Osho's eyes narrowed, but he let the recording play.
"To cut the long story short, there are alien worlds out there that have their sights on Azure Star. However, for some reason or the other, we're still trying to figure that out. They can't act freely. But they still have their sights on this place, so they resorted to more subtle means." Fredrick's eyes darkened.
"For instance, convincing the locals to help them with their goals by promising them certain things," He leaned into his chair. "They are very good at hiding their tracks, but it's difficult for them to fully erase all traces of themselves." He looked to the side where all the documents were, like he was in the room with Osho.
"In those documents, you will find numerous odd purchases made by different groups of people, many of them in places of power. From certain corporations buying large amounts of a specific material they wouldn't need and sending it somewhere, to odd movements within mercenary groups or guilds. Everything we found out is there with you, so you can look at it at your own pace." He shook his head. Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn novel✶fire.net
"Sadly, we couldn't find anything concrete that would point us in the direction of whoever — or whatever — created the Skyblight Harbinger and the Abyssal Scrounger. But it's a start. Moreover, the beasts that hatched from those eggs are getting stronger and unlocking new abilities. Once that happens, our ability to gather information will increase exponentially, however, I'd prefer you sent more of such eggs our way, as while the ones you gave us are great, our members are still few, so there's only so much we can do. That can serve as the payment for our services, among other things." He was silent for a few seconds, like he was considering what else to say, and Osho thought he was done when Fredrick nodded and spoke.
"Right, one more thing. You went to Stellaris, right? Good. If you want to gather information for yourself, look into the Faction that calls itself the Lumineers. They are one of the groups we discovered to have strange movements. I don't know how you will do it, but there's something fishy about them in particular." And with that, the recording ended.
Osho stared at the device for a few seconds, his face unreadable. Then, he sighed.
'Okay. There are a few things to unpack here.' He leaned back into his seat and stared upwards.
'The Outerplanar, huh? Is that the name of a specific race or just what all aliens are called? If it's the latter, how many races are out there? How many are hostile? Which ones have their hands involved in all of this? And which ones are more proactive than the rest?' He mused as he replayed the recording in his mind.
He glanced at the documents and shook his head. He'd look into them later.
'The Lumineers, huh?'
He'd looked into the top factions within the Academy at some point after the confrontation with Ahmed, and to his surprise, other than Constella, they all had a pretty significant presence outside Stellaris. They were either large/powerful beast tamer guilds or expansive organisations with a lot of influence, with the Lumineers being the latter.
Similar to their presence in Stellaris, outside, they had an odd obsession with beasts possessing the light Affinity and extended their arms to anyone who hatched a beast with such an Affinity.
They seemed to follow the light or something similar.
If Osho was being honest, they kinda creeped him out, and that's coming from the guy who came from an obscure cult that believed in Ascension through the stars.
Still, they just reminded him of a capitalist organization with many steps. They had numerous businesses and operations within numerous Citadels across the planet, and they generated a large amount of revenue every year to fulfill their goals.
'Now I wonder what those goals are...' He frowned.
If they were indeed involved with the Outerplanar in a negative way, they would need to be removed, but they were a significant force that contributed a lot to humanity's growth in this vile world, so taking them out would be a substantial blow.
'Still, even if a tumor is helpful, it is, in the end, still a tumor...' He rubbed his temples.
'I need more information, I can't jump to conclusions yet. That said...' He glanced at the rows of vials and exhaled. 'If they need to be removed, replacing them shouldn't be insanely difficult.'
At that moment, a light breeze suddenly blew through the room before condensing above Osho's shoulder. He didn't even spare it a glance, though, as the wind condensed and took the shape of a bird, then solidified.
Gale materialized on his shoulder with a triumphant chirp, and Osho spared him a glance.
"You've been turning intangible with every chance you got." He said flatly, and the bird stared at him blankly.
"If YOU had the ability to go intangible at any point in time with virtually zero repercussions, wouldn't you spam it as well?" Gale spoke. As in, he didn't use the wind to mimic voices. He actually spoke in an airy but light voice that was oddly refreshing.
"Sound logic, I'll give you that." Osho conceded, unperturbed by his beast speaking. After all, it was just one of the many changes that came with him entering the Adept Rank.
"What's all of this?" Gale cocked his head, and if one looked closely, they'd see that his feathers had a faint metallic sheen, but it was difficult to notice at first glance. Moreover, if one looked at his sky blue eyes, they'd see that the inner irises seemed to have odd rings around them.
"Evidence," Osho pointed at the stacks of documents. "And world changing items." He pointed at the vials.
Gale completely ignored the documents and once more became intangible wisps of wind before materializing past the vials with one of them within one of his talons.
He pulled the cork off and sniffed it.
"It smells nice." He remarked and tilted it back to drink, but Osho snatched it away.
"Hey, those aren't easy to make!" Gale scolded the bird who just rolled his eyes.
"Please, worst comes to worst. Just ask for more materials to make more." He said dismissively, and Osho shook his head.
He looked around the lab, and compared to when he first came, the surrounding shelves were quite a bit more... empty.
It couldn't be helped, between his experimentation and evolutions, the rate at which he burned through the rare materials was quite absurd, and while he didn't know how much everything cost, he wouldn't be surprised to know that he burned through millions of credits worth of materials with every session of his.
Naturally, he'd put in a request to get restocked. However, Veronica and Mateo informed him that he needed to show them his progress in creating items using these materials before his request was granted. This was so that they knew he wasn't just burning through them doing pointless things. After all, they weren't allowed to enter the lab and see what he was doing, so they had no way to monitor his progress with... whatever.
It was inconvenient but not unsurprising. Osho had already progressed immensely due to this lab and the things it had within it, so that was enough to be thankful. However, Osho still wanted to progress, and he'd need even more things to do just that.
As such, other than the evolution regents, he'd been developing other things he didn't believe would be too groundbreaking, but still significant enough for them to give him more stuff to use for his experiments. However, that wasn't until later the next day.
"By the way, the egg is hungry." Gale suddenly said with an unamused voice, and Osho blinked before understanding dawned on him.
That was another odd but weirdly consistent thing that had been in his life these past few months.
He used the ring and took in all the documents as well as the recording devices into it. He then put the regents into another spatial ring, and he stood up as he stretched.
After becoming an Adept Rank Beast Tamer, Osho's body had naturally gotten a lot stronger, with his vitality increasing immensely.
That said, he happened to take advantage of that fact by pulling all-nighters to accomplish his goals...
He said that, but in truth, it was just a convenient reality whenever he found himself hyperfocusing.
He took off his lab attire, and Gale materialized on his shoulder.
They made their way to his bedroom, and Osho's nose was immediately assaulted with a strong metallic smell, but Gake waved a wing and blew it away.
On his table, the red egg sat, and it looked no different from a few weeks ago except one key detail that, in hindsight, should have been alarming.