December 5th, morning.

Since the metal spire was dug out, the excavator was ordered to be deactivated; workers picked up shovels and began annoying manual operation.

They carefully cut the soil off the spire and expanded the pit toward the surroundings, so that the surface of the spire could be exposed as much as possible.

The professor held the analyzer and his i-pen, crawling around on the already dug out metal wall, looking around, looking both excited and focused.

Before I knew it, a morning passed.

When it was time for dinner, all the workers who had been taking turns to rest were complaining, but the professor who had never had a rest at all was still in high spirits.

For his state, Solid could understand that when a person devotes himself to something, the power of the spirit can support the body to exceed its due limits.

Going far away, it is a good example of Fidipitz's run back to the central square of Athens from the Marathon plain in one breath; going closer, it is true that many teenagers can fight in Internet cafes for several days and nights without sleep, without eating or drinking.

Compared to these examples, Rodrigo is nothing.

During lunch, the three leaders, Solid, Rodrigo and Gimenes, sat down again and discussed their discoveries this morning and their plans for the next day.

At this stage of the "excavation task", it is naturally time for the professor to perform. As the saying goes, there is a specialization in profession, and Rodrigo must have the final say in archaeology, and Solid can only give him advice from the perspective of a safety consultant.

However, Rodrigo seemed to be too devoted to the situation in front of him. He was spitting out during the meal, and taught the other two a history class about "Olmec civilization". Soji and the two were confused and laughed and cried.

At the end, seeing it was already 1:30 in the afternoon, Solid finally couldn't help but interrupt the professor and asked him what he was going to do in the afternoon.

At this time, Rodrigo realized that his "teaching addiction" had been on too long and had forgotten his main business...

After a brief thought, Rodrigo decided that the next step would be to use an excavator to "attack" from the top.

Not to mention the situation they observed after "expanding the pit", just deduced according to the size of the "small pyramids" in the ruins of Paraiso, Peru... The base of this pyramid is probably as big as several football fields. If you want to dig it out completely from the ground, you may have to dig a few miles into a canyon. This is obviously unrealistic.

Of course, it is not impossible to dig like this, but you must report to the federal senior management. After approval, you can mobilize more than ten times more manpower and machinery than you are now.

With the current manpower and material resources of this excavation team, there are only two options at this stage: first, leave it alone, everyone will finish work and wait until they get in touch with the outside world; second, it is to open a hole directly from the spire, and then enter the pyramid from the opening to explore.

Of course, Rodrigo would choose the latter, which is normal. As an ambitious archaeologist, he could not choose to wait in the face of such an unprecedented discovery.

The archaeology industry is similar to many scientific research industries. If you want to succeed, you must dare to take risks. If you wait in front of opportunities, or do everything in a proper manner... then your achievements will most likely be stolen by some people who are not as talented as you but have more resources than you. Goebbels and Edison back then are good examples.

So, at 2 pm, the excavation work started again.

The first thing the workers did was to bring a "net alloy drill" from the cargo hold of the plane; something that was brought with them was just in case (such as digging a hard vein), but I didn't expect it to come in handy this time.

After the drill bit is installed, the excavator operator drove the "Camera" back to the spire, adjusted the machine's output power to the maximum, and began to drill the black metal wall.

The moment the drill bit touched the metal wall, many people covered their ears, but after a few seconds, they were surprised to find that the harsh metal friction sound did not sound as they imagined. On the contrary... there was no sound at the drill bit, and even the engine sound from the excavator itself disappeared.

Looking at the sparks bursting out between the drill bit and the metal wall, and the cyan light flowing on the black metal wall, Solid faintly had an ominous premonition.

"Stop..." After a moment, Solid suddenly shouted, "Stop!" He had already yelled for the second time.

But... it's still late.

Just as his roar sounded, the metal wall also changed, and the blue stream of light gathered into the hole drilled out by the drill bit. A recoil force suddenly burst out, causing the excavator with a weight close to the tank to fly into the sky.

