The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 841

Chapter 841: What Happened to Zorm

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

While the planet Inferno was welcoming its first ray of sunshine and the people of the Sun Dynasty were ushering in the revival of their civilization, reconstruction was also underway on another planet. Tannagost in the Plane of Dreams was being reconstructed under the cosmic rays of a new world.

The first ray of morning sun shone from a low angle on earth, coating the golden capital of Alamanda in an even more dazzling golden halo. The giant Muru stood on the towering wall of Alamanda overlooking the garden he had just begun to take care of after resuming his duty as a guardian. The vast wilderness outside the city had changed so much that it looked different from yesterday. Low-lying vegetation was thriving between gullies and also on the huge tentacles in the distance. Initially, the world had only a few primitive creatures that were tenacious enough survived the catastrophe, now more species were growing doubly every day. He came to the wall every day and discovered that the world was never the same as the previous day, which reminded him of the old days of 10,000 years ago. Though mother was no longer here, the bustling world she had once created was finally blossoming again.

Muru cast his gaze to the West where he could sense the upsurge of the power of life. He took a step toward and instantly crossed more than ten kilometers distance and came to a red lake.

About 15 kilometers from Alamanda, it was the most important ‘spring of life’ in the vicinity. It was initially a six-kilometer crater that formed after the First Born of the planet lost control and remained a lifeless crater and occupied by a few terrifying tentacles until a few months ago, now it had turned into a beautiful red lake surrounded by a vibrant forest and grassland. Back then, one of the lifeblood containers released from the CARS landed in this deep pit, catalyzed by Zorm to fill the crater with lifeblood to become a spring of life. Now the original tentacles of the First Born in the crater had been dissolved into the primordial living matter with a large number of seeds and embryos born in the lake every day.

Muru walked to the lake and placed his stick on the beach next to him, then bent down to check the state of the lake water. A group of elk-like, weird animals with long ears ran out from the nearby bushes, wandering around Muru and licking the stick of Muru curiously. The stick was tinged with the smell of life after being exposed to the lake water. The sweet flowers blooming on the tip of the stick were attracting the small the animals.

A breeze was blowing and rolling up layers of ripples on the red lake. Some clear, seed-like things floated up from the lake and drifted into the nearby forest. Muru smiled and looked at those seeds; he knew another restoration of species was successful.

Muru gaze at the sky, a faint red light was twinkling in the night sky. It was the CARS floating in orbit, and the red light was coming from the Capulum Vitae.

Zorm was watching the planet in space and remotely controlling the lifeblood system to replicate and fuse the ecosystem. It was a system that Hao Ren helped to design. It seemed that it was running well, which turned Muru’s head quite a bit as regards to the human inspector.

There were not wild animals but also human settlements in the vicinity of the ‘spring of life.’

Muru left the lake, and from not far away, he saw an open space opposite the woods. The open space had many simple houses built of wood, stone and synthetic materials, neatly arranged into a small circular town. Although the houses were primitive, their layout was the construction of advanced architectural planning. This little circular town would become a bustling city someday.

The settlement was built around a silver-white tower, which looked sophisticated and very different from the houses around it. The tower was not part of the town initially; it was a signal antenna that had already existed before the town.

Now, this tower was also the wireless transmitter of the First Born, acting as a tentacle for Zorm.

There was also a red pond in the central square of the town, next to the tower. Though it was smaller compared to the red lake, the red liquid inside was undoubtedly the lifeblood. The lifeblood continually surged in the pond with several specialized personnel guarding it.

When Muru came to the town, the liquid in the pond was rising as a man covered in seaweed-like substances climbed out of it, looking confused. The personnel immediately held the man up, cleaned him and put a blouse on him and then took him to the tower in the center of the town.

The man who was just ‘born’ from the pond was not fully awake. He did not even have a complete intelligence. Personnel held his arm and placed his hand on a metal plate on the base of the alloy tower. The man twitched as if an electric current ran through his body, then his eyes opened and regained his glory of wisdom on his face.

He looked down at himself and then at the surrounding town, asking people around him with a loud voice. “Is it all over?”

“It’s just started,” the personnel holding his arm said with a smile. “Your name?” the personnel asked.

“Ulyanov, ID xxxxxx,” the man said while his hand touching his face, his breathing heavy, he had not adjusted to the air in the real world after coming from the virtual world. “I felt like I had a long, long nightmare.”

