The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 761
Chapter 761: The Beginning and the End of the Dream Ark
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“I’ve answered a lot of your questions. Can you tell me where Mother is?”
When the First Born suddenly shot this question at Hao Ren, he was still pondering if he was being influenced by the lifeblood that he had absorbed before. His contemplation was immediately broken by the First Born as cold sweat started flowing from head to toe. He was not alone, everyone present got nervous when they heard that one particular question. Vivian turned away silently to look at the crystalline imprints, Y’zaks picked up his daughter to start discussing dinner, Nangong Wuyue bend down to pretend that she was tying her shoelace to find that…. she was wearing crocs, there were no laces to begin with!
“This…” Hao Ren swallowed hard as he squeezed his mind for ideas on how to tell the part where the Goddess had fallen in a very symphathetic manner. “Actually she…”
Vivian softly elbowed Hao Ren at the back. “Be symphathetic.”
Hao Ren nodded as he swallowed the words that was just about to come out back into his gut. Rephrasing his sentence, he went. “A war broke out at the Star of Origin and your mother’s whereabouts are unknown after that. But we had gotten proof that the Goddess of Creation is probably still asleep somewhere deep in space…”
Vivian patted her chest as she left out a sigh of relief as she whispered into Hao Ren’s ears. “That scared the hell out of me. I really thought you were gonna say your mum got blown to smithereens.”
Hao Ren gritted his teeth as he tried to kept his best solemn facade on. Cold sweat formed on his forehead. “I almost said it just now…Thank goodness you elbowed me there!”
Vivian’s expression changed slightly as she murmured. “Watch that mouth of yours!”
The First Born kept quiet for a moment, it was obvious that it was not satisfied by the answer. “I know that much and you’ve told me a little before. But I want details…. what happened to Mother?”
Hao Ren licked his lips and before he replied he used telephathy to confirm that status of the station’s mainframe and confirmed that all firewalls and security protocols were working as normal, and that the First Born sample in container one and two were dormant before he popped a question instead. “How much do you know of the incident? When did you lose contact with the Goddess of Creation? Did she tell you her situation?”
“I know as much that Mother was at war with someone.” the First Born’s tone will change to almost child-like when it spoke about its Mother. “She said it was dangerous and forbade me to have a look at the situation there. Afterwards, I received one last message from Mother. That something bad will happen, and my siblings will be attacking the Garden. She said that she no longer have any ability to stop them, and asked me to protect everything within the Garden…. After that… I don’t know.”
Hao Ren asked a few more questions and was affirmed in his belief that the First Born lost contact before the Goddess’ fall. And because of her orders, it never did actively tried to contact the Star of Origin or any other Guardians. So it was clueless about that heinous war. It only followed its Mother’s orders to protect the ecosystem samples within its influence and the preservation method that it came up with was in cooperation with the people of Zom.
The First Born knew what sort of firepower its siblings have and if hundreds of thousands of ancient beings like itself were to fall upon Zom, its strength alone is futile against the genocidal tide. Escaping or building defensive structures were pointless, so it decided to protect ‘information’.
Information is the blueprint, and the blueprint is everything.
The First Born and its wards decided to forgo the physical form that could be easily destroyed and turn the entire simulated ecosystem and any information gained as data within itself while awaiting for a safe time to unleash the lifeblood to create life again. It was a bold action, as every lifeform in the world could be created with the lifeblood, and thus they became a very unique form of information. And as long as these blueprints were preserved, when the time comes, the entire ecosystem could be completely and perfectly resurrected using new materials.
At the base of the First Born’s plan, the Zomnites had compiled something that akin to a ‘lifeform index’, and catalogued every intelligent living being and evolution levels on the planet. They also created equipments that could extract one’s spirit and upload it to the database. While the Zomnites spacefaring technology was rather amateurish, they had a very unique understanding of souls and life owing to their communication with the First Born since ancient times. This particular part of their culture was very different from the bulky automatons that they had created.
But if the Aeryms who were essentially forest dwellers could build a space battleship, what is there to stop the Zomnites living in steel cities to be part of a cult worshipping an ancient being?
The entire plan took about a hundred years to realise and finally all intelligent beings’ souls were secured while the plantlife and primal animals were gene-mapped and their ecosystem role recorded. The entire ecosystem of the planet became a blueprint which scale was beyond imagination. After compressing the files and logged into the Ark which simulates the world, as the world came to a halt, the First Born unleashed the final phase of the plan:
It roused the Bloodtide and dissolved the entire planet’s ecosystem.
After that, every life on Zom had disappeared, living on the ancient and powerful primal being there while the spirits of every creatures hide within the mental sanctuary of the First Born. This was the perfect ruse, as the crazed Guardians who were on a warpath exterminating the Treacherous Children and passed by Zom, what they saw was a cleansed planet. There was nothing but lifeblood and tentacles on it. Not suspecting anything, Zom was left alone, and that was how their civilisation survived.
The First Born had responded to Hao Ren’s every question in detail, its innocence and straightforwardness was surprising, but this was the first time Hao Ren spoke to a real First Born, and he was not sure if this being would always be in such a state when awake.
As the First Born completed its tale about building the sanctuary, Lily asked curiously. “After the virtual world was created, did any other Guardians passed by Zom?”
“A few did, but they simply just went by.” the First Born said. “They probably thought my other siblings had already came here before.”
Y’zaks immediately added on. “Then what’s with Zom crashing into the sun? A planet should not deviate from it’s orbit unless due to external force?”
“We ran into a column of space dust cloud. That was about seven thousand years after I started dreaming. A massive dust cloud passed by our system, and every planet’s orbit speed fell. Some of my nervous system, and many of the facilities on the planet’s surface was subsequently destroyed as many other things happened… After that I could not really control my dream anymore, and I could not even wake up to warn the rest.”
