Chương 340: Truths and Lies (XXVI)

I'm a bit stumped. Well, not a bit--a lot stumped. As there was nothing for me to do when I came out, I decided to simply sit and go through the rewards once again, slowly inspecting them a bit closer. The first one I took a gander at was the 'Writ of the Eras'--it really was a singular parchment with crude letters drawn across its surface in black ink, quickly and haphazardly.

It was a cause for a frown on my end as all other wordy things procured by the system had perfect calligraphy and were clearly either written by the master of an era or artificially produced as though printed. This, however, was clearly a document not made by the system, merely 'kept' by it. Or stolen by it. Or, well, replicated by it. Somebody, at some point in time, wrote this. Further proof were random annotations to the sides, though they've all been blurred or redacted.

Honestly, most of the damn thing was redacted. It was clear that, besides just the names of the eras, there once were dates detailing their length, and even descriptions were dwindled down to a few words to a sentence, at most. Regardless, even this 'much' was more than I could have ever learned otherwise. As far as I could tell, this world really struggled with 'homogenized' eras; I've seen the current age be called sixteen different names, and the few previous ones that were mentioned also varied wildly.

Even within the system's rewards, whenever specific 'eras' were mentioned, it didn't seem universal but more so an approximation of a time and a place written within the context of the original item. Even if --and it's a big 'if'--this parchment I'm holding is an objective list of ages throughout the world's history, what good is it if most groups have different naming schemes? Regardless, it's kind of... fascinating, but also kind of... useless?

[Epoch of Silence -- the beginning before the beginning; less than nothing is known about it] [Ethereal Age -- Dao and Heavenly Laws emerge] [Primordial Era -- Qi and first life manifest from ethereal energies] [Age of the Beginning -- mortal men and women emerge] [Epoch of Wars -- beginnings of cultivation and shamanism and of the eternal dance of wars between the two] [Ancient Era of Martial Arts -- golden era of Martial Arts and its dominance over magic, where Heavenly Court was established] [Epoch of Magic -- shamans push martial artists to their last bastion, the Heavenly Court, where, just before their death, the First Emperor of Mankind emerges and turns the tides] [Imperial Era -- Emperors and Empresses keep rising and falling; the first true Dao Emperor is born] [Second Epoch of Silence -- 'The Great Silence', as even those who lived it would never utter a word of it; beware, ye who read, it is here it all began] Love what you're reading?

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[Age of Demonic Wars -- organized invasion of Demonic Wars, thrusting the worlds into the age of chaos and their near utter annihilation] [Era of Restoration -- a slow restoration of lost inheritances and felled ancient powers as humanity strove to regain its apex position] [Age of Quiet -- to the blind, nothing ever happened; to the wise, they knew to stay quiet] [Epoch of Divergence -- the fall of one who questioned earmarked the beginning of change; what shall come of it... none known] That's a lot of epochs, but also... not that many? As far as I remember, there are actually 30-something (36 or 37, I think?) epochs classified back on Earth. Comparatively, 13 isn't even half that number--just barely a third. Does that mean that this world is about 30% 'younger' than Earth? Maybe. I mean, it wouldn't be out of question--Earth itself is like four and a half billion years old, whereas the first life appeared almost a billion years later.

Humans themselves wouldn't show up for a long, long, long time after, and the way we quantify eras sort of reflect that. Here, it is entirely possible that there hasn't exactly been five billion years since 'the beginning', but it's also possible that even if it's 'just' 2 billion years or something, because of magic and such, people emerged and expanded far quicker, which meant there would be more recorded history.

It's also entirely possible that this world is simply kind of 'loose' when it comes to defining eras; for instance, 'Age of Demonic Wars'. I highly doubt that, for an indeterminate amount of time, the only thing that was happening were wars against demons and whatnot. There were lulls and breaks and other things occurring, but they simply stuffed it all into one era that covers, I don't know, tens of millions of years or whatever, and called it a job well done. Haah.

Here I am, doing something I haven't done in a while--writing my own shit to fill in the gaps. There's also one more question: is this parchment even the reality? I mean, I trust the system in so much I can trust a non-feeling, mechanical thing that's behaving suspiciously like a farmer fattening his pigs up, but this is not its creation but rather a recreation. Maybe whoever wrote this just made it up. Then there's the ominous part of 'this is where it began'... what began?

It's probably explained in the blurred letters between the existing ones, but... Aah, whatever. I rub my head in frustration for a moment and throw the parchment into a corner of the spatial ring; I'll probably have to consult Long Tao, but before that, I'll just probe them casually to see what the 'consensus' is. Maybe, just maybe, that parchment is a worthless reward, and I would have learned all the ages had I just bothered asking someone.

It never hurts to learn more history of the place, but it's best not to become too married to the idea; history tends to be rather fluid. Truths, lies, and myths meld into a union of stories, some you can kind of trust and some that make you question everything. Records only go as far as you can trust whoever wrote them, and nothing is truly objective.

The day dwindled rapidly as the kids tried their best to help those who were hurt and 'fish out' corpses from the lake, at least; in the end, though, there was only so much we could do within eight hours or so before the nightfall. There were quite a few folk who departed before the battle ended, and there's a good chance there will be more guests come dawn.

"You're leaving?" a familiar voice startled me awake as I left the makeshift 'clinic' before others. To my right was our host, Pànqiū, whom I kind of forgot about in the chaos of it all.

"... we are," I replied.

"Hm. Take a walk with me."

"E-eh?"

"It won't be long."... oh, my low-key muscles are having a really bad feeling right now...