Deep Sea Embers Chapter 157: The captain’s big purchase

Duncan is telling the truth. Once he said goodbye to Shirley, he actually went to the store near Cross Street to buy Nina a bike.

By the way, open an account in the bank for something that has been planned for a long time, but has been delayed until today due to various delays.

In the Prand City Bank, Duncan was waiting for the clerk at the front desk to prepare the last form for him. The waiting process was boring, so he focused on observing the surrounding environment.

Perhaps because it is not a rest day, and there are not many citizens who need to handle banking business in the upper and lower urban areas, the bank hall, which is not very large in itself, looks quite deserted. Three of the five service windows are open. Idle, the staff in black uniforms chatted behind those idle windows, and the bright electric light shone on the counter glass with a lazy halo.

Duncan looked up and saw long cast iron pipes extending near the counters. The pipes were like tiny pillars that went straight to the ceiling, and were neatly arranged in the sky, extending to somewhere at the back of the hall, a kind of low Rhythmic clicks came from the floor below, as if some kind of mechanism was working underground.

The clerk who prepared the form finally confirmed the last item. She handed the form to Duncan, and said routinely: "After confirming it is correct, sign at the end, with your account number and seal pattern on it. Anonymous. The handling fee for the account is 6 Sola 5 Pesos.”

Duncan took the form, looked at the contents with curiosity, and spontaneously came up with a lot of conjectures about the civilization and economic system of this world city-state, but he was not an expert in this field, so he paid attention to it after thinking for a while. The force was placed at the end of the form - after memorizing the short series of numbers on it, he signed his name and handed the form to the opposite side along with the handling fee.

The clerk took the form, glanced at it casually, and placed it on a hole punch. With a brisk click, the hole punch punched out a dizzyingly large piece of the blank frame on the edge of the table. Hole, and then the paper was rolled up by the clerk, stuffed into a metal cylinder, and dropped into a pipe next to the counter.

The sound of metal colliding, followed by the closing of the pipes, the hiss of steam pressurization and the sound of objects gliding quickly through the pipes came to Duncan's ears, and his eyes moved up with the sound to see the connections There was a slight tremor in one of the elbows touching the ceiling—and the document was sent to some faraway place.

"Wait a minute," said the clerk behind the counter casually, "if there is no problem with the pipes today, and if the machine across A fault light comes on, then you'll have to come back tomorrow."

Fantastic process.

For Duncan, all of this is not very efficient, but for this world, it is already the advanced achievement of the city-state civilization that has developed since the advent of the Deep Sea Age.

He looked at all this with curiosity and emotion, and at the same time heard the chatter between the clerks - the young man behind the counter next to him sighed: "I heard that the truth college is in contact with the head office, saying that they want to Installing a new machine can increase the processing efficiency of the head office several times more than..."

"It's called a large difference engine - Moco's city-state bank has long used it, and there are actually in Prand City, there are a few smaller ones at the Tax Office and the Institute of Mathematics, and there are also in the cathedral. I heard it's used for file management," the clerk sitting across from Duncan casually continued the topic, "I have to tell you that the head office only thinks about it now, it's already dull enough."

"That has nothing to do with us," another clerk who had nothing to do joined the chat, "that thing was expensive and bulky, including the steam core as a power source and the associated hole punch, Analytical engine, a set of differential functions can fill this entire hall..."

"It is said that the Institute of Truth is also organizing manpower to study the next-generation difference engine? It seems to be half the size, the performance is almost the same as the current mainframe, and it is powered by electricity."

"Electricity? Don't need a steam core? What if the machine gets hit by an evil spirit while it's running? That thing has to constantly calculate a lot of data. Without the protection of sacred steam, it's too easy to attract evil spirits in the bearings and gear sets?"

"I don't know... Maybe there is a priest standing next to the machine, while the machine counts, and the priest lights incense while giving mass to the machine..."

".·Then it doesn't seem like it's a big deal to miniaturize, but it takes up one more clergyman."

