdoor tracking and searching, with full skills, plus her small and light frame meant Dasheng and You could pull her up directly in an emergency, making her the ideal candidate.

The tunnel was not exactly straight; its winding walls gave You ample leverage. Fully geared up, You delved deeper under the guard of Dasheng and You, with the rope gradually letting her out of sight.

"How is it?"

The close-range walkie-talkie was of course operational, and You softly asked after You disappeared from view.

"A bit dark, the smell... a bit strange, nothing else." You's crisp but buzzing voice came through Bai E's earpiece.

"The walls are hard; these silver threads must be the worm's secretions. They use this viscous substance to stabilize the tunnels."

"Keep going..."

"Found a piece of broken bone blade."

"Keep going..."

"Not long enough..." You reminded softly.

"Oh~" You's voice sounded muffled for a moment, as if making a final observation, "Far away, it seems to have collapsed. Their secretions seem to decompose naturally over time, so the tunnels won't last forever."

"The direction... towards the south, veering west about 15 degrees."

"Alright, pull me up."

Of course, the team would not follow the tunnel dug by the worms; that was too dangerous, as underground was not humans' home territory.

Determining a rough direction was the primary goal.