The Record of Unusual Creatures

Hao Ren believed that the nightmares were a bad omen. But since that night, he had stopped getting of similar dreams again.

He never thought that Vivian’s mind-soothing soup would have such an effect. After all, the main ingredients of the soup were wild herbs that were commonly found in the wild. Aside from the heartwarming kindness of Vivian, there was no real efficacy in the soup. Lily’s energy level was on full bars and stayed up until 3.30 in the morning after drinking just half a bowl. Though the main reason for that was because Lil Pea had eaten the rhizome herbs in the soup, which somewhat had changed the efficacy. In fact, Vivian herself also did not believe that the strange wild vegetable soup could actually resist nightmare.

Hao Ren was far from upset. In fact, he was taking it easy. The dream was elusive, unless it appeared again, no one—even Holmes— would be able to make any conclusive findings. Hao Ren had exchanged thoughts with his counterparts within the inspector circle, where he learned that dreams as an omen were not a rare phenomenon. It was said that there was a true prophetic god among the Xi Ling Celestials. Personnel who had any connection with the divines under the Xi Ling Celestials would have more or less the ability to dream an omen. This ability was usually unstable and inaccurate. Only the strong, impending auguries would produce repeated dreams. If a dream just appeared once, it usually meant that something would only happen in a distant future, and how it would happen would be different from that of the dream. Perhaps it would not happen at all.

For vague omens, the future was uncertain. The dream only meant that something is possible.

Therefore, Hao Ren had quickly got rid of the strange dream of that night. He focused on the various early warning systems in the Plane of Dreams before returning to work on what he had left off. His first priority was to search for Mimir’s missing spacecraft.

In Kuiper Station, Hao Ren had his own personal dock. This dock had supporting facilities to meet his needs. These ancillary facilities included a control tower next to the dock and two working and living compartments. Hao Ren emptied one of the compartments and transformed it into a laboratory. This laboratory, modeled after the shipbound lab of the Petrachelys though not as powerful as those in the CARS, were capable of handling many tasks, such as the analysis of Gungnir fragments.

Hao Ren brought Y’zaks and Vivian to the lab in Kuiper Station, where he left Gungnir fragment two days ago. The lab’s main computer should have analyzed and come to some result, by which he could probably figure out the resonance pattern of the Gungnir fragments and used it to restart the door of the Asgard. The reason why he brought the old great demon and Vivian together was that they were the only ones more dependable in the family.

“The analysis report of this metal has been sent to the analysis station,” the MDT busily flew around. When not bickering with Hao Ren, the MDT could be a good assistant. “Take a look. It’s easy to understand.”

The Gungnir fragment obtained from Hel was suspended in the gravity-free platform in the center of the laboratory. The silvery spear tip slowly rotated in the light-blue beam, with sparks came off the metal’s surface occasionally. The system had just tried to charge it once to try to figure out where the energy had gone. In front of the gravity-free platform, a set of holograms displayed the information that Hao Ren needed.

“It’s a brand new technology, not currently registered, not of Hollettan, or Tannaean or siren tech. Judging from the material, the strength of Gungnir’s tip is almost the same as the most solid material of the Tannaean,” Hao Ren mumbled to himself while looking at the information. “Looks like something of never-seen-before from the Plane of Dreams. Several ecological planets in the Plane of Dreams have no remnant of civilization that resembles the Asgardian gods.”

“So it reinforces the fact that Earth is the hotspot of the ‘Great Crossing,’ the wanderers from all over the Plane of Dreams have gathered on Earth,” Y’zaks said with his arms crossed. “Could you trace the signal of the other Gungnir fragments?”

“I couldn’t,” the MDT replied matter-of-factly. “Before this, I had already let the Petrachelys carry out a thorough exploration of the earth, but didn’t find the Yggdrasil dimensional chain. An initial assessment showed that those dimensions have drifted away from Earth. Now the device can still detect the information resonance from the Gungnir fragment, which means that other fragments do exist but are hidden outside Earth. Perhaps we should expand the search to the entire solar system.”

