The Record of Unusual Creature

Hesperides imagined the sanctuary Vivian had referred to as “a peaceful and safe heaven” in the eastern continent to be all kinds of things. However, she now found out thay her imagination was totally different from reality. When she thought she would see a magical secret zone like the City of Shadows in Athens, what she saw along the way were old Chinese curtilages; when she thought she would see wild mountain ridges, what she saw was an ordinary house; when she finally accepted reality and thought she would see an ordinary basement full of clutter, Hao Ren showed her a row of coffins…

Strictly speaking, they were coffins glittering with silvery-white lustre and blue streams of light as though they were taken out from a sci-fi movie.

“You call it magic… props?” Hesperides watched Hao Ren as he adjusted the strange, silvery-white metal boxes. She then asked with a bellyful of doubts, “I’ve read a lot of books and seen the Library of Alexandria being built with my own eyes. You don’t fool me.”

“This stuff isn’t exactly the magic you think it is, and I’m different from the kind of wizard you’re used to. But, there are so many mysteries in the world, why do you have to figure it all out?” Hao Ren was connecting the MDT with a dormant chamber. After setting the initial reading of the system, he turned to Hesperides, winked at her and said, “Actually, these things are highly confidential. If an ordinary person sees this, he’d be killed for sure, but for unusual creatures such as yourelf, it’s not necessary to keep it a secret; you have more secrets than me. Come on, let’s get you a check. Just lie inside.”

Hao Ren was familiar with the confidentiality agreements. He had a thorough understanding of Raven 12345’s upper and lower limits through his contact with her. So, he now knew which grey zones he could and could not step into. In short, the Administration’s rules and regulations revolved around the core of the “Non-Interference of Civilisation Act”. Therefore, the existence of the Space Administration itself needed to be kept secret, but allowing a few unusual creatures to see some of the surreal stuff when necessary did not cause much trouble. As long as he could handle the possible problems himself, there was no issue for him to allow someone like Hesperides to lie in the “coffin”.

Of course, if you did not want to cause social unrest, it was best not to let ordinary humans see the stuff in the basement. After the rise of atheism in recent years, ordinary people now had a much weaker acceptance towards unusual things.

Hesperides looked at the coffin next to Hao Ren with hesitation. It was dazzling, dreadful and daunting. Although there were two very high-tech, holographic panels floating on both sides of the chamber, this did not stop its main body from looking like a coffin. Nonetheless, she had been through great storms so, this should be bearable. Although there was no reason for him to harm her, the evening goddess finally gritted her teeth and stamped her foot as she asked, “Do I need to change clothes?”

Before Hao Ren could answer, Lily immediately perked up her ears and stared at them vigilantly. Hao Ren quickly waved his hand and said, “No need, no need, just lie down.”

Hesperides lay in the coffin and the metal hatch slowly closed. She soon went into a state of deep sleep under the device’s operation. The Data Terminal then began to read the parameters of her body.

It did not just cover the wound on her forehead. The first thing it read was the full set of her physiological indicators.

“The body structure is basically similar to a human being’s, but the respiratory organs are strange. They can deal with extremely rich oxygen, extreme hypoxia, high vulcanisation and three kinds of atmospheres. She has two sets of blood circulation organs, which do not comprise the heart. However, the organs do have a structure similar to the vascular pump of the whole body. They have high cell strength and they can withstand high temperatures as well as high electromagnetic environments. She has a hollow skeleton with some kind of unknown liquid inside, high bone strength, material close to metal… The growth rate of newborn babies in this species must be slow.” The MDT was analysing while recording the data in a certain archive. “Brain activity remains high in the sleeping state, which should be used to control the magic part… Mental activity is probably a born ability in this species. Based on comprehensive assessment, all indicators show that she is far beyond a human. Even if we’re judging only from physical strength, she’s 20 to 30 times stronger than humans. The above parameters do not include her magical power.”

Hao Ren nodded as he listened to the MDT. Lily found it kind of creepy. She tucked her tail between her legs, pulled on Hao Ren’s sleeve and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Building a database,” Hao Ren said. He noticed that Lily found it creepy. He touched her head as he laughed and explained, “There are too many unusual creatures on Earth. And they have mutated over so many generations, so it’s hard to match them to their old ancestors in The Plane of Dreams. I think we should set up a similar species archive and count them. Then, we can compare the unusual creatures in The Plane of Dreams with those on Earth, and probably trace back their genes or something like that. I may find the traces of these species over the past 10,000 years.”

