Chapter 92: Wrong History

Chapter 92: Wrong History
The so-called “public schools” in the city-state of Prand were completely different from the real universities in the upper city – these schools, which were supported by the city hall’s funding, were not institutions that trained real scholars, but rather served to train skilled workers for the factories in the lower city as well as for the steam and water supply agencies of the church. They served more to train skilled workers for the factories of the lower towns and for the steam engines of the Church, and in the process to educate the public in basic literacy.

With this in mind, the level of resources in that public school in the Crossroads neighborhood is naturally conceivable.

It was the first time Duncan had come into contact with Morris, but even on first impression he could tell that the old gentleman’s academic attainments were extraordinary, a true expert who could accurately identify an antique from a pile of clutter and accurately state its year and historical context with only a first glance, an expert of his caliber would be more than qualified to be placed in any of the universities in the Uptown district.

As a matter of fact, his knowledge would be wasted in a public school in the Crossroads district, Nina had said that few students in her class cared about what the old man taught, and that they respected their teacher if they could stay awake for one class.

Not to mention the fact that this Mr. Morris was able to come up with a large sum of money for a dagger that was a century old – it wasn’t like the average citizen to carry around a checkbook.

Duncan thought for a moment that it would be too abrupt to ask “How did you get to be so rich?”, but it was natural to use the art of language to say it differently:
“Actually, I’m a little curious as to how a scholar like you ended up working as a teacher in a public school in the Crossroads neighborhood.”

“…… You’re not the first to ask that,” Morris seemed to have long been accustomed to the questions of the bystanders in this regard, he just smiled lightly, while carefully storing away his things, “It’s nothing really, it’s just that I’m getting old and tired of those uptown universities. In fact, it’s nothing, just old, tired of the overly tense academic atmosphere in those universities in the uptown area, instead of competing with young people for resources that are not much, it’s better to find a cleaner place to complete their own research …… and in their later years, they can also pass on their knowledge to more young people, isn’t it very good?”

The old man didn’t seem to tell the truth in full, but Duncan could see that the other party didn’t want to talk about it in too much detail, so he didn’t pursue it, and just casually mentioned, “But I heard Nina say that her classmates don’t really value the knowledge you taught them ah …… In this Lower City, where survival is difficult, pursuing the glory of the ancient kingdom of Crete Is it a little too far away?”

“Even in the deepest, darkest gutter, as long as the spiritual mind is still thinking, ‘history’ will always be valuable,” Morris shook his head, “It is with the history of the past millennia that we have been able to come to today.

“Mortals have short lifespans, it is the inheritance and reverence for history that allows civilization to live far beyond the limits of the individual, and that is what sets us apart from the weird, blind things of the deep – they are long, but without knowing how to record civilization, they will never be able to destroy us.

“Of course, Mr. Duncan, you’re right, very few people here in the Lower City would be willing to listen to my long-winded lectures …… but even if I only taught one student, I feel that my years have not been in vain.”

Morris spoke in such a nonchalant manner, then as if he suddenly reacted to something, he revealed a gentle and apologetic smile, “Sorry, professional habit, I was a bit preachy.”

“That’s all right, I think it was valuable ‘preaching’,” Duncan immediately waved his hand, “In fact I’d be happy to talk to you – you see , you’re an expert in history, I’m an antiques dealer, and in a sense, we’re peers.”

In the sense of being ‘teachers’, too – Duncan added silently in his mind.

“Seriously, if only from the first impression of walking into this antique store …… I was really not convinced by the term ‘peers’ as you put it,” Maurice spread his hands. “But now I’m more or less convinced – you’ve got a real one at least.”

Duncan had an extraordinarily frank expression on his face, and thought to himself that there was more than one real item – he’d been scratching all the Lost Country’s bins in his head the moment the old man filled out the check, and if he hadn’t been so worried about hitting the market, he’d have even planned out the decor of the eighth branch by this point… …

Settling his mind, Duncan continued to maintain his bland posture with a smile on his face, “I heard from Nina that what you’re more specialized in is actually ancient history, especially the history before and after the ancient kingdom of Crete?” “Strictly speaking, there is only ‘after’, not ‘before’,” Maurice immediately corrected, “The Ancient Kingdom of Crete was the beginning of civilization in the Age of the Deep Sea. Before the Ancient Kingdom was the Great Annihilation Event, which was the melting point of civilization, and no one can say what the world was like before that point in time – what there is is only contradictory representations in the strange tales of the wilderness that have been passed down from city-state to city-state.”