“That’s normal. You will recover,” The personnel said while writing something on a form. “Memory reconstruction takes about twelve hours, during which you will feel slightly dizzy and stuporous. Before that, you have to complete the registration process. Your occupation?”

“Engineer, machinery… precision machinery engineering.”

“Oh, I see. Unfortunately, I’m afraid you won’t be able to work as an engineer for the time being because we don’t know when we could create our first steam lathe. You can go to the Technical Recovery Research Institute first. If you can’t, you can help build houses; we need a lot of houses. Do you still remember your family?”

“I have a wife, her ID before the hibernation is xxxxxx.”

“She is scheduled to enter the real world in a week, and you can wait for her outside.”

The personnel asked Ulyanov a few things and then handed him a form. “Take this, report to the Social Adaptation Section, which is the blue-top house over there. Someone will tell you the current state of the world and the progress of the construction of our town. I hope that you can resume work as soon as possible, we now need more strong men to produce the necessities, after all, we cannot always rely on autonomous robots and synthetic factories. The inspector had given us a limited quota.”

“The strong man, strong man,” Ulyanov repeating to himself as he nodded. He looked at his healthy limbs, and there was a happy smile on his face. He suddenly noticed the giant in the distance. “Oh, what is that?” he asked.

“That’s Muru, the guardian of this planet. Don’t be afraid; he is friendly,” the personnel gave Ulyanov a little push. “Go to the Social Adaptation Section first. You still have a lot to learn.”

Muru took his sight off the town. He used to be stern towards the Zormians, but now he had no prejudice against those humans. As it turned out that these ‘Second Borns’ were diligent and respecting the laws of nature, they were different the treacherous sons. He need not be harsh to them.

There were many such settlements on this planet, and they are multiplying every day. The factories and autonomous robots that Hao Ren left on this planet were helping to maintain the early life of these people, but the production activities of these factories would be reduced yearly, and the society of the Zorm would need to be self-sustained.

Muru did not intervene in all this. He just wandered around the wilderness, observing and guarding the ecosystem here.

After a walkabout, Muru came to a ruin near the North Pole. The Tannagost people had left behind a stargazing platform here where it was the best location to see the sky, suitable for meditation. Muru sat down on the stargazing platform and began to meditate, just like he did every other day. It had become a habit since 10,000 years ago. Meditation could let the guardians communicate with each other and listen to the mother’s voice. Even though the guardian mental network had collapsed, he still maintained this habit even though it was reduced to be spiritual sustenance now.

The mental world was empty, he could not hear the responses of any brothers and sisters anymore, but he kept his routine, every time, every day.

However, something seemed different today. When Muru was about to end his meditation, he heard a voice.

It was a signal from deep space.

---

Chapter 842: Distress Signal

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Sitting in his favorite spot on the sofa while watching TV, he spaced out. His mind began to wander into some distant universe. The variety show did not interest him; he just liked the feeling of losing his thoughts, especially after a day of hard work. On regular days, he would not have been able to secure the seat in front of the TV, because the husky would grab the remote control, and the silly cat would interrupt him. Just so happened that today, Lily had gone out to inspect her troop of canines in the neighborhood while the dumb cat…

Rollie closed her eyes and curled herself up beside Hao Ren, snoring. He grabbed her tail in her hand, wrapped it around his arm and then released. The cat maiden did not object to this; she had taken some wrong medicine, half a bottle of sleeping pills to be exact.

“I have told you to discard those pills.” Vivian sat on the sofa on the other side, fiddling with cross-stich. “You are sickness resistant now; you wouldn’t need this, and nobody would need it. The silly cat has popped all the pills in the bottle thinking they were candy. Fortunately, she has transcended; she would get sleepy at most.”

Hao Ren forced a smile. “I’m just frugal, all right? Are you not still keeping your clothes for twenty years despite your lack of food and clothing now?”

Since gaining the body of a superman, Hao Ren’s life had changed. He had been trying to maintain his human habits, but many things were out of his control. He would not fall sick, almost could not be injured, unafraid of hot and cold. The medicines and the first-aid kit had been lying around for two years, untouched, and many things had passed their expiry date. He began to stay away from the many necessities of life that humans needed, and he could throw himself into the wilderness to live with nature if it was not for the convenience of comfort and habits. Today, he finally did not have to remember the expiry date of the pills he kept in the cabinet, as Rollie had opened the cabinet and emptied the sleeping pills into her stomach.

