The Record of Unusual Creature

Once Y’zaks began his lecture, it was not going to end in a while. Not interested in the boring yet violent “education” program, Hao Ren quickly asked Bethanos a question before Y’zaks started his lecture. “Have you read the user manual?”

Bethanos was still mentally shocked. He looked like he had lost his soul. Then again, anyone who was intelligent enough would have reacted in the same way if they encountered a similar situation. Bethanos remained stunned for a moment before he could respond to the question. “User manual?”

“…It’s such a sophisticated piece of equiment. Did you actually think that you could just press a few buttons the same way you switch a lamp on?” Hao Ren glanced over his shoulder at the device, which had returned to its normal shimmer. “Even if it’s fool-proofed, you’ve got to be careful. Especially when this thing can link two worlds together.”

Bethanos felt humiliated. He struggled in Y’zaks’ grip. “It’s not fair! It shouldn’t be this way! I’ve studied the scrolls, I’ve studied them! It’s supposed to work! Not end just like that! I’ve spent thousands of years studying the thing not to make myself look like a fool! I—”

Y’zaks became a little annoyed and he clenched his fist a little tighter. The fingers of the great demon were enough to disable a resisting half-demon. “Okay, please be quiet. The world is an unfair place after all; only the weak would dream of absolute fairness. It’s an illusion of the lucky ones. Instead, you should feel lucky that the device didn’t open the door. Or else, my landlord and I would have blown you as well as the device up into the high heavens before it could open. Now, stay calm. Let’s start with the basic concept of honour and racial rights after which, I’ll give you a pep talk on the secrets to suppressing your impulses…”

Hao Ren knew Y’aks was on to it now. He turned around and began to study the device, which was emitting a buzzing sound. “What’s this thing?”

Lily was a curious bunny. She cautiously touched the device and walked around it as her eyes examined it. “The casing is metal. It’s hot but, I can’t see any wires or tubing… What’s its power source?”

“Is this the power source?” Vivian squatted down as she touched a ring of patterns all over the floor. It seemed like the device was at the centre of these concentric circles, but she could not feel any energy flow with her hand.

Hao Ren tapped the MDT with his finger and said, “Have a look at this thing.”

The MDT hovered over it and used a light beam to connect with the Sacred Relic of Origins. After a simple scan, it found that the device could not actually open the World Gate and did not have a single function that could open doors to any dimension like they thought it did.

“This isn’t a door.” The MDT dropped itself back onto Hao Ren’s shoulder. “It looks like some sort of… synthesizer or a training device or an analyser. It’s not a dimensional door. I’ve found an empty vessel inside and some magic-based catalytic devices. But, the components aren’t complete. Something’s missing…”

The MDT activated a light beam and shone it on the top of the equipment. A hatch the size of a soccer ball opened on top. It looked like it could store stuff inside. “This is it. This should be the core plug-in or something like that. The plug-in decides the logic between the vessel and the catalytic devices.”

“Whatever it is, Bethanos wasted his time.” Hao Ren turned his head, glancing at Y’zaks’ little comprehensive class in moral, mental, physical, aesthetic and handicraft developments but, he quickly turned away because of the excessively violent scenes.

All in all, he found the incident very ironic; after all the hoo-ha, they were only after a crazy old man, who failed to read the user manual…

Becky followed Lily, moving around the device. Hao Ren asked curiously, “Does this thing exist in your world? I’m not talking about the present, I mean in the recorded history of your world. Are there any records of this thing or something like it?”

“No.” Becky shook her head. “Records of the Ancient Magic Civilisation have long been lost. What’s left are just mythical tales without solid information and religious paintings drawn out of people’s imagination. Nonetheless, this thing does look like one of our alchemical products. For example, that triangular symbol over here.”

Becky pointed at the crystal panel, which displayed a series of characters. “This triangular symbol with two corners means ‘Reaction on Hold’ in the alchemical formula. It means that the formula is established but it won’t produce any reaction because some conditions have not been met.”

Hao Ren also studied the symbols on the panel of the Sacred Relic of Origins but, they were not standard characters or runes (those hard-to-decipher, ritualistic characters were not suitable for use in devices requiring high-speed processing). The symbols were connected with one another by various strange lines and signs like a formula. Translation would take some time and there was no dictionary for it. Hao Ren kept his eyes on the rolling symbols and put the translation system in his mind to work, combining the symbols into useful meaning. A moment later, he was finally able to understand some of them. They read, “Lack of Start-Up Core”, “Administrator ID Suspended”, “Reaction Formula XX/XX/XX Lacks Necessary Elements” and etc.

Nangong Wuyue tried to coil the equipment up with her tail, but she failed. She jabbed Hao Ren on the shoulder using her tail and said, “I’m sure this thing’s a relic from the ancient times. Although it’s not a door, let’s just bring it back and study it slowly.”

Suddenly, Hao Ren realised a fight was still on going outside their dimension. He smacked his thigh and said, “F*ck! I almost screwed up! Let’s pack…”

He placed his hand on the Sacred Relic of Origins and stored it in his Dimensional Pocket. Then, he turned to Y’zaks and said, “Big guy! Leave the crazy old man alone and hurry up, there’s still a war outside!”

As Hao Ren’s voice trailed off, a sudden burst of loud noise reveberated throughout the dimension!

“What the f*ck is going on again?” Hao Ren started to become paranoid when he heard loud noises in the dimension. The last time he heard such a thing, it was a deadly energy storm.

Lily was even more paranoid. She went, “Arf, arf” and hid behind Hao Ren. She held her tail tightly and shivered. “Not again. Don’t burn my tail again!!!”

They left the strange dimension, which stored the Sacred Relic of Origins in a hurry. But outside, they found another “collapse” was unfolding.

It was not the temple collapsing but, the whole dimension itself. Everything was beginning to fade away. Things that faded to black and white were shattered into pieces like a broken mirror; the sky began to disappear while the desert and the mountains changed shape like phantoms. Sometimes, they were a sea of cloud, sometimes a grassland, sometimes the bottom of the sea; the only unchanging elements were the thunder and lightning in the as well as the constant burst of gorgeous light. It seemed like the dimension was coming to an end!

Bethanos was clasped under Y’zaks’ armpit, his face fully soaked in lava (actually, it was just Y’zaks sweating). Although he was half-dead and suffocating, he managed to shout, “Haha! You moved the Sacred Relic of Origins. It’s the heart of the dimension! The dimension is crumbling down, the spatial warp point has been misaligned. You’re not going to make it out! You and I are going to die here!”

“You’re spewing nonsense!” Hao Ren glared at Bethanos before he held the MDT up in the air. “Open sesame!”

What happened next proved that spatial misalignment was nothing compared to what the gadget could do, especially when data conversion was its specialty. The MDT started to glow brightly before a dimensional door opened. Everyone managed to escape outside before the ruins collapsed completely.

Bethanos was still under Y’zaks’ armpit. However, his mouth was wide open and he shouted like a mad man. “It shouldn’t be this way! I’ve never made a mistake, I’ve never made mistake! How can this be?”

Y’zaks slapped the noisy fellow and he fainted. “Because, I do things differently.”

Hessiana was the first to lunge out but, it seemed like the battle in the city had stopped.