Lily looked at Hao Ren in amazement and said, “Ah, I suddenly find that you’re very smart!”

Hao Ren scratched his face awkwardly and said, “I just thought of it two days ago. I have to do something so that I can become their permanent employee. And at the moment, I’m really curious about unusual creatures. I want to investigate it with my own ability—then I can at least be more confident when I ask for a bonus from Raven.”

Lily stuck her tongue out and said, “It sounds good. Feels like Frankenstein on TV… There’s an evil feeling.”

Hao Ren really admired Lily’s wild imagination. “Ahem… I’m doing this for Science! And haven’t you realise that I’m pure in my motives and actions?”

“Well…” said Lily, scratching her hair. Suddenly, she shook her ears and thought of something. “Hey, so this means that you’re also going to collect information on werewolves, vampires, etc? Don’t bother, I’m here! When are you going to scan me?”

Hao Ren hesitated and said, “Umm… Next time.”

“Oh!” Lily said, not giving it much thought. However, Hao Ren was breaking out in a cold sweat: he almost told her the truth! He did not plan to collect information on werewolves from Lily. God knows if a werehusky was considered a werewolf! Hao Ren felt that Lily did not possess any characterisics of a werewolf at all. She probably belonged to a new class of creature.

At least before he found a second werehusky, he would never put Lily into his database. Not for anything else, but for the preciseness of Science!

While the devise scanned Hesperides, Hao Ren and Lily began to prepare another set of improvised equipment in the basement.

He and Lily found some plastic sheets, iron pipes and steel frames from the small warehouse next door. They were now preparing to make a small cubicle the size of a bathroom in the corner of the basement. Luckily, the basement was quite large. Inside it, there were areas for Vivian to sleep and put those dormant chambers. There was still an unoccupied space the size of a living room, so the cubicle would not occupy too much of the basement. He then removed some of the desktop-sized discs from his Dimensional Pocket as well as some pre-fabricated parts, and placed them in the centre of the unoccupied space. The disc-shaped objects were made of silvery-white metal. They were exquisite and looked high-tech; their surface shimmered with blue lines, much like the style of equipment on the Petrachelys.

Lily looked at these objects in a strange manner and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Creating a teleportation portal.” Hao Ren released something from his Dimensional Pocket as he spoke.

This time, it was a fierce-looking robotic squid!

This was the self-regulating robot that Hao Ren brought from the Petrachelys. Hao Ren had been keeping this in his Dimensional Pocket in case he needed it, and now, it finally came in handy. The scary-looking creature made a series of jabbers. It started assembling the equipment on the ground under Hao Ren’s instructions, quickly turning it into a teleportation platform about two metres in diameter. Then, it began waving its tentacles around the platform, tapping it here and there to adjust it. Finally, it started the programming of the teleportation device and disappeared in front of Hao Ren as well as Lily.

After a few seconds, the teleportation platform was lit again and the robotic squid was teleported back from somewhere. It waved its tentacles up and down at Hao Ren, jabbering about the success of the teleportation.

“This thing can lead to the ecological area in the Petrachelys.” Hao Ren pointed to the teleportation platform and explained, “I got clearance from the authorities two days ago. We can enter our spaceship via this platform. In case I’m not at home and you’re all in an emergency, you can escape the house using this platform.”

Hao Ren was basically upgrading the hardware for his “base camp”. Lily jumped up happily and said, “Hey hey! This feels like a secret base. It’s so exciting!”

“Calm down.” Hao Ren pushed Lily’s head down to stop her from jumping and then, he said, “Let’s cover it first. This stuff will keep glowing when it’s on standby. It’ll disturb Vivian’s sleep.”

Lily immediately rolled up her sleeves and began to bend the steel pipe from the warehouse into proper parts. The MDT had completed its scanning of Hesperides’ data and it finally began to check her wounds. Shortly after, it found something unexpected. “Ah, Hao Ren, come and have a look, there’s something stuck in her head…”