When Hao Ren came home earlier, he was shocked to find the silly cat sprawled on the floor in front of his room, the hair on her tail and ears drooping. After examining, he discovered that she was asleep from ingesting too many sleeping pills, and sending her into an unusually quiet moment.

“Speaking of which, Y’zaks, you haven’t been out for the past two days.” Hao Ren turned his head to look at the demon not far away while another commercial set in. “Didn’t Y’lisabet want to fiddle with old appliances? Why don’t you collect some for her?”

Y’zaks lifted his head from the magazine, grinning from ear to ear, exposing a mouthful of shark-like jagged teeth. “I just brought back an excavator the day before yesterday. It’s good enough for a few days of fiddling. Didn’t you see that right at the back of the house?”

Hao Ren was dumbfounded. He couldn’t imagine how the demon papa and daughter collected old appliances usually.

“Is excavator an appliance?” Vivian asked curiously.

Hao Ren shook his head, knowing that an excavator and an appliance made no difference in the eyes of the little girl Y’lisabet as long as she could take apart those things with a screwdriver.

“I’m bored.” Hao Ren could not help but sigh. “It’s boring to stay home all day.”

“Do you usually not wanting to rest for a few days?” Vivian looked at him with a strange look. “Have a change of heart?”

“The Goddess must have screwed with my brain.” Hao Ren sank back into the sofa, burying his face in his hand. “It used to not get bored for months at home. Now I couldn’t stand it after three days watching T at home. MDT, has the drone cluster checked the coordinate?”

He was talking about the star chart he obtained from the Dorasil pyramids in Inferno. The star chart indicated that the planet Inferno was used to be in the Plane of Dreams. By figuring out the coordinates, he hoped to find the location where the first crack appeared on the Wall of Reality. However, it might be that when the breach on the Wall of Reality happened, a backlash in the Plane of Dreams had changed the original location of the celestial system where Inferno used to be in. The drone cluster had come back with nothing after searching the coordinates on the star chart.

At least in the regions where the drone cluster had explored, there were no celestial bodies that matched the start chart.

“Not found yet,” the MDT said after contacting the drone cluster. “Maybe we have not searched wide enough. The drone cluster is heading to a new galaxy. We’re expecting to make some discoveries. Wait a minute! There is an incoming call. It’s from Muru!”

Hao Ren immediately sat up. “Patch it to me.”

The MDT turned on the holographic projection, and Muru’s face appeared. “Hao Ren, I have a situation here, I need you to come over.”

“What happened?”

“It’s complicated. I heard a voice from the deep space during my meditation. It seemed to come from my long time compatriot, but I am not that sure. The mental connection among the guardians has long gone, and the source of the voice seemed to… I think you’d better come. Our planet has some new developments that you need your attention.”

Hao Ren hung up, he was a little excited now, wondering if Muru had contacted another guardian.

There were indeed other surviving guardians in the universe!

“Are you bored now?” Vivian put down the cross stitch in her hand and gave a sideways glance. “You are the ultimate harbinger of bad news.”

Hao Ren laughed wryly. He really could not explain himself. Y’zaks had put down the magazine in his hands and said unhurriedly, “This time I will go with you.”

“You’re coming out from your cocoon?” Hao Ren was surprised.

Y’zaks grinned and swung his shoulders. “Just like you, got bored over time staying at home.”

Once a workaholic, always a workaholic. Y’zaks was a little restless now after living a retirement life for a while. The explorer in him was calling out for him again.

Tannagost was now like a base in his backyard. He only needed to go through a few portals to reach Tannagost. He required not much preparation when he set off in the same afternoon. This time, only Lily and Y’zaks were going with him. Vivian had just absorbed the memory of a super-large split body, and now her mind was like having a hangover. Hao Ren let her rest at home.

Oh, this time he brought Lil Pea. She felt bored at home when Hao Ren was on a trip each time, so she badgered him until he gave in and brought her along. Considering that Tannagost was now a relatively safe place, Hao Ren decided to bring the baby sigh out to see the world. If something terrible happened, he could always send the little one back quickly.

After passing through the crack in the Wall of Reality, Hao Ren arrived at the golden city of Alamanda.

This beautiful ancient city had not changed much from the past. Other than the dome that Hao Ren built around the space cracks, there was only an autonomous factory running in the corner of the city. When they came to a tower in the city, they found that changes were happening in the wilderness outside the city: vegetation with pale gold and green luster had spread over the entire land, where ecosystem reconstruction was on still going.

