While the Nangong couple were still curiously studying the furnishings in Raven’s mansion, Hao Ren had already finished debrief with his Goddess. “…this is what happened, and so here they are,” said Hao Ren.
Raven 12345 looked thoughtfully at the black metal box that Hao Ren had brought. “Another has died… and it was also destroyed by the First Born. Did you say this time that there was a race called The Denizens of the Stars?”
“Yeah,” Hao Ren nodded. “The people on the Ark called them The Denizens of the Stars while people in Holletta called them ‘allies from the starts’ but the basic meaning is almost the same. They all refer to space visitors. But what we have collected so far are just imagery, it is not known whether there are still Denizens of the Stars survivors in The Plane of Dreams or not.”
Raven 12345 looked at the images of The Denizens of the Stars on the hologram the MDT was projecting. The images was taken from the Ark host earlier. Then she found something. “It seems to be an energy body, a spirit with no physical element.”
Hao Ren had felt that Raven still had something more to say. “So what?”
“So it’s not as if it was bred from the Seed of Origin. I have analysed the lifeblood sample that you brought in and found that only the carbon-based and the sulphur-based creatures could evolve according to the pre-set template of the Seed of Origin. It could also absorb the semiconductor minerals contained in the planet to make silicon-based ecosystems – but they are all physical life forms. These Denizens of the Stars should be a naturally occurring species.”
“The sirens on Io were also born naturally,” it reminded Hao Ren of the ocean planet. There had been no trace of the First Born on the ocean planet. So he and Raven 12345 both came to the same conclusion that the siren was a natural race. .
Raven 12345 slightly nodded. “Yes, the siren is naturally produced and obviously not as developed as the Denizens of the Stars. Of course, Io’s environment had made it hard for the siren civilisation to develop. However, species with a physical body would develop faster than spiritual creatures. This is because spiritual creatures are inherently weak in their relations with the physical world. They are slow to respond to the physical domain. Therefore, they are less motivated to develop and they don’t like to pay attention to changes in the real world. Spiritual creatures will develop pure spiritual civilisation, and they will always immerse themselves in it until the day they die. So even though they are naturally gifted beyond the physical life, their civilisation is developing at a much slower pace than ordinary species, and this delay has greater impact than the ocean environment of Io.”
“And the Denizens of the Stars are obviously more advanced than the sirens…” Hao Ren finally understood what Raven 12345 was trying to say. “This race must be very old?”
“Very, very, very old…” Raven 12345 looked at the holographic projection next to her, her brows furrowed slightly. “They were able to go to warn the various Second Born civilisations in the universe ten thousand years ago, which shows that they are more advanced than all the Second Borns. Judging from the fact that they know how to destroy the first Born’s body, I suspect that the history of the Denizens of the Stars could even be traced back to the time of the first sowing by the goddess of creation, or even earlier.”
Hao Ren was surprised. “Can it be so old?”
“You bet. Don’t underestimate the retardedness of the spiritual creatures,” Ravens 12345 twitched her mouth. “They sometimes could even sleep for a million years on the spur of the moment, and their purpose is just to study ‘sleep’. Of course, this retardedness is just confined to the natural spiritual creatures. Spiritual creatures transcended from the physical species would not have this feature and they could develop very quickly.”
Those words of Raven had reminded Hao Ren something. “What if the Denizens of the Stars are transcended from ordinary-creatures?”
“They are not,” Ravens 12345 lifted his finger pointing at the holographic projection. “Can you see the little light spots in its body? This is a trace of the energy nodes left over from the evolutionary process, which is unnecessary for higher spiritual creatures. The thing is that the evolution of spiritual creatures does not follow the Use and Disuse Theory, so these evolutionary characteristics will stay with them forever. And the spiritual creatures transcended from the ordinary creatures have not gone through an evolutionary process, so their bodies will not have this ‘noise’.”
Hao Ren thought for a moment before he asked, “How can there be the same light spots in the Big Bluey? Did you not create them?”
Raven 12345 shrugged. “Well, I added it. It look cool.”