The operator in the cockpit was shaken into meat sauce at the moment of the impact. Part of the meat sauce was pasted on the glass of the cockpit, and the other part was spilled from the air like rain with blood...

Huh bang!

A few seconds later, the excavator drew an arc in the air and fell on the open space in the distance, shattering it.

Everyone who saw this scene was stunned. After a while, a woman's scream broke the silence, followed by a burst of noise.

Soon, several workers were muttering words like "curse" with horror expressions; the entourages around Jimenes were fine, but the female companions he brought... except for "Mandala", they all entered a hysterical state. They began to ask why the rescue had not arrived yet, and cried that they wanted to leave this ghost place as soon as possible.

Even the soldiers brought by Solid began to look at each other and whisper; at this moment, although they were still standing at their posts and not panic like the ordinary people, the buds of fear and uneasiness had already sprouted in their hearts.

"All... give... I..." Before the situation became even more chaotic, Solid decisively implemented an effective measure. He turned on the external volume of the armor mask to the maximum and shouted loudly, "...Shut up!"

The shout was like spring thunder blooming, which immediately attracted everyone's attention and interrupted their random thoughts and nonsense.

"Don't mess around, this is just an accident." Solid adjusted his volume after the crowd calmed down and continued, "This is not a curse, but science... The spire in front of us has a defensive function. Those blue streamers are by no means magic, but a source of power that is powering the metal wall."

"How did you know?"

"I think you guessed it too?"

"If you know why you didn't say it earlier? You'd only say it when someone died?"

"Yes, you are a lie, right? Explained as science is to deceive us, right? We will not be fooled!"

The remarks about "curses" have affected the workers' thinking in advance, so that they are hard to convince by such unproven rhetoric...even if this rhetoric is much more reliable than the so-called curse theory.

"No, you no longer need to dig again." Unexpectedly, Solid said immediately, "The next thing here will be handled by our federal army, and others can finish their work and go back to the camp to rest."

Logically, he said this, and the workers should have nothing to argue with, but...

"Hey! Have you explained it clearly? Why isn't this a curse?"

"I don't want to stay in a camp that is as close to the curse location!"

"It's the third day, why haven't the rescue arrived yet? Have you ever contacted the outside world? Why do you always avoid us in a sneaky manner when talking?"

"The plane crash the day before yesterday was also strange. Why did the wings disappear? Is this a curse?"

"Yes! What's going on? Tell me clearly! What are you trying to trick us here?"

The problems accumulated over the past few days finally broke out, and the factors of chaos and distrust have spread among the crowd, and the cause of all this was just a bizarre death that happened before everyone.

In this wilderness, the collapse of civilization and order seems so easy, or... these two things are inherently more fragile than people generally believe.

"I have already said that this is science, not a curse. What happened just now is just an accident caused by our lack of understanding of the target and not being timely...." Faced with the questioning, Solid calmly, stood in front of the workers and responded calmly.

But his answer was exchanged for another round of scattered questions.

These people... have defined Solid as a villain in their hearts, identified the abnormalities that occurred as curses, and took it for granted that they themselves had their subjectively determined as factual basis to debate.

Solid knew that it was impossible to communicate with such people. You could convince an open-minded person who was willing to accept and think about various voices, but you could not convince a person who thought that his standards and opinions were objective facts and used this as a basis to refute all voices that were different from his own opinions.

Of course, these two types of people are not absolute. Each of us will become the latter at certain moments in our lives... either because of the arrogance given by knowledge and experience, or because of the blind obedience brought by public opinion, or because you are just a self-righteous and unaware of it.

In any case... Solid would not be too quarrel with such people, he had his own way.

Bang

The sudden gunshot interrupted the noise of those people and also triggered another scream.

In everyone's shocked and fearful eyes, a worker who was shouting the most fiercely fell under Solid's gun.

