Chapter 387 A Glimmer of Understanding

Hearing Vivian's call, Hao Ren quickly grabbed Lily and ran to meet her, casually stuffing the data terminal and that bumpkin terminal into his pocket. The data terminal was already complaining in his pocket, "Hey, hey, what's going on? Could you not make me squeeze in with this hillbilly? Housing is so tight these days..."

Hao Ren shut him up with one sentence: "If you don't like being squeezed, why don't you come out and fly on your own!"

By the time the two of them followed the communicator's directions and found Vivian, they discovered that everyone else had arrived as well, standing around in a circle studying something.

"What's the situation?" Hao Ren led Lily over slowly. He noticed that this was a fairly spacious area. Although the surrounding area had been taken over by jungle-like tendrils, one could still make out the former structure: this must have been a warehouse, with many neat platforms slightly raised above the ground nearby, and the remnants of some fixed supports could still be seen under the cover of vines in the distance.

He looked up and saw a large hole above, but the opening was completely covered by crisscrossing tendrils.

"This seems to be directly below the big cave we came in through," Hao Ren said, coming to Vivian's side. "Did you find the way in?"

Vivian nodded, pointing to something on the ground. "Look at these. They're the most weathered. Judging by their age, they seem to be even older than the surrounding tendrils."

It was a large, irregular piece of skin-like material, vaguely reddish in color. Because of the long period of time and the activity of the surrounding living tendrils, the skin-like material was already tattered. Hao Ren stepped forward and flipped it over, easily breaking off a large piece.

"There are a lot more here!" Elizabeth called out from a distance. Hao Ren looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a large pile of the same thick skin in the tendril pile, as well as some skin-like material floating in the air, detached from the tendrils' restraints.

Hao Ren looked at the patterns on the surface of these thick hides, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him.

He remembered where he had seen something with this kind of pattern... that's right, it was in the illusion produced by the giant brain! The Seed of Life, which rose from the crimson sea, had such an outer skin!

Although these skin-like materials were ancient and dried up, this extraordinary "creature" had a physical strength beyond common sense. Even after so many years since its death, the patterns on the skin-like materials were still faintly discernible. Coupled with the fact that the illusion produced by the giant brain was so impressive, Hao Ren immediately connected the two things together.

"I think I know what's going on..." Hao Ren threw the thick hide in his hand aside and took out the ancient device that he and Lily had found from his pocket. "Let's go back first, and I'll tell you the whole story."

The group returned to the castle of the Demon King, and Hao Ren told the others everything he had discovered in the spaceship and the information he had speculated from the "seeding illusion," which immediately caused a stir. After Izax finished reading the log, he kept repeating one sentence: "So that's how the space-time bubble zone came about..."

"Now we can sort things out," Hao Ren said, unconsciously knocking on the shell of the data terminal. "First, let's confirm one thing. What crashed into that spaceship back then was not the First Born, but a seed – the First Born hatched from the seed after that..."

Before he could finish speaking, the data terminal jumped up from the table: "If you want to pretend to be profound, then pretend to be profound, can you stop knocking!"

Hao Ren casually threw the data terminal to Dou Dou next to him: "Flip it."

The little mermaid immediately played happily with her favorite zoetrope. Setting aside the data terminal's silent anger for the time being, Hao Ren had already begun to study the connection between the goddess in the Dream Plane and this place: "...According to the information we have in the Dream Plane, especially what I saw in the giant brain's illusion, the goddess in the Dream Plane should be a primordial creature similar to 'the origin of life.' She created a large number of seeds to explore alien planets. Those seeds have extremely powerful power, can survive in the universe, can fly hyperspace, dropping a bit of residue can turn into a legendary creature, and can hatch a First Born. Now we have confirmed a new function: they can also travel through the universe. Don't worry about the principle first – let's just assume it's for plot reasons...

"The spaceship lying outside should have been left behind by the indigenous civilization of this universe. According to the data terminal's calculations, the spaceship was abandoned about 200,000 years ago. At that time, this was not a space-time bubble zone. The log clearly records that the space here was still continuous back then – the aliens on the spaceship came here to explore the ecology and encountered misfortune."

