The Record of Unusual Creatures

After receiving the news from the AI, Hao Ren flew to Inferno to close out the construction phase and meet the representatives from the Fairy Mining Conglomerate. Only Vivian and Lily followed him this time. Vivian wanted to check on the First Born while Lily, you can bet on it, just wanted to have some fun.

The Scarred Nebula, as it had been for thousands of years, constantly flashed a light beam in the purple-red gaseous cloud. A new family member had appeared on the edge of the 7.7-lightyear wide space crack among the handful of star systems. The planet Inferno was like a beautiful snowball hanging on the side of the Scared Nebula, becoming the only scenery in this desolate region. The sunlight from the nearby star shone on the planet and produced a sea of golden glow on the cloud top.

The Petrachelys flew towards the golden glow and arrived at the cloud top of Inferno. The geo-positioning equipment that Hao Ren had set up on the cloud top became temporary atmospheric satellites monitoring the planet constantly. Hao Ren ordered Nolan to hover the spacecraft at a distance of a few dozen meters above the cloud top and established a connection with the atmospheric satellites. The MDT reported, “The readings are normal. It has been half a month, and it seems all parameters are stable.”

“After all, it was the Prime ‘Legged-Force’ of the true Goddess that put it in place; it should not be a problem.” Hao Ren nodded. “When will the representative of Fairy Mining Conglomerate arrive?”

Nolan’s holographic image appeared on the flight deck. “They are already here. Their spacecraft are on standby at the outer edge of the nebula.”

While saying, she could not help casting her eyes on the console, because a blonde girl in hologram was sitting as cool as a cucumber and turning a blind eye to everyone else’s stare. The noumenon was right in the slot beneath the buttock of the blonde girl. The brick had gotten the upper hand in the battle of the console. Brick’s success had got nothing to do with the girl’s heart but everything to do with its thick skin.

“Don’t think about it. It won’t budge.” Hao Ren looked at MDT in Pattianne form, shaking his head and sighing. “Did I not try with a crowbar just now? Let’s call Fairy Mining Conglomerate Union Mining now.”

Nolan groaned inwardly while sending a navigational signal to the Fairy ships that were waiting at the border of Scarred Nebula, permitting them to enter Inferno airspace. After a while, the profiteers and their mining fleet appeared on the monitor.

A space crack, pale blue, like a door, appeared in the lower orbit of the planet Inferno before a fleet of more than ten large mining ships and a command ship jumped out of the space crack. The Fairy spacecraft had a distinctive red paint, and the front armor had strange decals, a Queen bee-like coat of arms. The command ship was a slender triple-ship, symmetrically joined together by a standard axle, a tad smaller than the Petrachelys, but its unique position in the fleet and the sophisticated antenna system made it stood out that this was the command center of all the fleet.

However, Hao Ren was more interested in the Fairy mining ships because they were more prominent and more eye-catching. The mining ships were like giant boxes joined together, exposed mechanical parts were running between the joints. Zooming in, Hao Ren could see that the mechanical components were an extension of the mineral processing plant. On the upper and lower decks of the mining ships had huge openings for smaller collection vessels coming in and out. These mining ships were huge, and their axes were more than ten kilometers in length considering their unique uses. By civilian vessel standard in the Macroworld, they were giant. Even the Petrachelys was pale in comparison.

While Hao Ren focused his attention on those mining ships, Nolan had also connected to the data network and got the information about these mining ships. These large mining ships had a complete processing plant onboard where initial processing and conversion of minerals could be carried out. The ‘large boxes’ were a high-throughput dimensional door, through which the space-time system would send the processed minerals directly to the planet Fairy. Without this mechanism, it was impossible for the limited number of mining ships to complete the planet-scale mining operation.

The Fairy merchants were wealthy. To carry out activities in every universe, they had offices and bases everywhere. They bought a few planets in this universe as their commercial base, and the planet Mines was one of them. Fairy Mining Conglomerate built mineral processing plants on the planet and in the space around the planet and used it as an export base of ore to nearby markets in the universe. There were even rumors that the Mines had consumed one percent of the mass of the world, which was of course nonsense, but the Fairy merchants had welcomed this exaggeration to promote their business.

Later, this group of profiteers was investigated by the Material Control Department of the Space Administration for the ‘free transfer of cosmic mass without reasonable backfilling.

Hao Ren took a glance at the information. To ensure the smooth transformation of the planet Inferno, he must first understand and be sure of the technical capability of Fairy Mining Conglomerate. He was delighted with the powerful mining ships and convinced that if the profiteers could dig away a group of meteors, they would surely be able to polish the planet Inferno.

There was a request to connect their communication system. Hao Ren tidied his clothe and got back to his captain’s seat. A middle-aged man with a mustache, hair swept back, appeared on the holographic projection.

Nolan held an extra holographic projection for Hao Ren to access the information he needed. It was said that the representative of Fairy Mining Conglomerate, Vanske Creden, once led his team digging through the largest solid planet in the universe. He got an epithet ‘The digging man who dug through the sky.”

Hao Ren felt the epithet sounded a little wrong, he thought about it for a while but decided not to harp on it.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to undertake this remarkable excavation project.” Vanske Creden introduced himself. “We have studied your requirement of the work, and we are ready to start work at any time,” Vanske Creden said without nonsense.

Hao Ren nodded. “Do you know the first requirement of this project?”

“Safety first,” Vanske, like any qualified businessman, sounded and appeared trustworthy though it might not be the case in reality. “Each of our mining ships carries a gravity controller, with this gravity controller, the broken crust will be drawn into space directly without worrying about objects falling to the world below. Of course, we have also considered the situation of the crust might become fragile during the second-half phase of excavation. We will mobilize a sufficient number of gravity-generating ships to pull the entire surface crust of the planet into space directly.”

While saying, Vanske sent his project proposal to Hao Ren. The MDT confirmed the plan and ran a mathematical simulation, and it came out positive. “What he said is true. It is certainly the most cost-effective solution.”

“There is no problem with the plan and the incorporated contract has been signed according to the original draft I sent you earlier.” Hao Ren looked up. “Are these all of your mining ships? Is it enough?”

“Of course there are more to come,” Vanske explained. “We hope to start working as soon as possible to solve the urgent needs of our customers. Therefore, before the start of any large-scale project, a leading team always arrives first to attend to the needs of our customer. It is our long-standing practice that adheres to our business philosophy—’We would like our customers to experience the perfect service as soon as possible even if that means a higher cost for us.’

Hao Ren suddenly felt these profiteers seemed entirely trustworthy. The MDT reminded him, “Actually, they are afraid that you might use your authority as an inspector to give the project to someone else. They come here early to first plant their stakes all over the site so that you wouldn’t be able to reappoint another contractor.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

He hemmed and said, “Then waste no more time, you can start work now. Polish the planet.”