Hao Ren rubbed his chin as he fell into deep thought. He could fell that the First Born was still emotionally unstable. Despite escaping death, all it could think of was its ‘Mother’. It clearly thought that these ‘humans’ before it know more about Mother’s whereabouts and in truth, Hao Ren and the rest do know what happened, it was just… No one knew how to put it to words.
Vivian threw a wink at Hao Ren while Lily was talking to the First Born. “Can we hide this?”, was the message.
Of course, Vivian could have meant other things but Hao Ren felt that if he could act like he could read Vivian’s intentions from that complicated glance he would have looked cool.
He gently shook his head, indicating that the truth would need to be told sooner or later.
A lie would need ten other lies to cover it, and the distrust caused by a lie would need ten times the effort to restore confidence. As this First Born no longer needed to use its mental strength to maintain the ‘Dream Ark’, it might come up with its own conclusions with its now idle mind. Rather than needing to clean up that mess, Hao Ren rather that he settle this once and for all.
Seeing that this First Born did not personally saw the fall of the Goddess, and was not linked psychically to the berserking guardians, its reaction after knowing the truth would probably be measured, as long as Hao Ren keep a tab on his words and the atmosphere, he could still manage the situation.
“On the matter of the Goddess…” Hao Ren’s voice caught the First Born’s attention. “We do know something about her, but we are probably not the best people to tell you this. Wait a moment, I’ll let you meet somone… You may even know each other.”
He had decided to let the Guardian meet the First Born.
The Beginning and the End of the Dream Ark
“I’ve answered a lot of your questions. Can you tell me where Mother is?”
When the First Born suddenly shot this question at Hao Ren, he was still pondering if he was being influenced by the lifeblood that he had absorbed before. His contemplation was immediately broken by the First Born as cold sweat started flowing from head to toe. He was not alone, everyone present got nervous when they heard that one particular question. Vivian turned away silently to look at the crystalline imprints, Y’zaks picked up his daughter to start discussing dinner, Nangong Wuyue bend down to pretend that she was tying her shoelace to find that…. she was wearing crocs, there were no laces to begin with!
“This…” Hao Ren swallowed hard as he squeezed his mind for ideas on how to tell the part where the Goddess had fallen in a very symphathetic manner. “Actually she…”
Vivian softly elbowed Hao Ren at the back. “Be symphathetic.”
Hao Ren nodded as he swallowed the words that was just about to come out back into his gut. Rephrasing his sentence, he went. “A war broke out at the Star of Origin and your mother’s whereabouts are unknown after that. But we had gotten proof that the Goddess of Creation is probably still asleep somewhere deep in space…”
Vivian patted her chest as she left out a sigh of relief as she whispered into Hao Ren’s ears. “That scared the hell out of me. I really thought you were gonna say your mum got blown to smithereens.”
Hao Ren gritted his teeth as he tried to kept his best solemn facade on. Cold sweat formed on his forehead. “I almost said it just now…Thank goodness you elbowed me there!”
Vivian’s expression changed slightly as she murmured. “Watch that mouth of yours!”
The First Born kept quiet for a moment, it was obvious that it was not satisfied by the answer. “I know that much and you’ve told me a little before. But I want details…. what happened to Mother?”
Hao Ren licked his lips and before he replied he used telephathy to confirm that status of the station’s mainframe and confirmed that all firewalls and security protocols were working as normal, and that the First Born sample in container one and two were dormant before he popped a question instead. “How much do you know of the incident? When did you lose contact with the Goddess of Creation? Did she tell you her situation?”
“I know as much that Mother was at war with someone.” the First Born’s tone will change to almost child-like when it spoke about its Mother. “She said it was dangerous and forbade me to have a look at the situation there. Afterwards, I received one last message from Mother. That something bad will happen, and my siblings will be attacking the Garden. She said that she no longer have any ability to stop them, and asked me to protect everything within the Garden…. After that… I don’t know.”
Hao Ren asked a few more questions and was affirmed in his belief that the First Born lost contact before the Goddess’ fall. And because of her orders, it never did actively tried to contact the Star of Origin or any other Guardians. So it was clueless about that heinous war. It only followed its Mother’s orders to protect the ecosystem samples within its influence and the preservation method that it came up with was in cooperation with the people of Zom.
The First Born knew what sort of firepower its siblings have and if hundreds of thousands of ancient beings like itself were to fall upon Zom, its strength alone is futile against the genocidal tide. Escaping or building defensive structures were pointless, so it decided to protect ‘information’.
Information is the blueprint, and the blueprint is everything.
The First Born and its wards decided to forgo the physical form that could be easily destroyed and turn the entire simulated ecosystem and any information gained as data within itself while awaiting for a safe time to unleash the lifeblood to create life again. It was a bold action, as every lifeform in the world could be created with the lifeblood, and thus they became a very unique form of information. And as long as these blueprints were preserved, when the time comes, the entire ecosystem could be completely and perfectly resurrected using new materials.
At the base of the First Born’s plan, the Zomnites had compiled something that akin to a ‘lifeform index’, and catalogued every intelligent living being and evolution levels on the planet. They also created equipments that could extract one’s spirit and upload it to the database. While the Zomnites spacefaring technology was rather amateurish, they had a very unique understanding of souls and life owing to their communication with the First Born since ancient times. This particular part of their culture was very different from the bulky automatons that they had created.
But if the Aeryms who were essentially forest dwellers could build a space battleship, what is there to stop the Zomnites living in steel cities to be part of a cult worshipping an ancient being?