Muru appeared in front of them and greeted Hao Ren with a slight nod, then got straight to business. “The voice has stopped, but it has been going on for dozens of minutes before it went silent. I have recorded the entire connection process.”

“Are you sure it was the signal of other guardians?”

“I’m sure,” Muru nodded slightly, “but the question is that this signal carries the mark of the Gate of Solenne.”

Hao Ren. “What is that?”

“An ancient galaxy, the main passageway leading to the Star of Creation. In the words of the believers, it is the primary staircase to the kingdom of God.” Muru looked serious. “It was the first to fall in the deicidal battle. I saw it was pulled into the Umbral Realm during the final big bang.”

Hao Ren was stunned for a few seconds. He tried to calm down. “What about the signal content?”

“It was a distress signal.”

---

Chapter 843: The New Town of Zorm

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Muru’s encounter had Hao Ren come to grips with the unusualness of the incident. The Umbral Realm he had been searching for all this time finally surfaced.

Muru received the distress signal from other guardians in meditation. However, this signal came from a place where it had theoretically fallen into the Umbral Realm with the Star of Creation. If the message was not forged, there was only one answer: the Umbral Realm and the main universe was connected again.

“I’m sure the signal is genuine,” said Muru, dismissing Hao Ren’s last bit of doubt. “Guardians have a special telepathic ability, designed by our mother. Unless another god was faking it, otherwise I was unlikely to have received a false signal.”

Hao Ren looked serious. “Can you determine the coordinates of the source of the signal? Is the Gate of Solenne still in its place?”

“The position has changed, in a place that is unknown to me,” Muru said as he took out a black metal device. “Maybe the big bang moved the Gate of Solenne to another part of the universe. It may also be that the galaxy is moving on its mysterious trajectory. The source of the signal is very unusual. I only recognized the keyword ‘Solenne’ from a ciphertext that only the guardian could read. It is the information I have recorded down, but I don’t know if your device can convert it into a navigation signal.”

“There’s nothing that my equipment cannot decode. It’s just a matter of time.” Hao Ren nodded, motioning Lily to take over the recording device from Muru.

It was a device the giants used, just the size of the palm of Muru, but it was almost the size of a human. Lily took the recorder and held it on her head; it looked as if a coffin had grown a pair of legs when viewing from a distance.

This husky was obedient though.

Hao Ren and Lily sent the recorder to the CARS, connected it to the mainframe of the space station and started analyzing the data. He found that the coordinates contained in the recorder were very vague and had a peculiar mathematical structure. It was because there was an error in converting mental signals into machine-readable numerical coordinates. On the other hand, these giants used unique encoding method. The space station mainframe was capable of processing the data, but it took a bit of time.

When the mainframe began to process the data, Hao Ren returned to Muru. They stood on a hill on the west side of Alamanda and overlooked at the rolling land. Lily moved like an agile little monkey up Muru’s stick and gazed into the distance. “Whoa! It’s all built up. I remember the mountain over there was still a wasteland the last time I came.”

Hao Ren didn’t pay attention to what Lily was saying. He was instead wondering if cats would lose their advantage since dogs could climb a tree like a monkey now.

Afraid of the height after staying up on the stick for a while, Lily came back down. She then pulled Hao Ren’s sleeve. “Mr. Landlord! I saw a city on the other side of the lake! The architectural style doesn’t look like that of Tannagost!”

“That is a Zormian settlement. It is still not a city yet, but it is developing fast.” The voice of Muru rumbling from above. “There are many such new towns around Alamanda, and people are recovering from the blood pool of the town every day. Do you want to take a look?”

Before Hao Ren could say anything, Y’lisabet jumped to her feet and said, “Yeah, let’s go and take a look. Uncle Ren, shall we?”

“That’s a good idea.” Hao Ren nodded and smiled. “Maybe we would meet someone we know.”

Muru brought them to the newly emerging town near the ‘spring of life’ and stayed outside the town because of his size while Hao Ren and the others ventured into the town by themselves. There were simple houses well-arranged on an open space. Some of these houses were built using the materials taken from the surrounding environment, and some were like industrially produced houses. As the settlement was still expanding, there were no walls and clear boundaries, but there was a watchtower-like operated platform at a regular interval along the edge of the town.

