Deep Sea Embers

Chapter 91 “Chaotic History”

Duncan decides to get direct since he doesn’t want to beat around the bush after they’ve hit it off. Of course, the wording left a lot of wiggle room to avoid being dishonest and rude.

“Actually, I’m a little curious about how a scholar like you would stay in the public school at the Crossroad? With your talent, I’m sure plenty of other jobs would love to hire you.”

“…… You’re not the first to ask that,” Morris seemed to have long been accustomed to the questions of others in this regard. “Actually, it’s nothing special. I’m old and tired, and there are plenty of youngsters who could better use the few resources at hand. Instead of competing with the new generation, I rather spend my remaining years helping to raise the young.”

The old man’s explanation was probable but not entirely the truth. Duncan could tell so he didn’t press for more since that would be rude. “But I heard Nina say her classmates don’t pay much attention in her classes. Isn’t the knowledge of the ancient kingdom of Crete a bit too far back for the average folks?”

“Even in the deepest and darkest gutters, as long as the spiritual mind is still thinking, ‘history’ will always be valuable,” Morris shook his head in disapproval. “It is with the history of the past thousand years that we have been able to get to where we are today.”

“Of course, Mr. Duncan, you’re right that very few people in these parts will want to listen to my tirade… But even if I can only teach one student who will listen, then I will feel like my efforts are not in vain.”

Morris said unhurriedly and then seemed to realize he had gone on a tangent. Forming an apologetic smile: “Sorry, professional habits, I’ve started preaching again.”

“It’s okay. I think it’s a valuable ‘preaching’ experience,” Duncan waved his hand immediately, “and it’s been a pleasure to talk to you. I’m an antique dealer, and you’re a history expert. So from a certain perspective, we’re peers of the same industry.”

I’m also a teacher on Earth….

“Seriously, if from the impression of walking into this antique shop only… I would really question the part of us being peers,” Morris spread his hands, “but now I kind of believe it. You at least have one real thing in here.”

Duncan’s face was very calm, but his heart was already shouting he had more than just one product. In fact, the pirate captain had already drawn out the warehouse plans for the eighth franchising branch!

Continuing to maintain a smile and indifferent posture: “I heard Nina say that you are actually better at ancient history, especially the history before and after the ancient kingdom of Crete?”

“Strictly speaking, there is only after, no before,” Morris immediately corrected. “The ancient kingdom of Crete is the beginning of civilization in the Deep Sea Age, and before the Old Kingdom was the Great Annihilation, which was the melting point of civilization. No one can say what the world was like before that point in time because all we have to go on are contradictory texts circulating in the wilderness.”

Duncan mused: “The spark breaker of civilization… Is like a ‘horizon limit’ that runs through the river of history…”

“Horizon limit?” Morris apparently heard the word for the first time and became perplexed by the metaphor.

“A concept. If you put it on the ‘Great Annihilation’ event, you can think of it as an invisible wall of time. All the information on one side of the wall cannot be transmitted to the other side of the wall, whether it is an optical observation or the causal connection of things, all of it is cut off in front of that boundary with no means to understand the other side.”

“Quite an interesting concept!” Old Mr. Morris’s eyes widened in astonishment, “Crossing the limit of the horizon in history… A wall of time… Indeed, a very apt statement! Mr. Duncan, forgive me for my initial contemptuous impression of you…. You are more professional than I could’ve ever imagined. Are you also a study of the ancient records?”

“No, I have to say I’m not affluent with the ancient records. I’m merely more flexible in terms of my thought pattern. Sometimes I would conjure up some wonderful metaphors like now,” Duncan modestly explains, knowing he should act ignorant in times like these. “But I do have questions about what happened during the Great Annihilation event… You just mentioned that the history before then is usually not recognized by scholars? That there are many contradictory records in the ‘wild’? What do these records look like?”

“It’s just some wild stories passed down through the ages… But I did study some.” Morris pondered what he should say before going slowly, “For example, the city-state of Pland has a record of a manuscript from the year 1069 of the new era. The original is lost so we can’t prove if it’s true, but the manuscripts do describe the following before the Great Annihilation:

“The world is a sphere, floating in the vast sea of stars. There are countless celestial bodies dotting the night sky with three moons circling the world. Humans occupied three continents, one of which is frozen year-round. To combat the harsh environment, the people built a device called the ‘dome’ to envelop the entire continent. The dome provides warmth, provides light, provides the eternal spring fueled by the seawater….”

Morris paused after saying this, then gave some thought to the reaction from Duncan. Once the old scholar felt like it was okay, he continued:

On an island near Cold Harbor, explorers found a record carved into a slab of rock, which also described the world before the Great Annihilation. Scholars eventually cracked the old wording, but the information left everyone puzzled.

“The slate describes a homeland called the ‘home star’. Due to the world drying up, the people of the world boarded a ship called the ‘Abinix’, which can cross the sea of stars using the fuel and gas it captured from the stars. The journey lasted more than 47,000 days and nights until it was suddenly swept up by a huge vortex. The ship disintegrated under the force, and its descendants somehow survived by relying on the sea.”

“Of course, these records are not as bizarre as the legends left by the elves of Wind Harbor.

“Elves have a thousand-year lifespan, and their history should be the most detailed and reliable among all the short-lived races. But for some reason, their history is the most fragmented and bizarre of all the known texts. Many of their files have even been twisted into unreadable lost contexts, which were forcibly sealed due to the pollution they carried. Nowadays, the only information we have to go upon are oral poems narrated by the elves.

“The world is a dream, a dream created by the great demon god Sasroka. Then one day, the demon god suddenly dreamt of a flood sweeping across the world. In his panic, Sasroka awoke from his dream and leaked the dream into reality. The elves were swept away from reality due to the flood…. As result of the tragedy, the elves could never return to their peaceful homeland and has settled down in the Deep Sea Era after the flooding.”