Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics Chapter 6196: Machine Soul Ideal Realm (64)

Chapter 6196: Chapter 5207: Machine Soul Ideal Realm (64)

The Ancient Ones are a deep-sea race that can withstand immense water pressure, with physical strength that naturally goes without saying. Their barrel-shaped, bulky bodies are actually some sort of non-bony, resilient shell, protecting their soft tentacles and heads when necessary. The bat-like wings are used for propulsion in water when their bodies are contracted. It may look strange, but it actually makes sense.

Shiller was sharpening his claws on the shell, exerting force that couldn’t even be considered as scratching, at best like kneading. Yet one Ancient One still wobbly extended a tentacle, intending to pick Shiller up but not daring to do so, merely poking him gently with the tip of the tentacle, hoping he would get down himself.

Shiller closely observed the head of the Ancient One, noticing that there wasn’t the typical human brain structure. They weren’t even chordates. This implies their sensory perceptions might be vastly different from humans, although judging by what they can express, their cognition of the material world is similar to humans. However, this doesn’t mean their way of observing the world is the same.

For instance, Brainiac can also easily draw images of animals, but it’s very likely he doesn’t recognize animals through visual observation; rather, he perceives them through magnetic fields and electromagnetic waves, things humans can’t detect, sketching the specific shape of objects. He possesses a more comprehensive and detailed ability to perceive than humans.

The Ancient Ones might be similar; they may not necessarily rely on sight, and even the eye-like structure on their heads differs completely from human eye structure. Their sensory organs might be more akin to bats, interacting with objects through some force, using echo recognition to understand the world.

This might also explain why they can perceive the unusual strength emanating from Shiller. Humans cannot perceive certain mystical entities, often because their senses are too weak, making them unable to discern subtle energies. Naturally, they can’t see ghosts with their eyes. Creatures like the Ancient Ones might perceive a far richer world than humans.

Imagine if a person could see electromagnetic waves; the entire world might appear very brilliant. Or from the perspective of the mages at Kamar-Taj, Demon Gods composed of different kinds of magical powers are actually multicolored and variously beautiful, whereas ordinary people can only see a blurry black mass.

If this is the case, then to the Ancient Ones, Shiller might not be just a cat, but a messy-looking monster. The strength provided by Nya might suit human aesthetics, but it likely doesn’t suit the Ancient Ones.

Shiller didn’t care at all; he lay directly on the Ancient One’s shoulder, curled up into a ball, preparing to take a nap. The reason for sleeping on the Ancient One was partly to prevent him from running around, and also to provide some warmth – the body of a cat is quite warm.

As soon as Shiller closed his eyes, he felt a vibration coming from beneath him; it was the Ancient One speaking. This also showcases the habits of deep-sea creatures, much like whales using infrasound waves for communication, as these sound waves travel farther in the ocean, though human senses find them hard to detect.

Shiller ignored him, which led to the Ancient One poking him again with a tentacle, this time under the chin. Shiller opened his eyes to look at him, as the pentagram-shaped head just turned a tentacle towards him, blinking in a way that somehow appeared pitiful.

The Ancient One pointed at Shiller’s mouth with a tentacle. After a pause, Shiller realized the Ancient One might be hungry. So, Shiller went over to the resources pile nearby and pulled out a bit from each type of food.

Their resource reserves were quite abundant, including hard bread, jerky, and freeze-dried vegetables, and even chocolate and honey. The Ancient Ones have never seen these modern foods, picking each up to taste a bit.

The feeding process of these strange creatures was also intriguing. They had no mouths and instead used tentacles to wrap around the food and retract it into the shell above, where there might be digestive organs, resembling an elephant using its trunk to eat.

A series of grinding sounds ensued, possibly some tooth-like structures crushing the food. The Ancient One first ate a piece of freeze-dried carrot, which he didn’t seem to like, as his tentacle shivered slightly, avoiding the pile of freeze-dried vegetables and picking up jerky instead, chewing it before shaking his whole body clearly indicating he liked the jerky. This proves the other party is also an omnivorous creature but prefers meat.

He also tasted the chocolate and honey, but due to the scarcity of sweet foods in the ocean, this race wasn’t very sensitive to sweetness, and the Ancient One didn’t particularly like them. Strangely, he was very interested in hard bread, possibly due to a need for carbohydrates or because its hard texture resembled past food. The Ancient One quickly consumed all the jerky and bread.

Yet he wasn’t full, forced to finish the freeze-dried vegetables, chocolate, and honey too, but even then, he still wasn’t satiated. Considering his body type, it’s not surprising as the Ancient One stands over 7 feet tall, which is about 2.1 meters, and after sleeping for such a long time surely needed to replenish substantial energy.

