After learning the culprit behind the communication interference, Jiang Ling slowly walked back to where she had made a hard landing.
Walking on the seabed is not as easy as on land. Even with the power assistance of the exoskeleton, the resistance of the water flow makes her walk very slowly.
After climbing two slopes of mud and sand, she reached the edge of the crater. Through the icy water, she spotted a hexagonal cargo box at the bottom of the crater, quietly inserted diagonally into the deeper sediment. It had been clinging to a robotic arm, but she had temporarily unhooked it to climb out of the mud and sand.
It's the exoskeleton's treasure chest, a bit like a Swiss Army knife. It's currently locked, requiring you to approach and then use shortwave communication to unlock it.
"I remember... the password is..."
After entering the password on the visor, some seawater was discharged from the middle of the box, causing the dust covering its surface to rise again.
Jiang Ling placed the harpoon at an angle on it, then reached out with his right hand to a handle on the side of the prism and connected the sensor.
After a while, the support equipment list was displayed on the visor:
【Extra buoyancy】
【Assisted propulsion】
【Drag signal enhancement】
【100m signal rope × 4】
【Underwater Operation Toolbox】
【Bait device × 4】
【Sample jar × 8】
Jiang Ling shone the light on the box, took a look, then grabbed the handle and turned it over.
Once the debris on the seafloor cleared, she finally got a clear view of the box. It was about two meters long and about the diameter of a car wheel. It had several cracks of varying shapes, presumably storage areas for the equipment. It wasn't very heavy, and its overall density was probably similar to seawater. Once activated, it could float underwater.
In fact, Wu Ying had introduced these things to her when he was assembling them two days ago, but she was busy helping Lao Ning at that time and didn't pay much attention to them.
According to Lao Wu, this box was originally designed to accompany the fourth-generation exoskeleton, as evidenced by the various modules installed within. The equipment box complements the exoskeleton's limited carrying capacity, allowing it to conveniently perform various tasks by changing the items within.
Such a design is necessary, but the main reason is that the design concept of the fourth-generation exoskeleton has changed.
It evolved from a single-soldier combat suit into a multi-purpose protective suit, with much of the combat equipment removed. After the prototype, it saw several updated versions, and its functionality became similar to that of a space suit—both the framework and the systems were no longer limited to ground battlefields.
Of course, although we don’t know what the ultimate evolution of the exoskeleton will look like, at least the idea is very clear - it will only become smaller and stronger, and will definitely not become a bulky, dozens of meters high mecha!
Jiang Ling used the robotic arm to grab the support equipment box again and put it on his back. Then, using the folding harpoon as a crutch, he climbed to the top of the hill. The slope was not very steep, but the equipment box provided additional buoyancy, which prevented Jiang Ling from sinking deeply into the sediment, but also increased the difficulty of moving.
She fired an active sonar in all four directions, and the exoskeleton automatically mapped nearby noise.
After comparison, she located her position more accurately.
If the historical data is correct, she should be at the fault line of the fault zone. The cliff behind her is actually just an inconspicuous tiny rift, like a herpes on the skin. If it is not discovered in time, it will have healed.
"Calling Yuanyu No. 3, have you finished your work? I have done everything I can do here. Over." 20 minutes after the last routine communication, Jiang Ling sent a signal to Political Commissar Xiao again.
"...Zizizi...No., I...sample, wait a moment...what is it?!"
Once the distance increases, the quality of radio communication underwater decreases exponentially.
Jiang Ling was more concerned about his last scream. Although she didn't sense any hostile threat from her psychic abilities, she slowly returned to the edge of the cliff. She stuck her harpoon into the crevice of the rock, secured herself, and shouted down, "Yuanyu No. 3, what happened?"
"...Huh, it's nothing, just a corpse." His breathing was rapid, and the microphone clearly recorded his gasps. "I just got scared, but I'm fine now... It's just the head of a steelhead shark. It seems to be stuck. Hmm, where's the lower half? Let me look... Hmm? This is... a tooth? But why is it here?"
He had never turned off the communication. Jiang Ling stayed at the edge of the cliff and listened to his mumbling for more than ten minutes before she saw him floating up from below, holding the orange equipment box.
"Yuanyu No. 2, my sample can is used up. Over." Political Commissar Xiao grabbed the harpoon handle handed to him by Jiang Ling, and said these words before he could stand back on the ground.
"What did you find? Could it be that the fish's stomach contains the remains of the black box?" Jiang Ling said unhappily.
"That's definitely not it!" He shook his head inside his exoskeleton and expressed his guess. "The transition layer in the canyon caused two mutants that shouldn't have met to collide. They fought somewhere upstream, and the deep-water squid swallowed the shallow-water steelhead shark. But the steelhead shark didn't die; it bit through the squid's stomach.
"Something may have happened afterwards, and both of them died in the ocean current. Their remains may have been torn apart by other sea monsters along the way, and finally washed here by the current until they turned into bones."
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com