The entire plan took about a hundred years to realise and finally all intelligent beings’ souls were secured while the plantlife and primal animals were gene-mapped and their ecosystem role recorded. The entire ecosystem of the planet became a blueprint which scale was beyond imagination. After compressing the files and logged into the Ark which simulates the world, as the world came to a halt, the First Born unleashed the final phase of the plan:
It roused the Bloodtide and dissolved the entire planet’s ecosystem.
After that, every life on Zom had disappeared, living on the ancient and powerful primal being there while the spirits of every creatures hide within the mental sanctuary of the First Born. This was the perfect ruse, as the crazed Guardians who were on a warpath exterminating the Treacherous Children and passed by Zom, what they saw was a cleansed planet. There was nothing but lifeblood and tentacles on it. Not suspecting anything, Zom was left alone, and that was how their civilisation survived.
The First Born had responded to Hao Ren’s every question in detail, its innocence and straightforwardness was surprising, but this was the first time Hao Ren spoke to a real First Born, and he was not sure if this being would always be in such a state when awake.
As the First Born completed its tale about building the sanctuary, Lily asked curiously. “After the virtual world was created, did any other Guardians passed by Zom?”
“A few did, but they simply just went by.” the First Born said. “They probably thought my other siblings had already came here before.”
Y’zaks immediately added on. “Then what’s with Zom crashing into the sun? A planet should not deviate from it’s orbit unless due to external force?”
“We ran into a column of space dust cloud. That was about seven thousand years after I started dreaming. A massive dust cloud passed by our system, and every planet’s orbit speed fell. Some of my nervous system, and many of the facilities on the planet’s surface was subsequently destroyed as many other things happened… After that I could not really control my dream anymore, and I could not even wake up to warn the rest.”
Hao Ren rubbed his chin as he fell into deep thought. He could fell that the First Born was still emotionally unstable. Despite escaping death, all it could think of was its ‘Mother’. It clearly thought that these ‘humans’ before it know more about Mother’s whereabouts and in truth, Hao Ren and the rest do know what happened, it was just… No one knew how to put it to words.
Vivian threw a wink at Hao Ren while Lily was talking to the First Born. “Can we hide this?”, was the message.
Of course, Vivian could have meant other things but Hao Ren felt that if he could act like he could read Vivian’s intentions from that complicated glance he would have looked cool.
He gently shook his head, indicating that the truth would need to be told sooner or later.
A lie would need ten other lies to cover it, and the distrust caused by a lie would need ten times the effort to restore confidence. As this First Born no longer needed to use its mental strength to maintain the ‘Dream Ark’, it might come up with its own conclusions with its now idle mind. Rather than needing to clean up that mess, Hao Ren rather that he settle this once and for all.
Seeing that this First Born did not personally saw the fall of the Goddess, and was not linked psychically to the berserking guardians, its reaction after knowing the truth would probably be measured, as long as Hao Ren keep a tab on his words and the atmosphere, he could still manage the situation.
“On the matter of the Goddess…” Hao Ren’s voice caught the First Born’s attention. “We do know something about her, but we are probably not the best people to tell you this. Wait a moment, I’ll let you meet somone… You may even know each other.”
He had decided to let the Guardian meet the First Born.
Chapter 762: A Reunion After Ten Thousand Years
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren left Lily and the rest in the hall to talk with the First Born as he and Vivian came to another section close by.
They walked through a crystalline bridge that was set up with an array of seals, a semi-translucent lightscreen appeared at the front of the bridge as it opened the way. The Guardian Giant that they taken captive from Hoeltta was locked in there, as a prisoner.
“You think letting the giant meet the First Born is wise?” Vivian sounded rather jittery as she looked at Hao Ren.
“What are you worried about?” Hao Ren smiled.
“We don’t know how far have the giant calmed down, or if he even did. What if he told the First Born about the fall of the Goddess in detail, and riled it up?” Vivian’s frowned slightly. “Rather than letting the giant speak we should try to handle it ourself, trying to sugarcoat it or whatnot.”
Hao Ren looked at Vivian before speaking slowly. “Sometimes, it’s better to let the family members of the deceased to calm one another. Besides, I don’t think the giant will try to instigate the First Born’s hatred, he would in fact try to pacify the latter.”
Vivian was curious. “What makes you so sure about that?”
“Because that was his mother’s last wish.” Hao Ren nodded with confidence. “There’s no oath stronger than this.”
Vivian went silent as she heard Hao Ren’s response and nodded without a sound. The Guardian’s loyalty to the Goddess was an undisputable fact.
As the two stepped into the room they saw the giant seated at a corner of the chamber. He was surrounded by a few holographic displays while the floor around him had massive containers that were planted with all sorts of plants. Hao Ren remembered that before he left the area he had ordered the droids and arcane servant that they could entertain the giant’s every whims as long as it does not violate the security protocols. Seems like the holographic projector and the plants were items that the giant has requested during his time here. Seems that his life here was rather peaceful and laidback.
The giant noticed an approaching aura and he looked up at Hao Ren and Vivian before giving a small nod as a greeting. Hao Ren came to him and saw the holographic display showed the scenery on Tannagost. As curiosity got the better of him, Hao Ren asked. “What are you looking at?”
“A planet that was re-created.” the giant’s deep voice rumbled. “Life is really an odd thing, once it is there, it is very difficult to extinguish… This planet’s ecosystem looked like it was destroyed before, but now everything is in motion again, from the bodies of my brothers new forest and plains are born, seems like nothing had changed… except for the lost of Mother.”
Hao Ren threw the giant a question out of whim. “What do you think of this new ecosystem?”
