The director of the Institute of Botanical Research, Mr. Collet, thought and thought about it, and could not restrain himself from sending a message to Norman, strongly hoping that Norman and An Jin would return to Siao as soon as possible. At the same time he asked, “Your Majesty, may I ask how the empress purifies the soil and plants?”
Norman replied, “The mermaid king’s power.”
Dean Collet was disappointed, so that no one could do it except the empress. Soon, he was happy again, the mermaid king was the empress of Siao! The rest of the planets in the Star Alliance were envious of Siao Planet, after all, Siao’s future empress could purify the seeds! If they knew that the empress could also purify the soil, they would be envious!
Collet again expressed his strong desire for them to return to Siao as soon as possible, and thanked An Jin.
Norman conveyed Collet’s thanks and looked at the teenager and said seriously, “Thank you.”
An Jin smiled at him. “You’re welcome, I’m just doing what I can, and I’m helping myself.”
—
At eight p.m., the sky of Rabe Star darkened and the city lights shone brightly. An Jin declined to be accompanied by his personal guard and wore a mask and an ordinary face for a night stroll, a date to be exact, with the equally ordinary Norman. Norman drove an open-topped shuttle, which passed through the colorful tourist track and arrived at the best viewpoint of Rabe, an island about twenty meters above the water.
The two wings of the shuttle were raised, and An Jin and Norman got out left and right. An Jin got off and took two steps when he heard a whimpering sound on his right.
A tall Tek mermaid kissed an Aisa mermaid in the car, and the Aisa mermaid’s foot rubbed against the Tek mermaid’s foot, and it was not forced. He blushed slightly and hurriedly withdrew his eyes, and saw Norman walking around the front of the car towards him. He hurriedly and quickly met him, took Norman’s hand and walked to the left, leaving the parking place by about ten meters before he slowed down and let go of Norman’s hand, only to have Norman grab him.
“What’s wrong?” Norman asked.
An Jin said awkwardly, “No, nothing.”
Norman grabbed the teenager, his eyes flashing with laughter, his fingers traced the white side of the teenager’s face, and lowered his head to kiss him on the lips. He reminded the teenager, “The best viewpoint of Rabe Star is also the most popular dating spot for couples, the scene just now will be seen everywhere, want to go back?”
An Jin’s eyes widened. “Did you just see that too?”
“No.” Norman added after a moment, “I have good hearing.”
The parking lot was well lit with night lights, but the two close mermaids were in the shadows, and he was pulled away by the teenager before he could approach. He did not see, but heard the sound, and then looked at the teenager’s appearance, and immediately knew what had happened. He asked again, “Do you want to go back?”
An Jin shook his head, “No.”
He and Norman had chosen the sights together, and although he was surprised by the openness of the mermaids, he wasn’t ready to abandon the original plan. Norman took the teenager by the arm and walked to the viewing lane that was built on the outermost part of the island to look out over the night view of Rabe’s star.
The atmosphere was so good that it didn’t take long for them to kiss each other. Norman pressed his forehead against An Jin’s, and his voice was dark. “Let’s go back.”
An Jin’s ears burned and he nodded.
—
The next day, An Jin had just finished breakfast when he heard the butler report, “King, Admiral Mu Chen has brought a Tek mermaid to see you.”
An Jin hurriedly asked him to let him go, got up from the table, and before he could reach the door, Little Silver ran in from outside.
“An An!” Little Silver excitedly hugged An Jin and spun him around, putting An Jin down and pointing at his feet. “I’m getting good at using my feet, aren’t I super good?!”
An Jin was stunned by his sudden movement and secretly rubbed his back and nodded in agreement. “Mn, you are very good.” He looked at Little Silver with some surprise. Little Silver was tall, about the same height as Norman, with no scales on his cheeks and his silver-gray hair tied loosely behind his head. He had a kind of reserved handsomeness.
Norman took An Jin by the shoulders and said seriously to Little Silver, “You don’t just hug An An.”
Little Silver stared at Norman, and not waiting for him to say anything, Mu Chen put his hand on his shoulder and reminded him, “Keep a polite distance from others.”
Little Silver frowned, thought of the basic social etiquette Mu Chen taught yesterday, and nodded. “Okay.” He walked twice in front of An Jin and said with a raised eyebrow, “First, I’ll show you, I’ll go to school later and show Ling Ling and the others how I walk!” He asked An Jin, “Does An An want to go to school with me?”
An Jin shook his head. “I have something to do.”
Little Silver walked around An Jin, showed him how he walked again, and then left, and Mu Chen sent him off to school.
An Jin practiced his water skills in a large area of water circled by the Royal Palace, while Norman sat on a cushioned chair on the shore, checking the documents of the Ministry of War, his eyes dropping to the water every now and then.
When he looked into the water once more, he frowned slightly. The water floated in a hazy mist, which grew larger and larger, cutting off the view.
“An An?” he couldn’t help but utter.
The next moment, he saw the water mist dispersed from the middle, forming a clear channel, and the little mermaid swam along the channel to the shore, both hands on the edge of the shore, blue eyes with doubt. “What is it?”
Norman walked to the shore and caressed the side of the little mermaid’s face with his palm. “It’s okay, don’t get tired.”
An Jin unconsciously rubbed and seriously explained, “Not tired, I did not even move, this will only consume spiritual power.”
Norman took his face and kissed it, and let him continue to exercise. An Jin turned back to the water. Looking at the water mist on both sides, suddenly a thought flashed in his heart, Norman just called him, because he could not see him?
The fog behind him closed, separating him from Norman’s view. After a while, the water mist suddenly dispersed from his and Norman’s line of sight, so he smiled at Norman, and no longer let the water mist block him.
