The Record of Unusual Creatures

In the spacious spacecraft laboratory, a series of biological cultivation devices were operating quietly. Each of the large, silver integrated test benches had a big, transparent canister. There was a small amount of red, bloody viscous liquid in the transparent canisters. They were flowing slowly at the bottom as if they were alive and trying to climb up the canister walls. Above the fluid were many biological tissues, which looked like blood vessels and tendons supporting some strange organs.     

That was the results of the cultivation device's work over the past few days. It used the protocells from the Divine Sarcophagus to create strange life.     

The MDT connected itself to the analytical host computer in the laboratory and reported the progress. "The culture will not continue after this step. These biological tissues will stop growing and they will no longer be functionally differentiated. Their genetic structure is weird and they store information far beyond what they're supposed to in their current form. However, some factors prevent their genetic information from being revealed. It may be related to the supernatural power of the goddess. Besides, the organs produced by each culture tank are slightly different and may be related to the original location of the extracted protocells. I remember that the protocells were originally harvested from seven different locations of the Progenitors of Life."     

"These are the organs of the Seed of Origin?" Lily peeked at the nearest test bench curiously, staring at the weird "meat" in the culture tank. They looked somewhat similar to an animal's flesh tissue, but the colors as well as texture looked a bit like plant fiber. From the surface, they appeared flexible and well-put-together. "Looks slightly..."     

"Disgusting, isn't it?" Nangong Wuyue said, sticking out her tongue. "Like something from a horror movie."     

Lily licked her lips and said, "Not really. It's actually appetizing. This is meat!"     

Everyone was speechless.     

"Pull her back. Don't let her come in contact with the samples." Cold sweat trickled down Hao Ren's forehead. He had to let Vivian keep an eye on the husky. "She must be craving for grilled meat really badly!"     

Lily was still trying to lunge to the front while Vivian was dragging her away. "That's meat! That really looks like meat! Just let me take a bite!"     

"Let's get down to business." Hao Ren wiped the cold sweat off his forehead, and turned to look at the MDT. "Do you think the cultivation results are correct? Is this really part of the Seed of Origin?"     

"I'm not sure," the MDT admitted that the experiment was not so perfect. "The protocells have undergone many incomprehensible self-selections and mutations during the growth process. They finally turned into this. I'm not sure if these things are the Seed of Origin—it would seem impossible to use the Seed of Origin's cells to reverse-engineer its original form. Without the supernatural power of the goddess, these things are only defective products."     

Hao Ren's brow were pulled together. "Shouldn't there be something else at the very least? Some understanding on the Seed of Origin?"     

The MDT wobbled up and down. "We do have something at least. The cells used in the cultivation are from the necrotic ganglion of the Seed of Origin, so these mutated tissues are also related to neural activity. If they don't mutate into this state... they should be part of the Seed's brain tissue, or brain itself. These organs have a complex neurotransmission infrastructure and an antenna-like transceiving structure—but something's wrong with the transceiving structure. It's not functioning. I've activated a sample, and its antenna's only receiving clutter."     

"Part of the brain?" Hao Ren looked at the samples in the canisters with interest. "Do they have the ability to think if reasonable stimulation is applied?"     

"There's a complex reflex mechanism, but no sign of intelligence," replied the MDT. Shortly after, it suddenly spoke about a strange phenomenon. "There's another discovery. Take a look at Culture Tank No. 1."     

As soon as the MDT's voice trailed off, the top of the culture tank on Test Bench No. 1 suddenly opened up before a green plant was thrown inside. The biological tissue and red liquid in the canister sensed the object immediately, twisting and moving around. The green plant was soon swallowed by the red liquid, but after a few moments, the red liquid receded to the side. The plant was intact and looked healthier than before.     

"This is a living sample," said the MDT. "Now, look at the dead sample."     

The green plant was removed, and a bunch of withered grass was thrown inside.     