Hao Ren: “…”
He should not have asked such an obvious question! Had he not known this female psycho well enough after so long?
“Okay, okay, I got it. In short, what you mean is that these Denizens of the Stars should be even older than the Seed of Origin, and maybe even a species of the same period as the Goddess of Creation?” Hao Ren exhaled. “If that’s true, then they might know what happened to the Goddess of Creation in the past!”
Having a deeper understanding of the Denizens of the Stars, Hao Ren had unwittingly treated them as ‘human’.
“I suspect that these guys are still alive,” Raven 12345’s mouth twisted slightly upward. “Spiritual creatures won’t just die so easily. They are masters of parapsychology and spiritual power. The First Born is subject to its own physical form not matter how strong it is. So the spiritual creatures could easily find a weak spot in the First Born’s spiritual attack, and survive. They are not afraid of the First Born, but they couldn’t really kill it either. So they must have gone into hiding now.”
“So I have to find a way to find them out?”
“As you please,” said Raven 12345, shaking her hands in a way that without regard of her own image. “When I look for you, I’m expecting you to solve problem for me. So do whatever is necessary. Oh, by the way, you want to have a bowl of soup noodles?”
Hao Ren shocked. “Why are you so generous recently? You didn’t even give me a glass of water last time.”
Raven 12345 waved with a wry smile. “I have cooked extra and eaten noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past three days and yet not finished. The two of you want some?” beckoned Raven to the couple.
After their first meeting with God, the Nangong couple went home with a stomach full of soup noodle. Their only impression of heaven was that the bowl was really big…
Hao Ren, who was a pope in name, felt very saddened by this fact: the soup was really salty! How could they just remember how big the bowl was?
The whole world was peaceful for three days.
How was he going to find the Denizens of the Stars? Hao Ren still had no clue. The universe in The Plane of Dreams was vast, but he could not use the powerful deep-space radar to scan all the constellations. He had to rely on the self-multiplying drones to explore slowly and that would take a lifetime. Plus, the Denizens of Stars must have certainly been hiding in deep space in order to avoid the First Born, finding them would not be easy.
Hao Ren told his family members about the problem. They did some brainstorming and came up with some suggestions that were mostly crap.
Lily smacking herself on the head before coming up with an idea. She had proposed for a universe-wide missing-person notice in the universe of The Plane of Dreams. Vivian had almost wanted to bury her alive with her little bats—because the only outcome of doing so would be that all the First Borns and brain monsters in the universe would be alarmed and hunting for the survivors of the catastrophe of extinction.
Even as brainy as Lily was, she could only come up with such crappy idea, much less the others who clearly were not as imaginative as Lily.
So at the end of the day, Hao Ren could not help but let nature take its course.
Putting the matter on the backburner, Hao Ren began to study the information he got from the Ark host.
The database had been handed over to Raven 12345, and as an inspector who handled the case, Hao Ren would go through the information several times albeit only briefly but at least it would help him understand more. He did this because he felt that he needed to do a good job. He felt it necessary at least to find out the truth of the civilisations that he had personally sent off in memorial of the dead.
“I feel more and more like a palliative care quack,” mumbled Hao Ren while connecting to the database. During this kind of virtual connection, only the MDT still have an uninterrupted mind connection with him.
The voice of the MDT ringed in Hao Ren’s head. “So you still think that your Pope title is just in name only? Let me tell you, everything was serious from the beginning—just as the pastor listens to the penitence of a dying person and soothes his soul, the Pope on the side of God is also responsible for sending off the stillborn civilisations. Everyone has his or her duty. However, when you just took office, you were as clueless as you appeared. Now… have you understood?”
“I feel like I’ve been conned,” Hao Ren sighed. “Anyway, you’re right. At first, I thought it was just some title and position but now I found that it is not just real but f**king real. But did you really tell me that before?”
“Casually, yes.”
Hao Ren: “…”
The link has been established and the database of the Ark Civilisation was laid bare in Hao Ren’s mind.