Necromancer, summoning 055? What the heck?

Chapter 232 [Stars] Super Freight Arrives: Seeds of the Tree of Life Begin to Bloom
Chen Mo's advancement is a great joy for the Han Hai Territory, and also for the overall development of Dong Xia.

Two worlds, both filled with jubilation.

For the staff of the [Compassionate Voyage] project, the sight of mountains of supplies always made them feel dizzy.

The workload has exploded again!

This is different from the supplies that Dongxia sent to the Starry Continent. Every piece of equipment and material sent by Dongxia had clear labels and instructions. When to use it, where to use it, how to use it, and how much to use were all clearly planned. Even the spare parts were arranged to be stored on which shelf and which floor of the warehouse.

However, the first problem that Dongxia needs to solve regarding the things that Fanxing sent back is—what the hell is this?!
This is the hardest part.

After all, many of the things they collected were things that even Chen Mo himself often didn't know what they were.

Delivering these bizarre and unidentified "otherworldly specialties" precisely to the most suitable and appropriate departments and research institutions within the territory of Dongxia is an extremely large and complex system engineering project. It tests not only interdisciplinary and cross-field professional competence, but also the ultimate test of associative and coordination abilities.

This is a heavily fortified military base located on the outskirts of Star Shield New City, and also the headquarters of the [Compassionate Voyage] Engineering Department, which connects with Youzi.

As the most senior member, the one who had the most contact with the wanderers, and the most skilled in the business, Lin Xiangdong, after visually assessing the scale of the supplies in the center of the site, especially after seeing the huge cage marked with a red symbol in the back, felt a slight tremor in his heart and immediately pressed the emergency call button.

Chi Qiu and Zheng Ran from the first group immediately moved from the second scene to the first scene, while the second group of stargazing also moved to the second scene to continue closely monitoring the situation at the first scene.

Lin Xiangdong and Chi Qiu pressed the call button simultaneously again to report the situation on site to the central command. At the same time, a large number of automated equipment and inspection robots entered the site and carried out the inspection in an orderly manner.

After the first round of basic security checks was completed, Lin Xiangdong, wearing special gloves, opened Chen Mo's letter. Chi Qiu began recording the entire process, and the video footage of the letter would be sent directly to the leaders of the military and government of Dongxia.

In his letter, Chen Mo, as always, began by expressing his gratitude and longing for his elders, his appreciation and thanks to the Cihang Project Office and the Guanxing Group for their concern and support, his joy at the rapid development of his hometown, and his deep yearning for the scenery and flavors of his hometown…

Some of his words might sound like political jargon to others, but when written by Chen Mo, they are truly filled with a deep sense of sorrow and parting.

Light-years away, I yearn for my motherland, my emotions overflowing; across the vast Milky Way, my heart remains with my homeland, my dreams and soul bound to it.

"Leaning on the railing in the night, gazing north towards my home mountains, my heart is breaking; my longing to return is like an arrow, yet I cannot cross the vast sky, tears soaking my clothes."

“Whenever I recall the misty rain of Jiangnan and the wind and snow of the northern frontier, I think of the dust and smoke of my old home and the moonlight of my old house. This feeling cannot be dispelled, so I entrust it to the distant Milky Way.”

Clearly, Chen Mo has become increasingly sentimental lately, perhaps because he's been reading some books.

The lower half of the letter describes the items that were transported back this time.

The samples, including surface soil, underground rocks, water bodies, ores, atmosphere, and dust collected from various regions, were partly transferred to the Dongxia Fanxing Geographical Research Institute and partly to the Institute of Materials Science.

Silver mines, silver marrow, silver cores, and other resources from the land of silver are shared by the Institute of Materials Science and the Institute of High Energy Physics.

Plant and animal remains were transferred to the biological laboratory, medicines and pharmaceuticals to the drug research center, spellcasting materials to the psionic research institute, and the latest astronomical and meteorological data were handed over to the two specialized departments, Starry Sky and Starry Meteorology.

All materials, if in relatively sufficient quantity, will be sealed and sent to the central backup center of Star Shield City.

