Reincarnated as a bamboo rat, it begins its extreme survival struggle.

"In the tiny tunnel~ digging and digging and digging~"

The coincidences arranged by the luck attribute were unknown to Bell, who was currently enjoying his discovery.

But with a snapping sound, like a pipe being cut, Bell was instantly jolted back to reality from his jubilant mood.

"What's going on? Why are there obviously man-made pipes underground? No, these are ventilation pipes used to remove exhaust fumes..."

Having worked in underground excavation for a long time, Bell was very sensitive to underground pipes and quickly analyzed their function.

He began to crawl quickly inside the exhaust duct, since he had magical breathing and wasn't afraid of being affected by the exhaust fumes.

The pipe is very narrow, and there are many supporting structures in the middle of the pipe to prevent it from collapsing.

Bell first used his mental power to trace the pipe upstream and discovered that the pipe's outlet was in the Raging Waves Canyon outside the city. Redwater City was located in the treacherous Raging Waves Canyon, and the pipe that discharged the exhaust gas was located on a cliff in the Raging Waves Canyon, so that outsiders had no way of knowing about its existence.

By extending his mental energy downwards, Bell sensed a dangerous aura before he could travel very far.

There are traces of a magic circle operating underground. This magic circle has two functions: first, to stabilize the environment of the internal area, and second, to prevent outsiders from discovering it.

In Bell's mental probing, the outside of the magic circle seemed to be covered with numerous tripwires. If one accidentally touched one, the magic circle would lock onto their position in the opposite direction, causing unknown consequences.

If it weren't for Bell's exceptional skill in array formations and his extraordinary mental strength, he wouldn't have been able to detect the existence of these tripwires.

"Interesting. I'd like to see what's hidden down there."

This unconventional discovery did not deter Bell; instead, it aroused his intense curiosity.

Bell was prepared to use some means to sneak into the area covered by the magic circle without triggering any tripwires.

Spoiler alert: There's a beautiful girl in the next chapter! She might not be the smartest, but she's definitely a beautiful girl!

Chapter 219 How to Create a Brainless Beautiful Girl

"This magic circle has been maintained by someone for a long time. Its core function is to maintain the stability of the environment inside the magic circle, so its external detection capabilities are not very strong."

After covering his body with magic power and slightly altering it, Bell's aura gradually merged into the active magic circle.

The same aura allowed Bell to easily cross the probing obstacles. Although Bell couldn't take control of the magic circle, he could still easily probe its internal structure through the operating magic circle.

Using the magic circle to extend his senses, Bell quickly located the nearest exit to the exhaust duct.

Just like the infiltration scenes in those spy movies, slender female agents will use ventilation ducts to carry out infiltration missions. This is usually when the director gives us a treat, and the female agent will show off her ample bosom or exceptionally rounded buttocks from various amazing angles in the confined space.

To be honest, those infiltration tunnels needed for the plot will most likely encounter a bottleneck if the female agent is involved, and then it depends on the movie's genre.

But the author, being a gentleman, has always abhorred such borderline plots appearing in serious dramas.

Because horror movies from a few decades ago were still extremely explicit and violent, I will always remember one summer night when I was watching a horror movie under the covers. Just when the movie was playing out a really weird plot, my mom came home and we stared at each other in disbelief. I will never forget that scene.

However, for Bale, who is small in stature, he won't get stuck in the passage like in the story. He can even run through this exhaust pipe.

"This is it. A large amount of waste gas is flowing into the pipes here. It seems that this is the key to this underground base."

With a little effort, Bell carved out a new passage from beside the exhaust pipe and successfully reached the underground base inside the magic circle.

Bell appeared on a ventilation duct that no one had noticed.

At the top of this underground base are circular ventilation ducts that connect to the various rooms within the base. Through the operation of a magic array, the ventilation ducts continuously draw out the stale air from the rooms and inject filtered, evolved fresh air.

