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Chapter 282 - Titanis
🕑 Added 2025-04-03 07:00:07 +0000 UTC"Different how? Not just their nomadic lifestyle?" Anda asked, leaning forward with interest.
"Yes, you can tell by the name they were given. The Holy Alchemy Civilization—obviously, everything they did revolved around alchemy. Every person there strived to become the greatest alchemist, and whoever achieved that title became their Alchemy Emperor, ruling the entire nation. Until the next selection, of course," Tamina explained, her tone lively.
"Hmm... that's interesting," Anda said, her mind already spinning with questions. She wondered if the emperor title was more of an ornament. As the greatest alchemist, she could imagine the emperor would rather spend their time experimenting and refining elixirs than governing. But then again, that was just a stereotype. Not all alchemists were like that.
"Then what did the World Explorer Civilization usually do?" Anda asked, her curiosity piqued.
"They were mostly hunters. Their culture revolved around fighting. They would migrate to areas infested with numerous demonic beasts, establish a settlement nearby, and hunt them for about a decade. Then, they would migrate again to another place packed with demonic beasts. However, each time they moved, some people chose to stay behind in the developed settlements. As a result, the World Explorer Civilization left behind many branches that continued to develop all over this world," Tamina explained.
"I see... you know, Tamina, they should have named their early civilization the World Pandaplorer Civilization. That sounds much better," Anda joked, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
"Pfft!" Tamina burst out laughing, caught off guard by Anda's unexpected humor. She quickly covered her mouth, trying to stifle her laughter.
Anda grinned, amused by Tamina's reaction. "So, did the two civilizations ever interact with each other?" she asked, steering the conversation back on track.
"Yes, at some point, they bartered a lot of things. But the two civilizations spoke entirely different languages, so initially, they had a lot of difficulties interacting. This is the language the Holy Alchemy Civilization used," Tamina said, flipping the old history book to a specific page and pointing to a section filled with unfamiliar symbols.
As soon as Anda saw the alphabet, her eyes widened in shock. "Huh? Isn't this the language of the Ancient Civilization from the Cloud Continent? How come it's here?"
Tamina was surprised. "Is that so? You have this language in your continent?"
Anda nodded. "That's right. We have many museums that display this language, and historians study it because we've found traces of it scattered all over the continent."
She recognized the language because she had researched it extensively with Layla's help. She and Leyvi had even planned to travel across the entire Cloud Continent to search for ancient steles containing alchemy formulas. With Leyvi's Universal Language ability, he could translate everything for her, unlocking the ancient knowledge.
Suddenly, many things didn't make sense to Anda. How could both languages exist here? Wait—both? Then, she realized something even more bizarre, something that had been hiding in plain sight all along.
"Tamina! How come this book is in our language? If this Mystic Realm is actually another planet far away from our own, logically, we should have a completely different language too, right?" Anda asked, her voice tinged with confusion.
Tamina was dumbfounded as she stared at the book in her hands. She, too, had just realized the oddity. That was right. How? Even Senior Lapin spoke their language. Were the two planets closely related somehow?
Tamina wondered if the top experts on her continent knew about this. However, even if they did, given how long ago it all happened, they probably didn't particularly care about it. Maybe only historians would find it interesting.
Seeing Tamina's expression, Anda realized her friend was just as confused as she was.
When the Cloud Continent and Protogaea Continent shared the same language, it hadn't seemed all that strange to Anda. It simply meant that people in the past had traveled the world, seeking new lands to settle. But between two planets? That was a different story entirely.
Anda shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. There was a conflict in the information she had. She quickly identified the issue. If she remembered correctly, the people of the Cloud Continent believed that some Mystic Realms were remnants of their Ancient Civilization that had mysteriously disappeared.
Why? Because in the past, when they entered Mystic Realms, they occasionally brought back relics inscribed with the same Ancient Civilization language.
