Dice In The Darkness: Cthulhu Calls

Chapter 326: Shoggoth Suppression Device

Liu Xing raised an eyebrow in surprise. He hadn’t expected that beneath Sirius’s room, there would be another room... Wait, it seemed like there were more than one room down here.

Liu Xing stroked his chin, regretting not bringing digging tools like a shovel this time. If he had, he could have attempted to excavate this place, and who knows, there might be some unexpected discoveries.

After a while, due to the lack of reference, Liu Xing had no idea how long he had been descending in this elevator. Finally, it stopped in front of a large door labeled "Sirius Storage Room."

Taking a step forward, Liu Xing found that the door automatically opened.

Entering Sirius’s storage room, Liu Xing noticed that it wasn’t particularly large—just over ten square meters—with shelves lining the walls.

Scattered on these shelves were various objects. However, Liu Xing could discern that most items had deteriorated over time. For instance, a circular object Liu Xing casually reached for turned into dust upon contact.

Due to time constraints, Liu Xing couldn’t carefully examine each item for damage. Instead, he opted for a quick and convenient method—running his hand swiftly over the shelves and taking away anything that didn’t turn to dust.

As a result, dust filled the air.

In the end, Liu Xing only retrieved three items from Sirius’s storage room, or items, as Liu Xing had already checked their information.

Obtaining three items exceeded Liu Xing’s expectations. Before arriving at the Underground Ruins, he had mentally prepared himself to be satisfied with just finding one item.

Most importantly, among these three items, the effect of one item thrilled Liu Xing.

The appearance of this particular item was somewhat peculiar, resembling a leash collar used for walking dogs. However, the material looked extremely sturdy, adorned with various patterns or perhaps even runes.

Clearly, this item was not for walking Ancient Ones’ pets but for controlling Shoggoths.

The Shoggoth Suppression Device, developed by the Ancient Ones after the first Shoggoth rebellion failed. When the user puts this device on a Shoggoth, the Shoggoth will obey the user’s commands. However, the Shoggoth’s own strength will decrease by about fifty percent. It’s worth mentioning that this device only works on certain Shoggoths.

In simple terms, this was the device the Ancient Ones used to control Shoggoths. After the first Shoggoth rebellion, all Ancient Ones knew that Shoggoths were no longer tools they could freely use but genuine intelligent beings. Thus, the Ancient Ones had to change their attitude towards Shoggoths—from tools to slaves.

However, looking at it from another perspective, the Shoggoth Suppression Device seemed formidable. It allowed one to tame a Shoggoth as if it were a magical creature. But the limitations of this device were evident.

Firstly, according to Liu Xing’s understanding, the Shoggoth Suppression Device could only target Shoggoths that had been controlled by the Ancient Ones after the first rebellion and had not evolved to a higher level in the billions of years since... Simply put, it could only deal with the Shoggoths in Fisher’s Village.

Secondly, and most importantly, the Shoggoth Suppression Device was essentially a dog collar. Just as humans could control a dog’s movements within a certain range by putting a collar on its neck, this device could only control a Shoggoth if it had a neck... Well, if Shoggoths had necks.

Therefore, for Ancient Ones in the past, putting the Shoggoth Suppression Device on a Shoggoth wasn’t difficult. But for Liu Xing, with his current strength, trying to put this device on a Shoggoth’s head was practically impossible.

Thus, Liu Xing looked at the Shoggoth Suppression Device and could only sigh in resignation. Although the device was very useful, with his current abilities, bringing the Shoggoth Suppression Device to control a Shoggoth was almost impossible.

Besides the Shoggoth Suppression Device, Liu Xing found another item resembling a hand grenade, which seemed useful. Although it appeared to be a disposable damage-dealing item, in reality, it was a support-type item.

"The Ancient One Signal Jammer, long neglected and damaged. It can block most signals within a five-kilometer radius, including special communication signals between certain mythical creatures. It can be used for a maximum of ten minutes each time. After depleting the energy in the jammer, it can be recharged using electricity, solar power, and other means."

In essence, it was a high-level signal jammer that could block many signals, often proving unexpectedly useful. Unfortunately, the jammer was long neglected, or Liu Xing thought it would be even more useful.

As for the last item, it was something similar to a Rubik’s Cube. However, Liu Xing needed to ask Sirius about the specific function of this item because the information on this item was... quite mysterious.

A mysterious Rubik’s Cube, nothing more.

Liu Xing played with this palm-sized Rubik’s Cube and found it much lighter than imagined. The cube followed a nine-square grid design, with each small square having a different color.

Liu Xing attempted to twist the Rubik’s Cube but found it impossible, no matter how much force he used.

Thus, Liu Xing began to doubt whether this Rubik’s Cube was the legendary Shining Dodecahedron, one of the artifacts used to summon the incarnation of Nyarlathotep.

However, Liu Xing quickly dismissed this idea because the appearance of this Rubik’s Cube was somewhat different from the Shining Dodecahedron. Moreover, such an artifact couldn’t possibly appear in Sirius’s storage room.

Besides, if the Shining Dodecahedron were placed in darkness, it might summon Nyarlathotep’s incarnation—Nightmare.

Apart from these three items, Liu Xing also obtained an item that didn’t exactly qualify as an item—a map from the past.

This map mainly depicted the terrain around Fisher’s Village in the past. However, due to the changes over the years, Liu Xing lost interest in the map.

On the back of the map, though, was a schematic of the interior of Sirius’s Fort from that time.