After he easily controlled the concentration and range of the water mist, he was thinking about how else the water ability could be used after the upgrade, when he received a communication from Ling Ling.
“An An, when can Rui Rui and I be baptized?”
An Jin thought for a moment and asked, “When are you guys free?”
Rui Rui’s voice came through, saying, “Anytime, we can take time off!”
“…” An Jin, seeing how much they were looking forward to it, didn’t want to disappoint them. “I’ll give you an answer later.”
After hanging up the communication, he contacted Jorens and asked for the time of Rabe Star’s bar mitzvah.
After that, he contacted Ling Ling. “The holy land is having a bar mitzvah in the afternoon, the morning is empty. You and Rui Rui, Gu Gu, Bubbles get ready, I will pick you up later.”
Ling Ling was overjoyed. “Okay!”
An Jin went ashore, discussed with Norman, called Hornád, and took the four mermaids to the sanctuary. It took almost two hours for the four mermaids to differentiate, but An Jin spent most of his time absorbing the energy from the beast’s core.
After the differentiation, all four were excited, Ling Ling and Rui Rui touched each other’s legs with new faces.
Ling Ling poked Rui Rui’s calf. “It’s bare, but it’s so soft!”
Rui Rui’s fingers rubbed the skin of Ling Ling’s ankle, and Ling Ling abruptly withdrew his foot, his cheeks flushed. “No touching!”
Rui Rui’s red eyes glowed and he looked at Ling Ling and smiled. He jumped on Ling Ling and kissed him for a while and said something in Ling Ling’s ear, but Ling Ling pulled him away by his hair.
An Jin said, “…You can’t walk on your feet yet, turn back to your tails first, and we’ll send you back to your place.”
The four were very obedient and turned into mermaid form.
Sending the four to their residence, An Jin said to Hornád, “I will trouble you to take care of them.”
Garrett and Xie Li had not come to Rabe, so Hornád was the human who knew the mermaids best.
Hornád laughed. “No trouble, no trouble at all, I have contacted another caretaker.”
Four mermaids were learning to walk, and he couldn’t watch them alone. When they found out they were going to teach the mermaids to walk, the caregivers scrambled to help, and Hornád chose three of the more stable ones.
—
After lunch, An Jin sat at his desk recording the energy needed to differentiate the mermaids and analyzing it for comparison. His full spiritual power could help almost one mermaid, and the energy absorbed to make his spiritual sea become full quickly was almost the energy of a fifth level beast core.
After calculating, An Jin was shocked; the higher the level of the beast core the more expensive, and a level five beast core cost one hundred thousand! He pressed the corner of his forehead, so the cost of differentiation was too high. But if he relied on the natural recovery of spiritual power trying to get the mermaids all through the baptism, it would take too long.
He secretly thanked himself. Fortunately pure seeds were very profitable, and he had bought a lot of beast cores before for the preparation of the holy tree, otherwise he was afraid the beast cores would not be enough.
There would be no bar mitzvah on Rabe tomorrow; the sacred ground would be empty all day!
He opened the list of Star League mermaids and pondered how to arrange for mermaids to be baptized. The reason the mermaids all came to Rabe Star was for the baptism, and some of them would also return to the planet where they were born, and after the baptism they would be more convenient in the human world.
With this in mind, he circled the mermaids that he had decided to return to and gave priority to baptizing them. As he was making his plans, his communication rang, and he picked up.
Jorens voice immediately came through, his voice serious. “King, we found the location where the impurities are most dense.”
An Jin was surprised at Rabe’s efficiency. “So fast?”
Jorens tone was ashamed. “I should have found it yesterday, after all, underwater was the world of mermaids. It’s just that Rabe’s impurity meter didn’t have enough range to detect any impurities under the water initially.” He was glad. “But the detector provided by Siao worked very well, and found that the impurities were very thick deep under the water.”
An Jin heard his tone of voice and asked, “Is the situation bad?”
Jorens said in a deep voice, “The most dense location is a black stone wrapped by roots, very large, we are searching for the rest of the concentrated locations.”
“Black stone?” An Jin was puzzled.
“A stone composed of impurities, black,” Jorens said, “and experts speculate that the impurities of the sacred tree are absorbed from the black stone. There’s no telling how many of these black stones there are yet, and if we don’t find them all, the sacred tree will remain contaminated.” He sounded chagrined. “Rabe Star’s measuring instruments are so poorly made.”
The ancestors exchanged the technology of the expedition, and the members of the expedition and the concerns of the Rabe planet led to the fact that the Rabe planet mainly developed combat-related technology and the rest of the Rabe planet was still very backward.
An Jin thought for a moment and asked, “Where is the black? I want to see.”
On the way, An Jin couldn’t help but ask Norman, “Did Siao ever find out about this black stone?”
Norman shook his head and said in a deep voice, “The impurities are everywhere, but there is no location where the concentration is particularly high.” He paused. “I’ll have someone keep measuring.”
Rabe’s situation forced him to consider that Siao also had black stone, but it had not been measured.
Twenty minutes later, An Jin and Norman, escorted by their personal guard, arrived at their destination, which was a more remote area of water north of Rabe’s star, with a makeshift parking lot built out of heavy buoyancy panels on the water.
A perimeter was set up around the edge of the buoyancy board, forbidding entry, and a circle of Tek soldiers stood around the perimeter. When An Jin stepped off the shuttle, the soldiers’ eyes fell on him with excitement and respect.
Jorens immediately greeted him, “King, His Majesty Norman.”
He led the two men closer to a makeshift office where the grand elder and the four experts heard the commotion and hurriedly saluted.
An Jin said, “You are welcome.”
He said this while sweeping his eyes over the black stones on the floor, then to the white translucent oval stone on the table. He was slightly flabbergasted. “Where did this come from?”