The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-599

Chapter 599: Io

Regardless of what happened when the unusual creatures came to Earth from the Plane of Dreams more than 10,000 years ago, they all forgot their hometown and everything in the past. The same applied to the sirens. Hao Ren could imagine the scene in the city back then: Nasaton fell through the huge spatial rift, crashed down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and took root in the deep sea. When the sirens woke up in the “unfamiliar” starship city, they were confused and helpless. They did not know who built the city, or the true functions of the city. They only knew everything was as it was when they woke up. Today, their greatest achievements were only having mastered the life-support system, part of the defense system and maintaining them. They knew nothing about navigation, flight, and the navigation databases of the starship city.

The reason was simple; these systems involved complex core systems. They were not as simple as pulling some levers and pressing some buttons in order to operate them. The sirens did not understand the writings on the system.

However, Hao Ren believed that the ancient operating system had to have recorded some information on the sirens’ mother star.

“This is a colonial ship, and it could very well be an escape spacecraft. In any case, it was not used for sightseeing in the galaxy.” Hao Ren pointed at the magnificent facilities around him. The look on his face was that of a greedy real estate agent. “According to the most basic rules of interplanetary navigation and the manufacturing habits of navigation systems for the vast majority of intelligent organisms, such a spacecraft usually contains logs of the relative position of its parent planet in the universe. Marking the coordinates of a planet are the basics. The current people of Earth certainly know, so the sirens who created this spacecraft would also have certainly known. If I’m not mistaken, there should be a database in the spacecraft, a dedicated storage of the star map. In accordance to the power output of the Torrent Core, the starship should have had a Class II space warp capability when it was in good condition. So, the range of the star map will be large enough for us to find its starting position in the universe.”

Everyone had their eyes on the siren queen. The latter thought for a long time with both her hands spread out. Her tail was rolled into a question mark in the air. “What are you talking about?”

Everyone was speechless.

“Umm…” Hao Ren, who had been pretending to be an expert the entire time almost choked. “Dang… In theory, you should be the captain of this ship…. Well, I don’t want to confuse you. Does Nasaton have a place like a central control room where there are a lot of display equipment like a bunch of buttons, an operating console, and many seemingly useless blinking lights? You may not know what they are, but they’re obviously very important—is there such a room?”

The siren queen lifted her finger and pointed at the ruins of the palace. “It’s over there.”

“We blew up the bridge.” Y’zaks shrugged his shoulders. “The palace is the bridge.”

Hao Ren smacked himself on the forehead. “I forgot.”

“Another deadlock?” White Flame asked curiously. After her mentor showed his curiosity towards the unusual creatures, she could finally ask questions openly.

“No, we don’t need the bridge.” Hao Ren searched the Starship Structure and Spacecraft Design Guide in his mind. “The database could not have been placed on the bridge. It has to be in the core cabin of the spacecraft, which is safer. The bridge is just a bunch of operating terminals. We find the cabling route, we find the database. Everyone, split up, and see if you can find the main structure of the bridge from the rubble. Then, sort out the main line.”

“This is a laborious job,” the siren queen responded. “We’ll get people to clean up the ruins.”

Vivian nodded. “Well, let’s do it. Everyone will have something to do, and it will help restore the spirit.”

Shaqira as well as Sorma immediately went to gather the overseers. They conveyed the queen’s decree so that they would bring other sirens to clean up the ruins. Hordes of sirens soon gathered and some brought equipment they had salvaged. The atmosphere became lively again as the sirens enthusiastically cleared out the debris and rubble. The sirens came in various shapes; mermaids, sea serpents, mantis shrimps, and king squids. There were even two sea urchins larger than a tank, who were rolling around—no one was sure what they were doing. They were probably slacking off, but trying to look busy.

Hao Ren led his small group of friends as they watched and marveled at the ways these sirens worked. He could not actually tell if the sirens were working or fighting.

Lily stretched her neck and observed for a long time. Then she exclaimed, “It’s fascinating to see a race contain so much diversity.”

“Look at these Type-59 mantis shrimps and Type-99 sea urchins… Tsk, tsk.” Hao Ren turned his head to look at Nangong Wuyue and said, “Be frank with me, do you want to become like that?”

Nangong Wuyue lowered her head in thought as she poked a small stone with the tip of her tail. “I can’t fight anyway. I can’t fight anyway…”

Hao Ren was at a lost for words.

Water was a powerful element, especially in the deep-sea city where the sirens could maximize their power. The huge ruins and broken walls were being pushed around by Type-59 mantis shrimps and sea crabs. The large area of ruins was quickly cleared out, revealing the original layout. Hao Ren took the MDT and began to search for the original framework of the bridge in the cleared out area. The siren queen followed him, recalling from memory the functions of each section of the ruins before the collapse.

While the clean-up work was on going, a group of special helpers suddenly came.

It was a group of unusual creatures—Blood Clan members, werewolves, shadelings, and a few short people of an unknown race. These people came over and immediately began to work without saying a word. Shaqira looked at them in surprise. “You guys…”

A werewolf holding a broken pillar walked past and ginned at her. “We heard from the siren general that the ruins need to be cleared out. Since we’re free, we may as well help out. After all, you’re not going to send us back to shore any time soon.”

“Actually, I didn’t want to help, but the elder sent us… Who would dare disobey her?” said a Blood Clan member, who shrugged and glanced in Vivian’s direction with reverence.

Hao Ren gave Vivian a surprised look, and the latter waved her hands indifferently. “What? I just sent a bat to say something to them.”

“I didn’t expect them to be so generous.” Y’zaks scratched his chin. “I thought they would at least ask for some compensation, or something from the sirens.”

“Most of the otherworldlings don’t care about that. We prefer forthrightness.” Vivian smiled. “Since it became clear that the sirens have also been victims, we can’t blame them. Survivors from the Mythological Era are practical people.”

“Of course, there will certainly be some who are more hot-headed,” said Sorma as she lifted herself up and looked into the distance. A violent vortex was in that direction and a vague noise was heard. It seemed that a conflict had broken out. “I’ll see what’s going on.”

Vivian shook her head. “After all, they are of different races, have different code of conducts and behavioural standards. Disunity is common.”

White Flame whispered. “It seems that the otherworldlings are facing great social problems.”

“No, our biggest social problem is that we have almost no society,” said Vivian, glancing at White Flame. “Thanks to you.”

Hasse shrugged and said nothing.

The MDT glided past a collapsed metal post and scanned it with light, rendering the outlines of the hidden pipeline structure beneath the ground. It suddenly whistled. “Found it!”

Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and came over. Hao Ren saw the MDT’s light shining on a device that looked like a palace pillar. He stepped forward, cleared the debris around the device, and found that there were a lot of pipes and cables hidden below.

“This must be the place where the navigators worked back then. I’ve detected a large number of cables leading to a central node.” As the MDT spoke, it approached those cables, its hologram showed the connections and cracking progress bar.

The siren queen looked on in amazement for a long while before she spread out her hands. “I don’t know… I often curled up on the pillar and slept on it. I didn’t know what it was.”

Hao Ren remained silent.

“I found the navigation log,” after waiting for a long time, the MDT finally reported the good news, “Io, the name of the siren’s planet is Io.”