Chapter 1 The Strolling Monks

After the spaceship entered hyperspace, the four ascetics stopped talking. Except for the bearded man, the other three simply sat cross-legged on the bridge floor and began to meditate with their eyes closed. Hao Ren wanted to continue chatting with them about the Dream Plane and the Radiant Church, but found that these people weren't keen on chatting: their previous willingness to answer any question was only because they urgently needed to understand their situation. Now that they had a clear understanding of that, the ascetics returned to their wooden state.

Lili, on the other hand, never let the atmosphere affect her actions. Ignoring whether or not people wanted to talk to her, she began calling out to the three people sitting on the ground: "Hey, don't sit on the ground, there are chairs here..."

The three people sitting on the ground just shook their heads slightly without speaking, but the bearded man simply replied, "Unnecessary enjoyment is not needed. The teachings of the Goddess of Contemplation are the highest form of pleasure."

Hao Ren scratched his head and looked at the bearded man, suddenly remembering something quite important: "Ah, right! I forgot to ask your names!"

Unexpectedly, the bearded man just shook his head slightly upon hearing this: "Ascetics have no names. We do not need titles, nor do we need our titles to be remembered."

Hao Ren was stunned: "No names? You have no names? Then what do you usually call each other? And usually when doing things... how can you do anything without names?"

Hao Ren felt as if he had heard an Arabian Nights tale, something unbelievably absurd. He really couldn't imagine how a group of people without even names lived and worked. How did they assign tasks? How did they communicate with each other? When mentioning other ascetics in conversation, how did they know who they were talking about? Leaving aside everything else—if someone got into trouble outside, how would they even report it when they got back! But the bearded man's expression was unusually serious, obviously he wasn't joking.

"We do not need names," the bearded man spread his hands. He tilted his head slightly towards the other three beside him, and although he didn't speak and they didn't open their eyes, one of them nodded slightly in response. "Ascetics have their own ways of sensing and recognizing each other. His Holiness the Pope can also contact each ascetic through secret methods. Other than that, we are not responsible to anyone, nor do we need any more complex social interactions."

Hao Ren was amazed. Only then did he realize that these ascetics had actually established something similar to a mental network! They didn't not have names, but rather only those within their "network" knew how to distinguish these "names." He didn't know how this network was established, was it simply through this kind of monotonous meditation?

But the bearded man no longer answered any more of his questions. This ascetic, like the others, lowered his head and entered a meditative state, only leaving a sentence: "Let us know when we arrive at our destination."

The four gray-robed figures sat on the bridge floor in a contest of endurance, each one as lifeless as a wooden or stone sculpture, even bringing a dull atmosphere to the entire bridge. Lili couldn't stand this kind of atmosphere. Before long, she began to pace restlessly around the four people, occasionally circling around quickly on all fours, sniffing hard and muttering, "So stuffy, so stuffy... breathing the same air as them makes me feel stifled! Why didn't I feel this way on the little green planet..."

"Nonsense, they weren't meditating back then. Come back and stop making a fuss, they're doing something important," Vivian said calmly, sitting in her seat while busying herself and scolding Lili a few times. She was knitting a scarf with two long needles, and a small basket on her legs held several balls of silvery-white yarn. Lili couldn't help but dash over when she saw the yarn, grabbing a ball and comparing it to her tail. "Wow, this is my fur... you've turned it into yarn so quickly? How did you do it?"

"The power of magic," Vivian replied while knitting quickly. When she saw Lili rubbing the yarn on her tail, she couldn't help but poke the latter's arm with the end of her needle. "Don't bother, it won't grow back. But if you don't mind turning into a fur ball monster again, I can get you some more hair growth serum. Maybe I can knit a sweater for the landlord... and some gloves for myself."

Lili's fur on her tail stood on end as soon as she heard this. She quickly threw the ball of yarn away and scurried back to her chair, curling up into a ball to doze off.

In fact, the Origin Artifact was now on the *Giant Tortoise Rock*, Hao Ren could have started experimenting with the Sacred Scepter as soon as he left the little green planet, but he wanted to leave a research sample, so he gave the data terminal an hour to copy the artifact, and kept the fact that the artifact was on the ship a secret from the ascetics. After the spaceship docked at the Kuiper Station, he woke up the bearded man and the others, and pretended to communicate with the port's loading and unloading department. Then he said with a straight face, "Alright, that piece of equipment has been placed in the ship's laboratory. Let's go take a look at whether or not the Sacred Scepter is really for that thing."

