The Record of Unusual Creatures

2Everybody was at Becky's new house that night. To celebrate her dreams coming true, Becky held a grand banquet (actually, she just wanted to enjoy being rich). Hao Ren and the rest of them enjoyed wine and delicacies from Holletta. They had fun until it was almost midnight before they finally went to bed, leaving a mess behind. The next morning, Hao Ren was awakened by Lil Pea's tail as usual. The little mermaid jumped happily on his chest and said, "Dad! Dad! There's guests waiting outside! Guests!"     3

Hao Ren grabbed Lil Pea and dropped the little kid in the water bowl next to him to let her swim. As he sat up on the big, soft bed, his body bounced up from the springy bed. He paused for a moment before he realized that he was in Becky's house. He tidied up, turned his head and looked out the window. He saw a group of people in the front yard, and he recognized several of them: Marshal Ophra, Cardinal Orben, and several of the archbishops and ministers, whom he saw during the secret meetings two days ago. The rest of them were guards.     

The butler was receiving the honored guests and a servant raced to the main house to inform Becky.     

Hao Ren put on his jacket, ready to go out, but found something wrong with his jacket. "Huh… Where are the buttons?"     

Hao Ren heard some noises coming from the basin. He turned and found Lil curling up in the water, pretending to sleep. However, her quick-moving tail told him that she had to be guilty. The little kid could not lie at all. He took Lil Pea out of the water and found that there were a few broken buttons lying quietly on the spot where she was sleeping.     

"I thought it was edible," Lil Pea said as she swished her tail, "but it's not delicious."     

"Of course! This is plastic! Although it looks like wood, it's plastic!" Hao Ren stared angrily at his growing daughter. "I know you're growing up, but if you're hungry, can you eat something normal? You can always wake me up or wake that piece of brick up!"     

The MDT immediately hit Hao Ren on the back of his head. "What do you mean? You said I was a coaster yesterday! Come on, let's fight!"     

Hao Ren was speechless.     

When Hao Ren reached the living room, everybody was already there. The guests were chatting with Vivian, but Hao Ren could not find Becky. He then went up to Wuyue and asked, "Where's the new rich girl?"     

"She's still sleeping," Nangong Wuyue said as she stretched her body, showing her perfect waist. If it were not for her petite figure, she could have been a supermodel. "What were you doing upstairs? I heard you yelling," she asked.     

"I was educating a fish and fighting with my PDA. The good news is that I won, and the bad news is that I feel f*cking empty after I won," Hao Ren said before he covered his forehead. "Can you understand my daily life without any subtitles and narration?"     

"Well, I can imagine."     

Becky finally appeared at the staircase and kept yawning. It looked like she had been dragged out of bed by the housekeeper. She looked at the group of honored guests and tried to stay awake. "Good morning everyone. Welcome—"     

Then, she missed her footing and fell down the stairs. She finally stopped at Nangong Sanba's foot, got up and continued, "…Welcome to my house. Ouch, I think I'm finally awake."     

Those at the door looked at the legendary mercenary and new aristocrat with a scary expression on their faces. Most of them had the same thing on their minds: there actually existed such a person among the heroes who saved the kingdom, and she was also the chosen one. It was a disaster. Unfortunately, apart from Becky, there was no one else they could recommend: there were five local heroes in the foreign team, and the other four were allegedly catching wild rabbits in another world. The ascetics were never the right person to recommend anyway, so Becky was the only choice…     

"What happened to you?" Hao Ren muttered while he helped Becky up. "Didn't sleep last night?"     

"I was too excited to sleep," Becky said and stuck her tongue out. Then, she smiled. "Now that you're staying at my house, I suddenly feel balanced inside… You should come often, don't be shy. His Majesty is very rich."     

Ophra walked over and hurriedly coughed to remind Becky when she heard that. "We have a marshal, two vice ministers and four cabinet ministers here. Let's talk business."     

"We're going to the sealing site of the First Born, right?" Hao Ren nodded and said, "Where exactly is it? How are we going to get there?"     

