The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren had guessed countless of times; what the bloody hell was actually lurking deep within Vivian’s soul? That “thing” had been causing Vivian to lose her memory, fall into deep hibernation, split apart and go berserk. It could have very well been some spiritual virus, the fragment of an evil god’s will, or even a diabolical evil version of Vivian Ancestor; of all the possibilities, Hao Ren never thought that it would be a star map…

Well, there was something not quite accurate with that explanation.

Hao Ren gawked at the star map, which was projected from the crystal. Perhaps, the more accurate description would be some unknown material deep within Vivian’s soul. However, he was sure that a star map lay within that “thing”.

Maybe there was some other stuff too.

“So many stars.” Vivian looked up at the projection, and while it had already been embedded in her soul for 10,000 years, she never realized its existence. The concept of foreign stars was also a first for her. “I suppose… this is the star map?”

Vivian, unlike Hao Ren, did not put points into interstellar navigation, and she could not tell the difference between a star map and a galactical snapshot. But after following Hao Ren around for so long, she could vaguely discern it.

“Yep, a star map, but it doesn’t look complete…” Hao Ren frowned as he ran it through a scan in his mind against all known navigational maps in the database. The maps included every known sector in the universe and those that the exploratory droids had scouted. The data was huge, but everything was imprinted deep within Hao Ren’s mind; a normal human brain would not have been able to directly read or process such enormous galactic data, but Hao Ren could easily understand the meaning of each data and the various dimensional expressions. Based on the high-speed data comparison, he noticed that the star map was off. “It’s lacking a part of its planetary system reference, and the navigation conversion data is totally missing…”

The navigation conversion data or the laws of celestial movement was a key data package. It ensured that every temporal and dimensional scale of the star map was applicable to each other. As in most worlds, the stars were never a constant. Minus stars dying each and every moment, and each star, no, each system being in a constant state of change, a fixed map was as good as useless. It needed a supplementary “decoding package”, and that was the navigation conversion data. It was a calculation based on massive amounts of celestial movement formulas and orbital movement projection. It allowed one to travel with their GPS even if their star map was 10,000 years out of date (in jest, of course).

However, it was not the end-all, and many civilizations found different ways to allow themselves to navigate the stars normally. Some monitored every star within their system and continuously updated the navigational data in their network by the minute to ensure the accuracy of the star map. Some set up celestial “lighthouses” to form a fixed navigational pathway and avoid any ships drifting off course, while others perfected hyperspace tunnel technology. Simply put, it was pretty much a mishmash of what have you…

Nevertheless, all those methods were not suitable for the star map recorded in Vivian’s soul. It was a solitary star map; that meant, Vivian’s brain was not plugged into a constantly-updating interstellar navigation channel, and the map did not have a lot of supplementary maps for course correction. Such maps would require the navigation conversion data, or else it was as good as an antique picture that was missing a portion.

Hao Ren swept his gaze across that dark aether on the map. Something was supposed to be there, and usually, it was made up of the area’s celestial make-up. The absence meant that the map was incomplete.

“Maybe it can’t be read, or the map’s broken.” Vivian had no idea about navigation, but she could understand what Hao Ren was saying. “Given that this… thing was the main cause of my spiritual corruption, it’s very possible that it’s been broken from the start.”

Vivian’s reply made Hao Ren realize something. He now reckoned that the map was not all that important for the time being. The more pressing matter was to find out what in tarnation was that “crystal pillar” all about.

It was something that Vivian had conjured out of her consciousness, and Hao Ren needed to disregard its “form” and find out the thing actually was. So, what could have storage capacity and affect Vivian’s spiritual functions, as well as corrupt?

“You mentioned that the source of the corruption is ‘dead’, and it only works on a complex and constant logic, something like a computer?” Hao Ren touched the surface of the crystal with his hand, and it felt no different than touching a rock. “Looks like it has some storage functions, and there’s at the very least, a star map in it…”

“It’s like that computer you were talking about, but yeah… I never expected that thing to look like this, but based on its appearance, it seems ‘dead’. Now that I think of it, however, it probably was never ‘alive’ to begin with. It was an inert being that suffered some from outside influence and reacted accordingly. Umm… it’s just like a computer or a program.”

