The Record of Unusual Creature

Well, all said and done, the MDT decided to give it a try.

This was almost bizarro level as it was trying to store a sprite into its hard disk drive…

“Frankly speaking, no one knows how this works.” Hao Ren looked at the MDT, looking all ready as it lay on the ground, and the googly-eyed sprite who was staring at him before rubbing his chin, “I’m thinking that its a similar process to your scanning and storage of non-standard information. I remember that you have the ability to collect and compile all dispersed information state around you…”

“I really wished I never had that capability.” The MDT sounded awfully defeated.

The little sprite blinked as she looked at the crowd in front of her messing about, totally oblivious to the fact that it concerned her. It was when Hao Ren asked her to get into the hexagonal metal box did she only yelp in surprise, “What?! You want this sprite to get into that thing?!”

The MDT immediately recoiled angrily, “Manners! What’s with ‘that thing’ huh?”

The tiny sprite was shocked by the MDT’s reaction and shot up into the air, “But this sprite had been living in a crystal, how… do we get in?”

“Just get in like how you do so normally, just treat it as an odd crystal,” Vivian advised, “This is important, whether you can do it or not will affect our decision to bring you and your kin in the planet’s core out safely, understand?”

While the sprites may be scatterbrained, but they are by no means stupid and after hearing Vivian she became serious, before looking, almost duty-bound at the MDT, “Then… here I come!”

She then turned into a blue light before slamming face-first into the MDT’s shell.

Hao Ren and Vivian immediately face-palmed. This was just too much fail.

“It’s…alright!” the sprite scampered to her feet, her unique traits meant that face-first crash did not faze her much, and she had failed due to nervousness. “Let me try again. I’m sure to get it right this time! I got nervous looking at the metal casing and forgot to switch forms…”

“…Whatever, I’ve long given up resisting.” the MDT sighed.

After the next few tries, Hao Ren and the rest witnessed the little sprite smashing face first in various angles on the MDT’s casing, while they knew that the sprite would not be hurt by it, but her clumsy attempts had everyone looking away.

However, just as Hao Ren thought it was going to be a waste of time and was prepared to move on, a faint light blue glow appeared around the sprite and the MDT’s surface.

The next second, the little one disappeared.

The MDT was too stunned to react and only recovered after a few seconds as it flew up, “Oh Oh, partner! That small thing came inside me!”

“Why does that sound god damn perverted?” Nangong Sanba could not help but tell Wuyue before narrowly avoiding a tail smash.

Hao Ren had the MDT try to make contact with the sprite in the hard disk, and a moment later, the sprite’s visage appeared on the holographic display, with the latter happily dancing around a vast plain. “Woah! Incredible! This sprite feels that this place is even bigger than the crystals! I can’t see the edge of this place!”

“Don’t run about!” the MDT started nagging, “There’s a lot of important data in the disk! Wait, that cannot be eaten! That’s my picture album! No touching that either, that’s the reports! You… You stay still for a moment, I’ll create a virtual space for you, and stay there. I’ll create some VR stuff for you to play with…”

Hao Ren could not imagine what was going on within the MDT’s hard disk, but the latter seemed to spend quite some effort to get the sprite to totally quiet down. He then asked, “How much storage does a sprite take up? How many can you store?”

“Meh, mere droplets.” the MDT shook its casing smugly, “Their information make-up is very simple, and they only take up an extremely small space, almost like the tip of a needle. I am an Inspector-grade unit, my storage is limitless! Come eight trillion of them, no problem!”

Hao Ren pursed his lips. This was the same thing that was struggling so hard earlier, and now its boasting all the way to the moon.

“Sprite, how many friends you still have around here?” Vivian asked as she looked at the tiny adventuring sprite on the holographic display.

“A few thousand of us!” the sprite gave a number that was reasonable for the MDT to store, “Should I call everyone here?”

“Will this cause a huge ruckus?” Hao Ren pondered.

“It won’t!” the sprite was jumping about in the holographic display, “We have created a screen around the planet’s core. It’s very safe! The monsters never found our hiding place after so many years! It’s because of the screen!”

“Storing the sprites into MDT’s hard disk would save us a lot of later headaches,” Vivian nodded, “When we take Amantir’s crystal the monsters will be swarming upon us, we won’t have time to even take care the little ones anymore.”