All the roads and grounds in the city were just flat muddy land; few places were paved with plastic-like synthetic materials. There were no advanced urban facilities. Road signs were painted wooden boards, and street lamps used wooden stakes with oil pots. Water supply came from drilled wells and open-air ditches. Everything seemed primitive and straightforward, but the system design was carried out with modern ideas in mind. It was the odd fusion of advanced and primitive civilizations, and the mixture of modern bungalows and stone cottages made this oddity even more profound. Hao Ren felt as if he had walked into a time-warped stage drama, but he thought that probably this was the scene of the recovery of civilization under certain circumstances.

A highly civilized race equipped with advanced technology had to rebuild everything from a primitive society.

The people of Zorm were lucky though. At least, they had the initial supplies of simple industrial products. Hao Ren recognized some of these things, which the factory that he left on the planet had produced. Many other things might be salvaged from the nearby ruins of Tannagost. For example, the pale gold synthetic cover on the outer wall of a dwelling, which was unique to the ruins of the Tannagost.

Residents in the town soon discovered the visiting guests. There were several men in rags walking towards Hao Ren. Seeing them from a distance, Hao Ren suddenly sighed. “To tell the truth, this is the first time I saw Zorm people in real life.”

He then took the MDT out of his pocket and transferred Nolan’s holographic image from the spacecraft before him. Nolan’s figure appeared above the MDT, only one and a half size larger than Lil Pea. She was clueless as they why Hao Ren had summoned her here. “Hao Ren? Is there something? I am doing maintenance for my engines.”

“Nolan, come and see your compatriots. It is the new town of Zorm. The people have entered the real world en masse.”

Nolan looked around the town through the eyes of the MDT. After a long while, she said in an indifferent tone of voice, “I don’t have feelings towards them; I’m just an AI. I have never lived in the real world. Am I their compatriot?”

The MDT scoffed, “You care?”

At this time, a few men in worker suits came before Hao Ren. They first were awed by the height of Y’zaks and the projection device beside Hao Ren, and then speculated on the identity of the visitors. “You are the lord?”

The planet of Tannagost-Zorm had become one of the bases of Hao Ren while the Zorm people who rebuilt their homes on this planet were naturally his people. In the old days when the social order collapsed utterly, and humans broke up and reorganized, those who woke up early had decided that they should accept the authority of the planet’s master, and it was not just the decision of a few but also the will of the Zormian First Born.

The will of Zormian First Born carried weight as it had a significant influence on this civilization.

The Zorm people who had awakened from the virtual world already knew what happened to their home planet. Deep inside, they still could not understand and accept that the disaster had occurred. As painful as the reality was, they did not complain but chose the pragmatic way of rebuilding their society. Most people recognized hao Ren’s authority on the planet although he did not seem to have very involved in the reconstruction effort. The AI of CARS, MDT and the two guardians here were more than capable of handling everything here.

Hao Ren realized that he needed to at least say something. Hurriedly, he nodded and tried not to look stupid. “Yes, I am. I’m here to check out the situation.”

As he spoke, he wondered what more he should say to these Zorm people. Apart from issuing a few remote commands to the AIs here, He was not personally involved in the reconstruction of the planet Tannagost, much lesser than he had in the planet Aerym.

Probably he was the planet lord who had the least sense of presence in the world. If he were the boss of a company, no one would have known him wherever he went; his company security personnel would probably bounce him out before he could enter the office.

The embarrassment did not last long though as there was a voice came from a side. “Hao Ren?”

“Nolan?” the voice called out again.

---

Chapter 844: Life in the New World

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Looking out in the direction of the voice, he saw a tall man in a gray-white uniform standing a few meters away. Most of the people there wore the same clothes, and the man was so ordinary that Hao Ren could not tell if he had ever seen the man. The man came up to him, examined the image projected by the MDT and repeated his question. “Nolan?”

“You are…” Nolan looked at the strange man inexplicably. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Ulyanov.” The strange man was startled before he said, “I have never seen you in this image.”

“Ulyanov?” Hao Ren’s eyes widened and looked at the tall, healthy man in surprise. He did not expect to meet Ulyanov again; it was a total surprise. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I couldn’t even recognize you because you’ve got a face now!”

Ulyanov’s expression stiffened. He forced a smile and touched his face. “I wasn’t born with a face mask. Ah, meeting you reminds me of the ‘dreams’—the memories that make people feel at a loss. Oh, I should now call your Lord, Governor of the Planet or something?”

