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Chapter 381 – Golden age
🕑 Added 2025-08-30 06:00:05 +0000 UTCUnlike the first hall, which contained information on all sorts of different topics, this one seemed to delve much deeper into a single one. A rather important subject for the Amenthei too.
Their world’s history.
Rather than different categories, the columns along the room’s perimeter covered the entire chronology of Amenthes, each jumping ahead by a certain increment of time.
‘…375,000 BC… 370,000 BC… 365,000 BC…’
Percy was tempted to just skip this room entirely and climb up to the next one. He had already cut his most important alchemy lesson short out of necessity, so why would he waste his time reading about the history of some civilization he hadn’t even heard of until a few hours ago.
But he didn’t do that.
Even if he sprinted to the top of the pyramid, there was no guarantee he’d find an exit there. This wasn’t even the physical world, so expecting to find a regular door leading out of a dream – or whatever this was – wasn’t the smartest idea.
‘I should at least try to understand what exactly happened to these people, and how they ended up here.’
Obviously, reading everything wasn’t realistic, so he’d have to be smart about it. His best bet would be to try and pinpoint the most important events that had led to the creation of this sanctuary. Looking for the oldest date in the hall, Percy soon approached the column with the ‘432,117 BC’ heading. It was both the largest number and the only one that wasn’t round. Placing his hand on it, he then skimmed through random sections around the hall, trying to get a sense of how these people had started out.
‘…while this is the earliest recorded date in our history, our scholars believe that our ancestors have been around for a while longer. Traces of eroded tools and destroyed structures suggest that our people first showed signs of true intelligence as early as 780,000 BC…’
‘…the loss of our beast affinities was initially detrimental, placing our ancestors at a severe disadvantage against the monsters surrounding their villages. The variety of new affinities they manifested, coupled with their intelligence and use of tools made up for that to an extent, but it was still a difficult time for our people…’
Percy frowned. The Amenthei had clearly started out no differently than most other civilizations did, which shouldn’t matter much to his current predicament. Walking to the corresponding section of the next wall, he skipped ahead to 330,000 BC, hoping these people had invented elixirs by then.
‘…holding back the raf’henats was almost impossible, as a single Blue specimen could decimate an entire village by itself. At their peak, half a dozen Blue raf’henats had been reported roaming the continent, slaughtering everything in their path…’
‘…our people had been forced to live as nomads, hiding from the monsters. Many of them followed Green-born leaders who had advanced to Blue themselves. Sadly, the amber potions had still been flawed at the time, so nobody had reached Violet yet…’
‘Not yet… they had alchemy, but not enough for fast advancements…’
Percy yawned, before changing to the next section. This time, he didn’t jump ahead too far, knowing he was close to the invention of true elixirs.
‘325,000 BC’
‘…that was when Kalifhon the Wise realized we could still improve upon our potions. Working alongside his colleagues, he spent years trying out different things, though it wasn’t until a long time later that his successors completed his work…’
‘320,000 BC’
‘…finally allowed us to conquer Amenthes and establish our first true cities – some of which have stood the test of time to this day. Since then, the year 319,547 BC has been widely considered to be the dawn of our civilization, marking the beginning of our golden age…’
Reading this felt a little strange to Percy. Obviously, these years hadn’t been called that at the time. Nobody in their right mind would pick a random six-digit number and start counting backward from there. Clearly, their historians had later gone back and altered all these dates to place them in reference to some other big event. Yet, Percy struggled to imagine what could possibly be more important than the dawn of their civilization, or the invention of elixirs.
Regardless, he was happy he was getting somewhere. Percy started skipping ahead by increments of 20,000 years at a time, looking for anything else of interest. At first, there wasn’t much. The subsequent sections mostly talked about various countries and wars fought between them, as well as the discovery of many of the arts and fields of research he had already seen mentioned in the previous library. Free from their wild oppressors, the Amenthei had finally managed to conquer their planet and elevate themselves.
It wasn’t until six sections later that something caught his eye again.
‘200,000 BC’
‘…the potion-makers thought this was a promising new avenue to pursue, though they had to ask the Daughter of Heaven for her permission and funding to embark on that quest…’
‘Daughter of Heaven? Who’s that?’