In the center of the supply convoy was a special cage that was given directly to the on-site medical team after the supplies were opened. Inside were several mammals, reptiles, and insects from the Starry Sky World.

Just now, the medical team reported back that all patients showed no signs of life.

This was a live teleportation attempt that [Wanderer] always made during his teleportations, and Chen Mo was never willing to give up!
Of course, Dongxia was not willing to give up either!
Next comes the highlight of this trip, brought by the travelers.

The large steel cage marked with a red high-risk symbol had been smoothly pushed by a heavy metal conveyor belt to the specially established Dongxia [Undead Creature Research and Control Center], located a kilometer away.

The atmosphere here was even more tense than in the main receiving area. A large number of research experts, technicians, and armed guards in protective suits were on high alert, ready for any major attack.

Even Xia Hong, the first commander of the military's undead forces, personally rushed to the scene to take command.

"Let's begin." Commander Xia Hong's voice rang out through the loudspeaker.

The remotely controlled robot precisely unlocked the outermost latch of the cage, and the first layer of grilles slowly rose. What first appeared before everyone was a miniature skeleton dog, no bigger than an adult's palm.

The little creature seemed bewildered by the unfamiliar environment and intense light. The fire of its soul flickered faintly in its empty eye sockets. It circled around in a daze, its tiny skeletal claws clicking softly on the metal floor.

Soon, it spotted the red five-pointed star symbol standing in front of it—a "safe point" and "signal of belonging" that the necromancers of the Starry World had repeatedly instilled in it.

After the necromancer's "patient communication" and "promise of treatment," the miniature skeleton dog immediately trotted over and crashed headfirst into the [Soul Soothing] magic circle that had already been set up below the red five-pointed star.

A soft light enveloped it, further stabilizing its simple soul structure. A few minutes later, the miniature skeleton dog obediently followed a necromancer apprentice trained by Dongxia away from the scene.

As it walked, the skeleton dog swayed its tail into a folding fan shape, making those who saw it constantly worry that its thin tailbone might fly off at any moment.

Commander Xia Hong's face had just shown a slight smile, but it quickly turned into heartache.

As the second layer of grilles opened, several skeleton horses emerged somewhat timidly.

Their skeletons were large, but the bones were covered with fine wear marks. The commander's face was contorted with heartache when he saw the rough saddles that were deeply embedded in the gaps between the bones and the badly worn ropes.

"What a waste! What a waste!"

In Commander Xia's heart, these were all his soldiers.

The steel grilles opened layer by layer in an orderly fashion. After the previous batch of undead creatures were appeased and taken away from the scene, the next batch of undead creatures would be released and guided into the [Soul-Soothing] magic circle, marked by the red five-pointed stars that the Starry Night Necromancers had repeatedly reinforced for these undead creatures with low intelligence.

The third layer of grilles contains new types of undead creatures: alien skeleton soldiers and tin zombies.
The fourth level consists of flesh and blood giants and dark stone statues...

Adhering to the principle of not wasting transport capacity, Chen Mo crammed a large batch of undead creatures he had obtained from the Land of Exile, thus significantly increasing the size of the Eastern Xia undead force.

In the letter, Chen Mo also expressed his regret.

Currently, the Vast Ocean Territory has not yet completely dealt with those unclaimed high-level undead creatures.

Low-level undead creatures have limited intelligence and are relatively easy to fool... no, easy to coax!
After patient communication and offering suitable promises and benefits, the necromancers of the Starry World readily accepted the interdimensional labor dispatch arrangement for the low-level undead creatures who already had little autonomy.

However, it's a completely different story for high-ranking undead creatures. Without the orders of an undead lord, and facing a completely unfamiliar star field, these undead, who consider themselves intelligent, all choose to stay in the starry world that they are already familiar with and relatively safe.

Currently, the migration of necromancers and undead creatures from the Exile is still a continuous and lengthy process. Chen Mo optimistically stated at the end of his letter that given more time, the Vast Ocean Territory is confident it can persuade a group of high-ranking undead creatures to contribute to the modernization of Eastern Xia.