“Nothing.” The giant pointed towards the plants beside him. “Life is life, it is a significant thing at the same time, insignificant, their existance is just because. That aside, we meet again, are you looking for me to talk about the ecosystem?”
“No, I’m here to bring you to meet a person… okay, maybe not a ‘person’ literally.” Hao Ren waved his hand. “Before that, I want to hear your opinion. If you ever meet another Guardian, who had maintain his or her sanity, will you speak with the guardian?”
A sudden burst of gust later, the giant rose up as he bend his mountain like body down to look at Hao Ren, who was no bigger than a midget in his eyes. “You found my brethrens?! And they still have their sanity intact?!”
“Not a giant likeyou of course, but still a guardian, a First Born.” Hao Ren said as he skipped a distance away. “Uh, mind your distance when you speak, it’s a level seven gale when you open your mouth… I found it at place some ten billion light years away. Both it s body and its ecosystem has been incinerated by the system’s sun. But I managed to preserve all their souls, and they are stored in this mainframe computer of this space station, think of it as a salvation of the soul…”
Hao Ren told the giant what exactly happened on Zom, and he did not even hide the truth about the Dream Ark. He knew that the First Born would talk to the giant about this and he took the opportunity to explain the existance of the Zomnites rather than trying to hide it under a pile of lies. That should earn him sound brownie points with the giant.
Surprisingly, the giant did not have much of a reaction when he heard what Hao Ren had to say, he did not even say a word. After frowning as he pondered hard, the giant rose slowly. “Bring me to it.”
Hao Ren and Vivian immediately stepped aside to avoid getting stepped on. Looking up, Hao Ren yelled. “If you have any opinions abou the Zomnites say them now. If possible I want to avoid any bloodletting if possible… although you won’t be able to slash at them anyway…”
The giant looked down as his voice thundered. “Mother had willingly protected them, I have no opinions about that. Now I just want to see the other guardian.”
vivian threw out a bat to lead the giant. As she walked with Hao Ren behind the giant she started whispering to him. “Say, Mr Landlord, what you think, between the giant and the First Born, are they brothers, or sisters?”
Hao Ren rolled his eyes. “Who knows, they are genderless… Say… stop mingling with Lily, your focus is more and more like hers.”
After leading the giant to the central hall, Hao Ren and the rest stepped aside but remained in the room. Everyone was curious about this momentus event and no one wanted to miss a thing. It seemed like the giant could sense the First Born’s spiritual presence and walked straight towards the crystal prism in the middle of the room. The giant gazed upon the crystal prism for a moment before speaking with a low voice. “Can you recognise me?”
The First Born’s response can a few seconds later. “I… I have some inkling. When I was just born, your aura was there.”
Nangong Wuyue stealthily tugged Hao Ren’s sleeve as she went. “Eh, Mr Landlord, how did it detect the First Born? It was in the data vault right?”
Hao Ren rolled his eyes. “Metaphysics, not something that you would be able to understand even if I explained it to you.”
Lily too decided to join in the fun as she tugged Hao Ren’s sleeve as well. “Eh Mr Landlord, Mr Landlord, what you think, between the giant and the First Born, are they brothers, or sister? Does it have a gender…”
Hao Ren did not say anything and just took a glance at Vivian. The message in his eyes read: Told you to stop playing with Lily. Just look at this line of thought.
Vivian shrugged and indicated she had no reply to that.
As the bunch muttered about by the corner of the room, the atmosphere soon gotten weird and Y’zaks, the sole ‘person’ in the party who serious could not take it any longer. The demon let out a deep cough as he dragged his daughter and motioned to the rest to leave. “Lets stop making a raucus here and make a move. Let the two siblings handle this.”
Hao Ren shook his head, slightly dejected before dragging Lily and Rollie as he followed behind Y’zaks. Lily was still going about the topic as she went. “Eh, can anyone explain this to me, are they brothers or sisters…”
After everyone cleared the room, only the two guardians were left. Or one guardian and a spirit. Their reunion after ten millenias was in a situation like this, such was a ironic hand of fate.
As Hao Ren brought the rest outside the hall, Nangong Sanba looked back towards the room. “Mr Landlord, what do you think they’ll be talking about?”
Lily nodded with a grim look. “They must be talking about how to exact revenge, what to do after their mum got blasted to smithereens…”
Nangong Wuyue gave the werehusky an odd look. “Can’t your thought process veer towards flowers and sunshine?”
Lily shuddered suddenly before glaring at Wuyue. “I just came back from a place the sun shines the brightest in this system. Almost blinded my dog eyes. Don’t talk to me about sunshine for the next two months!”
“How does that even got to do with anything!” Wuyue was exasperated.
Hao Ren stayed silent as he looked at the bickering duo and he seemed disinterested with their squabbles. When Lily’s imagination had ran wild almost to the boiling point, he intervened with a couple of dry cough. “Stop imagining nonsense. Their topics are rather normal. The giant is explaining the truth to the First Born, very very gently.”
Y’lisabet looked at Hao Ren, surprised painted on her face. “Uncle Ren, you’re eavesdroping?”
“Of course, the surveillance system is online twenty four seven.” Hao Ren shrugged. “This place is still a prison after all. You’d think I did not take any precautions? I’m much much more afraid than all of you if the two were to start fighting.”
Vivian crossed her arms as she laid on one of the crystalline pillars before letting out a sigh. “Regardless, this is a good sign.”
“Hmmm?” Hao Ren looked at her.
Vivian turned around, a faint smile on her face. “A guardian, and a First Born, both are still sane. We are slowly reuniting the surviving members of the Goddess’s children after her fall. While it’s only two now… we will find more in the future. Isn’t this a good sign?”
Hao Ren smiled as he heard what Vivian had to say. “Yes, a good sign indeed.”
