Upon learning that the underground secret chamber of the Mo Family Manor was about to be broken through, Lin Ziming dared not slack off.

While reporting this information to the Fire Camp, he hurriedly gathered Longxing River, who had one foot out of the operations department, and several other military leaders to rush to the Mo Family excavation site together.

Meanwhile, troops and weaponry in and around the city, and even in farther regions, also entered a state of alert.

After all, no one knew what exactly that stuff was beneath the Mo Family's ground. Analyzing based on the currently available data, combining skeletons with an ice coffin, it was equivalent in nature, at least, to a Core Formation Realm remains.

If a cultivator of such a realm left any means behind, it would inevitably cause some trouble for the rabbits on an individual level—especially in a city like Sheepback City, which gathers a large number of civilians.

As the saying goes, caution never leads to great mistakes.

A thousand precautions, if one pays off, is a blood-earned profit.

After all, the Damo Realm has no room for error, especially when it concerns a nation or a country's matters.

The operations department was set up four kilometers outside Sheepback City, connected by a dirt road.

Therefore, the military off-road vehicle took less than ten minutes to arrive at the city gate.

Now, Sheepback City was entirely under military control, with both the east and west gates guarded by their warriors, and the entire city was in a state of complete closed management.

After entering the city, there was still some distance to the Mo Family Manor, so Lin Ziming asked Political Commissar Fang Ping of the composite brigade about the situation in the city:

"Political Commissar Fang, have the citizens in the city been settled in these past few days?"

Fang Ping, as a political affairs officer, was responsible for appeasement matters, and he replied:

"Colonel Lin, currently, the residents in the city have been properly arranged.

Not to mention delicacies, at least we can ensure the daily energy intake for every household, and some individuals facing extreme hardship have also received appropriate arrangements."

Lin Ziming nodded and swept his gaze over the somewhat deserted streets.

Suddenly, as if sensing something, he turned his head in a certain direction.

Clack—

He saw two heads quickly retract behind a house, followed by the sound of a wooden door latch.

He couldn't help but look again at Fang Ping:

"Political Commissar Fang, are the civilians in the city still quite wary of us at the moment?"

Fang Ping pondered for a moment and then said:

"I wouldn't call it wariness. It's more of a reactive self-defense mechanism.

The citizens' attitude towards us is generally neutral to friendly, but there's still a significant distance from complete acceptance..."

Lin Ziming silently nodded.

After all, Sheepback City is different from Chixian City.

When the rabbits supported Chixian City, it was already on the brink of being overrun.

The arrival of Yan Shaohua and his group is practically a deus ex machina— even with that premise, it took the rabbits days, using the first batch of refugee workers from the construction site as information dissemination channels, to get the entire city to accept them.

Although the situation in Sheepback City is complex, the civilians, to be honest, are not yet at that imminent danger point.

The fall of Mo Lisen and the other villains merely quelled the civilians' grievances, giving the public opinion a somewhat friendly tilt.

From the civilians' perspective, who knows if the rabbits are using trials as a pretext for actual extermination?

This precedent isn't uncommon in the Damo Realm; decades ago when the Mo Family annexed another city, there were no survivors left within its ruling family.

So it's normal for citizens to have such concerns.

It would take at least one or two months for the city's residents to fully accept them.

This one or two months is both the time the residents of Sheepback City would observe the rabbits and the intended observation duration for the rabbits regarding the city residents.

What was the saying again?

When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also meows... ahem, the abyss gazes back at you.

Using Chixian City as a comparison again.

Chixian City belongs to the descendants of the transmigrators, and although ancestral teachings are more symbolic, the reputation of the Wei Mansion among civilians shows that the Wei descendants somewhat adhere to this ancestral guidance.

Under the influence of its ruling family for over a hundred years, the civic ethos of Chixian City isn't exactly revolutionary, but definitely agreeable.

Sheepback City, on the other hand, is different. With a hundred years of oppression by the Mo Family, who knows if the ordinary citizens' mentality has become distorted or corrupted?

It's like having a P-Studio player govern a city, seeing what the civic ethos would be like decades later.

Therefore, screening the populace is necessary. The rabbits are pressed for time, and can't afford to spend time remedying consequences caused by unstable factors.

Currently, Sheepback City is in a state of military (defense harmony) management; it's about controlling it for a while first.

After half an hour, Lin Ziming and others finally arrived at the Mo Family Manor.

At this time, three infantry companies were stationed around the Mo Family Manor. Upon their arrival, Lin Ziming and his group were quickly led to the pavilion of the Mo Family's third ancestor, where they met Company Commander Zhang Yaqing, who was overseeing the excavation of the secret chamber.

"Commander Zhang, thank you for your hard work."

After a quick handshake with Zhang Yaqing, Lin Ziming glanced at the large pit not far away and asked,

"Commander Zhang, how is the situation in the pit, has there been any dangerous occurrences? Who is working down there right now?"

Zhang Yaqing shook his head and said,

"Colonel Lin, the excavation work is currently proceeding smoothly, and no dangers have been discovered so far.

Our snipers are guarding the high points around the construction site, all equipped with 12.7mm spiritual energy armor-piercing bullets, just to be prepared for any eventuality.

