The Record of Unusual Creature

Hao Ren cautiously went up to the side of the red sphere and held his chin. “Say, if I connect with this thing, will I get schizophrenia? The First Born is a creature that can chat with itself.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem if you’re just connecting with one brain,” the MDT said cautiously. “Plus, this is a severely damaged brain. The equipment in the lab can terminate its activities at any time.”

Hao Ren gritted his teeth. He thought of his identity as God’s agent; in theory, his soul should be indestructible. So, he placed his hand on one of the red spheres, and began to focus his mind. Lily, who had been waiting for a long time, started mumbling, “Mr. Landlord, you look like you’re constipated…”

Lily’s words made Hao Ren thoroughly give up. He could not help but take his hand off the sphere and say, “Why isn’t there any response?”

“You saw nothing?” Vivian stepped forward, feeling concerned. “How did you previously see the memories of the other creatures?”

“I have no idea,” Hao Ren said, scratching his head. “The most I can remember is, when I contacted the gigantic brain, I was touching its tentacles. I just saw its memory naturally. It seemed like a passive interaction.”

“Looks like there’s no use trying without knowing how,” Y’zaks said, coming up with his arm wrapped around his body. “First of all, you have to understand the principles behind reading memories. MDT, have you studied this?”

The MDT shook its body. “His weird power manifests randomly. Without real-time monitoring, who can study it? Why don’t you try another posture and see if it works?”

Hao Ren grinned, and put his hands on the sphere again. He tried eight different ways to trigger his ability, including mind focusing, qi circulation, meditation, and even chanting Raven 12345’s name. This last method summoned an inexplicable ball of light in the air, but everything else failed.

Lily pondered for a moment. She suddenly grabbed Hao Ren’s finger and bit it. However, she screamed in pain because she bit into the Steel membrane Shield. Hao Ren was startled and asked, “Are you out of your mind?”

Lily grumbled and groaned. “I just wanted to try dribbling the your blood over the sphere and see if it works. Ouch, that hurts!”

Hao Ren shot Lily a sideways glance and said, “Hey, you don’t do things like that around here.”

“Looks like we’ve run out of ideas.” Hao Ren felt a bit depressed. “Maybe its electromagnetic wave can’t keep up with mine.”

The MDT was rather optimistic. “Maybe the brain nucleus is too weak and it has temporarily lost its connectivity. Let’s think of a way to get recover it. The Petrachelys has catalyzed a lot of lifeblood in the on-board laboratory. We can use it as nutritional supplements.”

Hao Ren nodded and agreed as there was no better way.

The MDT issued a series of instructions, and two transparent crystal tanks, which looked like some kind of biochemical equipment rose up from the floor in the center of the laboratory. The two brain nuclei were carefully transferred into the two large tanks by way of gravitational force. As the crystallized lid of the tanks closed, a red viscous liquid was rapidly injected into one of the tanks and the brain nucleus was completely submerged in it.

The brain nucleus in the other tank was temporarily submerged in a normal inert solution, because it was not certain yet that the lifeblood could cure the two spheres. The MDT wanted to take precaution.

As for the lifeblood, it was teleported directly from the Petrachelys. When the spacecraft docked at the berth of CARS, a set of space-time devices could allow the two to perform rapid material exchanges, thus eliminating the hassle of traditional loading and unloading methods.

The brain nucleus was soaked in the lifeblood, and it seemed like nothing changed. Lily asked a little worriedly, “Is it experiencing blood-type compatibility issues? Should we first give these two brains a blood test?”

“The hole in your brain is no smaller than the landlord’s,” Vivian said. “Don’t worry about it. The lifeblood is not real blood, there’s no compatibility issues. The lifeblood is made based on the the Seed of Origin’s body fluid. It’s the purest form of raw nutrient, and there’s no worry about the two brain nuclei getting infected.”

Hao Ren looked at the tank and saw no reaction. He could not help but poke the MDT that was drifting around. “Does this even work?”

The MDT carefully checked if there was any reaction in the tank. After a moment of silence, it replied in a relaxed tone of voice, “Oh, looks like it’s begun to absorb it… Something’s being exchanged between the lifeblood and the brain nucleus. However, there’s no signs of recovery yet.”

Hao Ren let out a sigh of relief. It did not matter if it was healed or not, at least there was some reaction.

Lily could not help yawning at this time. “Mr. Landlord, I’m drowsy. I want to go home and sleep!”

Only then did Hao Ren realize that they had been working the entire day, and it had been a hell of a day. He could not help but yawn himself. He rubbed his eyes, and confirmed that there was no need for him to stay for now. He then breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s go home and get some rest. CARS will run on its own.”

The little girl Y’lisabet was always full of energy. She jumped and yelled, “Uncle Ren, let me help you look after the research station!”

Hao Ren shook his head immediately. “I have a bad feeling when I see the screwdriver in your hand!”

Before they left CARS, Hao Ren issued a work plan for the management host there: it was supposed to continue a deep scan of the two living samples until an accurate and detailed map of the First Borns’ physiology was obtained; perform analysis on the various tissues and organs of the First Borns; determine the function and characteristics of those organs as soon as possible; find a way to establish contact with the First Born’s nervous system; figure out what it was thinking without waking it up; and follow as well as monitor the situation of the two brains. If the lifeblood had a good therapeutic effect without any side effects, the other brain nucleus was to be submerged into the lifeblood.

All this work could be done by the automated system there. The only thing they needed to do was wait.

Anyway, this time, everyone had obtained an unprecedented understanding of the First Borns. Before that, Hao Ren never had a living, complete First Born, so there was no way to know its physiological make-up. The remains offered very little information for all it was worth. At least now, he knew where the First Born’s brain was—if all went well, he might even figure out the First Born’s thoughts.

He may be even able to trace back the memory of the First Born that just hatched from the Seed of Origin, and what kind of commands it received from the goddess of creation at that time.

Before leaving Tannagost, Hao Ren stood on the high walls of Alamanda as he looked at the huge tentacles stretching out in the open. Some autonomous machines and engineering equipment were working busily around those tentacles. They were the “engineering teams” from the Petrachelys.

These teams would work across the planet for the next few months. They would continue to multiply themselves and build signal towers as well as monitoring equipment. They would solve the problem of the vengeful spirit once and for all, and build bases there. Hao Ren had no idea what these projects would look like in the future, but he knew that more preparations were always good.

The more he learned about the goddess of creation and the First Borns, the more he had a feeling that something was brewing under the surface of the Plane of Dreams. Hence, he needed a base.

An autonomous robot flew past him from a distance with shiny pipelines rolled up in its mechanical arms. It was installing an energy dome generator above the Alamanda portal. Hao Ren could imagine that the next time he came, at least the portal square would be as pleasant as Earth.

However, he would try to adjust the scope of this ecological transformation, not letting it threaten the nature outside the dome: after all, the planet had just escaped the calamity of the First Born.

After he arranged the engineering works on the planet, Hao Ren led the others, who had all been yawning back to Earth.