Lily’s gaze swept between the two as she started mumbling to herself. “Why does this two look like an adulterous couple when they smile at the same time.”
Chapter 763: A New Era
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren and the rest waited outside for quiet a while before a shapeless arcane orb floated out of the hall to summon them back in to the hall.
In the hall, the giant sat cross-legged beside the crystal prism as he maintained the posture of speaking to the First Born while the holographic displays from the prism was still. The atmosphere was rather depressed. Hao Ren came before the giant and let out the most convincing smile he had. “You’re done?”
The giant nodded without a word. The First Born’s voice then rang throughout the hall. “Why…”
Nangong Sanba interjected subconciously. “Why what?”
“Why would they kill Mother?” The First Born’s voice was distraught. “Mother was kind to all. She loved everything in this world… Why would they kill Mother?”
“For some, kindness is a meaningless concept.” Y’zaks spoke. “When they are seeking for something beyond their station, the mortal races are prone to do things that is too disgusting to describe. Foolishness is a great sin indeed, and sadly, such sinners are just too many.”
The First Born went silent again, and this time the silence was so long that the atmosphere turned slightly awkward. Hao Ren could only break the silence by speaking first. “Ahem… so do you have any other plans after this?”
“Yes, I do.” the First Born spoke again, its voice was weak. “Mother is only asleep right?”
“Based on the information that we have, the Goddess of Creation’s powers are still active within this universe and her will will still answer her follower’s call. So there is a high chance that she’s just asleep.” Hao Ren rubbed his chin. “Besides, based on what I understand, even the witnesses of that war did not really see the Goddess perishing. What they saw was the Star of Creation exploding and the entire battlefield was sucked into a place called the Umbral Realm. That means there is no concrete proof that the Goddess had perished in the war. So there is a good chance that she’s still alive.”
“Will you help me find Mother?”
Vivian smiled. “Not just to help you, that was our goal from the outset.”
“Then I’ll wait for her return.” the First Born spoke. “Before that, if there’s anything I can do, I will help you.”
Lily looked up at the prism and after a good while decided to ask. “So about that, when you heard what happened in the past… You’ll be very agitated right? If you have anything to say, just say it now, we are from another universe, and have almost nothing to do with the Second Born here. If you have anything to say, you can talk to us, you don’t have to pent them up.”
The giant looked towards Lily without a word, he was clearly in disagreement with Lily’s “We have almost nothing to do with the Second Born” proclaimation, but he ultimately kept silent.
The First Born’s voice was calm. “I am angry, and distraught, but Mother had told me, do not be like the other siblings. I must listen to Her, and Muru had already said, the rebels have already received divine retribution, so that’s no need to pursue the matter.”
“Muru?” Nangong Sanba asked subconciously again.
The giant’s thundering voice rolled. “That’s my name.”
“Oh Oh! I was feeling that something was missing… I forgot to ask your name when I last spoke to you.” Hao Ren slapped his forehead as his body shuddered by the sudden blast of wind. “Please watch where you are talking. That wind is just too strong. Since we now know the giant’s name, how do we call you? We can’t be calling you the First Born all the time no? It’s just weird.”
The last part of his words were directed towards the prism. As what remained of the First Born was its spirit, this facility was taken as its mode of communication.
“Me? I don’t have a name. We are all solitary beings in the universe, unlike the giants. We do not have a society, so we do not need names.” the First Born sounded rather troubled.
“Uh.. did the Zomnites gave you any name?”
“They did give me a lot of titles, but those were not names.”
Hao Ren gave it a brief thought before understanding what was going on. As the sole being of its kind on the planet, a name is not particularly useful. It was the only First Born on Zom, and what the humans called it, the Roots of Origin, the World Tree, The Ancient God or what not were immaterial. Even a simple ‘it’ was not an issue. There were nothing around the First Born that could be compared to, and the concept of names just faded away. As to how the Goddess and the Guardian Giants communicate with these ‘ecosystem managers’, it was mainly a form telephathy with morse code included.
“Then lets call you Zom.” Hao Ren pondered. “Lets use the name of the planet that you lived on before, as a form of memory.”
“Sure!” The First Born agreed wholeheartedly.
After confirming that the matter with the Goddess fall was settled amicably, Hao Ren was now worried about the question with the sixteen billion souls and the Zomnite ecosystem datavault (the virtual world data). “So lets talk about the data vault. We have managed to save the Dream Ark’s blueprints. So what do you plan to do next? Will there be any changes to the souls within the ark?”
The First Born pondered for a bit. “Based on my original plan, it was to use the lifeblood to recreate the ecosystem, but now that my body is nothing much ashes, it will be difficult to return tothe real world. So I think I could only keep simulating a virtual world after this. But the souls of my brothers and sisters… the limiter has been destroyed, and they will awake very soon. It will be quite a task for them to accept their current situation.”
Hao Ren heard a new term. “A limiter?”
As the First Born explained, Hao Ren finally understood what the ‘limiter’ and ‘awakening’ was all about. The former was referring to the machines on Zom itself and they were the main instrument in keeping the Zomnites in deep slumber!
Most mortal souls are intricate yet fragile, and their lifespan is the biggest issue of them all. All mortal races could not be immediately brought back to life. They need complex training and strengthening of the spirit to allow their souls to withstand the elongation of their life. This was the technique that the Xiling Celestials used for the ascencion and improvement of their followers. Yet, the Zomnites have no such experience in this field, and no time to explore the technology at all. The question they faced after boarding the ark was not death, but survival. A question of what to do when a mortal with a lifespan of a mere hundred years was suddenly given immortality.