She sounded like an important figure, though Percy had missed the details surrounding her rise to power. Backtracking by a couple of columns, it didn’t take him long to find the answer.
‘210,000 BC’
‘…and thus, she obtained a power that far surpassed that of any king or queen before her. Her beauty made the stars in the night sky look like pieces of coal, and she held in her hands the strength to shatter mountains and dry up lakes…’
‘…in the year 208,989 BC, she single-handedly ended all wars, and finally united the people of Amenthes under her command…’
As far as Percy could tell, this woman was a goddess – this world’s first one, in fact. Most curiously, the text had never used that word to describe her though, nor did it ever mention her real name.
A cursory scan of the next few sections confirmed that they had always referred to her as the “Daughter of Heaven”. It was almost as if these people didn’t even understand what godhood was – that it was just another step on the path of magic. They treated her more like a symbol – a chosen one who had descended upon their world to save and rule them.
Sure enough, Percy failed to find any mention of other gods in the following sections. Apparently, this woman was the only goddess Amenthes had ever produced. In fact, she had to be the one whose soul he had seen when he approached the Sanctuary – she was probably inside the pyramid right now!
‘200,000 years is quite young for a goddess though…’
It was a long time for mortals, as even a Green-born who had made it all the way past White would probably not live nearly that long, but it wasn’t that much compared to the deities they had on Remior.
If he wasn’t mistaken, Phoebe should be over a million years old, and most of the active gods in the Divine Order should be at least half that. Percy had no idea when the first gods had risen on Remior, nor did he know when humanity had first evolved into a sapient species, but he guessed it should have been a couple million years ago at the very least.
Granted, he didn’t know how long a year on Amenthes was either, but if it was in the same ballpark as years on Remior, this woman would barely be considered a child among deities.
And so were the Amenthei as a whole, compared to other civilizations he had encountered. It wasn’t just their young age that stood out, but also their planet’s smaller size. Felmara wasn’t a large world either, but even they had produced multiple gods. Not nearly as many as Remior – and they didn’t have a single titan either – but Rhaziel wasn’t the only one. Just the most recent holder of the “Proudheart” name. In other words, he was merely the strongest one still around.
‘Okay, then… So, it’s a young world with a young goddess… Possibly didn’t know as much about the rest of the cosmos either, depending on how far the nearest civilization was…’
Either way, Percy had yet to learn what had forced the Amenthei into this pyramid. Was it even located on their original world, or had they fled Amenthes entirely?
Perhaps, this was some kind of spaceship as much as it was a sanctuary? What if the goddess had placed her people in deep slumber and taken as many of them as she could with her, to protect them from some calamity?
Shrugging, Percy continued skipping ahead by large increments, inching closer and closer to the present moment. Skimming through section after section, he still found no mention of a disaster. This entire room seemed to describe nothing more than the golden age of Amenthes, listing the achievements of the goddess as she led her people to prosperity.
It wasn’t until Percy reached the ‘5,000 BC’ column, right before the ‘432,117 BC’ column he had started with, that he realized this room didn’t even reach the present.
‘Actually, didn’t the text in Rasef’s room say he had lived in the 13,000s or something? And I think it was AC – not BC…’
The dates there had clearly moved forward, not backward, meaning that something major should have happened in the year 0. Percy felt a shiver roll down his spine, the shock even jolting him out of his drowsiness for a couple seconds.
Turning to look at the stairs leading out of the room, he guessed they would take him to a third hall. It was just speculation on his end, but he had a hunch that place would hold the answers to many of his remaining questions…
Comments
Joyeus
Before they were sapient they were just mere beasts. I don’t think it was directly stated to us before this point.
Calvinity
I dont think it has been mentioned, its probably common knowledge since he accept the fact that sapients come from beasts so easily. Could be a simple throw-away information for us, or a small nod to something that becomes important later.
Zorian22
the loss of our beast affinities was initially detrimental, placing "...our ancestors at a severe disadvantage against the monsters surrounding their villages." Does that mean sapients had beast mana before losing them to evolution and gaining other affinities? But Percy didn't even blink an eye at this. Was this established before?
