The Record of Unusual Creatures
chapter-603

Chapter 603: Calibrating the Star Map

Lil Pea sat on the dumb cat’s head, waving her little arm and saying goodbye to her daddy. The little one now understood the reason why Hao Ren and the other adults in the family often had to travel. With her rapidly growing mind, she was now not as stubborn and clingy as before. If necessary, the little one would stay at home obediently. As long as someone was keeping an eye on her and keeping her out of trouble, Hao Ren could leave her at home in peace.

The cat girl cautiously allowed the fish to sit on her head; she was licking her mouth, enjoying the aftertaste of Wuyue’s tail. She meowed at Hao Ren, who had walked into the teleportation light beam as if she was saying her final goodbye.

In a flash, Hao Ren and the others found themselves standing in the dark, snow-covered hinterland.

A large, lavender-colored spatial rift was in the air, and several silvery-white, light-emitting devices surrounded it. There were alarms and a light beam generator around these devices, which illuminated the surrounding snowfield.

There was nothing else there.

“I think that instead of thinking about building a frosty town in other parts of the snowfield, it’d be better to renovate the place around the spatial rift; not a fortress, but at least a shelter.” Vivian stomped the snow off her boots. “While the nearby Alamanda has almost developed into a capital airport, the portal here still looks like a bicycle shed.”

The strange coldness of the dark snowfield rushed in from all directions. The three sirens, including the queen, were all frozen. They were not as accustomed to their human form as Nangong Wuyue was. When they arrived, they were all in their sea serpent form. By now, a thin layer of ice had covered their tails, and it made a crackling sound when they moved. Shaqira hugged her shoulders and looked around. “What is this place? The water element here… is weird. It’s difficult to manipulate, and the chill they carry is colder than ordinary ice and snow.”

“This is the entrance to the Plane of Dreams,” said Hao Ren, lifting his hand and pointing at the spatial rift. “This is a buffer zone between the real world andthe Plane of Dreams. The atmosphere of the Otherworld is distorting everything around this place, hence the weirdness.”

The siren queen curved her tail into a question mark. “We’ll reach our homeworld after we cross this rift?”

“No, we still need to calculate the coordinates, probe, navigate, and check for hidden dangers. This is an adventure. Although it’s your homeworld, I don’t think it’s safe now.” Hao Ren shrugged and crossed the spatial rift. “Let’s go and take a look.”

All of them followed Hao Ren and passed through the gateway. A different scene compared to the dark snowfield suddenly appeared before their eyes.

It was a brand new silver hall.

The spatial rift was right in the center of the hall. The lavender light illuminated a dozen meters into its surroundings. The hall had a circular wall made of natural, silver-white metal. The wall was more than 10 m high, and it gradually formed into an arc as it rose. The clear sky could be seen through the translucent light-blue energy shield above. The floor was a magnificent gold color, which was the only original structure preserved in this transit station—Alamanda Square.

Some advanced, newly installed equipment were at the side of the hall. Several autonomous robots were flying around, debugging the equipment. One of the autonomous robot had sensed the return of its owner and emitted a string of sounds to report the progress of their work. Hao Ren tapped the mechanical squid on its shell and said, “Looks like work is progressing well. The station is almost completed… Oh, is the nearby radio tower also completed?”

The siren queen suddenly screamed and bounced several meters back when she saw the mechanical squids. She cautiously said, “What are those?!”

“They’re my workers… Katreina, you don’t have to be so nervous.” Hao Ren could not help but laugh at the sight of the siren queen’s reaction. “They’re very nice guys. They’re just working here. This station was in ruins. If it weren’t for them, you probably wouldn’t be able to breathe the air here today.”

The siren queen regained her composure but was still guarded. “I just can’t get over those tentacles… especially the ones with tentacles right under their head.”

Lily was dumbfounded. “Then, would you freak out when you transform into a giant squid?”

The siren queen froze for a moment; a sense of frustration suddenly hit her. “Gosh, my life has forever lost a possibility…”

Vivian was shocked. “Looks like she suffers from a pretty serious psychological trauma.”