But with the new information from Tamina, Anda now knew that the Mystic Realms weren't hidden remnants of their world. They were different planets orbiting the same sun.
So, if the Mystic Realms weren't remnants of their world, how could they have both languages from their planet?
An answer clicked in Anda's mind, and her eyes brightened. There were only two logical possibilities: either the people of this planet originated from her world, or the exact opposite! The existence of the portals made both scenarios possible.
After further reasoning based on the timeline, Anda concluded that it was most likely the people of her planet originated from this one. When the tree began exterminating humans, some from both civilizations must have escaped through the portal to her world and started over.
Since the Ancient Civilization in the Cloud Continent was focused on alchemy, they were likely descendants of the Holy Alchemy Civilization. However, Anda wasn't sure why they had disappeared entirely later, leaving only their relics and language behind.
After confirming her thoughts, Anda smiled. It didn't really matter what had happened in the past. What mattered now was that this was the origin of the Cloud Continent's Ancient Civilization. That meant there could be more alchemy formulas waiting to be discovered—or even the entire alchemy inheritance. Of course, she hoped that time hadn't completely destroyed them.
The problem for her right now was where those potential alchemy inheritances were located. Knowing how dangerous the colossal tree was, Anda felt a flicker of fear, even though Lapin had assured her that the tree wouldn't bother with someone as insignificant as her while it was in hibernation.
Anda chuckled softly to herself. It seemed her plan had come full circle. She still needed to venture toward the colossal tree, as that was where the alchemy civilization had been concentrated. Over the years, their alchemy knowledge might have spread across the world, and she could potentially find remnants elsewhere. But searching at the source—the heart of their civilization—was undoubtedly the best decision.
After discussing more about the early history of this world's civilizations with Tamina, Anda wandered around the dome, examining the relics and other books. She also discovered that, in this world, jade slips and other information storage devices that could imprint knowledge hadn't been invented yet. All records of the past were preserved in physical forms—books, scrolls, and inscriptions.
To her surprise, she stumbled upon a very old and broken stele with fading writing in the Holy Alchemy Civilization's language. She immediately recognized it as an alchemy formula, based on the intricate drawings inscribed around the text. Unfortunately, the stele was broken in half, and even if Leyvi were here to decipher the language, half of the information was lost.
This discovery only strengthened Anda's determination to head toward the colossal tree. She will be the person who restores the lost ancient knowledge of alchemy. Just kidding. She didn't care about that. Everything she found will be monopolized by the Leyan Family!
Later, Anda found the world map Lapin had mentioned. To her surprise, it wasn't drawn on a large sheet of paper as she had expected. Instead, it was painted across the surface of a massive, round boulder. The sheer size of it made her pause for a moment. She sent out her spiritual sense, covering the globe-like boulder so she could take in the entire map at once.
The map revealed that this world consisted of only one continent—a supercontinent! It was called the Titanis Continent, and it was unlike anything Anda had seen before. Tamina had mentioned that their world was made up of clusters of continents separated by vast oceans. But here, the Titanis landmass covered around 50% of the entire world! No wonder it felt endlessly vast. Even after over a month of traveling, she and Tamina hadn't found a single remnant of a past settlement. Based on the map's scale, Anda calculated that the entirety of the Cloud Continent was only about 4% the size of Titanis.
The map was densely marked with writings—big and small—covering every inch of the landmass, except for the oceans. It was clear that the people of the World Explorer Civilization had likely explored every corner of the world. They had even charted numerous islands scattered across the oceans surrounding the continent.
Without wasting time, Anda used an image recorder to capture the entire map. She then imprinted the image into multiple jade slips, planning to distribute them to Leyvi and the others later. Now, they wouldn't have to explore the Mystic Realm blindly like headless chickens.
A few days later, Anda and Tamina decided to descend from the sky island and resume their pandaploring adventures, this time with even greater excitement. After all, their visit to the sky island this time had brought them a tremendous harvest, especially in the form of information.
