The Record of Unusual Creatures

Holletta, a planet filled with vibrant life and the first stop of the entire journey, was one of the most important stops. However, it only covered one-third of the whole itinerary.

When the three-day journey in Holletta came to an end, the otherworldlings, which had not gotten enough, returned to the Petrachelys. They would be brought to visit other eco-planets, which Hao Ren discovered in the universe for the past three years. Many of these eco-planets were suitable for touring. The drone cluster had recently been discovering new eco-planets almost every day. Hao Ren merely picked the most suitable ones as part of their “tourist destinations.”

In the past three years, Hao Ren and his drone cluster had found hundreds of eco-planets—or once eco-planets—in the Plane of Dreams. These planets had been divided into several categories according to different classification methods. Firstly, they were categorized into either indigenous eco-planets or goddess-created planets. Then, according to their degree of recovery, Hao Ren classified them into recovering planets, declining planets, and dead planets. Recovering planets, including Holletta and Tannagost that had reestablished their ecosystem, were the rarest. Hao Ren believed that Holletta had wholly come out from the aftermath of the extinction event and recovered. There were not many declining planets in deep space. These planets had undergone the First Born’s devastation, and all lives were extinct, leaving only the basic microbial communities and the most basic organic environment. Their eco-environmental index was the lowest, and they had no hope of recovery in the short term. Then there were planets that possessed the highest number of dead planets, which had no possibility of recovery. Not even a single organic matter was left on these planets, and the only thing that remained was the corpse of the First Born, which had turned into a rock formation. No one knew how long it would take for life to exist again, or if it was even possible on these type of planets.

Planets that experienced the scourge of extinction-level natural disasters and were only left with barren surfaces would bring great shock to the otherworldlings from Earth.

The Petrachelys first arrived at the CARS over Tannagost, where several space shuttles had been waiting. These space shuttles, assembled by the drones, were high-tech compared to the interstellar spaceship of the ordinary civilizations, but it was almost like a seesaw compared with the Petrachelys. They did their job anyway. After taking a short break in the CARS, the otherworldlings were divided again into several smaller groups. Each group boarded a different space shuttle to its destinations. To safety reason, the drones would escort the space shuttles. They passed through many drone fortresses on their way. The targets were also carefully selected, high-security zone guarded by the firepower fortresses, which were enough to counter the attack of the First Born and the guardian fleet.

Hao Ren would not be present among the groups this time. He had borrowed some ‘diplomatic personnel’ from the Aerymian elves. These elves had advanced knowledge about the Plane of Dreams and would be the tour guides of the otherworldling tour groups.

Each tour group had two or three Aerymian tour guides and were escorted by hundreds of armed drones. They would visit four to five specially selected planets along the way, and get to see for themselves the scars that the catastrophic disaster of 10,000 years ago had caused on the universe. And they were one of the consequences of that disaster.

The space shuttles left the CARS and disappeared into the dark space outside. Hao Ren and his team stayed in the central command hall of the space station staring at a complex and large hologram projected from the pointed crystal hill. The hologram showed a star chart that had never appeared before. Some parts of this star chart were the familiar galaxies in the Plane of Dreams, but most parts were the unknown color zones, wave patterns, symbols, and lines, together they formed a weird star chart-like and abstract-painting picture.

“Category-D and above divine burst: thirty-three times. Category-D and below divine burst were as many as 625 times. There is no clear pattern of divine energy bursts, they happened almost randomly,” the voice of the CARS central computer reverberated in the air from all directions. “The energy burst correlates to those survivors from Earth. When the survivors approached the Holletta ecosystem, the first wave of burst reached its peak. When they entered the warp space in the Petrachelys, the bursts weakened. Now they are close to the Tannagost’s ecosphere and leaving, the process repeats.”