Fortunately, the other party is an intelligent, advanced life form who understands that these creatures who rescued him probably don’t have much food. It’s apparent that he’s trying hard to endure, attempting to retract his limbs, and minimizing energy consumption by sleeping.

Shiller wasn’t particularly hungry; it’s just that human food is still too high in calories. The nutritional value and fat content of the jerky made from these farm-raised cattle are nothing compared to wild animals. Even the mice raised in the human ship’s cabin are much fatter than wild animals. After coexisting with humans, cats have developed primal pouches; no wonder humans are considered beneficial creatures.

They waited here for about two days. During this time, aside from Shiller eating a bit of food, all of the reserve food was consumed by the Ancient One. Shiller was thinking that if the scientists didn’t come soon, he would figure out a way to get a seal from the coast; the group of Weddell seals he saw earlier was quite plump, probably enough to feed the two of them.

Luckily, in the evening, there was a commotion outside the tent. Not only Shiller woke up, but the Ancient One did as well, all its tentacles stretched out—clearly a defensive posture. Fortunately, when the tent opened, Dexter appeared.

Shiller and the Ancient One both breathed a sigh of relief, the Ancient One’s tentacles lay flat as if greeting. But then, when Professor Dale came in, both sides were stunned.

It’s normal for Professor Dale to be shocked upon seeing a living alien for the first time, but the Ancient One seemed puzzled by how another different creature appeared. Although Professor Dale and Dexter looked the same, their skin color was vastly different, and perhaps, in the eyes of the Ancient One, even the internal body details differed, leaving it unable to determine what their relationship was.

Professor Dale carefully scrutinized the Ancient One, seemingly trying to read its body language, then turned to Dexter and said, “You were right; we can’t take it back to the base. Frank brought some basic equipment, and we’re going to establish a semi-underground base here… No, it’s better to build a subterranean base; that way, it’s less likely to be discovered.”

Dexter nodded, and soon after, Frank also entered. Upon seeing the Ancient One, he was completely shocked, frozen in place, then burst out with profanity, which led Professor Dale to push him out.

Dexter went over to check the supplies and discovered all the food was gone. He lowered his voice and said, “I know you must be hungry having just woken up, so I brought a lot of food. If it’s not enough, we’ll go to the seaside to get some penguins and seals. You should like those.”

After speaking, he opened his backpack, which was filled to the brim with food. The Ancient One was evidently very hungry, grabbing the stuff to eat, but Dexter quickly stopped it because some of this was military rations with plastic packaging, and the outer packaging cannot be eaten.

Dexter helped unwrap all the things for the Ancient One. The outer packaging of the bigger items was fine, but some military rations still had small inner packages. The Ancient One couldn’t wait and directly rolled a pack of cookies that hadn’t had the plastic seal removed into its body, then it realized that the containers humans used to store food were also edible, and it began to eat voraciously.

It devoured all the food in a huge backpack but still didn’t seem completely full. Dexter couldn’t resist contemplating the hunting situation; though a biologist, he wasn’t against hunting, he just needed to think about how much stuff they had to catch to satiate the alien.

After calculating the calories silently in his mind, Dexter sighed. If this creature relies entirely on humans for feeding, then they wouldn’t do anything else for the foreseeable future. Besides, as for hunting, scientists aren’t professional hunters, and Emperor Penguins and Weddell Seals aren’t easy to deal with, potential mishaps could spell big trouble.

Shiller came up with a win-win solution. He jumped onto Dexter’s shoulder and pointed towards the direction of the Weddell Sea. Dexter suddenly understood and quickly went out of the tent to tell Professor Dale and Frank, who were still studying how to dig a subterranean base, “It’s a deep-sea creature; we can just send it back to the sea.”

Professor Dale hesitated for a moment; he knew returning it to the sea was best for the Ancient One, but it might not be best for humans, because they needed the Ancient One’s help to explore the mountains, what if it was released and never returned?

However, it seemed the Ancient One was very concerned about its companions, and there should be more tombs in Antarctica than just these ones. If it wanted to rescue its companions on land, it would still need human help, so they should not break their word.

The group returned to the tent, and Professor Dale took out a map, handing it to the Ancient One. After one glance, the Ancient One looked shocked because evidently, the continental plates of Earth didn’t look like this during its era; why had the solid continent broken apart?

Then Professor Dale pointed to the ocean part of the map, then pointed at the Ancient One itself. All of the Ancient One’s tentacles raised up, appearing to express agreement, even joy. But soon the tentacles drooped down again, as it looked outside the tent, evidently concerned about its companions.

Professor Dale immediately pointed at himself, then pointed outside; the Ancient One hesitated briefly before raising its tentacles again.