"Hey, how much space does the pastor occupy, how much space does half a difference engine occupy, and how expensive is the house price in the city center..."

It seems that no matter what world people are in, the gossip when people go fishing at work is the same. , the content of their small talk was so strange and interesting to Duncan - he was so fascinated that he even forgot the boredom of waiting.

But the chat didn't last long, and with a bang from a nearby transmission pipeline, everyone's conversation about "how expensive is the house price or the priest?" was finally interrupted.

The clerk opposite Duncan opened the copper pipe beside the counter and took out the metal small tube inside - this metal small tube is obviously not the same model as the one that was sent away before, it looks thicker, and has a complicated seal at the seal. Locking structure, the clerk used a special tool for a long time to open its lid and take out the contents.

It was a rectangular metal plate about the size of half a palm, with letters and symbols stamped with steel, and random holes of different sizes along the edges. The number Duncan had just memorized was stamped on the metal. one end of the board.

"This is your signature card," the clerk handed the metal plate to Duncan, "it can be used by any bank in the Prand city-state, or the boundless maritime chamber of commerce in other city-states - but the deposit of other city-states There will be a delay of three to seven days for the withdrawal of money, which is the time for telegrams or spiritual communications across the sea."

"Thank you." Duncan took the metal plate and looked curiously at the creation that seemed to represent the technological level of the civilization of the city. machine for reading this metal plate.

These are technological creations that are completely different from those on Earth, but also represent the wisdom of the world. They are the 'footprints' of the city-state civilization in the deep sea era all the way to today.

"Do you have anything else to do?" came a voice from behind the counter.

"Ah... no, thank you," Duncan woke up. He showed a smile and got up from his chair, but before leaving, he seemed to suddenly remember something, and he couldn't help but stop and ask casually, "By the way... can machines really fall for evil?"

"Of course it does, what's so weird about that?" the clerk behind the counter replied immediately, as if it was a question she didn't need to consider at all, "In this world, anything but the warp can be attacked. Pollution, isn't this common sense?"

Duncan was stunned. He was just asking casually, but the other person's answer somehow touched his mind and made him feel that there was a glimmer of light somewhere in his heart.

After a while, he nodded lightly: "...Indeed, everything in this world can be polluted except the warp."

He then leaves the bank.

According to the plan, he has a big purchase to do today - in addition to buying a bicycle for Nina, there are a lot of things on his shopping list that can scare Nina~IndoMTL. com~ The income from the dagger sold to Mr. Morris before, plus the bonus for reporting the cultist, add up to enough to support a family of three to survive in the lower city for a year or two, and now the money is huge. The parts were still untouched, and Duncan felt it was time to put them to use.

So for the next half day, Duncan almost swept across the markets and shops near the Cross Street.

Around four o'clock in the afternoon, in the shadow of an alley near Cross Street, Duncan let out a long sigh of relief as he put the last bag on the ground with a 'bang'.

He looked at the mountain of things in front of him with satisfaction.

Flour. Vegetables, seeds, spices, fresh meat, marinated ingredients, all kinds of dried mushrooms, drinks and cheese.

Eatable, normal, cheese younger than him.

There's even a whole bunch of pots and pans and lots of stuff that Duncan thinks might work. Get these things on board, and the living conditions of the Homeless will definitely be turned upside down.

At least, the kitchen can produce stable food.

Duncan nodded in satisfaction and greeted casually, "Aye!"

The sound of flapping came from above the nearby buildings, and Ay landed firmly on his shoulder.

The next second, the pigeon glanced at the things on the ground and exclaimed, "Aren't you just having fun!

Before he finished speaking, the bird twitched and fell directly to the ground—although Duncan hadn't said what it was doing, the creature was clearly witty aware of his situation.

Duncan just smiled and grabbed the free-falling pigeon in mid-air: "It's okay, it can't be transported back once, you can transport it a few more times..."

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