Right now, at the bottom of the pit are Clan Leader Wei Fan and Comrade Cao Yi, who are conducting the final two meters of stone wall excavation.

No sooner had Zhang Yaqing spoken than two figures suddenly flew out from the pit entrance.

One of them, with thick eyebrows and large eyes, a burly figure and a stern face, was holding a Gatling gun in his right hand with one hand.

His left hand was grasping a young man wearing a safety helmet.

It was unmistakably Wei Fan and Cao Yi.

Yes, that's right, Cao Yi.

The excavation work officially began eight days ago, and around the sixth day, some unexpected situations arose on site.

At the time, Company Commander Chu Jian led the team in digging when he suddenly discovered a considerable amount of acidic crystalline rock and feldspathic sandstone in the soil layer around the chamber.

It's well known to everyone… forget it, maybe it's not that well known.

In short.

The soil area where the chamber is located belongs to a collapsible soil foundation.

The initial plan from headquarters was to store the ice coffin in the chamber after confirming no internal risks, without moving it easily.

After all, whether it's the skeletons or the ice coffin, moving them or exposing them to the outside air might lead to unforeseen changes.

But now, with the tunnel opened, there's a risk of collapse due to uneven load distribution in the chamber area—and theoretically, the probability of collapse isn't low.

So the main camp decided, after research, to first lift the ice coffin out and transport it back to the laboratory for storage.

And with this, an operational issue arose:

The ice coffin is about three meters long, and the hole made by the spinning machine is only about two meters.

Moreover, such an ice coffin is clearly unsuitable for being carried out vertically, and putting it in a spatial bag poses risks—after all, the little girl inside shows clear signs of life, and there's no telling what logical anomalies might occur if she's put in a spatial bag.

Thus, increasing the diameter of the work surface became the only choice for the construction team.

The 'Bucket Runners' among us should be familiar with it.

In an area with much feldspathic sandstone, drilling close quarters is a challenging task, very easy to disrupt the surrounding stratum configuration. Theoretically, the hole diameters should be at least five meters apart in feldspathic sandstone areas.

It's not that it's impossible to drill close, but it's quite difficult to operate, and the same goes for an excavator.

So naturally, Lin Ziming thought of Cao Yi, this junior with earth attribute spiritual roots.

Twelve days ago, Cao Yi selected two sets of cultivation techniques for himself:

Primarily an earth attribute technique "Five Mountains Earth Technique", supplemented by a wood attribute technique "Azure Sky Art".

Then, with the assistance of a once-in-a-lifetime treasure like Xianyuan Earth Essence and the cultivation environment of L17, Cao Yi succeeded in getting started with the "Five Mountains Earth Technique" in just one night.

Now he's already capable of relatively basic uses of this technique, like raising a wall of earth over a meter tall or creating an earth coffin, and so on.

Plus, mobilizing Cao Yi is much simpler than devising a whole new high-difficulty excavation plan, so with Lin Ziming's two reports, Cao Yi was reassigned to the excavation site to serve as the tool man.

A few earth attribute techniques later, the diameter of the hole was readily expanded to over four meters.

Meanwhile, Cao Yi also discovered a special situation:

Cultivating in this construction site advanced his cultivation progress much more than over in the camp!

A long time ago, Shi Zehong reported Cao Yi's peculiar attribute to Lin Li.

But back then, Cao Yi was only practicing Qi Gathering stage cultivation techniques, and Wei Fan and Patriarch Wei couldn't sense or verify this situation in those circumstances.

Considering Cao Yi claimed only a few percentage points of efficiency improvement, after discussions with experts like Lin Li and Ma Ning, they believed it was likely due to psychological suggestion.

Just like the Kua Kua Divine Teaching of the native land over there; psychological suggestions do indeed bring some gains.

You see how many braggarts in Guangdong Province lose themselves with every cry of "handsome boy", becoming bafflingly confident?

But now that Cao Yi raised this issue again, and with Wei Fan personally verifying it to be true, the command center immediately took it seriously.

The specific reasons are still under investigation, but the headquarters is already discussing giving Cao Yi a civil engineering role.

When Wei Fan and Cao Yi arrived on the surface, Lin Ziming was about to greet them.

But before he could speak, Wei Fan, in a grave tone, said:

"Colonel Lin, the passage is open, but... there's a problem with the ice coffin!"

Upon hearing this, Lin Ziming frowned, instinctively glanced at the pit entrance, then quickly asked Wei Fan:

"Clan Leader Wei, what did you discover?"

"The ice coffin is physically present, but we can only approach within two meters of it. Any closer, and there's an unknown force preventing us.

Furthermore, if I close my eyes and search with divine sense, the result is...

the ice coffin doesn't exist, there's nothing at that location."

.....

Note:

Yesterday, I was too sleepy and set the auto-update for ten o'clock but ended up selecting ten this morning by mistake....

Woke up this morning with my mind blown, missed a full attendance day, thankfully I have a leave note, otherwise, I'd lose seven to eight thousand in manuscript fees this month T.T.....

Three updates today to make up for yesterday, at eight in the morning, four in the afternoon, and nine in the evening respectively.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.