They would tire, and lose their sense of self before going insane and ignoring the world itself. There were even more serious consequences. For those who had enjoyed a stable life within a virtual heaven, they would wish to stay on in the world and forsake the feeling of the real workd. “A deep, peaceful slumber” was indeed a wonderful inducement, but it was also the foretelling of a race’s doom. The Zomnites had forsaw this, and that was why they had placed a failsafe on the Dream Ark, that was the ‘limiter’.
“Their memories are frozen after ten years into their slumber. That was went the human spirit is at is most active and strongest. After that, their soul begun a memory-less samsara cycle and every cycle took about ten years, to ensure the activity of the spirits.” The First Born explained patiently. “If the dream cycle takes too long, then history will start to distort, and there will be an excess of data of everything that happened on the planet, so there was this need to reset the stage every now and then. This was all designed by them, a brilliant race they are!”
“So this is the truth behind the cycles…” Nangong Sanba blinked in awe at the grand undertaking the Zomnites had took. “So, that means when the Zomnites wakes up their memory will return to the times ten millenais ago, not long after their entry into the dream world? While this sounds good, does that mean the experience and happenings of the past ten thousand years be forgotten? A shame if they were to lose them.”
“They won’t, those harmless memories are stored and these experiences will be useful in the future when they rebuild their society. Their brain capacity is enormous, and they could remember a lot of things. Upon their return to the real world, everything that happened in the cycle will be fresh in their minds. But those memories have undergone some filtering, so they will appear like photographs or movies, while plenty, will not affect their psychological state.”
“So by cutting off the ‘personal experience’ while retaining the knowledge… so by the time everyone gets back to the real world they’ll be genuises, but as the knowledge did not accumulate as whole, they probably will be no match for Nolan.” Hao Ren mumbled to himself. “But the limiters are gone, and they will awake within the virtual world, and live on for eternity.”
“So can you help me create a new limiter?” the First Born asked. “You seemed to have a very advanced level of technology, you should be able to do it.”
Hao Ren smiled as he heard that. “Rather than that… won’t it be better to return to the real world?”
The First Born did not know how to respond, and Muru too threw a curious glance in Hao Ren’s direction.
“After the apocalypse, many planets have been reborn, and this universe is filled with fertile planets that are unhabited.” Hao Ren said as he activated a holographic display, showing the scenes on Tannagost. “How abou this one? Use it to welcome the new era of life.”
Chapter 764: Life’s New Voyage
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren showed Tannagost to the First Born (it’s now named Zom), and presented to him the holographic images drawn from the various probes orbiting the planet to the station’s mainframe.
The cycle of life had restarted on this desolate , and the new ecosystem now started to grow on the remains of a First Born. Yet the ecosystem was still a fragile thing, and simple planet life and microorganisms were not enough to create a prosperous world. Tannagost needed a vigorous ecosystem to recover from the destruction wrought by the apocalypse, and the Zomnites needed a new planet to call home.
“This planet is definitely suitable.” Hao Ren took a salesperson style as he tried to pitch the positive points of Tannagost. “While this world’s gold content makes it slightly different than other planets, it is still a habitable planet, and at the very least the last ecosystem functioned pretty well here. You can restart the life cycle here and the remains of the First Born and its properties can be used as the initial reagent. I can provide you supplies of lifeblood, although they are not plenty.”
Zom seemed to be stunned as it heared Hao Ren’s suggestion, before it could reply Lily prodded Hao Ren on the shoulder. “Mr Landlord, are you serious? Can two ecosystems co-exist just like that? Seems like Tannagost already have their own lifeforms… i remember this is called foreign species invasion.”
Hao Ren pondered for a bit before going, “But the First Born’s job is to create ecosystems, if it is he one doing it it won’t be an invasion no?”
Zom then spoke. “This… is a good idea.”
“Right?” Hao Ren smiled. “You can move the Zomnite ecosystem on to Tannagost…”
Zom did not wait for Hao Ren to finish before interrupting. “No, we cannot do that right away. This will ruin the planet’s current balance. I need to recalculate, and perhaps I can make Zom’s ecosystem to co-exist with the planet’s current ecosystem… My siblings lifeform too need some adjustment. But all these are possible. This planet was once sowed by Mother, its life is of the same root as Zom’s. My thanks, I’m much inspired now.”
Hao Ren nodded as he took in the awe of the professionalism of the First Born, while it may act rather childish at times, its knowledge about the creation of ecosystems is unparalelled compared to a amateur like him. He too was surprised that the latter had so easily accepted his suggestion. He thought that the fall of the Goddess would have weighed on Zom’s mind for a while longer, and that he will take centuries to recover from the shock; thus it’s energetic reply came as a surprise.
Lily was on the same wavelength as Hao Ren, and as usual, she spoke what came to her mind. “Eh, you recovered fast. I really thought you’d be glum for a good while… afterall, your mother got blown… something bad happened to her.”
Zom’s tone was rather reserved. “This is the only thing that I’m good at. Mother had asked me to look after her garden. So I only know how to do that. And I think… if I’m able to make a beautiful new garden, She will definitely be very happy when she returns.”
Hao Ren nodded before looking up towards the silent giant. “Muru, what do you thin? Any opinions?”
“That is its decision.” the giant pointed towards the crystal prism. “Mother had gave them the power of creating an ecosystem. I shall not interfere with that. The Guardian Giants are merely observers and keepers of the ecosystems. We are not engineers.”
Nangong Wuyue looked at the giant before turning her gaze towards the prism before bursting into a smile. Her tail rattled like a rattlesnake as it waved in the air. “That settles it then! The Zomnites will be reincarnated on Tannagost!”