However, he was not dead, but he was shot in his leg, and the bullet penetrated his leg, causing a blood hole to penetrate his muscles.

"What are you doing!" Two seconds later, Rodrigo pushed the crowd away and rushed up, saying to Solid, "Solid! Are you crazy? How can you..."

"When performing a mission, he is confused and disobeys. If he is my soldier, I have been shot three times by me." Solid interrupted coldly.

"But they are not your soldiers, they are just civilians!" Rodrigo yelled, then turned his head and shouted at the people next to him, "What are you still standing there? Get the first aid kit!"

"Are you a 'civilian'..." Solid muttered the two words, then looked up at Jimenes standing in the distance.

At this moment, Jimenes was looking at this side with a smile, as if he was watching a good show.

"You should have made the matter clear, right?" Solid raised his voice and said to him. "Or the professor would have thought these workers were unrelated people you just asked for in the local area."

"Ha?" Rodrigo turned to look at Jimenes when he heard this, "What does it mean?"

"Okay, I admit that these workers are all mine, okay?" Jimenes replied with a smile.

"Well..." Rodrigo's mind was still a little bit unreal, "But...but when they were at the airport..."

"I've said bad things about me in front of you, right? Haha..." Jimenes smiled, "Of course I did it on purpose for you."

Solid also said to the professor at this time: "You are too naive, professor... This is South America. If Jimenes really hired a group of third-party excavators in the local area, what if there were a few killers who wanted to assassinate him? He would definitely avoid such risks that could be avoided, otherwise he would not have lived today."

"There is no need to hide it from me deliberately, right?" Rodrigo said.

"Because most of these people were transferred from his marijuana plantation... and everyone who would come there to work has a criminal record, so that you, an outsider who doesn't understand the rules, will know it. After writing it in the report, it will not look good." Solid said this and said to Jimenes again, "I'm right? Jimenes."

Upon hearing this, Jimenes shrugged and spread his hands, as accusation, and said to Rodrigo: "Professor, forgive me."

After saying that, he said to Solid without waiting for Rodrigo to respond: "By the way... Sir, when did you find that these workers are mine?"

"I knew it from the beginning." Solid replied, "Although the identity information you submitted was complete and no problems could be found in the database, I am a cautious person... I know very well that with your local power, it is not difficult to ask the police to help you change the identity information of some people in the database... Therefore, before the action, I checked out the copy of the paper identity documents filed by these people when they first became adults. As I expected... Their identity information was all real, and only the photos were replaced."

"Ha...you're such a difficult guy..." Jimenes smiled.

"Each one another," Solid said, "Now, now that everyone has already spoken, can you stop this meaningless commotion and... the 'testing' of me?"

After Jimenes thought for a few seconds, a trace of imperceptible gloom flashed in his eyes, and then he smiled again and said, "Did you all hear it? Stop hindering the superiors anymore. People say this is science. If anyone mentions any curse... I will be unhappy."

His words were more effective than the gun in Solid's hand...

When Jimenes finished speaking, the workers retreated one after another, and the injured man who was injured in his thigh was quickly carried into the tent by others. His injury to his thigh might still be fatal in the 21st century, but in 2218, it would be fine if he sprayed a quick-acting spray and injected a concentrated disinfectant replenishment solution.

After a while, Solid ordered his soldiers to return to the camp and standby, and Jimenes also sent all his subordinates away... The only ones and three of them were left around the spire.

"Okay, my secret is no longer a secret." Gimenez said to Solid, "Sir, should you share something you know with us?"

If he asks this, it means he already knows or speculates that something has happened.

Solid did not hesitate and quickly continued: "Your female companion has told you... about the fact that I am a capable person."

"Hmm." Jimenes responded and signaled the other party to continue.

"Then I'll just say it." Solid said again, "Yes, I'm a capable person, and I feel like I have a chance to break the defense of this spire."
To be continued...