Unlike the biting cold outside, it was warm inside the energy tower, with many gleaming pieces of equipment.
Lín, Old Liu Shaitou, and Lei Jian were running around, frantically scavenging for various supplies within the energy tower. This was because the tower contained many items that were rare and priceless outside, especially those related to Arcane Yuan Coins and Arcane Origin Stones…
After observing for a while, Ye Feng stood in a place piled high with various documents, which contained detailed information about the Winter's Refuge.
As Ye Feng had previously speculated, the supply stations in the Frozen Snow Region were actually pre-established shelters that had been inhabited.
This Winter's Refuge, or rather the Frost City, was the headquarters, and it regularly delivered supplies to the smaller shelters.
The Heat Lamp was used by the shelter's exploration teams when they went out. In addition to its heating function, it also had an emergency response device that could urgently deliver supplies to the location of the Heat Lamp. However, each Heat Lamp could only be used once for emergencies…
Furthermore, the Heat Lamp could not be too far from the Winter's Refuge or any of the shelters; otherwise, supplies could not be delivered.
The Winter's Refuge used something called an Arcane Energy Rail to deliver supplies to the shelters.
This rail had no physical form. It could only be established between the Winter's Refuge and various shelters when they reached a certain level of Arcane Energy synchronization.
Driven by lightning-attribute arcane energy, cable car compartments loaded with various supplies would be rapidly transmitted from the top of this energy tower…
"No wonder the top components of those cable car compartments are made of the same material as survival coins. Is it to conduct and store arcane energy?!"
"And that electrical spark when the cable car compartment stopped… that should have been lightning-attribute arcane energy~"
At this moment, Ye Feng began to understand.
The Winter's Refuge operated well at first, but the stored supplies would eventually run out. Especially the lightning-attribute Arcane Origin Stones stored in the Winter's Refuge…
With no other choice, the Winter's Refuge began to decrease the frequency of supply deliveries to the supply stations, and the amount of supplies delivered each time became smaller and smaller… Coupled with the increasingly harsh cold and monster attacks… the Winter's Refuge itself did not know what had gone wrong, and zombies appeared…
After that, it became what Ye Feng and the others saw…
What caught Ye Feng's attention the most was a cluster of dark red characters written on a wall.
This was because the handwriting of those characters was the same as the handwriting in the notebook that Chen Jindong had given him, which did not belong to Chen Jindong…
The dark red characters were written hastily, and it was evident that the person who wrote them was in a great hurry. "This is just the beginning… a more terrifying disaster is yet to come. We shamefully betrayed those who believed in us… The Creator's Lamp, only the Creator's Lamp can…"
"Clang!~"
"Clang clang kẽng~ crash!~"
Suddenly, a loud metallic impact echoed, followed by a series of dense, slightly lighter metallic collisions.
"Hmm?"
Ye Feng frowned slightly, collected all the documents from the scene into his spatial warehouse, ran out of the room, and looked towards the source of the sound.
At this moment, Lín, Old Liu Shaitou, and Lei Jian were gathered around a cylindrical device in the center of the energy tower, with various spare parts scattered nearby.
"Damn, so many Arcane Yuan Coins, but not a single one has any arcane energy~"
Lei Jian's disappointed voice rang out.
"It's not just the Arcane Yuan Coins; almost all of these piles of Arcane Origin Stones are devoid of arcane energy!"
Lín, who was rummaging through a pile of stones and occasionally sensing with water-attribute arcane energy, also spoke.
After observing the room again, Ye Feng walked towards Lín and the others.
"This energy tower is truly strange. Even though there's no longer a supply of Arcane Yuan Coins and Arcane Origin Stones, it still emits arcane energy every so often!"
As Ye Feng approached the group, Old Liu Shaitou's puzzled voice sounded.
As he spoke, he looked up towards an opening above, where a cable car compartment was rapidly departing along the Arcane Energy Rail, driven by lightning-attribute arcane energy…
However, the cable car compartments did not contain supplies but rather over a dozen zombies. They looked like workers or residents who had been loading supplies.
"Hmm? These patterns and characters?!"
Ye Feng's eyes widened in surprise as he observed the cylindrical device.
He felt a strange sense of familiarity with these mystical patterns and characters, much like the arcane runes on Ling Xi's silver armor!
"What the heck?"
Ye Feng muttered in confusion.
"Uncle Liu, the people who built this Frost City back then were too amazing! To have built such a magnificent shelter amidst the cataclysm!"
Lín stood on a suspension ladder of the energy tower and looked out through the window, exclaiming in surprise.
"Indeed, and building Frost City specifically on top of a volcano was likely to utilize the heat emanating from below to resist the severe cold!"
Old Liu Shaitou nodded in agreement.
"Xiao Xiao, what's wrong?"
At this moment, Ye Feng turned to ask Xiao Xiao.
This was because he had noticed that since entering the energy tower, Xiao Xiao had been constantly twitching her little nose and frowning occasionally.
"Big brother, there's a very unpleasant smell here!"
"It's very, very faint, and it gives me a creepy feeling when I smell it!"
Xiao Xiao twitched her little nose again, confirming her statement.
"This description… is the smell you're talking about the same one we smelled near that pile of corpse fragments before we reached the Flag Supply Station?"
Upon hearing Xiao Xiao's description, Ye Feng's brow furrowed tightly.
"Mm-hmm!"
Xiao Xiao nodded vigorously.
"Smell? This… it seems like some kind of fragrance, but also not. It's very strange, faint and elusive!"
"Although it smells fragrant, it makes people instinctively reject it!"
After hearing Xiao Xiao's words, Lín sniffed the air and said.
"Everyone be careful. What I was worried about before, the dangerous entity that was ahead of us, might have been here!"
Seeing this, Ye Feng immediately shared his previous suspicions with Lín and the others.
"This…"
Upon hearing this, Lín, Old Liu Shaitou, and Lei Jian all drew their weapons, their expressions solemn.
"I'm back!"
Suddenly, a joyous male voice echoed from outside the energy tower.
"Hmm? What's going on?"
Ye Feng frowned slightly, as he felt he had heard that voice before.
Before long, a figure stumbled in from the direction of the large iron gate at the energy tower entrance.
"I'm back… back… back…"
The person shouted loudly, but suddenly stopped, as he discovered that besides him, there were several other people inside the energy tower.
"Wow, it's him!"
Ye Feng was greatly surprised. The person who had entered was the white-haired old man he had met a few times before, who had said that people used to live in the supply station.
"You… how are you here, and how did you get here?"
The white-haired old man looked at Ye Feng and the others with astonishment.