The Record of Unusual Creatures

The World Terminal was, of course, a huge help to Hao Ren’s missions within the Plane of Dreams, but its true value lay elsewhere.

Its real value was in turning the chaotic Plane of Dreams into a place of order. With the “fall” of the goddess, the sealing of the Mad Lord, the restoration of order was the most important thing for the place since its basic universal laws were all over the place. The Weaves of Destiny left by the goddess had an inherent defect and could not shoulder the burden, while the fragility of the Wall of Reality prevented Raven 12345 from helping out in the long term. Only today, with the help of the critical data that Hao Ren had obtained, was Raven 12345 able to send a World Terminal into the Plane of Dreams.

The terminal would operate autonomously and restore all basic universal constants as well as laws, which had been damaged by the fall of the goddess. It was just like the Gate of Solenne, where the dimensionally distorted system was re-adjusted and part of the broken system was successfully restored. This was the biggest benefit to the Plane of Dreams.

However, the changes on the universal level were not something intuitive to Hao Ren, and he could not interfere with the process either, so for him, the World Terminal’s best features were “recall” and “full health resurrection”, especially the latter. It was just too good a feature.

If not for that thing, facing the Mad Latter in the Plane of Dreams itself would be suicidal.

Raven 12345 knew what Hao Ren was thinking when she saw his expression, and she gave him some advice, “Don’t go all yolo just because there’s a resurrection option. The World Terminal isn’t meant for that. First, its resurrection capability is limited, as you are heading into the Umbral Realm, and the Umbral Realm is separated from the main material universe of the Plane of Dreams. Based on your data, I’m thinking that even the World Terminal’s powers cannot be fully extended to that place, so it can only leave a one-time ‘mark’ on all of you, and this mark will be used when someone dies; next, we don’t know what’s the situation like in the kingdom of the goddess, and it could be worse than our imaginations, so if you ever get complacent just because you have a resurrection and recall ability in hand, don’t come saying that you are my pope if you get owned along the way there…”

Hao Ren pondered for a bit, most people wouldn’t even be willing to proclaim that they are working under Raven 12345, it’s almost too bloody embarrassing…

But of course, Hao Ren could not verbalize that in front of her, and simply laughed dryly and nodded to indicate understanding.

“All right, that’s all I need to tell you, you’ll start complaining about me nagging if I go on. The mission is yours, and the most important factor is your ability to adapt.” Raven 12345 shrugged. “Anything else to ask? If not—”

Before the goddess could finish her sentence, Hao Ren recalled something he had planned to before coming here and quickly interjected. “Eh, there is. I have something…”

“Ugh, for real? What is it?”

Hao Ren, with a deadpan serious look, said, “I’m about to bring my team to raid the Umbral Realm. I’m thinking of equipping the team with some gear, trinkets or whatnot…”

Raven 12345’s expression twisted as she heard Hao Ren halfway through, and before he could complete his sentence, she interposed herself in front of her desk and glared at him. “The World Tree is not powerful enough? That thing, once grown, its bark itself is a +15 orange gear!”

Hao Ren sniggered. “Don’t bother blocking. I can see that plate of dates. They’re looking rather fresh… Oh, there are also sunflower seeds?”

“F*ck me! You are actually… Put that down! I haven’t even taken a bite yet… Why are you taking the plate along! My goodness, why is my pontiff like this? You’re a pope, a bloody pope! What’s the deal in snatching a goddess’ items… My mug!”

She may have been blathering all over, but Hao Ren had already been under that crazy goddess for four good years, and it was not like he could not tell if the goddess was not even trying to stop him. It would be a joke if a proper god could not stop her pope from snatching her stuff. And Hao Ren even figured that the stuff on Raven 12345’s desk was meant for him.

Of course, the plates were probably not part of the plan… but since Hao Ren had already put them into his dimensional pocket, he had no intentions to take them out.

“Ah, just my luck, getting these bunch of shameless pontiffs,” Raven 12345 lay despondently on the chair as she grumbled. “I was stewing pork trotters two days back when Galazur came knocking and almost munched on the pot. And yesterday, I made a pearl while I was bored, and Tunalar came by, saying that her spider nest was short of an egg. Then she grabbed it from me… She’s the Spider Queen for crying out loud, short of an egg!”

As she sighed she repeated herself again, “Ah, just my luck…”

Cold sweat rained down Hao Ren’s face.

It seemed like he had found out more about his colleagues’ dark histories? But they did not sound useful at all…

As he had already gotten what he wanted, and have managed to get some good stuff for his team along the way, Hao Ren was already quite satisfied. Seeing Raven 12345 in that state, he figured that she was probably not in the mood to see him off and he bid her farewell. “You can go and wallow in your sorrow there, then. I’ll make my move first. There’s stuff to prepare back home for the mission’s success!”

Raven 12345 rolled her eyes at him and just before Hao Ren opened the dimensional gate to leave, she remembered something. “Eh, wait up. I have something to tell you.”