Hao Ren nodded gently. “And the most important question is… you think the goddess left this behind for you?”

“That’s the only explanation.” Vivian was certain. “The Mad Lord would not have done something so complicated, and mere mortals in the Planes of Dreams would never have the ability to mess with my spirit. So I’m sure that this was left behind by the goddess of creation.”

“That is to say, the goddess left an OS-like system within your soul when she created you, and this system got corrupted. Not only did it not work, but it also almost screwed you over. Now, if we assume that the Mad Lord’s power was the source of the corruption, would it mean that this corruption has been cleansed?”

Hao Ren was still wary of the crystal before him. While it did look stable on the outside, anything that had been tainted by the touch of madness should always be treated with extreme caution. No one knew if it would reactivate suddenly… Though… did blowing it up sound like a decent idea?

The idea was forcefully extinguished the moment it popped up in Hao Ren’s mind. What a joke. Let us not even start with the potential value of the OS; the fact that it was part of Vivian’s soul meant that blowing it up was a no-go. What would he do if Vivian became senile after he blew it up? She was like only 17…

Well… she had looked 17 for the past 10,000 years… no issues there.

“I’m sure of it,” Vivian replied confidently. “The Mad Lord isn’t something insurmountable… Perhaps it’s stronger in person, but its splinters are a mere fraction of its powers. And this is the Surface World, with the Wall of Reality between this place and the Plane of Dreams. Also, with Raven 12345 around, the Mad Lord is powerless here. Once destroyed, it’s destroyed for good.”

As she spoke, she gently touched the dark crimson crystal. “If the power of the Mad Lord was still around, it would not have allowed us to read what’s in here so easily… While I don’t remember what use this information has, I can feel that it’s something important left behind by the goddess of creation for me. Maybe it has something to do with the fate of the Plane of Dreams and also the Mad Lord.”

“There are definitely more things in there, but we can’t read it with what we have now.” Hao Ren nodded. “Think you can conjure it out again once we’re back in the real world?”

Hao Ren was particularly concerned about it now that he was sure the goddess of creation had inserted something like an OS and a data vault within Vivian when she created her. But Vivian herself did not know that such a thing was inside her body, so it was really up to imagination when it came to how they would work it out… However, there was another problem; it was not something with a “form”, and once could not dig it and stuff it into a lab in CRAPPLE…

That thing was in Vivian’s head (no issues there though)…

How did one study something that one could not even see?!

Hao Ren was now in the sandbox world, and due to its unique dimensional features, he could see it manifested in Vivian’s spiritual world. But that could not be replicated, and with Vivian now fully awakened, the open and distorted dimension would end. Worse still, Hao Ren had no idea if he could restart the whole thing.

It would be better not to.

Vivian understood what Hao Ren was worried about, but she had her doubts too. “I’m not very sure.. but I have an idea…”

“An idea?”

“My Crimson Moon.” Vivian was serious. “Haven’t we been wondering what my Crimson Moon actually was? I’m starting to suspect that it has something to do with this crimson crystal…”

Hao Ren was stunned for a bit before he realized that he may have caught on to something. “Are they similar?”

Vivian nodded. “The Crimson Moon is also the manifestation of my spiritual world, and so is this crystal. Also, when I was summoning the crystal… it felt similar to the process of summoning the Crimson Moon. Due to the similarity, I was able to read the star map within the crystal.

Perhaps the Crimson Moon was just another form of the crystal’s projection? Perhaps it appeared in the spiritual world as a crystal but as a moon in the real world?

“If that’s the case, we can continue studying this…” Hao Ren heaved a sigh of relief, but he dared not place all hope into one basket. “I’ll need to record the map first, then we’ll leave. At least we have some clues to work with now.”