“Do we need a bigger antenna?” Hao Ren looked up. Through the window, he could see the stars outside and a small part of the space station. “The antenna of the Petrachelys is not suitable for this task. I’m afraid that we have to requisition the space station equipment. Here is the solar system transportation hub, its antenna should cover the entire solar system.”

Hao Ren quickly sprang into action. He connected to the dedicated, higher-level communication channel of the space station. The face of the old stationmaster appeared on the comm. The old man, dressed in uniform, looked very spunky. “Mr. Inspector, what can I do for you?”

Hao Ren explained the situation he encountered and said that he needed a high-power antenna, which could cover the entire solar system. The old stationmaster agreed at once. He even said that he could get ready the antenna in half an hour and that Hao Ren could use it as he liked; after all, no one else was using it.

That surprised Hao Ren.

“Is this antenna not critical equipment?” He looked at the old stationmaster. “It sounds like it is idle.”

“It is,” said the old stationmaster with a smile. “The Engineering Department of Fairy Void Consortium supplied the communication array of Kuiper Station. That included the giant antenna.”

Hao Ren was none the wiser. “So?”

“Those profiteers,” the old stationmaster sighed and looked up. “Have you heard of their promotion?”

Hao Ren was struck dumb.

“The antenna was used once after installation. It was just a test run 200 years ago. Since then, no one had ever used it because the power of this gadget was too high. Before the installation team left, they told me that this was the first time they had ever seen WIFI of such a scale and that someone had actually wanted to buy this thing.”

Again, Hao Ren was struck dumb.

How did he not find that the old stationmaster was such a funny guy before?

Anyway, he was now as sure as hell that this antenna of Kuiper Station was more than enough for the task, even enough it was just of a civilian version!

Inspectors were personnel of Xi Ling Celestials, but they did not always use the standard issue equipment from the Space Administration. As special agents who operated between God and human beings, requisitioning of civilian resources was an essential part of their work. This not only required sound judgment on the part of the inspectors but also their personal network and influence in the mortal world. It could be said that this was an important indicator of their performance. Though Xi Ling Celestials was the support behind Kuiper Station, it was still a civilian space station. Its stationmaster was also a retired soldier, so Hao Ren was essentially requisitioning a private resource.

He soon found out that he had requisitioned a seriously big guy.

The building trembled as the largest ever facility of Kuiper Station slowly emerged from the cylindrical housing structure. After the heavy alloy protective housing slid open to both sides, a huge guy, assembled of kinked metals, was rolled out. The antenna was one kilometer long, shaped like a weird thorn, and dotted with lights on its complex structure as if it contained an infinite amount of energy.

This was the most potent active scanning antenna in the solar system, strongly recommended by the profiteers of Fairy Voids Consortium. Though no one knew what this super antenna that could melt an asteroid was for, it did not hinder the persuasive salesmen from forcibly erecting this thing on your roof.

It had 300 years of warranty, but the goods sold were not returnable.

This large active scanning antenna had been installed on the main tower of Kuiper station for two hundred years. Now it was the first time it really came into use. Hao Ren was not sure how the crooked salesman had persuaded the civilian space station to buy this military-grade sensor, he found that this thing was impressive: it had a myriad of compatible communication protocol interfaces, even an official version of the standard signal conversion protocol of Xi Ling Celestials.

Fairy Void Consortium had cooperation with Xi Ling Celestials for 10,000 years, and it said something about their relationship. Even the low-level communication system between them allowed direct docking.

This saved a lot of debugging works, and the MDT did not have to install a separate conversion protocol in the lab’s central computer. Hao Ren could directly connect the Gungnir analysis station to the main communication line of the space station. Soon, it synced with the signal of the giant antenna.

“Now”—Hao Ren put his hand on the button—”let’s see where Odin died.”