Perfikot changed outfits, only bringing along the old butler and Beifa, who had similarly changed attire, along with two Iron Fire Knights, to the second level of the Chernobyl underground city.

This level is deeper compared to the first, and consequently, the lighting is worse.

Though Perfikot considered the lighting issue at the design stage, no matter how many lighting and ventilation openings are reserved, the lighting in the underground city would not significantly improve.

Walking through the streets on this level, one can distinctly sense the dimness underground, and the relatively more turbid air.

Of course, these are just in comparison with the first level of the underground city. Despite some differences in conditions, daily life is still unaffected.

On this level, Perfikot had long paved heating pipelines for every building, enabling them to drive the reserved power coils within the buildings to produce current and light up the reserved lamps.

Such a scene was only supposed to appear after the Second Industrial Revolution, when humanity entered the electrification era.

But under Perfikot's control and influence, electric lamps appeared many years earlier, without any inspirational stories of so-called inventors.

Originally, Perfikot intended to use the thermal energy from the Energy Tower to set up a large generator to supply electricity to the entire underground city, so she would only need to lay electrical wires for each building.

This would save some trouble for future electrification renovations, avoiding the need to alter those heating pipelines.

But after serious consideration and field visits, Perfikot had to abandon this tempting idea.

Her concept of power generation was certainly feasible, but considering the Energy Tower is not essentially for daily consumption in the underground city, but to maintain temperature, Perfikot felt that solely providing electricity and then using electrical appliances for heating was somewhat redundant.

And if both heating and electrical systems were installed, the reserved trenches on the underground city streets would clearly not suffice.

Electrical wires are fine, but the heating pipes take up a lot of space.

Perfikot could not possibly lay heating pipelines on the road surface; otherwise, she would need to consider setting up barriers to avoid people getting scalded by direct contact with them.

As for wrapping them in asbestos or the like for protection? Perfikot did consider it, but given the current construction protection level, using asbestos would be tantamount to murder, so she eventually abandoned this thought, only wrapping all the heating pipelines with insulation fabric invented by Weir, to reduce heat loss.

After all, though laying pipelines on the streets raises the street temperature with the heat radiated, considering these pipelines are for heating each building, a slightly lower street temperature is not problematic.

Therefore, Perfikot ultimately only reserved a steam-driven power coil for each household, with modest power, sufficient to light a few bulbs.

But this is already quite adequate for many residents living in the underground city.

Compared to their previous lives, this kind of existence is already quite happy; no one would complain about insufficient lamp brightness.

Moreover, if the electric lamps were not bright enough, they could still light candles or kerosene lamps. Perfikot did not ban even this, just emphasized fire safety, hoping no fire incidents occurred in the underground city.

Walking through the streets of the underground second level, Perfikot noticed a significant difference between the people living here and those on the first level.

Most notably in clothing and essence — most here lack flashy and bright clothes and the relatively animated essence found on the first level.

This is understandable, as this is the underground second level, and most living here are ordinary people who didn't secure housing above ground or have nowhere to reside.

They can live here purely due to Perfikot's kind heart, allowing them to swap their above-ground residences for an underground place of stay.

As for their above-ground residence? It was issued by the Northern Territory's government when they arrived in the Northern Territory.

Thus, there are more people here grateful to Perfikot.

Though most inhabitants of Chernobyl are low-income citizens, living near poverty, barely able to have three meals and be clothed and fed, this is already a very happy life for them.

In the past, forget about being fed and clothed well, a mere sheltered place during winter was a luxury for some.

Most living here previously did not own a house, renting cheap apartments or low-rent housing, with some relying on the charity houses to barely sustain their living.

These people worked with near-exhaustive labor intensity daily to earn pitiful wages, striving to feed their family as best as they could.

Yet achieving even that in Langton was a daunting task.

Except for some relatively dangerous or undesirable jobs, people like these at the bottom in Langton earned visibly low wages, often failing to fully feed themselves.

Such families might barely fill themselves up to eighty percent, while bearing the stress from high-intensity work daily; it's easy to see how difficult it is for them to eat well.

Even after arriving in the Northern Territory and Chernobyl, Perfikot enacted numerous laws aiming to improve ordinary workers' treatment as much as possible, but this clearly wasn't achievable overnight, so these low-income people in Chernobyl barely fared better than in Langton.

At least in Chernobyl, where everything is yet to be developed, a serious laborer can still earn enough to feed their entire family.

Especially with various preferential policies Perfikot implemented for workers, Chernobyl's laborers could earn enough for their whole family with earnest daily work.

Compared to above ground, though underground city life indeed presented some inconveniences, for these low-income residents, it was indeed a relatively happy existence.

However, Perfikot did not simply trust everything she observed; as she visited the local residents, she also covertly learned about the conditions throughout the district to avoid anyone reporting only good news.

And through this visit, Perfikot indeed uncovered some issues, prompting her to re-examine her design vision.

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