I approached Stanley's nest, noticing that the egg was pulsating erratically. It dawned on me that it wasn't pulsating- it was hatching! I watched as one of the many blister-shaped membranes on the outer shell of the egg began ripping and tearing as a small, pointed snout began poking its way out. Eventually, a baby Stalker wriggled its way out of the egg, and I swam back a bit, making sure not to make the baby imprint on me first, not wanting to become the Stalker's father figure. Stanley swam up to the miniature mirror-image, and nuzzled it gently. It was actually pretty decently sized, being over a foot in length, about a foot and a half to be exact. Stella was next, again, nuzzling it with her snout tenderly. They both moved away and turned towards me, and I swam over and pet the baby gently, and he nipped at my gloves. I was officially a part of the family.

Over the next few days, I bonded with the baby, with Stanley's approval of course, but at first it was only when he was with Stanley or Stella. I named the baby Steve after scanning it to confirm it was a "he", and taught Steve how to collect metal salvage, which was actually an important life process for Stalkers. Scans of their teeth showed that the titanium found in the scrap strengthened their tooth enamel when exposed to their teeth, and occasionally, a Stalker would lose a tooth while collecting metal. I grabbed Stalker teeth as souvenirs, and found that their enamel could be combined with glass to make enameled, pressure-resistant glass, useful for deep-sea vehicles and observatories.

I used some enameled glass to make observatories on either side of my Moonpool, overlooking the chasm below for a gorgeous view of the ocean in all its beauty. I used the lithium I collected from the Mushroom Forest to make a few plasteel ingots when combined with a titanium ingot. I then made a pressure compensator and installed it aboard the USS Explorer, alongside the other 3 modules. It was time to deeper. The USS Explorer was now ready for deep-seas exploration, up to 400 meters below sea level, and with a perimeter defense system, I was able to defend myself from potential predators by delivering a localized electric pulse at a voltage of my choosing.

If I was having a hard time navigating my way through a cave system, I could rely upon my sonar system to relay the terrain's layout back to my cockpit's HUD for increased path-finding capabilities. And my power efficiency module effectively micro-managed the USS Explorer's power usage to cut its power usage in half. I could now travel twice as far without needing a recharge! However, I stored this module in my brand new onboard storage module, and decided that I could swap out the power efficiency module and the sonar module as needed. For complex cave exploring or scouting a new area, I preferred the sonar module, but for open-ocean travel or just going far distances in general, I preferred the power efficiency module.

My initial discoveries of the "Grassy Plateaus", as I had named the inner portion of the Grassy Plains, had been most interesting, providing me with 3 separate Cyclops submarine fragments to scan, all three belonging to the hull. I now knew how to make the hull of a Cyclops, but I still needed the bridge and the engine. The engine was a little more challenging to find, requiring me to go to an area that I really didn't like travelling to: the Dunes. I named them this because just beyond the furthest reaches of the massive Grand Reef biome, after the "Sparse Reef" that was a harsh, scarce version of the Grand Reef, there was a vast, seemingly endless desert with huge, rolling hills, mountains even, of sand, with little to no life out there whatsoever.

I hated it there, because the roars of the massive creature I once heard near the Reef's edge were clearly audible, and out in the middle of nowhere, with no place to hide, I was a sitting duck for whatever monstrosity lurked nearby, just barely hidden out of my range of visibility.