The Four Great Vajras... uh, the four ascetics immediately jumped up from the ground, without any hesitation: "Let's go then."

A group of people rushed to the scientific research cabin, most of them going to watch the show. The original version of the Origin Artifact had been put away, and now its replica was placed on the research device in the center of the laboratory, looking exactly like the original—in fact, they were exactly the same. The onboard factory on this ship would never make a mistake when replicating such a "simple device," the replication accuracy was at the Planck level.

Therefore, this replica placed in the center of the room could also be called a genuine "Origin Artifact."

The bearded man and the other three didn't care at all about the dazzling advanced machines in the scientific research cabin. All their attention was focused on the Origin Artifact. This "ancient" device was vastly different from any creation in the Dream Plane, but the four ascetics saw a trace of familiarity from their homeland in the patterns on the details of the device. Seeing this, the data terminal directed the mechanical arm to open the upper cover of the artifact, and the soccer-sized round hole appeared in front of everyone.

"This..." As soon as the bearded man saw the lines inside the round hole, he felt a tightening in his heart. He had guarded the Sacred Scepter for many years, and knew every detail of the Scepter like the back of his hand. Even with just a glance, he could be 100% sure that the gap on the device in front of him was prepared for the Scepter!

With the artifact in front of them, the ascetics truly believed some of Hao Ren's words. The bearded man took out the Sacred Scepter he carried with him solemnly, but he still looked at Hao Ren cautiously: "Let me install it... and you must guarantee that there will be absolutely no accidents during this process. The Sacred Scepter must not be damaged in the slightest!"

Hao Ren quickly affirmed the safety of the process again and again, almost vowing on the integrity of Raven 12345—of course, if he really used this to swear, then he wouldn't have much integrity left. Then he controlled the platform in the center of the room to slowly descend, the bearded man gritted his teeth, then stepped forward a few steps, and with an almost reverent posture, held the Sacred Scepter with both hands and placed it on the groove of the Origin Artifact.

With a "click," it fit perfectly.

Energy was immediately injected into the artifact. The device, which had just been manufactured but was completely identical to the original, immediately emitted a low hum. After a moment, a monotonous, rigid voice came from the artifact: "System self-check passed, reloading important plugins. Confirming database... database is slightly damaged, repairing... repair completed. Some redundant functions are limited, device main function ready."

Hao Ren was immediately surprised and delighted. Even though it was something he expected, it made him so happy that he almost jumped up. "Quickly see what this thing is for making!"

The data terminal was also quite happy. It floated up and directed several autonomous machines to move some strange containers over: "This is simple, just add the raw materials and press the start button, then read its database while the machine is running."

Hao Ren quickly urged the data terminal to start. He himself couldn't resist his curiosity and went behind the Origin Artifact to observe. Even Doudou took advantage of the inattention of others and jumped onto the latter's chassis: the little guy didn't know what this was doing, but she saw that her father was so happy, so she thought that the huge thing in front of her must be very powerful.

Maybe it was a long-lost second cousin.

A small part of the Origin Artifact's outer shell was quickly removed, and several "feeding ports" had also been opened. Various raw materials synthesized from the ship's factory were injected into it in sequence. The data terminal directed the injection of raw materials while reading the core of the artifact, which was the database of the Sacred Scepter, to confirm that the synthesis of these raw materials was not a problem. The Sacred Scepter was indeed a storage and processing device—but unfortunately it had only just started running, and many things had to be read out as it gradually started up. Now the data terminal could only confirm the list of raw materials.

"Water... normal, Group A proteins... normal, acidified compounds... normal, mineral group 01... normal, mineral group 02... normal..." The data terminal compared and recited, and everyone around it became more and more expectant in its slow voice.

According to a part of the artifact's instructions, this was an extremely rapid synthesis device, and it only needed a short while to initially create what it wanted. Hao Ren had already begun to plan when to stop the synthesis when it reached a certain stage: he didn't want to really create a sentient but uncontrollable living person, it would be troublesome to deal with then.

But no one noticed that Doudou was still lying in a small corner of the rear half of the Origin Artifact: this corner was the location of a main feeding port, and the open guard plate on the feeding port happened to block the little mermaid's entire figure.

Doudou looked down at the feeding port, stuck her head in and smelled it, and immediately clapped her tail happily: she felt that this should be very delicious.

So she jumped in happily.