Hao Ren was trying to balance things out. The main objective of this mission was the retrieval of Amantir’s crystal, and with its capture, the path to the Star of Origin will be opened, so that cannot be abandoned as it is a ‘main mission’; but Amantir’s crystals would not be going anywhere, and the monsters outside had just been battered by the droids and the guardians, and their forces in tatters, it will take a while before they can pull off any major maneuvers, so this ‘main mission’ would be in a stable state for the foreseeable future.

And taking the chance to retrieve the sprites from the planet’s core does not sound like a bad idea.

The only regret was, they were a few defensive layers away from Amantir’s crystal, and the main objective was just a short distance away. It felt a little bit wasteful to come all the way here to then backtrack somewhere else…

But there was no other choice, Hao Ren knew that very well himself. The sprites could not be left behind. Asking him or his teammates to rush headlong towards the crystal while abandoning the sprites would not sit well with anyone.

“Right, so let us go get the sprites.” Hao Ren let out a huff as he gathered his thoughts.

The sprite within the hard disk did not know what Hao Ren was thinking, and after a few blinks, she spoke in her serious tone. “This sprite suggests you go to the planet’s core first, as you will definitely run into trouble once you take Amantir’s crystal.”

Hao Ren was baffled. “Trouble? What trouble?”

“Amantir’s crystal is connected directly to the monster’s Lair of Nightmares, if you take the crystal away, the dreaming biggies will immediately wake up.” the tiny one said with a whisper, even the usually carefree sprites would be nervous. “They had been dreaming for thousands of years, and who knows the number of monsters is in the dream! The whole planet might be pulled into the nightmare itself!”

Hao Ren and the rest quickly exchange glances: This little sprite had just dropped a bombshell on them!

“What nightmare? What biggies? Explain, quick!” Vivian threw all forms of decorum out of the window as she shot out her questions spitfire-like, “You say there’s a Lair of Nightmares underneath Amantir’s crystal? How did that come about?”

“It appeared not long after the guardians became monsters,” The little sprite started gesturing again, apparently thinking that it will help her all-over-the-place explanation easier to understand. “This sprite does not know what the Lair of Nightmares looks like, but some observation routes can still be used, so we know that space appeared beneath Amantir’s crystal, and many many bad monsters will appear, created by a very biiiiigggg monster…”

The sprite’s explanation was getting more and more confused, and just before Hao Ren wanted to interrupt her, she suddenly recalled something, “Ah, remember the monsters you saw at the canyon! That’s the monsters appearing out of thin air beneath the platform!”

Hao Ren and Vivian looked at each other before turning towards the sprite, “So you mean the monsters are summoned? Don’t tell me the summoning platforms at the bottom of the canyon has something to do with the Lair of Nightmares?”

“Those are not summoning platforms,” the tiny sprite forked her arms on her waist, “That’s an extension of the Lair of Nightmares! And those platform is linked to the big brains, and the brain monsters were originally the brains of the guardians, their duty is to dream!”

Nangong Sanba frowned as he repeated the word, “Dream?”

“Yes, dream, like the monsters in the Lair of Nightmares.” the tiny sprite nodded aggressively, “Those brain monsters at the bottom of the lair is to dream together with the biggies in the Lair of Nightmare, then project the things in the nightmare into reality, and the brain monsters on the surface are responsible for turning the monsters from the nightmare into an army and command them into battle!”

So that’s the truth behind the monsters? And the real source of the Amantir’s limitless army?

He remembered the information Salaman had given him earlier:

No matter how many they kill, no matter how many they had atomized, Amantir’s army was unceasing and would only get stronger. The rate of their reproduction even exceeded the battlefield scavenging or Amantir’s own production capability, and at least two-thirds of the monsters were illogical as if appearing out of thin air…

Hao Ren had thought that the platforms at the bottom of the equator canyon were for summoning, but now he knew from the sprite that those things are actually to create monsters from the dream, and the source of this horrifying nightmare, was just right below Amantir’s crystal!

Thankfully he had not gone ahead to pull Amantir’s crystal out…

“Using the nightmare to create an army huh,” Vivian shook her head. “A typical move by the minions of madness.”

Hao Ren turned towards the sprite on the display, “Say, why didn’t you tell us this critical information earlier?”

With an innocent face, the little sprite replied, “You didn’t ask… and this sprite had forgotten about it!”

Hao Ren was speechless.