CHAPTER 28: FOUNDATIONS OF A CITY

Dressed elegantly in his new black military uniform, Hermes walked valiantly through the halls, ignoring all the looks he was getting for having a gunblade fashioned onto his back.

He had chosen not to argue or defend his weapon of choice. If anyone mocked him for using a gunblade, he would choose to ignore them completely. The best way to shut them all up was through actual results.

On his way to Section A, Hermes checked his watch, which read: 3:15 PM. Because he slept for 8 hours, he had missed the entire boot camp session. Not that it mattered, since his training would take place with either Ming Xue or Arthur, anyway.

After a few minutes of walking, he had made it into Section A. Just like with Section C, a large hall opened before him. Officers of different ranks, regiments, and units came into focus. All of them were busy going out and about. A soldier donned in a black uniform scanned his Guardian badge and then passed him through a cosmic force detector; this was to make sure the person in question was not compromised by a mutant in disguise.

Section A was positioned on the left side of the barracks. Those who enter from outside go through rigorous checks to keep the facility safe from any inside attacks. Some call it the headquarters of the Guardian Regiments.

At the center of the hall, hanging from the ceiling, four large TV screens that were each 10 meters wide were displayed at all cardinal positions. Presented on the pixels were names of locations, with each having a unique code identifier next to it. Hermes immediately recognized the list. It was the Guardian Regiment mission board that Arthur had told him about.

Unlike the other regiments, Guardians were allocated into squadrons of three. These squadrons will then be allowed to take on missions that were updated live on the screens. These can range from hunting down mutants that wandered too close to the city or even reconnaissance missions into Xulu territory.

Of course, each mission had many different conditions for those applying, so not everyone could apply to any mission. Only those with the right skills to complete it were allowed to register. Sometimes, missions could be done by multiple squadrons together.

Guardians who completed the missions were allocated merit points based on their contributions. These merit points are important because they allow them to not only increase their rank and obtain accolades but also count as credits that they can use to trade for items.

Some use them to purchase Quantum Gearworks, Stellar Artifacts, ammunition, spell books, and much more. Others even opt to exchange them directly for Sanctum to improve their economic situation.

Because Hermes and the other new cadets had only been accepted for a day or so now, they were not allowed to register for missions or even contribute at all. Most of them still needed to take basic training or the Elysian Monolith test to become Celestials. Not even Hermes, who was further ahead than the rest of them, was allocated a squadron to join. In fact, he still didn't even know what battalion or company he belonged to.

His rank as a novice cadet denoted him as a simple trainee. Nothing more, nothing less. This did not disappoint Hermes, however. He knew how blatant his weaknesses were, so it was better for him to first learn how to wield the gunblade properly before going out on any mission. He also needed to buy rounds of ammunition for it in order to properly create his sword technique.

As he made his way to the left side of the hall, a grand glass sliding door bearing the word 'Library' caught his eye. Arriving before it, the door smoothly glided open, revealing a vast expanse of carefully arranged shelves, each brimming with knowledge.

Stepping inside, Hermes reveled in the sight. The library wasn't overly expansive, but it certainly wasn't cramped. Books of all kinds stood tall, their elegant organization inviting guests to explore. Hanging sign labels marked the way, guiding visitors to their chosen genres. Though Hermes was tempted to wander, he remained focused on his objective, scanning for the right section.

''Mysticism', 'Culinary Arts', 'Electrical Engineering', 'Biomedical Sciences', 'Mathematics', 'War Theory'... Aha! Bingo!'

In a confident stride, Hermes walked ahead. With a smile on his face, he made his way towards the 'History' section. Books of all shapes and sizes surrounded his vision, making it quite difficult to choose what to bury his face into.

''The Eldritch War'...'

''The Marcia Empire'...'

''Historical Voids'...'

''The Golden Age'...'

''Remnant Bastions of Yore'...'

'All of these sound promising... Where do I even start...' The book names excited him, but he had no idea what time frame each book described. He wanted to read in chronological order to grasp the complete story of mankind during the 18,464 years he had skipped while slumbering on the Moon. In the end, he decided to choose a book at random.

''Sanctuary City'... This should give me a brief background on the formation of this city. This will do for a first book… I need to understand how humanity gathered here in the first place.'

Picking the book out of the shelf, Hermes sat on the carpeted floor and leaned his back against the bookshelf behind him. This was a habit he had gained during his time in college and high school, where he would read an endless amount of books about different constellations, planets, astrophysics, and more. Because of how unsocial he was, he hated the idea of someone looking at what he was reading or disturbing his peace, so he would usually try to sit in secluded areas.

His favorite location to read quietly were the aisles themselves. The smell of fresh and old paper mixed into a soothing symphony of peace and harmony, and the lack of people passing by or sitting around him comforted his heart. He eventually found joy in sharing his personal reading spaces with Arianna.

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Hermes looked at the old tome in his hands. The book had a hardcover that was made from some kind of leather. Its pages were not very thick, but Hermes still knew that it would probably take him a day or two to go through the whole thing.

Opening the first page, passages describing Sanctuary City's founding and its one-thousand-year history flowed into Hermes' mind. It described the tale of refugees coming from all around the Martian globe before coalescing together in harmony, establishing their final place of refuge.

From the start, the remnants of three grand noble houses of the previous Marcia empire who had shriveled into only a fraction of their past glory came together to establish the beginnings of the city. Armed with their knowledge of society and organizational structures, they established a currency, roads, infrastructure, social classes, jobs, and more.