The Fort constructed by the Ancient Ones, in essence, hollowed out a large mountain and then transformed it. Now, Fisher’s Village was located on the mountaintop where the Fort once stood.

At the peak of the mountain was the command center of the Ancient One Fort, along with the room of the highest commander—currently Sirius’s room—and the adjacent enormous circular space.

It could be deduced that Sirius was the highest commander of this Ancient One Fort back in the day.

In the middle of the mountain, there were the rooms of other Ancient Ones, along with some communal facilities. At the bottom were the individual storage rooms of the Ancient Ones and places to store various weapons.

If one continued downwards, deep beneath the mountain’s surface was the place where they imprisoned captives of other mythical creature races. Of course, Shoggoths were also confined here, quite a distance from the storage room above, and there was only one path to traverse. Most importantly, on this path, the Ancient Ones had installed ten doors, showing how wary they were of another Shoggoth rebellion.

Liu Xing, however, felt that this was also the reason why the Ancient Ones didn’t release the Shoggoths to join the fight against the Star Kin and Deep One when they attacked the Fort. Opening so many doors to release the Shoggoths would indeed be too troublesome.

Crucially, Liu Xing noticed that the only passage led directly above to the current Fisher’s Village Ancestral Hall.

Of course, now that Liu Xing had seen this map, he regretted not bringing some excavation tools. He knew that breaking through a wall about thirty centimeters thick would grant him access to the storage rooms of other Ancient Ones. Although the levels of the other Ancient Ones might be lower than Sirius, there should still be many useful items.

Moreover, the hardness of these walls was no different from ordinary soil walls.

Liu Xing sighed helplessly, thinking that if he had another chance to enter these Underground Ruins, he would definitely bring some excavation tools to plunder the storage rooms of other Ancient Ones. After all, those were items.

Returning on the elevator he came in, Liu Xing went back to Sirius’s room. Driven by curiosity, he walked up to the enormous bookshelf and casually picked up a thread-bound book.

Liu Xing was somewhat surprised to find that the contents of this thread-bound book were written in the Ancient One language. He had initially thought that these books were left behind by the Ancient Tribe.

Intrigued, Liu Xing flipped through several thread-bound books, bamboo scrolls, and parchment rolls, discovering that all of them were left by the Ancient Ones.

It seemed that the Ancient Ones’ literary carriers in those days were quite diverse.

Furthermore, the names of these Ancient One books were much more down-to-earth than Liu Xing had imagined. Titles like "Postnatal Care of Shoggoth," "Fifty Billion Whys," and "Secrets I Have to Tell Yis People" caught his eye.

Liu Xing rubbed his chin, feeling that the image of the Ancient Ones in his mind had completely collapsed.

In a thread-bound book titled "Fifty Thousand Shades of Gray," Liu Xing found a letter written by an Ancient One named Alexander to Sirius.

From the letter, Liu Xing gathered that Alexander was a technician responsible for maintaining and upgrading various systems in the Fort. As the headquarters needed him to report back to the city on the Antarctic Continent, Alexander left the Fort.

When Alexander departed, the Fort’s identity verification system automatically upgraded. Therefore, Alexander informed Sirius of this news and urged him to complete the level verification of all Ancient Ones in the Fort as soon as possible, thus determining the permissions each Ancient One should have within the Fort.

Most importantly, Alexander provided Sirius with an administrator account that could control all the systems in the Fort.

Seeing this, Liu Xing had a sudden realization. It seemed like he could use this administrator account to assign himself certain permissions, allowing him to enter the rooms and storage rooms of other Ancient Ones without resorting to violence.

Therefore, Liu Xing confirmed his next move. He would head to the adjacent enormous circular space—the command center.

Ready to act, Liu Xing tucked the letter into his pocket and moved towards the command center.

Of course, Liu Xing didn’t forget to check the current time. He found that he had been in the Underground Ruins for twenty minutes.

After entering the command center, thanks to the Light Orb Art, Liu Xing could see the surroundings clearly. In addition to damaged weapons, there were numerous skeletons. Judging from these skeletons with three heads and six arms, Liu Xing was sure that this Ancient Tribe had no connection with humans anymore. However, survivors of this Ancient Tribe’s race might have made it to the human era, becoming prototypes for certain mythical stories.

Due to the improved visibility and his knowledge of the overall structure of the command center, Liu Xing effortlessly located the core of the command center—the control room.

In the control room, Liu Xing saw numerous screens, buttons, and control levers, exuding a strong sense of technology.

However, due to the lack of energy, these instruments were in a dormant state.

Liu Xing paid no attention to this because he knew his target—the identity verification device—operated using an Energy Storage Unit created by the Ancient Ones. This Energy Storage Unit was essentially a battery. In its unused state, the Identity Verification Device would completely cut off power, no longer consuming energy from the Energy Storage Unit. Therefore, Liu Xing believed that the Identity Verification Device should work normally, unless it or the Energy Storage Unit was damaged.

Soon, Liu Xing found his goal for this trip—the Identity Verification Device.

The Identity Verification Device looked like the instrument used to perm hair in modern hair salons, but because it was made for the Ancient Ones, the appearance of this Identity Verification Device was quite peculiar.

Coming to the back of the Identity Verification Device, Liu Xing found that the Energy Storage Unit was intact and connected to the Identity Verification Device.

Therefore, Liu Xing knew that it was time for KP Green Light to make its appearance.

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