After settling the undead creatures, the last items entrusted to him by Chen Mo were the "Seed of the Tree of Life" and the "Fountain of Life".

Without a doubt, this task was assigned to the most powerful research institute in the Xia Kingdom, the Starry Sky Biology Institute, led by Academician Zheng Yuanhang, to conduct a comprehensive study on the seeds of the Tree of Life.

Having obtained this legendary, miraculous seed, the research institute was naturally reluctant to conduct destructive research. Therefore, they first used various instruments of different sizes to carefully measure the intensity of the energy field and the changes in spiritual energy around the seed several times.

By the time we finished the initial data recording, it was already past midnight.

Academician Zheng Yuanhang was clearly not very satisfied with the data. He rubbed his slightly sore lower back and decided to spend the night in the institute's rest room and continue testing early the next morning.

As a result, the exhausted professor, who had just fallen asleep after a long day of work, was awakened by a series of urgent knocks on the door.

The one who came was his thirteenth disciple, assistant researcher Yu Suhuai. Many old professors have a special student. He may be of average talent and have little background. Among a group of outstanding students, he is often the most inconspicuous one, and his personality may even be a bit dull and slow.

But only such children will quietly stay by their teacher's side while one outstanding student after another soars into the sky, doing tedious and repetitive basic work, taking notes, assisting, preparing equipment, and handling miscellaneous tasks, working diligently and without complaint.

Just like Zeng Shen, who was from Lu, the greatest contribution of Confucius was to record what Confucius said, or Ananda, who was obsessed with learning, always wrote down "Thus have I heard" without changing a single word.

To put it bluntly—that's what my teacher said!

Yu Suhuai is such a student. She follows the steps in the operation manual, and reports any unexpected events not covered in the manual to the teacher.

The old academician sat up groggily, took out his glasses and put them on. When he saw that it was this student, he was quite helpless.

"Speak, what is it? Can't you let me rest a little longer..."

"Teacher, teacher, look! It's alive! It just crawled out!"

Yu Suhuai's voice trembled slightly as he handed the tablet screen to Academician Zheng, pointing to a faint green tinge in the magnified image.

"What?! What did you say?!" Academician Zheng's sleepiness was instantly dispelled.

The footage comes from one of the dense network of cameras inside the laboratory.

According to safety regulations, once the core laboratory enters an unmanned dormant state, any moving object appearing in the non-animal-controlled area will instantly activate the dynamic capture alarm of the monitoring system.

What if an insect runs out and contaminates the petri dish?

So when something happened in the laboratory, Yu Suhuai rushed to knock on the old academician's door.

Zheng Yuanhang took off his glasses, rubbed them, and put them back on. His glasses were almost touching the screen as he stared dumbfounded at the little thing in the center of the screen that was trying to "escape".

It was a small sprout about six centimeters tall!

This little sprout has a very unique shape. Its main body consists of two sets of broad, thick leaves with elegant wavy edges and a vibrant, almost dripping green color.

These leaves are moving, moving up and down. This little sprout is relying on the strange adhesion of the broad leaves to "climb" up the inner wall of the glass box little by little!
"When...did this start?"

The old academician's voice was a little hoarse, and Associate Researcher Yu quickly replied: "At three o'clock, the alarm went off. I was also very sleepy at the time, lying on the small bed in the duty room. The on-duty personnel called me and said that the seeds had sprouted."

"When I saw it, it was already fully unfolded, and then it started crawling out..."

The old academician didn't care about the details anymore. He shoved the tablet into Yu Suhuai's hands, hastily put on his coat, slipped on his shoes, and rushed out.

"What are you all standing there for! Let's go!"

As Zheng Yuanhang and Yu Suhuai rushed into the buffer room of the core laboratory, and looked through the huge observation window, they witnessed a scene that would cause their hearts to stop and their blood pressure to spike—

The tender green sprout had successfully "climbed" out of the open container. It stretched its top bud out over the edge of the lab table, seemingly curiously "examining" the distant ground below. Then, it actually began to try climbing down the vertical wall of the table, head down and feet up!
Whether it was a misjudgment, a failure to control its center of gravity, or simply a lack of balance due to its recent birth, it had only moved down a small section when the adsorption leaf on the right side of its "body" slipped, and the entire sprout instantly lost its support, resulting in a classic upside-down scallion falling straight down from the edge of the table, which was nearly a meter high!
"Ah—!" In the buffer zone, more than one person let out a short exclamation, and everyone's heart jumped into their throat.