The foundations of Sanctuary City came to fruition after fifteen years of laborious hard work to mold the ravine, their newfound home, into a place hospitable to humans. From there, a hundred years passed with no major incidents occurring. Their biggest threat was the constantly fluctuating food supplies and the imminent danger posed by mutants.

Curiously, the one thing that confused Hermes was the mention of Guardians. It seems the culture of calling their Celestial heroes by that name did not originate from Sanctuary City, but was brought over from the previous Marcia Empire. It seems the nobles of that time refused to relinquish their previous culture and identity and decided to continue with their ancestor's legacies.

The same thing applied to the Luminaric Standard. Although the passages mentioned the evolution of the language, a majority of the words used from the past 1,000 years continue to be useful in the current era.

Then an even bigger revelation hit him. The descriptions of the city from one thousand years ago were almost exactly similar to what it is today. None of their infrastructure, design, culture, and even technology had evolved drastically. The entire city was stuck in a quagmire, a swamp that neither sank nor elevated their society.

'Interesting... This somewhat reminds me of indigenous tribes back on Earth. If one were to visit them, their culture and the way they lived would resemble the Stone Ages. It was as if they had never gotten any ounce of innovation.'

'I remember a colleague back then saying to me that creativity is fostered when creative minds feed off of each other. In such a closed-off environment with a lack of resources, society would be given no viable way to innovate and evolve. Cultural exchanges are what fueled the spread of novel ideas. Without it, Sanctuary City continued each generation with no improvements or changes to its original beliefs and worldviews.'

As Hermes read further, the more apparent the problems facing the city became. Although he already witnessed the thriving poverty plaguing the citizens, the book describes it in a more bleak manner than he had originally assumed. Not only was the mortality rate high, but so was crime.

No matter the society, poverty feeds into crime. Due to the consistent famines that hit the city every summer, thousands of poor children died on the streets. All the people could do was try their best to stockpile food. This, of course, did not stop others from taking survival into their own hands.

Thieves who stole food were the most common in the city. But those who were even more bold began to form cliques. Their hatred for the nobles and the wealthy merchants who monopolized entire industries that the people relied on for survival began to fester and grow every summer and winter.

643 years in the past, these factions started to merge into larger, more organized groups. The threats looming from beyond the city paled in comparison to the insidious decay festering within. In time, these amalgamated factions carved out a district of the city, a domain they aptly named the Underbelly.

A large hidden metropolis beneath the city that most citizens walked on. It was positioned so deep into the ravine that even light refused to reach out its hand to them.

This had long intrigued Hermes. From his journeys through the barracks, markets, and the temporary abode in the residential complex, there remained a spot in the city that confused him greatly.

Pockets of darkness can sometimes be seen beneath him. Buildings lower than what most people walked on were frequently observed from outside the balcony of his apartment.

What he initially perceived as the ground level of the ravine turned out to be a precipice concealing a deeper abyss veiled by sturdy stone bridges and platforms. The barracks, for instance, anchored at the end of the ravine, still clung resolutely to a lofty perch.

And the Spire, which was proudly jutting forth, was built on a solid foundation, but on a closer look, it seemed to hide even deeper levels than what he originally assumed.

'The Underbelly must have been the origins of the old Sanctuary City. Those buildings beneath everyone's feet must have been abandoned only to be occupied by gangs and criminals…'

Hermes always harbored the suspicion that there was more to the City, a realm he had yet to uncover. The old book before him now seemed to affirm his conjecture. He decided it was best to read further than waste his time theorizing about an answer that could already be present in his hands.

633 years ago, or about 10 years after the foundation of the Underbelly, the gangs that relished in the darkness began to fester hate for the nobles who despised their presence. The amalgamation of grudges on both sides reached a breaking point, causing the start of the first 'Disharmony War', which led to the deaths of thousands of civilians.

Hermes understood that the Underbelly was comprised mostly of regular people, but they also had many Celestials who worked with them. Although the Guardian Regiments held control over the Elysian Monoliths, there were cases where Guardians who were dissatisfied with the status quo or had selfish desires they wanted to pursue caused them to betray their station in the army and join ranks with the gangs of the Underbelly.

In some rare cases during their history, they were able to snag Gifted Ones and raise them to be weapons devoid of emotion.

'So this is where the stigma about peasants being savages came from. This is why the Verdier family is so absorbed in the notion of being superior to others. Or it could be that they had always held these beliefs, which caused the dissidents to grow in number.'

This was a tale as old as history itself, and Hermes knew all about it. The country he was born in relished in these ideas after all.

First, the superior class treats a certain group of people badly and thinks of them as less than human. That group lashes out in retaliation. This causes the group who mistreated them first to call them savages or barbaric for their actions, which in turn fuels the divide between the two further.

The remedy to this was allowing people to speak to each other on an even playing field and bridging the gap between classes. The only problem with this solution was that it was impossible with the current state of affairs in the City.

Capitalism, after all, was built on the notion of someone needing to have less for you to have more. And in an environment where the lack of resources was the motivating factor behind the movement of currency, hatred for the rigged system will grow exponentially.

'This... This is really bad. It was one thing if the city was only facing problems from outside, but inside as well? A civil war had already erupted in their history, too. The way the book describes it, it seems like there were multiple Disharmony Wars as well... Why was this hidden from me so deeply? I need to confront Arthur about this.'

As he delved deeper into the book, he discovered another unexpected element in their long history that surprised him. A motivator that he had originally assumed to be completely absent from their lore: religion.

End of Chapter