Once again the red liquid wrapped around the "foreign object", and within seconds, the grass was completely digested.     

"It's..." Y'zaks looked at the happenings in the canister with wonder. "Eating?"     

Holding a small screwdriver, Y'lisabet tried to get closer, but she was pulled back by her dad. The little girl protested, "I'm not going to break it! I know it's important, I just want to take a look…"     

No one gave a sh*t about what the little girl said; she may have known that the thing was too important to be messed with, but who could guarantee its safety when it came to a child?     

"It stays away from living things?" Hao Ren had figured something out. "It's a scavenger."     

"It's a scavenger. And taking into consideration that it's the Seed of Origin's ganglion, the First Born's early 'console', I suspect that the Seed of Origin and even the First Born that subsequently hatched were all based on this ganglion's judgment mechanism to survive: 'scavenging'," the MDT analyzed. "This can be used to determine the Seed of Origin's pattern of action after its 'landing' and the original form of the First Born: they created lives, evolved the ecological circles, and took the last spot of the food chain; recycling the necrotic organisms and nutrients in the soil to fuel the entire cycle. They were responsible for providing the initial creation and the ultimate recovery of the ecosystem, while the evolution process in between was the job of the Second Borns. All this constituted a complete 'work'."     

The MDT added, "Besides, it could be fed with silicon minerals, water, sulphides and carbon, which proves that the First Born could adapt to a variety of nutrients in the environment and create organic matter by itself without the existence of other organic matter."     

"Scavenger... That sounds very gentle," Vivian said thoughtfully.     

"It's indeed a gentle diet, but it has little to do with its 'character'," the MDT explained. "The analysis by the host computer raises suspicions that this scavenging behavior was only to ensure that there was no problem during creation. It was to prevent the Blood Tide from mistakenly consuming its own creation. If it were to grow a complex filtering mechanism to choose which organisms to eat, and how much to eat per meal, it would certainly exhaust too many nerve cells. So, the creator of the seed simply set these rules and made it a scavenger that only fed on the dead, and completely skipped living things. This protected the ecosystem. The ganglionic suppression of the First Born's activity probably started a similar mechanism."     

"But the First Born's scavenging behavior had obviously gone out of control. It ate everything." Hao Ren raised his eyebrows. "Or to put it more directly, it deliberately went out of control. It wanted to destroy the ecosystem."     

"The First Born's initial offensive ability must have came from its 'feeding' mechanism, but later on in order to destroy the Second Borns, it began to develop various kinds of weapons, such as seed cannons capable of performing space operations. Its obviously completely out of control," the MDT lamented. "Look at how perfect its initial safety mechanism was. Unfortunately, the system collapsed. This shows that a centralized network isn't as reliable as a distributed network. When the server goes under, all the clients are basically useless."     

A surprising lament from a PDA.     

"Although there's no way to analyze the causes of the First Born's loss of control and the goddess' whereabouts from these organs, we do have something else." The MDT sighed as it directed an autonomous robot to carry two boxes to Hao Ren. "They're fresh from the oven."     

The boxes were then opened; one contained a silver-white ball with a neat blue pattern on the surface, while the other box was filled with transparent containers of pale red liquid.     

"What's this egg for?" Lily leaned forward from behind. "It reminds me of Lil Pea."     

"This is a signal suppressor," the MDT sounded helpless. "It can perfectly simulate the signal of the Progenitor of Life, and keep the First Born asleep. We can put this on the First Born in Holletta. Then, it wouldn't care even if we detonate a nuclear bomb on it."     

"What about the other one?"     

"Interference pheromones, made with those cell samples and the lifeblood." The MDT apparently cared more about these substances. "Suppressing signal emitters is a very problematic thing. Once the signal is interrupted, the First Born will wake up. So, interference pheromones can be used as a backup safety measure: it can wake the First Born's 'scavenging mechanism' for short a time, leaving it impossible to swallow living things."