After the little sprout fell to the ground, it lay sprawled on the floor, its large leaves crooked and the two small leaflets at the top that had been closed apart also spread out, revealing only a tiny bit of the bud core inside, swaying slightly.

I wonder if she was stunned by the fall.

"Holy crap!"

Academician Zheng hadn't sworn in years, but at this moment he couldn't hold back any longer. He grabbed the door of the buffer room and was about to rush in when Yu Suhuai quickly stopped him: "Teacher, regulations, hygiene regulations!"

After the academician finished the disinfection process and put on his protective suit, the little thing had recovered and began to move slowly on the ground with its leaves, almost on all fours.

At first glance, it looks a bit like a perfectly camouflaged orchid mantis, patrolling its territory in extremely slow motion.

The two smaller tender leaves at the top had already closed up again, which, in the old professor's eyes, looked like his little darling covering his head.

Don't break it!

The moment the laboratory door opened, the old academician rushed in. It wasn't that the others were less skilled than him, but rather that they dared not rush in first.

Then, everyone saw the little guy's performance.

The little sprout, which was slowly moving on the ground, froze instantly. Then, with astonishing speed, it suddenly curled and contracted all its previously spread and wriggling leaves, tightly wrapping them around the thin main stem in the middle.

Almost in the blink of an eye, it transformed from a crawling and moving "little animal" back into a slightly larger, tightly closed, quiet green "leaf bud" that remained motionless in place.

Even that vibrant green color seemed to have dimmed a bit.

If you hadn't just witnessed its performance on the surveillance camera, no one could imagine what it had just done.
The old academician and his disciples exchanged glances, recalling the detailed instructions that had come with the seeds.

In its adult form, it will disguise itself as a stationary tree when someone approaches. It seems that this habit... existed even in its juvenile form.

If they're putting on an act, then we have to play along and put on an act too!
The old man started jumping up and down, putting on a rather unremarkable performance.

"How did you manage to keep them? How could you leave such important seeds on the ground?"

"This is a crime, do you know that's a crime?"

"Look, it's all cracked, even the leaves inside have fallen out. Let me tell you, if anything happens to this, you'll all be sent to be shot!"

While repeatedly saying "Teacher, I was wrong!" and "Teacher, I'm sorry!", Yu Suhuai gently lifted the "sprout" on the ground with soft pliers and placed it on a glass tray on the other side of the low operating table.

A large number of security personnel in protective suits entered the venue.

All instruments and equipment that could be climbed by the "little darling" and cause him to fall again were moved to a position against the wall;

All the low-lying crevices that could allow it to squeeze in and get stuck were sealed with special boards, with the standard being "so that even cockroaches can't squeeze in."
All table edges and surfaces with a height exceeding 20 centimeters were constructed with soft, sterile materials to create gentle slopes, facilitating its potential "climbing" in the future.
The floor around the table and equipment station was covered with cushioning air cushions, and then a layer of sponge was laid on top of the air cushions.

All sharp right angles of table corners and equipment stands have been wrapped with thick cushioning foam and soft silicone material to form rounded corners to prevent bumps and knocks.

All sharp and hard tools, including scissors, tweezers, pliers, and glass test tubes, were removed from the site.

All the power outlets were covered with protective covers, but the old academician was still not at ease, so he ordered all power supplies except those for basic lighting and the monitoring system to be cut off...

In short, the goal is to create a safe and secure nursery where the "child" can crawl around freely.

Finally, the old man took a few more reluctant looks before ordering everyone to evacuate.

Laboratory No. 1 of the Starry Sky Biology Research Institute of the Xia Guo Academy of Sciences fell silent once again.

(End of this chapter)