The next day, Hao Ren called everyone to the living room and told them about his experience the day before as well as the series of tests he conducted at night.
“This planet called Zorm is strange. I still can’t figure out its location in the Plane of Dreams. It’s a region in the universe that we haven’t explored before. I haven’t had time to study the sky there, but there were interferences and delays when contacting CARS from there. I think there’s a great physical distance between the two,” Hao Ren said as he sat on the sofa, divulging his suspicions. “Other than its unknown location, its mapping relationship with the Surface World seems abnormal too. You can’t bring things out to the Surface World, but you can bring things in. Activities in Zorm don’t affect the body in the Surface World. It seems that information flow is unidirectional; you can’t teleport from Zorm to other planets in the Plane of Dreams because there are no exact coordinates. And most importantly, the MDT turns into a dead body there.”
“The connection between the rest of the Plane of Dreams and the Surface World is normal. There are no changes in the parameters of the universe,” the MDT chimed in. “We can rule out the possibility of sudden changes in the Wall of Reality. Now it seems that all anomalies are within planet Zorm or the space around it.”
Nangong Wuyue was curled up like a snake next to the coffee table. She shook her body when Hao Ren and the MDT finished speaking. “Who can understand what the two of you just said?”
Hao Ren waved his hand and said, “That’s the reason why I asked everyone to join the meeting and be serious. At least there might be some progress.”
“I’d rather do something simple and crude instead of studying these things,” Lily said, slumping at the coffee table. “Like getting in on some action on the battlefield. I won’t flinch if there’s a fight,” the shameless maiden admitted.
“There are probably many occasions where you need to fight. But there, war is fought with weapons. There are no aliens and magic in that world. You probably won’t be able to do anything there.” Hao Ren shook his head. “You’re going to set off panic or become a celebrity because the humans there have never seen anyone who can transform into a five-meter husky. You’ll be a superstar.”
Lily thought for a moment and then continued to slough at the table. “I’m not going. It’s no fun.”
“Most likely, the unusual space in the Plane of Dreams is related to the goddess,” Y’zaks guessed, scratching his jaw. “Could planet Zorm be next to the battlefield where the deicide happened? Or maybe, the deicidal event brought it into some sort of vortex?”
Hao Ren frowned. “You’re saying that the impact of the goddess’ death sealed off the space around Zorm and changed the law of the universe there?”
Y’zaks nodded slightly. Despite his rugged appearance, the great demon had a scientific aptitude better than anyone else’s. He could talk about the universe like a real astrophysicist. “According to the guardian, the explosion of the Star of Creation flung the entire battlefield into a place called ‘the Dark Region’. We guessed that the Dark Region is an abnormal spatial structure. It’s unpredictable, discontinuous and incompatible with the regular universe. Although no one has seen it, doesn’t it seem similar to the situation on Zorm? Perhaps the place you went to is where the goddess fell!”
The words struck Hao Ren like lightning. There was a real sense of anticipation in him, which he found hard to ignore. But he quickly calmed down from the excitement. He had a gut feeling that the Dark Region or the “death place of God” was not a place that one could easily reach. If one could go to the place where the goddess fell by just dreaming, then the explosion of the Star of Creation 10,000 years ago was child’s play.
However, Y’zaks’ conjecture sounded reasonable. At the very least, Hao Ren was willing to believe that the state of Zorm was somehow related to the fall of the goddess. He remembered the information he had found on the Internet in Zorm. “On the planet of Zorm, legend has it that there was a religion that involved worshiping the Creator until the war broke out. As science and technology developed, they treated Creator-worshiping as purely spiritual sustenance. Regardless, the religious system remained. But puzzlingly, after the fall of the goddess, planet Zorm escaped all ecological disasters. The First Born did not find them, and the guardian giants did not come after them. I checked their data; there wasn’t even an ‘underground tentacles’ entry on the Internet there.”
Y’zaks whispered, “Even the Hollettans didn’t know there was a First Born on their planet before we went there.”