From the side, someone's poker face was visible. Cardinal Orben said with an emotionless face, "I negotiated with the pope and we have decided to go to the sacred cavern in the Volcano of Dusk. The First Born who is expected to awaken earlier is sealed there. The time for the liberation of the seal is less than a year, and the situation is more serious. Those tentacles are more active, hence they should be more suitable for observation."     

"We can use the teleportation facility from the Royal Magic Society," a minister in a thick purple robe nodded and said. "His Majesty allowed us to use the various strategic facilities belonging to the Royal Magic Society this morning. In addition to the long-distance teleportation facility, we can also bring a team of elite wizards."     

To deal with the tentacles of the First Born, wizards were obviously more effective than ordinary warriors. At least wizards had stronger minds, so it was not easy for them to go crazy.     

Everybody got excited when they heard that they could use the local teleportation technology. Hao Ren had been here for several times, but he never tried the teleportation facilities there. So, they quickly packed up and followed Ophra to the Royal Magic Association's station.     

The Royal Magic Association was a building in the northern suburbs of the capital, composed of several tall magic towers. The versatile human wizards and mages of the Blood Clan, who were skilled in magic built this place together. As the oldest country on the continent, there were many ethnic groups in Holletta, and the Blood Clan was a relatively common "minority" there.     

The reason why the Royal Magic Association was built outside the capital was not because ordinary people rejected magic, it was for security purposes. In their world, wizards were inventors and researchers. Their more important role was of a technician of sorts. They liked to invent strange things, and all the powerful dynamite and alchemical as well as engineering weapons in the world were their masterpieces. Therefore wherever you went, big magic towers had to be built away from residential areas, because you never knew when the stuff that fell off these towers would be an alchemical bomb…     

Of course, occasionally, there would be a few unlucky wizards who would fall from the towers. Nonetheless, there was no point in investigating the cause. It was not weird for strange wizards to do strange things.     

Hao Ren and his team passed through a magical curtain and saw the Royal Magic Association hidden under the invisible enchantment. The first thing they saw was a tall tower in a weird form. The tower seemed to be broken into a few sections and it was divided into several parts, which floating aslant in the air. On the whole, it looked as if one-third of the structure in the middle was missing. However, the magic tower was apparently still working. They could see some blurred shadows flashing across the fractured part. They seemed to be human.     

"This is Rudolph's Tower, created by the Vice President of the association," Ophra explained, "Rudolph belonged to an old Blood Clan that studied space technology and he was famous for his daring experimental projects. An accident turned his tower into this. The spatial distortion cuts the spatial structure of the tower, causing a part of the tower to float in a different dimension. It seems to be fragmented, but the interior is still seamless. It's just that when you walk into the place... it feels weird because some of the windows and doors will lead to strange places. Rudolph has not yet designed a new structure for the whole tower. I went in to visit him once, but because the doorplate was wrong, I had to travel back from the Cressyl Province in the South... I would advise you not to go there."     

Before Ophra finished, a large group of bats appeared in front of them and morphed into a human. He was a middle-aged man in a black suit with a bright smile on his face. "It was just a little accident, lady. And I warned you that the seventh floor of the magic tower hasn't been very stable recently. I have an apprentice who even dug out his sister's underwear from his closet. The space in there is just too unstable…"     

They immediately gave the unreliable vice president the side-eye. Rudolph shrugged and said, "Well, probably it's not all because of space instability. Puberty is as mysterious as space magic."     

"He's always like this," Ophra whispered. "I heard that part of his brain got teleported away while he was studying magic."     

"The members of the Blood Clan in this world seem more cheerful than those on Earth," Hao Ren muttered.     

Vivian rolled her eyes and said, "Of course. Earth is so sinister, it's hard to be happy there."     

"So, these are the guests who are going to use the long-distance teleportation facility today?" Rudolph said as he looked at Hao Ren and his team. "Oh, I've heard about you... but President Catherine advised me not to ask too much, so come with me quickly—the sun isn't good for the skin."