“How long do you need to recreate the ecosystem? What else do you need?” Hao Ren looked at the prism as he asked. While the re-creation of the ecosystem on Tannagost was his idea, he had no actual clue how it worked, and so had to seek expert opinion.
“I am unable to affect anything in the real world.” Zom said. “I need to find a suitable… new place.. and get some lifeblood to try and control them. This need a lot of preparation, but I’ll let you know if I need anything.”
Hao Ren nodded. “Ah is that so. Seems like you have a lot to relearn as well.”
Zom was probably the only First Born in spirit form that had managed to maintain this form for a long period of time. For it to recreate the ecosystem without a body was an even more momental task. Hao Ren demurred for a moment before turning towards the giant. “Seems like Zom wishes to continue its task. Can I get your help for something?”
Muru gave Hao Ren a curious glance. “My help? What for?”
“Be Zom’s assistant.” Hao Ren looked straight into Muru’s eyes. “Help it monitor the ecosystem’s condition, record the rebirth process of the ecosystem, and to protect this place. As Zom is currently immobile, it will need all the help it could get.”
Muru was dumbfounded, as his facial expression changed, so ever slightly. “This is just like…”
“Just like the times when the Goddess of Creation was around.” Vivian, sharp as ever winked at Hao Ren and she turned to Muru with a smile. “The First Born are responsible for creating the ecosystem while the giants monitors and patrols the perimeter. Even if both First Borns and giants are now down to one each…you still perform your duties like the past, no?”
The giant stood up as his face tightened, as if trying to figure things out. He finally looked down at Hao Ren. “You are willing to trust me?”
“What do you even mean?”
“I’m still a prisoner.” The giant pointed at the crystalline hall, a hint of self-depreciation in his tone. “I still possess some self-awareness.”
“That will not matter.” Hao Ren waved his hand off. “As long as you do not leave the surveillance area of CARS, I’m willing to trust you. Anyhow, you were doing this ten thousand years ago, and I’m just letting you go on with your original duty. Are you willing to do so?”
The giant’s voice thundered across the room, full of vigor. “I shall definite see this through. The powers Mother have bestowed on me shall not go to waste!”
A historical plan for the recreation of the ecosystem was thus set into motion. Zom was to recreate the ecosystem on Tannagost while Muru serves as the gardener and guardian of the planet. These two ancient guardians have finally returned to their duties after ten millenias. While nothing was apparent on Muru’s face, Hao Ren could fell the joy within the giant’s heart. To be able to once again nurture his Mother’s garden with the First Born, this was a duty that was is utmost meaningful to him.
And this too was something very important for Hao Ren : Two planets now have the chance at the continuation of life.
Tannagost was to be given life again from the remains of the First Born there alongside the ancient spirits from Zom. They would forge an incredible method of co-existance, and to welcome the new era of life. Hao Ren felt this was something out of a divine lithurgy.
The next agenda was Zom and Muru discussing on what to do with the recreation of the ecosystem. And Hao Ren realised that there was nothing for him to do for the moment and decided to head back. “You two plan things out first, I’ll head back to the ship. If there’s anything just call for me using the admin system. Everyone else, it’s free time now, we might be staying here for a while.”
Lil Pea saw her daddy was leaving and leapt from Rollie’s head as she flapped her way towards Hao Ren’s leg before climbing up her daddy’s pants. Lily too decided to join in. “Eh Mr Landlord, I’ll tag along~~”
Hao Ren look back at her, “You’re not studying the crystals here?”
Lily rolled her eyes. “You won’t allow me to cut a piece of it anyway. What you want me to do? Stare at it and salivate?”
Hao Ren then led Lily and Lil Pea back to the Petrachelys. The frigate was parked at the research station’s first dock. The MDT was in the ship monitoring the ship’s mainframe status. As Hao Ren stepped into the bridge, he saw the central holographic display was showing data from the mainframe, but the parameters were different from the past.
A huge amount of mojibakes-like items floated around one of the inspection windows as the system was trying to recode the mojibakes.
Hao Ren placed Lil Pea on the seat handle as he sat on the captain’s chair. “Nolan, how do you feel?”
Nolan’s form immediately appeared on the main window. “I just woke… but what happened?!”
This time around, she did not manage to keep her usual composure.
Chapter 765: Nolan’s Current Situation
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren recalled the moment, which happened not too long ago—it was right before Zorm reached the critical point, and completely disintegrated.
Nolan, the only NPC in the Dream Arks, her special “soul” code had prevented her from transmitting to Crapple Research Station through the UAV link and there was not enough time to build a new retransmitting protocol in the UAV link. In those seemingly desperate circumstances, the only way Hao Ren could think of was to do everything possible to preserve Nolan’s soul. Since Nolan’s soul could not be transmitted, they found a place to keep it.
Because compatibility issues occurred only within the UAV link, and Petrachelys’s own data processing capability was sufficient to cope with this degree of incompatibility, so Hao Ren’s last attempt was possible: he downloaded Nolan to Petrachelys’s onboard mainframe.
Of course, the result of downloading in a rush was still somewhat not satisfying. Inevitably, Nolan’s soul had some damage after downloading to the mainframe. This was mainly due to the compatibility caused by the situation. So until just now, Petrachelys had been busy dealing with Nolan’s data and the data terminal also stayed here for it. But anyway, the good news was that there was nothing serious about the memory or emotion. Nolan itself was an NPC, and her data itself had a very high self-reorganizing function. After some recovery and debugging, she finally recovered.
Looking at the gray-haired lady walking restlessly in the holographic image, Hao Ren was scratching his face and wondering where to start to explain to her. He could only introduce this place first. “This is my spacecraft—Petrachelys.”