Duncan pondered, “Is the Meltdown of Civilization …… like a ‘limit of vision’ across the river of history …… “

Maurice apparently heard the term for the first time, “Limit of sight?”

“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 the other side of the wall can’t be transmitted to the other side of the wall, no matter whether it’s the optical observation, or the causal connection of things, it’s all cut off in front of the boundary, you can never stand on one side of the boundary to know what’s happening on the other side. one side of the boundary to understand what’s happening on the other side, as if the timeline of everything just suddenly appeared from that boundary.”

“Quite an interesting statement!” Old Mr. Morris’s eyes widened slightly, light even slightly emanating from his eyes, “The limit of vision across history …… a wall of time …… is, indeed, very apt! Mr. Duncan, forgive me for my wrong eh impression and …… contempt for you at first, you are more professional than I thought, do you also study ancient history from time to time?”

“No, I don’t know much about ancient history, I just have a flexible mind and can sometimes come up with some marvelous metaphors,” Duncan said immediately and modestly, knowing that he should act a bit ignorant now, “but I do wonder about the period of the Great Annihilation …… You mentioned earlier that there is no recognized history of the period before the Great Annihilation in orthodox scholarship, but there are many conflicting records in the ‘wild’ histories of the various city-states? And what are these records like?”

“Wild history is just a strange story …… but I did study some of them,” Morris mused, speaking slowly, “For example, there was a record in the city-state of Prand, a handwritten codex from the year 1069 of the New City-State Calendar, and its original is no longer available, and that codex describes the world before the Great Annihilation thus:

“The world was a sphere, floating in a vast sea of stars, with countless celestial bodies as stars dotting the night sky, there was a sun in the sky, and three moons, and mankind occupied three continents, one of which was frozen all year round, and so a device called a ‘dome’ was constructed to envelop the continent, to to create ‘Eternal Spring’, the energy source of this dome is modeled after the sun in the sky, fueled by a certain ingredient in seawater for several eternities ……”

Maurice paused here, as if to give Duncan some time to think, remember, and organize, and then continued immediately after:
“Instead, on an island near Cold Harbor, explorers found a record carved into the rock that also described the world before the Great Annihilation, and scholars were greatly perplexed when they took the trouble to decipher it-

“The tablets describe a homeworld known as the ‘Mother Planet’ that has been depleted, and the world travels on a giant ship called the ‘Abinix’ that can cross the starry seas and is fueled by dust and gas captured in the nothingness. Fueled by dust and gas captured in the void, the giant ship sailed for 47,000 days and nights when it was suddenly caught up in a ‘great flash and whirlpool’, after which the ship disintegrated and disappeared in the maelstrom, and the descendants survived the waters, leaving behind memories of their homeworld in the caves.

“Of course, none of these records are as outlandish as the legends left by the elves of Lightwind Harbor.

“Elves have a thousand-year lifespan, and their history should have been more detailed and reliable than that of other short-lived races, but for some reason, the history of Light Wind Harbor is instead the most fragmented and absurd of all the city-states’ histories, and many of their scrolls have even been twisted by unknown forces into unreadable ‘lost scrolls ‘, which had to be sealed due to heavy contamination, while in the recounted poems passed down from elf to elf by word of mouth, the world before the Great Annihilation is described thus:

“The world was a dream, a cry of the Great Demon God Sasloca in a half-awake sleep*** The elves, on the other hand, were born in the dream world to maintain Sasloca’s restful sleep, but one day this Demon God suddenly dreamed of a great flood coming, and He awoke with a start, whereupon it leaked out of His dream into the real world, and the elves were swept away by the flood into reality …… Demon God Sasloca disappeared due to his awakening, and the elves, no longer able to return to that peaceful and tranquil home, settled in the deep sea era after the flood.”

(End of chapter)