Lily rested her hands on her chin very seriously: "They gave the goddess of the Dream Plane a bear face – the goddess of the Dream Plane is so powerful, she gave a lot of people bear faces!"

Vivian grabbed Lily's pointed ears and tugged hard: "Be serious! This is a discussion about world peace!"

"The seed came across the void, crashed into the aliens' spaceship, and changed the entire star system – or possibly the spatial structure within a larger range – due to the world collision, producing the space-time bubble zone," Hao Ren reached out and stood between Lily and Vivian. "At that time, some of the aliens died, and the rest retreated to the safety section and recorded what happened next. The seed mistakenly thought that it had 'landed,' so it hatched the first generation of creatures according to the procedure, which is the First Born."

Nangong Wuyue sighed regretfully: "I can understand, seeing a water source is very exciting, but when you dive in, you realize it's frozen..."

The people around immediately looked at this mantis shrimp spirit with complicated expressions. Lily patted Wuyue's shoulder sympathetically: "I didn't expect you to have a story too..."

Hao Ren coughed twice: "Now the origin of the space-time bubble zone has been clarified. The aliens have either successfully escaped this mutated star system or died halfway. In short, these historical problems are not important at the moment. What's important is... the First Born recorded in this log is different from the style we encountered in the Dream Plane!"

"The log says that the First Born is gentle," Vivian knew what Hao Ren meant. "The aliens who left the record back then wouldn't lie on this issue. It seems that the First Born hatched from the seed should have been a very peaceful creature at first, and the one in the Dream Plane was after a berserk transformation."

Izax smiled slyly: "The berserk transformation was because the Second Born was unfilial, demolished the house, sold the property, and dug up his own ancestral grave – the ancient magic empire's research was equivalent to digging out their own mother's ashes to study immortality. In this situation, it's understandable that the eldest brother would take action and beat up his younger brother."

Nangong Wuyue twitched the corner of her mouth: "As a result, he used too much force and killed him..."

"The berserk transformation is not the point," Hao Ren waved his hand. "The point is that the First Born recorded in the log can communicate!"

Everyone immediately reacted: the author of the log clearly mentioned that he had communicated with the First Born in his sleep, and even outside of his sleep, he observed that the First Born had the intention of "talking" to the outside world – but the "First Born" that Hao Ren and the others encountered in the Dream Plane was a chaotic creature with no logic other than being berserk!

"At that time, I asked the data terminal to try various communication methods, including directly reading the nerve pulses in the First Born's body, and the conclusion was that communication was impossible. Honestly, I think the version that can communicate is the normal version," Hao Ren tapped the table. "The one in the Dream Plane looks like it's grown crooked. Why do you think it lost its mind?"

Lily leaned forward: "Driven crazy by the Second Born?"

"I don't know, but I don't think the ancient magic empire necessarily had the ability to do that. Even if their entire race went up against it, they would be killed by the First Born in seconds," Hao Ren waved his hand. "In short, ten thousand years ago was a very critical time: ten thousand years ago, the Dream Plane and the surface world were connected, aliens appeared on Earth, and the First Born went crazy and destroyed the world. These things all happened after that point in time. And before that point in time –"

Hao Ren looked in a certain direction, seemingly looking at the spaceship wreckage in space outside through the walls of the palace: "This First Born, who strayed here two hundred thousand years ago, was mentally normal."

Elizabeth looked up at the circle of adults. She didn't understand what these guys were mumbling about, so she was curious about one thing: "Then what exactly is the energy core I brought back?"

Lily thought for a long time and came up with a creative answer: "Maybe it's the fruit that the First Born bears – it's a tree, after all."

As she spoke, she licked her lips: "I'm hungry."

Vivian grabbed a fruit from the table and threw it over: "Twenty-four meal times a day, grinding your teeth in your sleep and shouting about ribs, can't you have some ambition!"

Hao Ren stood up: "In short, I have an idea now."

Everyone immediately looked up at him, staring straight at him.

"Let's drag the whole ship back, and study it slowly when we get back," Hao Ren said with a smile on his face. "Don't we need a reason to open the door and move Old Wang's entire city back? Now we have a reason."

"What reason?"

"Buy one get one free!"