Chapter 4: Stele

Sylas watched all of this silently.

'She's quite a good speaker. She mentioned something as fanciful as a "summoned ascension," and then she rooted it right back in reality. Somehow it sounds less ridiculous when she puts it like that. Now I assume she'll go back to explaining what a summoned ascension is.'

"The Summoned Ascension is a multiverse-level event. It is an opportunity for Earth to enter the world stage... the true world stage.

"The first opportunity was over 400 million years ago, and it ended in failure. The sixth opportunity, during the era of the United States of America, China, and Russia, was the closest that we've gotten to success, but we were ripped apart by internal strife.

"You've read books about the matters of culture and race, and how heavy a part they've played in our history. What you don't know is that even when our lives were on the line, nothing changed."

Sylas' gaze suddenly turned sharp as he sat forward.

These were simple words, but they practically hit him like a truck.

Hundreds of years ago, the most powerful nations in the world were eradicated due to an all-out nuclear war.

America, China, Russia, Britain—they all had their centers of power crushed.

Although they were in the Appalachians now, this country was no longer called America. Instead, it was called the United Coalition of Terranova.

These names were purposely decided upon to exude a similar air to the countries they replaced, almost as a silent salute to the lives lost and a reminder to never go down that path again.

Even to today, when society had basically caught back up to the pre-nuclear fallout days, no country owned any nuclear warheads. Well, at least not publicly.

This, though, was just the beginning.

In this age, "race" wasn't truly a thing. If you looked around, most people were quite ethnically ambiguous.

If Sylas was picked up and dropped into the era before the Sixth Extinction event, looking at him, it would be difficult to tell if he was Eastern European, Middle Eastern, Hispanic, or maybe even a mixed-race descendent of some sort.

This was the same for everyone. His parents, his little sister, his grandfather, Astrid, or even the other invitees.

All of this was publicly available information, the kind of open secret you didn't even think about while walking through the streets every day, but Astrid's words just now... they made his heart start racing so long after it had finally calmed down.

If after the Sixth Extinction event, Earth failed again, this time due to internal strife caused by cultural and racial differences, what better way to deal with that than to try to make everyone of one culture and one race? There was even now a universal language across all of Earth.

It was a valiant effort, but humans were truly disgusting creatures. Without race, it became a matter of class.

Wasn't the perfect example right here?

The powerful families were gathering up now, and Astrid had mentioned "bloodline" once already. What about the poor? What about the people who didn't have a trillionaire-class family to suddenly call them back home?

"This will be our seventh attempt to ascend. There is much on the line, but I will keep this short.

"Every world only has nine attempts to ascend. After failure on the ninth attempt, it will lose its right to sovereignty and will be passed on to the other overlords of their galactic region.

"Second, those of you informed about the past extinction events understand that we are quite lucky. Not all dominant species manage to survive an event. Many creatures of the past are no longer with us, the dinosaurs being the first that likely comes to your minds.

"The human race managed to make it through one extinction event, but it is impossible to guarantee that we can make it through another."

Astrid waved a hand and the dining room's lights dimmed somewhat as a projector began to fall to her back.

"Right now, all of you only have my words, and as I've said, I'm not here to coddle you all. But I do believe that it is only fair that you all get to witness exactly what me and my cousins have before you make your decision."

The projector clicked into place and an imaged fired onto it.

No, it wasn't an image, but it was a box, a bronze box that appeared, hovered and rotated in space.

Sylas frowned. He looked up at the ceiling and checked for wires, then he went through all the magic tricks in the book to try to find the catch, but nothing came to him.

"This box is known as a City Stele. Most accurately, a Bronze City Stele. It can be said that it's because our ancestor managed to survive the Sixth Extinction that we have this in our possession. In fact, this Bronze City Stele is without a doubt the most valuable possession of the Brown family.

"All of you, touch it."

The lights returned to normal, and the projector slid back up.

Astrid pressed a hand against the Bronze City Stele and it shot across the dining room to the first table.

The wait was agonizing. Sylas had to sit there patiently, watching as one gaze after another lit up like a raging inferno.

His leg began to move up and down, moving so fast that by the time the Bronze City Stele got to their table, his breathing was a bit rushed.

Even so, he controlled himself, watching as his little sister eagerly leapt at it first, then his mother, then his father.

"Sylas, Sylas," Elara pulled at his sleeve. "It's so cool! It went like boom, then flash, and then all these words and letters appeared in my head like I was dreaming, but I wasn't dreaming—!"

For the first time, Sylas completely ignored his little sister.

His grandfather smiled, pushing the floating cube toward him without even taking a glance at it himself. His gaze carrying a hint of pleasure and a knowing look.

Sylas reached forward and touched the cube, his mind going blank. No, it was like his mind and his body had been split in two, his mind seeing things that his body wasn't. Somehow, he was certain that whatever this was couldn't be seen by his eyes, but was rather his mind's eye instead.

Like Elara said, it felt like he was dreaming.

And then the words came.

[Bronze City Stele]

[Status: Dormant]

[Village Name: Unnamed]

[Territory Level: Rudimentary Village]

[Territory Diameter: 100 meters]

[Residents: 0/100]

[Soldiers: 0/10]

[Popularity: 0/0]

[Subsidiary Village Limit: 2]

[Territory Stats: Basic Amenities +5%; Basic Limits +100%]

Sylas was in complete awe. There was simply no technology on this level anywhere. Even VR gaming was still stuck in a projected image era. It was nowhere close to being able to send something right into your brain.

There was some improvement on the front of being able to use computer chips to replace eyesight, but there was simply nothing like this.

'Basic Amenities? Basic Limits? What is that?'

Sylas' desire to understand everything was blazing like a bonfire. His curiosity was practically eating him alive.

What he didn't expect was to get an answer.

[Basic Amenities: Crop Output; Village Attraction; Talent Buff; ...]

[Basic Limits: Territory Diameter; Residents; Soldiers; Subsidiary Village Limit]

Sylas was stunned into silence, not by the response, but rather by what the response meant.

'It read my mind... it read my mind and then responded in kind... How is that possible?'

He already knew from that moment... that he wouldn't be returning home.