This structure always reminded Bell of a filtration and oxygenation device placed in a fish tank.

"I am currently in the room where the magic circle is responsible for purifying the air. The magic circle can be adjusted here to deal with air problems."

Looking down through the ventilation duct, Bell saw a magic circle core operating steadily, along with various magical devices.

If a mage were here, they could control the air quality in each room through magic circles. This would not only adjust the oxygen concentration in the air, but also allow them to inject other substances into the air, such as filling it with sleeping potions or aphrodisiacs.

There are currently no mages controlling these magic arrays in this room, as these arrays are designed to operate automatically, unless...

The mages will only appear here during routine maintenance if necessary.

"This magic circle is very large, with multiple magic cores with different functions. So what is the purpose of Chishui City in establishing such a secret underground facility?"

When Bell explored the area using the magic circle earlier, he learned that there were many rooms and a complex magic circle that integrated multiple functions, all of which aroused his strong curiosity.

With a surge of curiosity, Bell's shadow appeared beneath his feet as he focused intently.

"Shadow, if any danger arises, take me with you."

Shadow: ヽ(￣▽￣

The magic array within this underground base has a certain ability to isolate magic and also reinforces the surrounding space. Under normal circumstances, if someone were to intrude into this place, they would not be able to use long-distance teleportation.

After all, as the teleportation distance increases, the difficulty of tearing open space also increases.

Short-distance forced teleportation can usually tear open a spatial opening, but for long-distance teleportation, constructing a stable spatial tunnel is extremely difficult.

When the magic circle was first designed in the early days of Chishui City, the mages at that time had already considered how to stop the invaders if they tried to escape using teleportation abilities.

Enhancing spatial stability is obviously a good method. Even if high-level spatial teleportation items are used in this underground base, it is basically impossible to teleport out of the city limits of Chishui City. At this time, the city guards on the ground can still participate in the pursuit.

In reality, this magic circle has excellent defensive and restrictive capabilities. After all, this is the most important resource production area of ​​Chishui City. The existence of the Crimson Marrow Liquid allows Chishui City to absorb massive amounts of funds with the Crimson Light Essence, while also mass-producing powerful individuals, thereby maintaining its dominant position as one of the top four cities among the seventeen cities in the southwest.

This underground base has been operating for so many years without a single accident, and the outside world will never know the core secrets of the Crimson Light Essence, all thanks to the existence of this magic array and a series of protective measures.

But the designer of this composite magic circle, which had been operating stably for nearly a thousand years, could never have imagined that one day his own composite magic circle would be invaded by a bamboo rat.

This bamboo rat possesses the amazing ability to dig seventy meters underground silently in just half an hour. It is also a high-level array master who has personally created a super-wide-area magic array, and has super strong mental power that allows it to manipulate magical elements at will.

When all these abilities are combined in a single bamboo rat, it seems only natural that this place would be invaded.

"At the very center of this underground base is a wide circular area, and then a large number of rooms are distributed around this area as if they were appendages to it."

Bell planned to walk around the outside of this circular area to see how the surrounding rooms were divided into different functions.

As Bell began to act, a shadow covered his body, transforming him into a niggly rat. This merging with the shadow allowed Bell to conceal his presence to the greatest extent possible, while also partially connecting his physical body to the shadow, using the power of the shadow to ensure that his movements made no noise.

While in stealth mode, Bell moved quickly. Many rooms in this underground base were filled with supplies or had specific functions. After a quick inspection, Bell found nothing of interest for investigation.

Although he saw several rooms emanating a unique magical aura, those rooms had additional magical barriers, and it would take Bell a lot of effort to enter them, and he would also risk being discovered. He did not plan to explore those rooms in the short term; his current goal was to familiarize himself with the general layout of this underground base.

"Ahhh!!!!!!"

Just as Bell continued forward, a scream filled with intense fear suddenly came from the passage ahead. The voice had the uniquely childlike, sharp quality of a child.

