“Wow. This sinkhole is huge!” Katherine said, “I’ve never seen one so big! Is there anything down there?”
She brushed past Zachary and went right to the edge. Without a fear of the stomach-churning heights, she leaned over to look down into the depths. He wanted to pull her back but he felt slightly queasy already.
“Ay… it’s too foggy. I can’t see anything.” She glanced around before letting out another excited cry, “Look! Look! Over there, I see something!”
“What? Another sinkhole?” He carefully walked up behind her and followed the direction she was pointing to.
Surrounding the giant pit in the ground was an endless jungle amidst a hilly terrain. However, he saw something strange, something unnatural that jutted out of the foliage. It was not a wayward tree or patch of bare rock atop a hill. It had a distinctive rectangular shape with smooth sides and a flat top. Its color was dark gray, sharply contrasting with the sea of green around it.
“Ruins?”
“Ruins!”
Zachary and Katherine both came to the same conclusion. This area had never been explored before. For such a structure to appear in the middle of nowhere could only mean that it was manmade ruins.
The construct was not very tall, only protruding above the tallest trees by about two stories at most. If they had not encountered this vast sinkhole that allowed them to get an unobstructed view of the area, they might have never realized there was something like this here.
In this world of summoners, ruins were something that many desired to explore. It was a remnant of an ancient civilization, a human society that had thrived in the past and was now extinct. Such ruins could contain hidden treasures, perhaps a stash of high rank anima crystals left over from the previous occupants. They could also contain lost techniques for raising summons or even new kinds of Ensouled.
Secrets hidden within ruins could even cause great waves across society. It was rumored that summoning cards were a relic from the past, found in some ruins of a civilization that was forgotten by history. There were also urban myths that some of the modern machinery used in ships and trains came from ruins.
Of course, these were all speculations. Zachary was never really interested in the subject of human history. It was glossed over in primary school which mostly focused on the glorious events and records of the Republic of Adorin and how it was founded. Anything beyond that amounted to a few pages at most.
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“Let’s go!” Katherine said, tugging his arm.
“Go where?”
“To the ruins!” She said matter-of-factly.
“You sure? Seems dangerous.”
“Pfft. Don’t be scared.”
“Why are you so interested?” He asked, frowning, “I thought you worshipped the Ice Saint? Does the Ice Saint care about human ruins.”
Katherine shook her head, “You don’t understand. If it was some ruins in the Old World, then the Ice Saint definitely wouldn’t care about them. However, this is different. These are ruins in the New World, in an area that has never been explored. Think about it, how did it get here?”
Zachary shrugged, “How?”
“It means… that this is not the product of the summoner era but a lost era!”
“Lost era? What’s that?” He asked.
“How do you not know about… oh,” She said as if realizing a great truth, “I forgot, you were only able to go to university for a few short months. You would have definitely learned about it in your second year or your third year at the latest.”
Katherine seemed to be very interested in this subject and explained in great detail. She started with the Summoner Era which was the current time period. It covered the rise of human summoners in the Old World, including the countless wars that were fought between various human factions as well as against invasions of wild Ensouled. It recorded the rise and fall of countless kingdoms, nations, and empires until the present day which was the year 2381 of the Summoner Era.
Before the Summoner Era was a period of roughly three to five thousand years known as the Wild Era. During this time, humans still had not conquered the Old World. They lived in small groups and had to fight for their lives against wild Ensouled that were the true rulers.
Humans were like ants, struggling to survive against the forces of nature. They were mostly nomadic. At best, they formed some small towns but those could be wiped out in a blink. There was no chance to create a civilization and vast constructs that could withstand the test of time.
Finally, anything beyond the Wild Era was referred to as the Lost Era. There were no surviving records, no lineages that could be traced. The only clues to the past lay in the various ruins hidden across the land and perhaps the sea. Everything else was lost and thus the name.
“Don’t you think its exciting?” Katherine said.
Her eyes were sparkling and her smile was filled with eagerness. She had never shown him such an expression before, even when they had embraced each other in the throes of ecstasy. He felt strange as if he should be offended somehow.
“Is it exciting?” He asked.
“Of course!” She said as she pulled him along, “Within the beast cult, this was considered my specialty. Even though I had low rank, I could be considered a slight expert in this subject.”
“It was? I didn’t think you would know so much about something other than cats.”
She laughed, “Cats are cats. Human history, on the other hand… Oh, there are so many mysteries! Haven’t you wondered how we managed to conquer the Old World? What about the Wild Era? How did we even survive? Humans could have easily gone extinct if we were so weak back then. And those prehistoric civilizations of the Lost Era, what were they like? How did they fall?”
“Ahh…” Zachary replied dumbly.
He had never thought about the topic like this. The way she described it, it was kind of interesting. For people who delved into the depths of the past, there were endless questions and few answers. It was enough to keep a person occupied for their whole life.