“But at least the Hollettans knew that there was a catastrophe 10,000 years ago. As long as there are survivors, it’s impossible to have no record of the event,” Hao Ren said, as he had long thought of this. “Moreover, the technological strength of Zorm before the war was significantly higher than that of Holletta’s. Their industrial system required a large number of minerals. A large number of minerals means that they would have dug deep into the ground—could it be possible for them to not bump into any tentacles of the First Born in the earth after digging for 10,000 years?”
Everyone looked at each other. No one could answer the question.
At last, Vivian sighed and broke the silence, “The samples of civilization we found in the Plane of Dreams are still too little to compare with the entire universe. We won’t be able to establish any rules at all, so we shouldn’t be surprised no matter what happens. To put it plainly, we haven’t yet reached the point where we can have an inference.”
The MDT interjected, “The job of an inspector can’t afford to work on inference alone.”
Hao Ren bit his nails and thought for a moment. Something else suddenly came to mind. “Vivian, do you think there will be anything big coming up soon regarding the vanishing hostility among the otherworldlings?”
Vivian held her arms and leaned on the sofa. “Nothing will happen even for the next one year. I’ve given my old buddies a heads up. They’ll keep an eye on the bunnies and the pups. Even the demon hunters aren’t fools.”
She continued, “And most of the otherworldly races are already very weak from starvation. Even if they want to fight, they need to get more nutrition and gain a bit fat first.”
“Thanks to the demon hunters, it seems that the otherworldlings won’t be able to make a comeback any time soon.” Hao Ren grinned. “Since nothing’s going to happen on Earth for a while, I’m going to focus my attention on Zorm for now.”
Then Hao Ren returned to the basement with the MDT. He connected the MDT to the hibernation pod that he was doing the tests with the day before and switched on the navigation system of the Petrachelys. He wanted to extract his spiritual navigation information on Zorm and convert it into real physical coordinates in the universe of the Plane of Dreams. With the coordinates, he could enter the Plane of Dreams physically through the Tannagost spatial rift, then fly the Petrachelys directly to planet Zorm. By then, whatever alien dimension there was would be laid bare before him.
But as expected, things were not as smooth sailing as he wanted them to be.
“The conversion failed. Place not found,” the MDT gave its simple reply.
Hao Ren was wide-eyed. “Place not found? It’s not a problem of the coordinates?”
The holographic image, which the MDT projected showed a set of complex data and graphs—it was the trajectory Hao Ren had left behind on the previous day when he entered the Plane of Dreams through his dream. “I got an outrageous coordinate. Theoretically, it’s impossible for this coordinate to exist in the material world. Following this coordinate will only lead you into a void.”
“In other words… there’s no way to get there through the rift in Tannagost, right?” Hao Ren said. He could feel his tooth aching now. “Could it be that the planet isn’t in the Plane of Dreams?”
“I’m certain that it’s still related to the ‘spiritual trajectory’. Something interfered with the route to Zorm in your dream, so I couldn’t calculate the exact coordinates of the planet.” The MDT read the report to the letter, and this time, it began to show that it could contribute meaningfully. “Since this didn’t work, I have another suggestion—the next time you enter Zorm, plant a beacon transmitter there and lead the Petrachelys using the navigation signal. If this fails, it means that Zorm is in an encrypted space that you and I can’t decode. You can then apply for a higher level of technical support.”
Hao Ren blinked. “There’s advanced technical support?”
“Of course. The Empire will provide sufficient technical support for inspectors. But usually, the technical support the Empire sends is just explosives of various kinds, and occasionally, engineers who are good at making explosives.”
“…So, in the eyes of the Xi Ling Celestials, blowing things up is the only way to solve problems?”
The MDT looked emotionless—of course, how can you expect a machine to show emotion? “Blowing the problem up is indeed an effective means of problem-solving.”
“Forget it. I’m not counting on the Empire’s technical support.” Hao Ren sighed, burying his face in his hand. “And to tell you the truth, I have a lot of backup plans myself.”