Hao Ren stopped and turned curiously, awaiting the goddess’ orders.

“While the search for the kingdom of the goddess in the Umbral Realm is dangerous, you still need to bring Lil Pea along.”

“Lil Pea? What can she do? This is a far more dangerous place than all previous places.”

While Lil Pea was now a demon hunting-fish who was trained vigorously by Nangong Sanba as well as Lorissa, she was still only three years old and about one-foot-one tall. She was a child, all things considered, and Hao Ren had never seen her as a key member of his team.

And due to her daredevil nature, Lil Pea was much less well behaved than Rollie outside, even though the latter was subservient to the former…

Raven 12345 could only shrug as she faced the question. “Beats me, I’m just basing it off the prophecy this thing gave me.”

She pointed at a very intricate crystal prism on her desk.

Hao Ren was intrigued by the prism. “What’s that?”

Raven 12345 did not bother hiding it. “A Prophecy Crystal. A nice toy given from above. When I run into horrible roadblocks at times, I’ll use it for help.”

“Wow, that’s very neat!” Hao Ren was surprised before turning to the Prophecy Crystal. “What am I having for dinner tonight?”

A sentence appeared immediately above the crystal. “It was pork chop rice, but Lily had eaten it so Vivian is cooking egg fried rice as she is zapping the dog.”

“…Damn, that’s awesome!” Hao Ren exclaimed.

Raven 12345 glared at Hao Ren. She was just about to warn him properly about developing a habit of pinning his hopes to fate and destiny, when the next moment, she found the latter using the destiny-altering device to ask what was for dinner. That left her swallowing all her reasoning back, and she managed a “and that is what you decided to ask?” before she almost choked herself to death.

“I was just testing it out,” Hao Ren said, matter-of-factly. “Is there a simpler question than that?”

“…Go back and prepare then, there’s nothing here for you already…” Raven 12345 said in resignation.

Hao Ren gave a curt “oh” and was not sure if it was just him, but the crazy goddess sounded lifeless earlier.

As he had taken some time to hammer things out with the goddess about the World Terminal, by the time Hao Ren had got home it was past dinner time. Everyone at home had already eaten and were in their rooms busying themselves. The only people in the living room were Vivian, who was lecturing Noobie, and Rollie who was curled up on the cushion watching TV. And oh, not forgetting Lily, who lying face-up on the sofa, groaning.

“Ah, you’re back.” Vivian stood up as she saw Hao Ren step into the house. She wanted to rant, but before she could say anything, Hao Ren interrupted her, “Lily ate my pork chop rice, right? Egg fried rice is good too, and what the hell are you groaning there for? I made you a set of Metal Garuru armor, and you stole my food, the hell are you groaning for?”

Vivian was stunned as Hao Ren took the words out of her mouth, and Lily immediately bounced off the sofa, “Mr. Landlord, were you peeping?!”

“Shut up, I was just trying out Raven 12345’s high-tech toys,” Hao Ren said as he lay on the sofa. “Well, the navigation mark to the kingdom of the goddess is complete. Now, all we need to do is to search for it.”

“Wow, that actually worked!” Lily immediately scampered towards him. Even though she knew Hao Ren went to Raven 12345 specifically for that, but after she heard the news, she got excited. “So the ‘Umbral Realm’ that we have been searching for so long… it’s now a done deal?”

“Finding the location is just the first step. There are countless trials waiting for us there, and that’s the main event.” Hao Ren shook his head. “But the good news is that Raven 12345 has provided a powerful cheat code. Here.”

He took out the “Seed of the World Tree” from his pocket, and the greenish orb was covered by a shield as it radiated a mysterious glow. The moment Hao Ren took it out, the entire living room was filled with some sort of divine power.

Lily looked at the item quizzically as she mumbled, “So… we need to boil this too?”

Hao Ren’s karate chop landed on her head the next moment. “This is not Lil Pea’s egg!”

Even Vivian came over now to join in the commotion, and she was still holding the struggling Noobie in her hand. “What’s that for?”

“You’ll be surprised by this. The World Tree! The thing that can control a universe’s constants.” Hao Ren had wanted to play the reveal up but could not control his big mouth and blurted the whole thing out. Only after that did he notice Noobie in Vivian’s hands and out of curiosity, he asked, “I saw you talking to it earlier? What are you talking about? Can that little thing understand human language?”

“She understands, but she refuses to listen.” Vivian shook the little tot in her hand resignedly, “… Wait a minute, what did you say that thing was again?”

“The World Tree, the World Terminal, the Sovereign Core, the Heavenly Server, call it what you want. It can replace you as the CPU of the Throne of Destiny.” Hao Ren smiled. “Now you don’t have to worry about being frozen onto a chair and have a group of twenty-five violent thugs in gaudy-looking outfits raiding you every week.”

“…That was the least of my concerns!”