Ulyanov’s expression was a little weird. He looked at Hao Ren, embarrassed and at a loss. “I just came out of the Social Adaptation Department, and I heard the teaching of the Root of Origin. You seem to be this planet’s lord.”

He was just like other Zorm people who had just woken and a little confused about the situation at hand, but he was different in that he had seen Hao Ren before, and been together for a long time. It made him particularly overwhelmed. Hao Ren did not have that kind of intense feeling though as he just waved his hand and said, “Take it easy, I’m just an adventurer. This planet is my temporary place. I have given this planet to Zorm as its new home. You will be fine here. I’m not in charge here.”

Ulyanov shrugged. “It’s easy for you to say that.”

“Just listen to him,” Nolan said. “This guy has quite a personality, and he is as rich as Croesus. Don’t worry about him.”

Ulyanov looked at Nolan, surprised. He felt that his former superior in the dream seemed to have changed a lot.

“What a coincidence to see you here.” Hao Ren patted on Ulyanov’s arm and signaled the others not to keep standing in this place. “Let’s find a place to talk.”

They came to the place where Ulyanov was currently living. It was a hut, which was one of a dozen around the central square of the town. These huts were built with simple planks to cater for people who had just recovered from the blood pool and could not immediately assimilate to the society. Ulyanov had to live here until he ‘graduated’ from the Social Adaptation Department, after which, He would be assigned to other parts of the town, or working in production, or studying some simple mechanical devices which were needed now and could be made from currently-available materials.

“There is a shortage of manpower everywhere. Every day, strong adults are coming out of the blood pool, but it’s still not enough. We must build solid and safe settlements everywhere, reserve enough food and reinforce the town before the temperature drops; these houses are too fragile,” Ulyanov said of his life here. Strictly speaking, it was the life he had just heard from the Social Adaptation Department. He looked out through the window of the hut, from where he could see the blood pool in the central square and the silver-white alloy antenna tower standing in the middle of the town. “I may have to go to the construction site by the river. This town is near a river, which our people are trying hard to harness its power by building a water mill using the materials on hand before the coming winter so that the green seed collected from the forest can be peeled off and stored. We are going to make the tree seeds our staple food.”

Hao Ren looked at Ulyanov who looked slightly tired. “How are you doing now?” he asked.

Ulyanov rubbed his forehead. “You know, my memory is still not working properly. I just woke up from a long, long nightmare. They told me that my brain is in the midst of re-organizing the reality from the dream. The hardest hours are over now, but there will be some mild symptoms for a couple of days. I can not only remember I was fighting as a soldier and as a musician in the dream, but also the time where I was lying in a soul extractor, uploading my consciousness to the Ark. I couldn’t believe that it has been ten thousand years.”

“Your planet…” Hao Ren was a little hesitant when he talked about this topic.

“I know.” Ulyanov smiled. “We all know — the Root of Origin. Oh, you should call it Zorm, it had instilled everything that had happened into our minds so that we know what happened when we first woke up. That scene is unbearable, but things have already happened, and now we can only move forward.”

While saying that, he laughed. “We are fortunate. At least we have survived and got a new home. The original Ark plan did not foresee that kind of outcome; we should thank the Goddess for her protection.”

Y’zaks asked casually, “Do you still believe in the Goddess of Creation?”

“Of course, why not?” Ulyanov said matter-of-coursely. “Oh, though the dreams had confused a lot of people, the earliest memory came back when we woke up. We certainly remember whom we were praying to before we entered the ark.”

“Praying?” The word stuck out like dog’s balls to Hao Ren. “You said that you were praying before entering the Ark?”

“Yes. Why?” Ulyanov had no clue why Hao Ren was obsessed with that. “The Goddess of Creation is our core belief. Regardless of the level of social development, the church is always an important part of us. We should pray.”

Lily’s ears stood erect. She scratched Hao Ren’s arm. “Mr. Landlord didn’t Muru say—”

“I know.” Hao Ren interrupted her and waved his hand. “Muru knows only part of the truth. After all, he is not omnipotent. We’ll ask him when we get back out. By the way, is your life here okay?”

Hao Ren was directing his question at Ulyanov, who smiled and nodded. “As you can see, the necessities are all here. The AIs maintaining the antenna tower helped us build a part of the huts and most of the necessities of life. These things…”

Ulyanov pointed to his clothes; a synthetic fabric garment made using cheap and fast process by the AI factory. “They provide all the clothes, medicines, tools, and food. Every morning, people in the town walk to a distribution point one kilometer away. There is a large platform where a robot full of mechanical tentacles will drop the materials there. We have a total of 1.6 billion population to return to the real world, and it is impossible for the AI factory to support the population. We are now trying to rebuild our production system.”

