Chapter 605: Chapter 424 Testing Begins_2
However, due to the appearance of the white fog, it was clear they could no longer rely on guesswork; they had to report to their superiors and request support.
Before three minutes had passed, the team leader had already received a response through his headset, approving the request, "Your application has been approved. Three drones are expected to arrive above your area within five minutes; control privileges have been granted to you."
Hearing the response in his headset, the team leader immediately asked the team member responsible for electronic information, "Have we received control privileges for the three drones?"
Upon the leader’s query, the team member immediately took out a tablet from the backpack, checked for confirmation, and then reported, "Privileges for the three drones have been confirmed. Including the one above our heads, we now have control privileges for four drones.
According to the information supplied on the tablet, the other three drones will reach our location in 1 minute 12 seconds, 1 minute 45 seconds, and 3 minutes 23 seconds, respectively."
After hearing the communications trooper’s reply, the leader swiftly commanded, "Direct the drone above us to monitor the height 50 Blockade Rope and arrange the rest accordingly as they arrive.
The last drone to arrive is to move in real-time with us."
Hearing the leader’s orders, the operator quickly manipulated the controls, and not long after, reported back, "Report, Captain, the mission is complete."
After receiving the confirmation from his team member, the leader nodded his head and proceeded with the remaining team members to the area of the first Blockade Rope, at a height of fifty.
Although he had been interacting continuously with the communications officer just before, he had led all his teammates to this location. After squatting down to test the tensile strength of the Blockade Rope and finding it satisfactory, he nodded with a smile.
Then he led everyone over the Blockade Rope toward the position of the next one, while the drone that had been following above them quietly stopped beside the Blockade Rope to better conduct surveillance.
Even setting traps with a single Blockade Rope was extremely simple for a single person, not to mention that he had just directly arranged for three people. So by the time he had brought the other team members over, the three Blockade Ropes were already set up.
As all team members regrouped at the location of the third Blockade Rope, the Sharp Blade Team leader stopped in front of the third one, noticing the second drone had already positioned itself at a height of 100 beside the second Blockade Rope.
The captain decided to stand his ground there, acting as bait to ensure the skeletons in the white fog were more determined in their approach.
It should be known that the test he set up was quite rudimentary, and any creature with a bit of intelligence could easily overcome these three Blockade Ropes.
Actually, when he had given the order just before, he had already mentally prepared an alternative testing method, in case the skeletons didn’t fall for this one.
While he was lost in thought, the white fog had drawn close to the first Blockade Rope at a height of 50, and as the bells on the Blockade Rope jangled continuously, everyone knew that the skeletons must have tripped over it.
Considering that the height of fifty is something even a primary school student could easily step over, the captain hadn’t expected the Blockade Rope at that height to trip up the skeletons. However, he set it up with a try-and-see attitude and, unexpectedly, it proved to be useful.
As the bells tied to the Blockade Rope swayed non-stop, whether it was the Sharp Blade Team members on the ground, Dong Tianyu floating above enjoying the show, or the people at Command Headquarters watching the live transmission, they all sensed something was amiss.
If the bells on the Blockade Rope rang intermittently, it might indicate that only one or two skeletons accidentally encountered it. But the short, dense ringing of the bells could only lead to two possibilities.
One possibility is that the skeletons in the white fog are extremely stupid, so during their advance, they completely disregarded the intercepting ropes on the ground, which is why one after another was triggered by the advancing skeletons.
The second type was formidable; the number of skeletons in the white mist wasn’t actually that large, but those skeletons were clever, deliberately shaking the Blockade Rope, attempting to use the sound of the bell to exaggerate the quantity of skeletons in the mist.
Because, in addition to Command Headquarters, the staff officers were also observing the situation here, a staff officer had proposed another hypothesis at the time.
The first two hypotheses had already guessed from two perspectives: one skeleton being foolish and the other being intelligent. What if we presumed the skeletons to be even smarter? Could the ringing of the bells now be the skeletons in the mist attempting to deceive by creating obfuscation?
Upon hearing this idea, everyone quickly caught on, and all the people in the staff room watched the screen while discussing which of the three hypotheses was most likely. Only the record keeper, silently standing in the corner, faithfully documented every statement made by those formally proposing ideas.
Then, from within the staff room, a staff officer stood up and said, "I believe that, at this time, the intelligence of the skeletons should not reach such a height.
The reason is actually quite simple; we’ve been able to confirm that since the onsets of cataclysm, each new wave of disaster theoretically becomes more severe than the last.
We’ve already discussed and settled the specific reasons and need not go over them again at this time. However, by leveraging this rule, we can extrapolate the conditions of the creatures that appeared after the catastrophe.
When ancient creatures were revived, various laboratories actually captured many for testing and experimentation. Through testing, it turned out that most of the ancient creatures, regardless of size, were not intelligent. Caught in a cycle of eating, sleeping, hunting upon waking, feeding after a catch, and then sleeping again, it was precisely because of this that taming ancient creatures was so difficult.
On the side of the Bug Race, without even mentioning the Brain Bugs we discovered but never successfully captured, let’s talk about the other Bug Race species; they actually all possess intelligence.
Just in terms of wisdom, excluding some special ancient creatures and the Bug Race, the vast majority of the Bug Race is actually smarter than most ancient creatures.
And the fact that the Bug Race is smarter than ancient creatures also indirectly proves that the difficulty of the catastrophe has been increasing over and over again. But this intensification follows a pattern, so I believe maybe the skeletons possess some intelligence, but most of them will not have such a high level of intelligence."
When the staff officer who had proposed the third hypothesis heard his guess being contradicted, he immediately stood up and said, "I admit that there may be some truth to your rebuttal of my earlier proposal.
However, according to what you said, both ancient creatures and the Bug Race include highly intelligent species, so how do you know that there isn’t one highly intelligent species hidden within the white mist right now?"
Upon hearing the retort, he suddenly paused, realizing that he had indeed failed to consider thoroughly, having overlooked some special individuals.
After contemplating these matters, he did not persist in being unreasonable but openly admitted, "I apologize, my earlier consideration was not thorough enough."
Upon hearing the other party’s apology, the one who had made the proposal nodded with a smile, and then both of them sat down together.
In the staff room meetings, there was an unspoken rule that the meeting record keeper would only document the statements of those who stood up to speak. As for the words discussed quietly by everyone while seated, the record keeper did not need to document them.
This unwritten rule actually made sense, because whether considering the number of participants or the need for confidentiality, it was not practical to record everything fully.
Actually, the distance of fifty meters for establishing the Blockade Rope was a bit short, but at that time, due to uncertainty about whether the higher-ups would arrange for drone support, the best plan at the moment had to be chosen after weighing the pros and cons.
When the center of the white mist approached the second Blockade Rope, the white mist that had covered the first Blockade Rope had already faded.