“So the goddess of creation has left something in the universe. The goddess had the ace up her sleeve when the exiles fled the Plane of Dreams with Yggdrasil 10,000 years ago. When the descendants of the exiles returned to this universe, this ‘ace’ responded.” Hao Ren scratched his chin and nodded. “But we have only brought a hundred people, and strictly restricted their movement. So this ‘divine network’ is only semi-triggered and should not disturb the initial arrangement of the goddess of creation or interfere with the security system of the prison in deep space where the Mad Lord is incarcerated.”

“Yes, the feedback from the outpost drones indicates that the bursts from the divine network are confined to the area outside the Abyssal Dungeon and would not affect the seal of the Mad Lord,” the space station central computer replied. “But as a result, it makes it hard for us to monitor. The excitation of one hundred people on the divine network is too small. The feedback it produces is vague and weak. Category-D divine energy burst is the strongest signal we have detected so far. These data almost offers no valuable information.”

“Then what we lack in quality, we compensate it with quantity,” Hao Ren said. He had expected this earlier. “Next, the one hundred people will be divided into several teams and go to various monitoring points for contact stimulation. In this way, the number of burst readings that the drones could collect will increase exponentially. Finding a pattern from the sea of data should be the edge of AI like you.”

“But my edge here is in the study of the new formula of noodles.”

“Damn, I forgot.” Hao Ren smacked his head. “You are the creation of the noodle maniac Raven 12345. Cough cough. But I’m sure apart from researching noodles, your computing power is good enough to do things.”

“…no doubt about it.”

Hao Ren felt that the CARS hesitated for a while! He was dead sure that it hesitated for a moment!

After a while, Hao Ren gathered the guardian giants—Muru, Heve, and Lemendusa—who were on duty at the space station.

In the past few months, Lemendusa had been supervising the construction and assembly of the Creation Engine at the Gate of Solenne. Several stellar forging furnaces had entered the operation, and the first batch of critical components of the Creation Engine was produced from the core of a star a few days ago and sent to the assembly line. So the dedicated guardian giant had a few days off and the opportunity to return to the CARS to visit Muru and Heve. Hao Ren roped him in to study the strange divine-burst chart.

“The first set of panoramas is up,” said Hao Ren, pointing to the hologram in the air. It looked like a star chart and a mysterious graffiti. “But due to insufficient external stimulation, the energy-burst readings are murky. What do you think? During the era of the goddess of creation, did you ever see her building something like this?”

Muru looked at the continuously changing image, and his brows pulled together slightly. “It looks like a network. Did the energy bursts appeared when those exiles from Earth returned to the Plane of Dreams?”

“Strictly speaking, these energy bursts happened when they came into contact with the Holletta ecosystem. When they were away from those ecosystems or shielded from the ecosystem, the divine bursts would immediately diminish,” Hao Ren explained.

The original purpose of the ‘return of the Plane of Dreams survivors’ was to conduct a test to see what would happen when the survivors returned to the Plane of Dreams. Since the goddess of creation went to great lengths to send these people away and prepare a series of measures such as the Ultimate Absolution, the Guide, and the hyper ark, it was definitely not just to send these people away and live like cowards on Earth. She must have had many arrangements in place. While the goddess of creation was dormant and Vivian the guide had lost her memory, Hao Ren had no choice but to use this method to find out what ace was up the goddess’ sleeve. The test amazed him with an immediate and significant amount of feedback, which revealed that a divine network was hidden in the universe of the Plane of Dreams.

Lemendusa thought for a moment. He suddenly asked, “There was the reaction when the otherworldlings came into contact with an ecosphere. Any ecosphere? Or is it limited to the ecospheres that our mother has created?”

“We will find it out next.’ Hao Ren pointed to a small set of holograms that showed the ‘tour groups’ were on their way to their respective destinations. “I arrange them to ‘visit’ different planets. Some of these planets are the seeding planets of the Goddess of Creation, and some are native eco-planets, which are divided into dead planets and life-sustaining planets. I just want to see how the divine burst network works.”

“Let’s monitor it together,” Lemendusa said in a low voice. “This network looks familiar to me. But I cannot tell where I have seen it. Maybe I will think of something when it lights up more.”

“Then we will see.” Hao Ren exhaled.