Ulyanov pointed to the hut in where they were. “Strong men are responsible for building the hut, and the women studying animals and plants. Zorm is cloning the species we are familiar with and bring them into this world, but the species have changed to adapt to the new environment. That’s why we have to re-learn. I’ve also heard that they’re going to restrict the speed at which they release people out of the blood pool, because the material production couldn’t keep up. Although the lifeblood will make trees and crops mature more rapidly, it is still impossible to sustain 1.6 billion people in a short period. We have no choice but could only leave half of the population in the virtual world, so that the nature in the real world can thrive.”

Hao Ren listened attentively. He felt that this was a precious knowledge; a civilization restarted its life on a foreign planet, and people with nothing left was rebuilding their society with the limited support of the alien factory. The interaction between the Zorm people and the autonomous robots and the ruins of the Tannagost was not something that was common.

Hao Ren felt that it was necessary to accumulate as many experiences as he could. After all, as a person who was prone to blow things up, he did not know when he would encounter stranger tasks.

Suddenly, a noise from the central square interrupted their conversation.

---

Chapter 845: The Powerful Lil Pea

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Hao Ren heard some noise from the town square. He turned to look at it, the personnel guarding the signal tower were walking toward the blood pool in the center of the square. The red liquid in the blood pool was surging, and it was rising in the center. There seemed to be something coming out of it. With a spicy stick still hanging out from her mouth, Lily laid her head on the window sill looking out at the town square. “What happens?”

“That is the process of returning to the real world,” Ulyanov explained. “Everyone is born out of the blood pool.”

Hao Ren became very interested, but before he could say anything, he felt a cold, slippery thing squirming on his chest. It was Lil Pea. The little mermaid jumped on the window sill and wagged her tail happily. The movement outside was attracting her interest. When Ulyanov saw this mysterious creature, he froze. “What is this?” he asked.

Hao Ren held Lil Pea with his hand to prevent the little guy from falling off the window sill as he explained, “She… she is my daughter. She is a mermaid. Don’t your world have it?”

Ulyanov looked at Hao Ren with a weird expression. “You guys walked with your tails when you were just born?”

Hao Ren did not know how to respond to that question.

He had answered a similar question for God-knows-how-many-times, and now he was kind of lazy to explain it. However, he also could not let people’s misunderstanding deepen, so he could only wave his hand helplessly. “It’s complicated. I’m not her biological father. The process of adopting her was rather special.”

Lil Pea had no clue the adults were talking about her, and she just waved happily at the town square, like any other curious child. At the same time, she noticed the wooden window frame around her. The unique wood on the planet had a light golden luster that aroused her appetite. Just when she opened her mouth and about to take a bite, Hao Ren stopped her. All plants in Tannagost contained a certain amount of gold. The baby’s stomach did not seem to be able to digest gold.

At this time, the situation in the town square took a sudden change.

When the personnel were ready to welcome other people coming out of the blood pool, the lifeblood in the pool suddenly calmed down.

It was as if some transmission was interrupted, the rising lifeblood lost its shape and quieted down as the faint red light floating on the liquid dimmed. No one knew what happened. Two persons ran to the house opposite the square nervously, seemingly to report about the situation.

“What happened?” Y’zaks asked curiously.

Ulyanov had no clue as well; after all, he had just woke up from the pool and gotten limited knowledge from the Social Adaptation Department. “I don’t know. It seems that there is something wrong with the restoration process. Let’s go and take a look.”

Hao Ren and his entourage rushed to the blood pool. Y’zaks asked one of the personnel who saw the great demon and almost slipped into the pool. Fortunately, Lily grabbed the guy before he fell into it. Hao Ren squatted and examined the lifeblood in the pool and found that it was losing vitality. He had seen the lifeblood displaying a similar behavior in the container of CARS. The personnel who had slipped and almost fallen into the pool just now told of what was happening. “The transmission was suddenly interrupted, and the condensation in the lifeblood has stopped.”

Hao Ren was about to go and check if the signal tower had any record of the situation. The MDT suddenly came up to him and said, “Muru is calling.”