Hao Ren looked around, feeling like he had forgotten something. After thinking for a long while, he suddenly realized it. “Dang it! I’ve forgotten to inform Becky! You guys, please wait a minute—”

Hao Ren quickly switched on the radio. In order to keep abreast with Holletta’s situation, he had requested Becky to carry a radio. Becky’s voice came through the radio after several rings. “Hello, Mr. Landlord?”

“What are you doing over there?”

“Me? I’m participating in an event. It’s awesome. Is something up?”

“Something important,” said Hao Ren quickly. “Have you obtained the brain monster on your side?”

“Not yet,” Becky’s voice suddenly sounded serious. “What’s wrong?”

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Tell Ophra, let the sleeping dog lie, and don’t try to go after it alone! That thing has an overwhelming mind-control power that must be contained with special means. Inform me immediately when you lock on its position, understand?”

Becky quickly responded. “Got it. By the way, what are you doing right now, Mr. Landlord?”

Hao Ren let out a long sigh. “We’re going to blow something up.”

Becky suddenly sounded excited. “Blow something? I like that! A balloon or trumpet?”

Hao Ren almost choked. “I mean blow up!”

Becky said, “Wow… What an exciting life, Mr. Landlord.”

Hao Ren ended the radio transmission and pursed his lips. “That girl… Let’s go, we have no time to waste.”

He released the Petrachelys from his portable space and brought them on board. The spacecraft then climbed directly overhead through the transparent shield above the Alamanda transit station. The desolate City of Gold could be seen underneath as the spacecraft rose. Images of construction works in the city were fed through the external camera into the cabin. Several silvery white spire devices outside the city walls had begun operation. The projects that Hao Ren had left behind were being carried out effectively as autonomous robots and construction equipment were working around the clock. The planet was now developing to become a real base.

The siren queen and her two followers looked in amazement on the bridge. They had learned from the holograms that they were now in the relic of another civilization, which was being transformed into a large one fortress. Shaqira could not help but look at Hao Ren. “What is this place?”

“Tannagost, another ruined civilization. What they had encountered was far worse than you had—they didn’t managed to launch their escape ships when the disaster struck, and their chosen self-rescue technology didn’t work, and they became extinct. The only thing left in this planet is the hollow echo, which the spires are trying to eliminate. But this has little to do with you.”

Shaqira poked the seat in front with her tail. “Do you know what happened to this universe?”

“I know.”

“Than… who are you?” Shaqira finally could not hold back. “Of course you don’t have to answer me. I’m just too curious. The ability of you people is completely beyond any humanity and aliens.”

The spacecraft gradually moved away from the atmosphere. Tannagost’s pale gold and grey-green surface appeared smaller and looking from the monitor. The glow of CARS was rising from the other side of the horizon like a silver moon. Hao Ren gazed at the splendid scene in space and call up the star map. “It’s a long story. Let’s talk about that later while during the journey. MDT, start calibrating the star map.”

Although the star map stored in the Nasaton database was reliable, it did not in fact conform to the requirement of the interstellar travel. The siren back then had not achieved the technological level by which they could travel to any point of the universe as they wished. Their star map could only mark the range that they could explore—compared with the entire space. That was just like a grain of sand on the beach.

Marking the position of a star in the universe is a complicated subject. You could use a few supernovae and connect them together to determine the position of a particular star, or you could detect enough stars to build a complex three-dimensional coordinate system. However, you would still face a problem: the universe is too vast, and it changes every moment. As the stars move, form and die, the coordinates of any star will become increasingly inaccurate over time. The Xi Ling Celestials could scan a snapshot of the entire universe through something like a sovereign hub, so they did not have to worry about this. However, ordinary races would not be able to do that. They must think of ways to counteract this ‘star map shift,’ and one of the ways was to map as much as possible the entire space, as enough celestial bodies and a large enough span of stars would give them more backup links to determine the location of a star.

However, the siren’s star map was a primary star map. It might have already not that accurate at in the beginning, after 10,000 years, its accuracy had been greatly reduced. Therefore, the MDT needed to recalibrate the starlight, overlay the current map of the universe with the old star map then they would be able to determine the location of Io.