Upon hearing the sound, Bell immediately became alert, but he did not accelerate rashly. Instead, he maintained his current speed and continued moving towards the direction from which the scream came.

About two and a half minutes later, Bell arrived in front of a room that resembled a prison.

He poked his head out from the ventilation duct and looked into the room. Behind the sturdy fence, he saw about twelve or thirteen children, all of whom were girls, around six or seven years old.

Bell glanced over and found that their nutritional status was quite good, and they were all in good health. Moreover, their clothes were neat and uniform, indicating that someone had prepared standard uniforms for them.

But judging from their expressions, it was clear that each of them was in a state of shock.

This must be related to that scream earlier; something must have happened that frightened them.

"somebody is coming."

As Bell pondered, his senses, probing into the magic circle, alerted him to something approaching.

This prompted Bell to immediately hide behind the ventilation duct and completely conceal his presence, observing the situation below solely through the presence of the magic circle—Bell's safest method of investigation.

"Good children, don't be afraid. I just took Aria to a better and happier place. Don't worry about what happened earlier. You all have a cake as a reward today!"

The newcomer was a tall, middle-aged woman with exceptionally striking looks, arguably one of the most beautiful women Bell had ever encountered since her reincarnation.

At the same time, her makeup and attire were extremely exquisite, showing that she wanted to maintain perfection at all times. This gave her a stunning appearance that other women could hardly match at first glance. After all, among the human women that Bell had seen, there were very few who knew how to wear makeup. They were all adventurers who were used to fighting for their lives, so why would they need to wear makeup?

Those beautiful adventurer women prioritize their adventurer status over their looks. In fact, those older women are capable of anything beyond mere appearance; everything about them, aside from their strength, is impure.

The only pity is that this woman, who looks like a noblewoman, has some faint traces of time on her body. Although she tries her best to cover them up with makeup, the traces of time will always be revealed, especially when the woman is angry, these traces will be even more obvious.

She brought cakes to the little girls locked in the cages, but instead of cakes, they were actually laced with a large amount of drugs.

These little girls were brought in

From the moment they went underground, they began consuming large amounts of drugs every day, all in an effort to bring their bodies to a point where they could undergo surgical modifications as quickly as possible.

During today's physical examination, one of the girls passed the test, which made the woman in front of her feel good.

The only problem was that when the girl was taken away, the hypnotic drug lasted much shorter than expected, and these girls ate large amounts of drug-containing food every day, so their bodies had a stronger resistance to the drug than many adventurers.

So some unpleasant things happened during the process of taking the girl away, which has caused every child to be afraid of her now.

This situation made the woman very unhappy, but it wasn't the first time she had dealt with this kind of situation.

"You kids better eat your fill and get to the passing grade."

With a snap of her fingers, a strange light flashed in the middle-aged woman's eyes. The girls in front of her instantly lost control of their bodies, their pupils dilated and lifeless.

Bell, who was in the ventilation duct, clearly sensed that the woman in front of him had used some kind of skill to suppress the individual will of these children with her mental power.

While taking over their bodies, this woman was also altering the children's inner world, seemingly using obfuscation to erase what had just happened from their perception.

"With this level of mental strength, her mental attribute is at least two hundred points!"

Based on her mental abilities, Bell roughly deduced the woman's mental strength. If calculated according to the standard human template, she would have 200 points of mental strength, and her individual level would be at least level 30.

Although we don't know what this woman's profession is yet, with the knowledge level of a level 30 professional, it's clear that feeding this group of girls who show no signs of cultivation to the designated level is no problem at all.

This is also why Bell noticed that these girls were exceptionally healthy.

Forced by the mental force, the girls ate the cake brought by the woman. Although it was called a cake, from Bell's perspective, it was a solidified black jelly-like substance, probably a mixture of various drugs.

In Bell's perception, these jelly-like objects contained a considerable amount of energy, and it was very gentle, so that even a baby could absorb it slowly.