Hao Ren looked out the town. Muru was standing on a hill in the distance and beckoning him, signaling him to pick up the radio. Hao Ren immediately asked the MDT to patch the call to him. He heard Muru said in a hurried tone of voice, “Has something gone wrong with the signal tower over there? Zorm told me that it lost control of a small blood pool, looks like the signal is lost.”

“I am checking,” Hao Ren said as he came to the signal tower. He lifted the cover at the base of the signal tower and saw the manually-controlled crystal panel inside. The crystal panel was filled with intricate symbols and text, but it showed everything was working properly. “The signal tower is fine,” Hao Ren told Muru via the radio.

He then activated the self-diagnostic program of CARS and the monitoring program of the Tannagost Information Terminal, which was an information exchange center located at the South Pole, but found that the data link between the Capulum Vitae and the blood pool on the surface was perfectly normal.

Theoretically, the will of the First Born, Zorm, could reach the blood pool without any hindrance, but the blood pool refused to respond.

Not just that but it seemed there was something else going on.

Lily looked at the liquid in the pool curiously. She pulled Hao Ren’s sleeve. “Do you think the thing is avoiding you, Mr. Landlord?”

“Avoiding me?” Hao Ren was stunned for a while before he only began to notice the liquid in the blood pool was not completely calm but the fluid tilted away from him and leaving the liquid level nearer to him a dozen centimeters lower than the opposite side. The difference was not that obvious. If it were not for Lily’s excellent dog’s eyesight, no one would have noticed the phenomenon.

Hao Ren thought that it must be just a coincidence. He tried to walk to the other side of the pool. But to his surprise, the liquid in the pool tilted away as he moved; the liquid level closer to him was always the lowest, and this liquid seemed to avoid him all the time.

“I have never encountered such a thing before.” Hao Ren’s brows knit together as after making a few rounds circling the pool, he still could not figure out what caused this phenomenon. He bent down and dipped his finger straight into the lifeblood, and it felt warm, completely normal. “Why not you come over and taste it a little bit and see if it has expired, Lily?”

Lily immediately bared her teeth. “Why me?”

Hao Ren shot her a glance. “Crap! Isn’t this your favorite way of analysis?” he said.

He was joking with Lily using the lifeblood because Zorm catalyzed the mild and harmless lifeblood. Even if it were to lose control, it would not cause blood tide like what happened on other planets. The lifeblood here possessed no hatred towards other creatures.

While Hao Ren spoke to Lily, Lil Pea was looking at the pond from inside Hao Ren’s collar. The little guy felt that the bright colored liquid interesting though it seemed somewhat different from the water in the basin at home.

The liquid itself was enough to trigger the instinct of the little mermaid; she wanted to take a swim.

So she did.

Lil Pea jumped into the lifeblood pool with a plop. When Hao Ren realized it, it was too late, Lil Pea had disappeared into the pool while making a small splash.

Then the whole body of lifeblood in the pool seemed to react instantly.

The red liquid rolled up and away from Lil Pea rapidly, exposing the bottom of the pool in just a few seconds.

It was as if the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses, the lifeblood was rolled up to all sides of the pool, leaving Lil Pea swaying her tail and swimming with her eyes closed at the dry bottom of the pool. After a while, the little guy felt thing was not right, and she opened her eyes, appeared confused before lunging toward the nearest liquid again.

Then the lifeblood retreated again, away from her.

“It’s not avoiding me,” Hao Ren said, stunned. “It’s avoiding Lil Pea!”

“Whatever, let’s get the little guy out first.” Lily also froze for a while. When she was about to jump in and catch the mermaid, Hao Ren stopped her. He took a long-handled fishing net out of the dimensional pocket. “I have a special tool here.”

Lily looked at the special tool, dumbfounded. “You seem to be very well-prepared.”

“Crap, only because I have a bunch of otherworldlings in the house,” Hao Ren said as he stretched out his net to catch Lil Pea. “I bought this from the fishing gear store. I can’t believe that I’ve classified it as a baby toiletry.”

Lil Pea jumped inside the net obediently as her Dad-dee ‘fished’ her out of the pool. As the little guy left the pool, the lifeblood return to normal again.

Hao Ren kept the little guy into his dimensional pocket.

“Lil Pea seems to be able to suppress the source blood.” Y’lisabet scratched her horn. “She’s powerful!”

“Not just suppress the lifeblood.” Hao Ren’s face looked somber. “The lifeblood is afraid of her!”