The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-563

Chapter 563: Crapple Research Station, CARS

A beam of light appeared over the Alamanda teleporting station. After the light faded, Hao Ren and his team appeared on the portal platform. Now that the planet was just in time for the sunset, the sun was already about to fall completely below the horizon. The last rays of light were dispersed on the ruins of the City of Gold as the entire city was enveloped in a dim golden glow.

Vivian looked up to the sky, there was an irregular silver light in the dim sky, which was becoming clearer as sunlight subsided. The size of the light was slightly smaller than the moon on Earth. The edge of the light was jagged like mountains. She looked at it carefully, and began to notice the neat structure in that silver light. “Oh, that’s the research station?”

Lily looked up and saw the moon had come out. She immediately squatted back on the ground, happily stretched her neck and tilted her head up toward the ‘moon’ and howled. “I wonder why it doesn’t have that kind of feeling.”

Hao Ren grabbed the ear of the naive maiden and held her up. “This is not the moon, idiot!”

“Actually I’ve been curious, why werewolves are so excited about the moon?” Y’zaks scratched his chin quizzically. “I don’t feel any special energy in the moonlight. It’s just the normal reflection of the sunlight.”

Vivian shrugged her shoulder. “God knows why. I haven’t it figured out even though I’ve known werewolves for more than 10,000 years.”

At this time, a buzzing sound suddenly came from the sky in the east. It turned out that the Petrachelys had received the command to come down from its orbit. Hao Ren led everyone on board, and they soon arrived near the crystal-like space facility. Everyone was amazed looking at the spectacular behemoth at close range. Lily looked regretfully and said, “I should’ve followed you to come here earlier! I’ve missed the chance to witness it construction…”

Hao Ren ignored her, waiting for the spaceship to slowly approach the docking bay of the space facility. He could visualise the structural layout of this ‘Crystal City’ in his mind, knew that the docking bay was located in the middle section of the station. The building was a compact structure, the huge control centre was right in the middle section, with compartments for spacecraft docking, material transfer, accommodation and so forth. Connecting with this middle section were many crystal domes which had containers within and were the main working units of the research station.

Two of the units of work had been activated, but only one First Born had been stuffed into the container. Not only that the First Borns were a very troublesome and bulky, but also brought along with them a large amount of ‘impurities’ which needed to be cleaned out. Besides, the ‘lullaby’ system must always be online during the transfer journey, so the process was time-consuming.

The one which had been contained was the First Born from the Volcano of Dusk, placed in Container No. 1. The other First Born entangled with the giant tree of life had not been settled.

As the crystal bridge in the docking bay appeared on the screen, Hao Ren let the MDT slow down the spacecraft and then switched on an external monitor. “Look! That is the sample No. 2 that is undergoing containment now.”

Everyone gathered in front of the holographic projection and looked at the spectacular working site in space with interest.

One hundred kilometres away from the Petrachelys was the entrance to Sealed Container No. 2, where Sample No. 2 was undergoing final stage of containment. The massive First Born was still tangled with the giant tree of life, and the huge rocks and other impurities had been cleaned up. Lumps of amorphous gels with faint glow were moving among the tentacles and roots, cleaning up the remaining impurities and completing a full-body scan of the First Born. The light lumps were the ‘workers’ of the research station. As Hao Ren did not have a large enough research teams at his disposal, the research facility was inbuilt with its own crew.

The debris that was cleaned up was mainly rock and soil, but it also contained some of the chemicals that the First Born discharged and epidermis shed during the slow physiological activities from the past 10,000 years. These things were equally valuable. So they would be sent to another workshop on the lower deck of the research station for further decomposing, extracting the useful substance and then dropping them into Tannogost’s atmosphere and let them burn up.

“The giant tree of life and the Sample No. 2 are tangled together, there’s no way to separate them now. So I’m going to stuff them in the container,” Hao Ren pointed to Container No. 2 on the screen, which the shell-shaped crystal dome was opening slowly, revealing a huge space within. “Before putting it in, all connection points between the tentacles and the giant tree of life have been fitted with sensors and nerve blockers. It will be a lot easier to conduct tests later on.”

The dome of Container No. 2 was fully opened, and the entangled First Born and the giant tree of life was slowly pushed into it under the shroud of light. As the sample was completely immersed inside the container, a layer of nearly transparent light film appeared in the gap between the inner wall of the container and the sample, wrapping the sample like a cocoon before a thin, cloud-like liquid was injected and submerged the First Born in it.

After this last step was completed, the crystal dome slowly began to close.

The Petrachelys received a report from the research station. “Container No. 2 confirms the operation… The main barrier has been closed, the inert liquid has been injected, the signal transmission test… normal, secondary safety barrier and the external dome are closed. All safety components passed the test. Signals are connected to the central control zone, the research station host takes over the control of the containers. Containment operation is completed.”

Lily sullenly listened to the report and then nodded. “Okay, report confirmed.”

Hao Ren smacked her head and scoffed, “Stop messing around!”

Lily patted the back of the chair with her tail. “It suits the occasion!”

After observing the mega-container’s containment process, the Petrachelys docked at the berth. Everyone alighted from the spacecraft and walked on a gorgeous, rainbow-crystal bridge. Overhead was a near-transparent shield. The space could be seen outside the shield, and on both sides of the bridge were crystal building facilities. Lily was overjoyed seeing the glittering stuff. “Yeah! This place looks beautiful! Way much better than Kuiper Station!”

Vivian also scratched her chin and said, “Look! How normal this thing looks! In wonder why you were given the coffin-looking equipment.”

Hao Ren twitched his mouth and said, “Looks like the Goddess has finally done something normal: at least her sense of aesthetics in building houses is normal.”

As they walked on the crystal bridge, Lily and began to went astray as her eyes full of excitement and curiosity. Hao Ren had been keeping an eye on the husky, he managed to stop her. “What are you doing, Lily?”

Lily’s tail puffed up at once and jumped back. “I just wanted to check if the bridge has rail…”

Hao Ren rolled his eyes. “No digging here. I know you want to add two more pieces of crystal to your collection!”

Lily’s ears dropped. “Just one piece, okay?”

Hao Ren was amused by her look. “Don’t mess around, this is a new building—and I don’t think you could knock any stone off this place. This is a prison is holding the First Born.”

“You can go home and check the glass market out, after all those stones are just ornamental, the look the same …” said Vivian jokingly.

Lily flung her tail and ignored them both.

As everyone came to the central area, something suddenly crossed Hao Ren’s mind. “Oh, I haven’t named this research station.”

As Hao Ren’s voice trailed off, and everyone came to a halt. Vivian and Lily spoke in unison. “Please think again!”

Hao Ren scratched his head. “I haven’t said it yet. I think it should be named…”

Vivian placed her hand on Hao Ren’s mouth and said honestly. “Don’t say it yet. Think harder.”

Hao Ren: “…..”

“How good you expect from him when he named his daughter ‘Lil Pea’, his cat ‘Rollie’? The MDT hovered into the air. “You can save that. The research station already has a name, CARS—just floating over your head.”

Hao Ren looked up and saw that an idle screen of some kind of control centre floating on the crystal dome. At the centre of the screen was the name of this research station. He was astonished. “How come Raven has come out with so fantastic name this time?”

“Normal my foot,” the MDT hooked up to the host computer of the research station and quickly learned the truth. “Don’t you think this research station looks like an apple core from afar?”

Hao Ren: “…..”

“So its full name is ‘Crapple Research Station’—the fusion between Crystal and Apple.”

Hao Ren: “…I should’ve not asked in the first place!”