“Your… spacecraft?” Nolan’s memory stayed in the time before Zorm was destroyed, and the final stage of her memory was completely in a muddle, so she was confused about what was going on here. “Why would you suddenly have a spacecraft… Ah! I remember, the whole world… How’s Zorm?”
“Ehem, let’s confirm your state first. How do you feel now? Do you feel like you’re in a trance or any loss of memory? What about the environment around you?”
“Me?” Nolan looked at herself and said, “I think I’m all right, but I don’t know what this place is. There’s nothing here. I only see a lot of lights floating around, but other than that, humans, houses, the sky and the earth, these things have disappeared…”
Suddenly, panic flickered in Nolan’s eyes. “Is the… Is the world destroyed?”
“Zorm has been swallowed by the sun, seven hours ago,” Hao Ren said while showing another image in front of Nolan. Nolan, as a program, did not need to browse the image with her ‘eyes’, but in order to maintain the personality of ‘Nolan’, the mainframe simulated her human function in a real way, so Nolan was still maintaining common sense and senses of a human. Hao Ren saw a group of smaller holographic images appearing in the hologram. Nolan looked at it, astonished. ‘These are the images of its last moment,” said Hao Ren.
Nolan watched a huge, indescribable bio-mechanical mixture blazing in the sun and the whole planet fell apart into the sun. She exclaimed in shock, “Then now I am…”
“Don’t worry, I managed to save everyone’s soul at the last minute.” Hao Ren coughed softly. “I have a perfect soul transmission technology here, more advanced than the technology used by Zorm Ark. It can extract the soul from the matter like extracting liquid. So there is no ‘man’ on the planet that falls into the sun. You are now on a planet called Tannagost, which is billions of light-years away from Zorm, near a space station called Crapple Research Station. This is my research facility.”
Hao Ren simply explained the large-scale soul data chaining in one sentence. However, Nolan was not stupid, she still guessed that a horrifying incident that beyond the common understanding of ordinary people had happened. She could not understand the theory behind the incident, but could only accept it. “So it means… Before the last memory was destroyed, you already transferred the data of the entire virtual world to another memory?”
“Yes.” Hao Ren nodded.
“Is the new memory safe?”
“It’s certainly safer than Zorm. The Crapple Research Station can run normally even if it falls into a black hole.”
And now, Nolan finally realized what was wrong. She looked around blankly and asked, “But … Where are the others? Why am I the only one here?”
Hao Ren put his hands on the console desk, slightly leaned forward and asked, “Nolan, do you… do you find yourself different from other people?”
“Different?” Nolan frowned. “You mean keeping the memory of reincarnation? You can do that, can’t you?”
“Keeping the memory is just something on the surface. The next thing I’m going to say may not be easy for you to accept, but you have to listen—”
“If I tell you, you are not human…”
He told the whole story as gentle and calm as possible, even including the structure of the entire Zorm ark and the causes and consequences of human hiding into the virtual world 10000 years ago, because it was only then that Nolan could have a better understanding of this vast, ancient, magnificent plan, and the role she was supposed to play in the project. When she heard that the virtual world was built in the dreamland of an ancient primitive creature, Nolan could not help but exclaim, and when she heard that she was, in fact, a monitoring program for maintaining a series of mechanical equipment in dreamland, she remained stunned, unable to speak for a long time.
In just half an hour she was dumbfounded even more than she had over the past hundreds of years.
“Nolan, Nolan, I’ve finished.”
Nolan took a breath, biting his lip and looking at Hao Ren at the other end of the screen. She now finally realized what the window before her meant: This was the dividing line between the real world and the virtual world. The man on the side of the screen was sitting in front of a device in the real world, and she… was just a series of data trapped in the virtual world, and this time this series of data was not even human.
“What you just said is true?” Nolan’s voice sounded unusually calm.
“I don’t have to lie to you.”
“I’m actually just a… program?” Nolan bites her lip. “Programmed by people to monitor equipment?”
Hao Ren did not know what to say.
“So I actually have no parents, no family, no past, even in the real world these things have never existed.” Nolan suddenly thought a lot. “So my memory was invented from the beginning…”
Nolan’s reaction was understandable. Anyone who suddenly knew that he was not human at all, but only a series of codes running in a machine, and all the emotional experience and the memories since birth was actually created by a system of computer programming written by a group of programmers, would probably unable to accept it as well. Nolan was already very strong.
“In fact, to me, AI is no different from humans,” Hao Ren said. He knew that he should say something. He talked about his worldview, the open mind that was formed after experiencing some strange forms of civilization and forms of life after becoming an inspector. “If one aware of their existence, have one’s own feelings. Under this premise, all form of life is actually the same. Whether they live in a body or a machine, they are all the same. They are no different on the soul level.”
“Thanks for your consolation,” Nolan said and gave him a stiff smile, “but… It’s hard to accept, isn’t it?”
Hao Ren sighed and said, “Yes, it’s hard.”
Nolan did not want to make Hao Ren difficult and changed the topic. “Let’s not talk about this. Did you just mention that you’re working on reshaping an ecosystem? If I didn’t get it wrong… Do you have the kind of power like the creator?”
Hao Ren almost coughed up his bronchus on the spot. “You are exaggerating, my model is far from the creator. And I’m not doing it myself, at best I’m like an investor this time: the kind that provides raw materials and venues.”
“Sorry, it’s a little beyond my imagination, not easy to understand.” Nolan smiled, and then her face went gloomy again. “Emotion is really a strange thing. I should be happier, but when I know that I’m just a program used to monitor the system, the remodeling of the biosphere, whatever it is, seems to have nothing to do with me.”
Looking at Nolan’s wry smile, Hao Ren and Lily could only sigh.
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