The Record of Unusual Creature

When Hao Ren left Peatopia, he had left a dedicated communication channel to the Aerymian elves so they could get in touch with him in case of any emergency. So it was clear that such an important external communication channel must be manned on a twenty-four seven basis. When Hao Ren’s voice was splattered across the channel, a moment of chatter was heard at the other end before the tense voice of a startled elf replied, “Aerymian Communication Tower. Your identity is being verified. Roger… Ahh, is it Lord?”

Hao Ren froze a moment before he realized that the title ‘Lord’ was referring to him—considering the area of ​​land he had rented out to the elves, ‘Lord’ was regarded as an upgraded version of ‘landlord’.

Hao Ren replied and let the operator inform Hilda and Vimm about his arrival. Before long, he saw a few white dots appeared in space; they were space vessels the Aerymian elves sent out to meet him. Most of those space vessels were from the old Aerymian Island Chain—almost antique. Apparently, the elves hadn’t completely restarted their basic industries, at least they hadn’t been able to produce new spacecrafts. However, mong the antique spacecrafts were two new spacecrafts of different styles, which must be the support resources 883 Fleet left behind in accordance with the agreement they had with Aerymian elves. Judging from the models, these were the low-tech ships limited in the stellar system.

A triangle-shaped Aerymian spacecraft flew near to the Petrachelys. Image of Vimm was displayed on the communitor before Hao Ren. The young elven prince was so handsome that it was almost like a photoshopped figure, his face was radiating with a bright smile. “What brings you here, landlord?”

“Lead the way. We’ll discuss it when seeing your mother,” Hao Ren nodded. “There’s something important that needs your help this time.”

Vimm instantly felt a sense of urgency after seeing Hao Ren’s serious face. He quickly turned his ship around and led the way. The Petrachelys followed the cruise ships of Aerym flying down toward the only continent on the planet.

After penetrating through the atmosphere, Hao Ren switched on the external camera and was pleased to see that the once primitive barren continent had begun to see development: simple-styled city lined the coast, white towers rose in the forest, and many peculiar installations presumably radio or power towers were being constructed on the once barren, rocky mountain. He raised the sensitivity of the external camera and found that more residences and infrastructure were under construction, though they were still very basic. All these were enough to indicate that the Aerymian elves had adapted to the planet and survived well.

In the ocean far from the mainland, the ‘colonial eco-sphere’ formed by the floating islands had apparent changes: they no longer had to stay back in space and had now been turned into stationary maritime cities, the shield of the eco-sphere had been modified with many entrances with man-made land extending beyond the entrance, long runways, and ports. Aircrafts and newly-built cargo ships were traversing the air and sea between the mainland and the maritime cities, transporting a huge number of personnel and supplies.

New residents were exploring the still unfamiliar continent while materials from the continent were brought into the eco-sphere to repair and renovate the ancient santuaries. The people of Aerym had taken root in their new homeland and began to seek a peaceful coexistence with this planet in their own way.

“Development is going pretty fast,” Hao Ren said something unexpectedly over the radio. “I thought you would have to take a few years before relocating en masse to the mainland. Now it seems the empty islands have already begun to relocate.”

“The new environment is better than we thought,” Vimm’s voice was heard over the radio. “And the ancient secrets of nature have enabled our people to adapt more quickly to the environment outside the dome, and now hundreds of thousands of elves have taken their new home in the new world every day. But the dome cities wouldn’t be abandoned as mother has decided to renovate the facilities on the islands with the resources from the mainland. At the end of the day, each dome city will accommodate one third of its original residents which is the most ideal population. The cities are no longer in dilapidated state, supplies aren’t restricted, and water and food are available in abundant. There is no better time than this.”

The spacecraft gradually descended as the gleaming coastlinea appeared on the screen. The coastline looked rather familiar, but were also quite different: rows of tidy buildings lined the coastline and inland, the land in the city was reinforced and laid neatly with man-made materials, towering white walls surrounded the city in the shape of a crescent shielding the city from the strong, humid wind blown from the ocean. In part of the city which stretched deeper into the continent, the elves hadn’t destroyed the natural forest vegetation but had made some proper transplanting and pruning as they built the city directly in the forest. Under the ingenious design of its architects, half of the city blended seamlessly with the forest.

The City of Stars, the new capital of Aerym, where the first immigrants landed, and which Hilda had once said she was going to develop it had now appeared to take its initial shape. The pace of its construction had exceeded Hao Ren’s imagination, he hadn’t expected the city had grown so large in just a few months.

But then, the pace of development wasn’t too difficult to understand: after all, Aerymian elves came from the interstellar era, even if their scientific and technological know-how weren’t no par with those monsters which traversed between the stars, they were more powerful than human. No to mention that they once lived in a space which could be kaput any time, their speed-building technology such as ‘three-minute fast repair’, ‘ten-minute wall-building’ and stuff like that mustn’t be underestimated.

Construction in the new city was in full swing, and large area of yet to be used open space could be seen in the city. The spacecrafts made a circle above the city before they slowly landed near to the newly built Royal District. Hao Ren and Vimm each disembarked from their spacecrafts with their men. Vimm immediately came up and gave Hao Ren a big hug which Hao Ren felt quite embarrassed.

He wasn’t really fond of hugging a man who was four times more handsome than himself—speaking of ego…

But when he looked back at Ysre the elven aide behind him, he began to feel better: as good-looking as Vimm was, he was ostensibly a male through-and-through; but the appearance of the elven aide behind him was so ambiguous that he might be mistaken as someone else’s mistress.

As they touched down, the two elves was stunned beyond word by what they saw. They had never expected there were so many elves in the other world. Although the elves in this foreign world might look similiar to them, taking a look at the buildings and tools in the surroundings would immediately know that these elves were entirely different in any other ways. Ysre and Aylu even had almost forgotten why they were here as they were rooted to the spot looking around curiously. Eventually, Lily had to drag them moving along to keep up with the rest of the team.

Meanwhile, Lily felt pretty happy at it—usually she was the one being dragged, but this time she was the one doing the dragging…

“Mother is having a meeting with the elders in the council hall so she wasn’t able to come out to greet you. She let me apologise to you,” Vimm walked with Hao Ren and said. “Things are getting on track. And there’s no shortage of manpower too. But then, since this is the first time we’re living on land, there are a lot of things which we need to adapt to. We also have to draft new laws on traffic, farming and building codes, and been busy for more than a month.”

Hao Ren nodded in understanding. “I got that. It must be a hell of a busy time for the management… Hey, by the way, I have something which needs your help, I think your mother is going to be busier than ever…”

Suddenly, Hao Ren froze in his tracks and stared flabbergastedly at a huge group of portrait sculptures at the entrance of a square.

The sculptures, cast in some kind of alloy, was as tall as ten metres. The leading sculpture was in the image of a man wearing a commander uniform of spacecraft fleet, with head held high as one hand pointing in a forward direction. Behind it was a group of sulptures of Aerymian elves which appeared determined with their bodies leaning forward, forming a picture of a group of pioneering team led by a forward-looking leader.

Beautiful, grand, solemn, and yet very heavy.

Hao Ren was rooted to the spot for a long time before he finally figured out. He looked at Vimm. “Is that me?”

Vimm laughed as he pointed at the sculpture. “A spiritual symbol is important to the people’s morale at this moment. Nothing is more inspiring than the one who has lead them here.”

For a moment, Hao Ren didn’t know how to react. He looked down and saw a plate on the foot of the sculpture which read: DEAR LEADER, SUN AND LORD OF AERYMIAN ELVES—HAO REN.

Hao Ren: “…WTF?”