The Record of Unusual Creatures

Did Hao Ren believe what the Godslayer told him?

Of course, he did. If the Godslayer had spoken to him under any other circumstances, Hao Ren would have probably been a little more cautious, but here, in this spiritual world, he believed every word the Godslayer spoke. Because no one could lie in that sort of spiritual connection, especially when the Godslayer’s intelligence was surrounded by Hao Ren’s spiritual font. Under such a state, there were no hiding any secrets from Hao Ren.

Unless it decided to stay silent of course. If it spoke, then Hao Ren could easily determine if it was telling the truth or not.

“I believe that you’re telling me the truth.” Hao Ren let out a heavy breath. While he did not need to breathe within the spiritual world, doing so helped him to calm down. “Is there anything else that you can tell me?”

“No more,” the Godslayer answered. “Because I don’t know what to tell you. I have lots and lots of memories…. but I have never thought about them or processed them before. They are all cluttered in here, in a mountain of mess. I don’t know which is useful, which is important, which is unsubstantial. I don’t know which ones you need, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask.”

Hao Ren silently looked at the massive obsidian mountain lying in his spiritual font. He was not sure if it was just him, but the black, featureless mountain now had more texture too it. He felt the Godslayer’s intelligence growing at an alarming rate. It was an ignorant child not too long ago, but now it could communicate smoothly with Hao Ren and pick up as well as understand a good few words and terminologies that it did not understand earlier. Hao Ren knew that this knowledge had been absorbed by the Godslayer from his spiritual font. He had purposefully released some part of his knowledge to ease the conversation, but the Godslayer’s ability to learn and master this knowledge had him in awe.

This was a very powerful intelligent being that was kept in a muddled and sheltered state for 10,000 years. Now, it had awakened.

Even if Hao Ren did not know what was the key to its awakening… Or perhaps, Raven 12345’s blessing had unlocked something within the Godslayer and released its innate intelligence? Regardless, Hao Ren was not too worried. He was confident of the lunatic goddess’ ability.

“Perhaps I should give you a name.” Hao Ren suddenly remembered. “Do you have a name?”

“You called me the Godslayer.” The Godslayer had managed to glean that information from the spiritual font around him and thought that was its name. “Isn’t that my name?”

Hao Ren was a little flabbergasted. “Umm… of course not. That’s a sword’s name.”

“But I am a sword, under most circumstances.”

“But you’re intelligent and conversant. Calling you Godslayer is a bit off, and that name itself is darn ominous,” Hao Ren replied, his voice sounding conflicted as he remembered that dumb cat who was squatting beside him. That girl still thought that she was called Rollie to this day. He could not let this happen a second time. “Want to give yourself a name? I’m bad at things like that.”

“…Echo wall?” the Godslayer replied earnestly after giving it some thought. “You mentioned this word. Is that a name?”

Hao Ren almost laughed. “That’s not a proper human name…”

“But I’m not human.”

Hao Ren had no comeback.

Hao Ren pondered for a good while and could not form an argument to convince the Godslayer why having a name was important. Plus, he really could not figure out a better name; something that would fit a sword and did not sound too bizarre. Hao Ren could run down the powerful weapons from the Wuxia novels that he read, but none of them fit the Godslayer. He finally decided to put the matter aside…

Besides, the Godslayer was one-and-only in this world. It did not need another name.

Hao Ren had dived into his spiritual font for quite some time now, and at that moment, he felt a slight dizziness starting to come from deep within. He realized that he had reached his limited and decided to disconnect from the dive.

Before he left the place, Hao Ren needed to leave a beacon for him to connect with the Godslayer again. Later on, he could speak with the Godslayer normally without the need to clear so many hurdles.

The process of leaving a beacon was not complicated. Hao Ren had already successfully made contact with the Godslayer’s intelligence. He just needed to record the wavelength of the connection, and after some fiddling, he disconnected from his spiritual dive.

A flux of information gushed in from outside as Hao Ren left the peaceful trance. A surge of sensory information from the outside world came crashing in. He was dazed for a few seconds, and as he opened his eyes, he saw two big, shining eyes staring at him just a few centimeters away. The eyes were glowing green!

“F*ck!” Hao Ren let out a curt yelp and almost threw the dumb cat in front of him out of reflex. He would have done it if the latter was still a 30-cm long, 8-kg heavy cat. “What are you doing so close to me?!”

Rollie was also terrified by Hao Ren’s reaction that she leaped into the air with a shrill “Meow!”. By the time she landed, her tail was as stiff as a baseball bat, and it took her a good while to actually calm down. “You scared me Big Boss Cat! I thought you were dead!”

Hao Ren turned only to see Vivian standing by the side, trying to stifle her laughter. “What’s going on?”

“I tried my best to stop her from disturbing you.” Vivian turned away like it had nothing to do with her. “But, she still had to check every few minutes to see if you were really dead. Don’t ask me why, I’m not an animal whisperer.”

Hao Ren was speechless.

He swore he could never understand the cat’s point of view!

Hao Ren looked at the sword that he had tossed aside when he was startled. He picked the longsword up once again and established a mental link as the latter used his eyes to see the world outside. It spoke in amazement, “Oh, using someone else’s vision really is different.”

“I’ve established a link.” Hao Ren shook the sword. “And I’ve learned something really incredible.”

Vivian’s eyebrows ticked. “Something incredible?”

“The Godslayer’s sentience and the murmurs are two different things altogether.” Hao Ren rubbed his temple as he tried to piece a proper sentence together to explain the truth he heard. “Those who heard the murmurs had merely heard their inner voice. The Godslayer’s structure is that of a spiritual echo wall. It doesn’t produce any murmurs and it only just gained the ability to think…”

“I’ve been able to think all this while, but I only just started today,” the Godslayer corrected Hao Ren earnestly.

“Who’s that?” Vivian was shocked before quickly recovering. “Was that the Godslayer?”

Hao Ren was stunned. “You heard it too?”

“Directly in my mind.” Vivian pointed at her head. “But why can I hear it speak?”

Hao Ren was just about to ask the sword before the MDT suddenly came flying in. “It’s using your spirit to broadcast, pardner.”

“A broadcast? Why do I feel a sudden chill down my spine now…”, Hao Ren scratched the back of his head.

“No worries, it’s harmless.” the MDT swiftly circled over Hao Ren’s head twice. “Such a curious… lifeform. The sword itself doesn’t have any intelligent core structure, but it’s capable of thinking, and its thinking is based on ‘being in contact with another intelligent being’. I think that the sword will only show signs of intelligent activity when someone speaks to it. You know what this is like?”

Hao Ren pondered for a bit, before answering uncertainly, “…An echo wall?”

The MDT shook its frame. “Correct, it’s a form of an echo wall, but it could be something else, something like a ‘quantum spirit’ that only exists when noticed… Oh, a quantum spirit is probably not the right term, but I can’t think of anything better. Interesting, interesting, heh. No wonder my scans couldn’t detect it as an intelligent being. That’s because its intelligence is based on the resonance of its counterpart!”

“That means…” Hao Ren placed the Godslayer on the ground and disconnected the mental link. “It’s now a…”

“It has stopped thinking,” the MDT said with utmost certainty. “However, it’s still recording all the information around it. You can say it turned from an AI to a simple camcorder.”

This sword sure was something!