Castle

The failure of several methods left Rowan somewhat disheartened, as these methods had previously been infallible, capable of penetrating any nook and cranny.

However, since Cecil's side is so utterly uncivilized, Rowan has no choice but to resort to his ultimate weapon. The Epoch Clan's instruments can monitor and scan those insects and mark them as targets that need to be eliminated, but surely they wouldn't go this far with their own people?

Although Rowan didn't want to add more useless Intellect, adding one or two occasionally wouldn't matter; he could simply format them afterward. Rowan and his Intellect were originally one, so eliminating his own useless components wasn't a big deal once he got over the psychological hurdle.

A few days later, Rowan was speechless again. To influence one of his own, he needed a prototype, but after several days of observation, he found so many anomalies in the entire Castle.

Rowan hadn't noticed before, but now he realized that the entire Castle had no gardeners or guards, or rather, not a single living gardener or guard. These positions weren't absent, but rather replaced by intelligent machines.

While such things might have some justification in highly automated advanced civilizations, the fact that not a single intelligent being, or even a single living being, entered or left the entire Castle for several days is truly unusual.

Not long ago, the Castle was surrounded by swarms of Swarm creatures; no valuable information, whether in the sky, on the surface, or underground, could escape their observation.

However, for many days, no intelligent creature has approached the Castle through these means. This is indeed somewhat abnormal, after all, this is the palace of an elder of the Epoch Clan, and his complicated work would not allow his residence to be so quiet.

Unless the owner is unable to receive guests or is simply not here, but not receiving guests doesn't mean not having guards. Judging from current indications, the latter is more likely.

Having finally tracked down Cecil's trail, Rowan discovered that it was most likely just a warehouse. He was somewhat disappointed, but also unwilling to give up.

Since he couldn't find any clues here, Rowan turned his attention to the nearby cities, thinking that they couldn't all be made up of intelligent machines.

The nearest city to the Castle is only about a hundred kilometers away. Although it is more secure than other cities, it is still unable to prevent the insects from infiltrating. Moreover, just as Rowan had expected, it is home to a large number of living creatures.

The Swarm's spies quickly filled all the observation points, helping Rowan to quickly ascertain the situation. By listening to the conversations of some of the permanent residents, he discovered that they did indeed know about the nearby palace, that it belonged to the Epoch Clan elder, and that the elder's name, but it wasn't Cecil.

According to them, the owner of this palace was an elder of the Epoch Clan Saide Said, whose maternal clan was a race called the Black Tower Race. Rowan had some impression of this race; according to the information he had previously obtained, it was a civilized race deep within the inner circle, a rather old and established power.

Their numbers within the Epoch Clan are also very high. Among the Epoch Clan who first came into contact with the Zerg were members of the Black Tower Race.

This race is quite tall and strong, with both men and women having muscles as if cast in metal. They prefer dark environments filled with metallic minerals and enjoy collecting various rare and beautiful metallic minerals.

Having obtained this information, some of Rowan's questions were answered. No wonder the Epoch Clan didn't question the Castle in the style of the Pot Spirit Race; it turned out that its owner was a member of the Black Tower Race. This was in line with their preferences and the values of the Epoch Clan.

However, this raised a new question for Rowan: why was the Biological Armor Cecil bought stored in the palace of another Epoch Clan elder?

According to the intelligence obtained, this elder of the Epoch Clan of the Black Tower Race was assigned here three hundred years ago to be in charge of diplomatic affairs and experimental research in the nearby star system.

However, more than ten years ago, this elder left this place for unknown reasons and has not returned since. But what is certain is that he is still alive. Although we don't know where he went, he is still in charge of this area. Every once in a while, he will summon relevant personnel to handle official business remotely.

Rowan didn't care much where he went, but this guy's palace had initially been closed to the public to avoid any unnecessary accidents, and the interior was entirely managed by intelligent machines.

This operation thwarted Rowan's plan to infiltrate the area by influencing one of his own, and even if he had influenced others, there would be no reason for Visit. As for the intelligent machines, unfortunately, Rowan did not yet have the ability to influence them.

This brought the situation to a stalemate once again, and Rowan discovered for the first time the limitations of the Swarm in certain areas. However, these limitations could not be overcome in the short term. The Epoch Clan was the pinnacle of mechanical civilization in this star system, and with the Swarm's mediocre hacking skills, it was likely that the moment they accessed the internal code of those intelligent machines, it would trigger an alarm and even attract the attention of "Fire."

Rowan was quite wary of "Ying," an ancient relic that had survived from antiquity, and it was best to avoid provoking it unless absolutely necessary.

As time passed, Rowan continued to search for an opportunity to infiltrate the Castle. However, after going through all the gentler methods in his mind, Rowan realized that none of them would be able to be successfully used.

Rowan felt that he had been very successful in guiding Humins, but in the end, things did not develop as he had imagined, and he was still very concerned about the reasons for this.

Cecil is the most crucial figure in this story. The fastest way to uncover the truth is to find Cecil and transform him into Intellect.

Originally, Cecil had been missing for a long time, and Rowan had no clue about it, so even if he wanted to make some plans, he had no way to talk about it. But now that he finally had a clue about Cecil, the records in that Biological Armor would not deceive him.

Moreover, he had just checked with Humins and found that although the name Cecil was quite common among the Pot Spirit Race, there was only one elder in the Epoch Clan named Cecil. The audio recordings in the Biological Armor had mentioned Cecil and the Epoch Clan elders many times, especially during the auction, when the auctioneer clearly congratulated the Epoch Clan elder Cecil on winning the Biological Armor.

This means that Cecil, who obtained the Biological Armor, is the person Rowan is looking for. And now, that Biological Armor is stored in this Pot Spirit Race- style Castle, which may hold even more clues.

Thank you for the 100 Qidian coins from Life and Death.