After hearing Firebearer’s account, Yvette, unexpectedly, wasn’t surprised.
As someone from the future in the Lands of Termination, she had long since confirmed the real existence of gods.
Furthermore, origin civilization’s technological progress had always leaned on the fossilized magical beasts of the ancient era dug from the earth—extracting rune-sets to compare, analyze, and study. Digging up relics of god-tier creatures along the way was nothing out of the ordinary.
It was just that, in the post-apocalypse Lands of Termination, the godspawn created by the Divine Molt ruled the world, and the machinefolk born of the Heartcore also had a place.
Only the Green Diadem made no sound at all.
She didn’t know whether it had been destroyed in the apocalypse, lost, or taken by the Doomsday Witch or the Machine God.
After a quiet spell, Yvette hesitated, then asked, “Um—can I ask a key question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Our organization’s ‘Fireseed Base’—where did you build it, or where do you plan to? If the apocalypse comes, then for the people after the end,
how are they supposed to find it?” Yvette probed.
It was, without doubt, the core of the Civilization Preservation Society—and the reason she’d joined. Abrupt as it seemed, she felt qualified to know. She was the sole survivor—if the base wasn’t for her, who else?
“Miss Nameless, are you curious about the knowledge kept inside?” Firebearer asked, pointedly.
“…I’m just asking. I’m not going to steal it.”
“It’s fine. You can know—because construction of the Fireseed Base is still in preparation. For now we’re in the data-collection phase,” Firebearer said with a smile. “I’m still the president; there’s a lot I can’t do openly. Too many eyes on me. Once I’m retired,
we’ll start building. I’m thinking under President’s Mountain, though the exact design isn’t set. In any case, the ‘Archive’ and the ‘Human Genome Vault’ will be the beating heart.”
President’s Mountain was one of the United States of New Eden’s cultural symbols, its cliff carved with the faces of the nation’s finest presidents—famous the world over,
and regularly expanded and updated.
Firebearer then quipped at his own expense: “There’s no way I’m getting my face on President’s Mountain—but that’s fine. It isn’t the point, as long as we finish the work.”
“Are you certain the apocalypse will come?” Yvette asked.
“Of course not,” Firebearer said. “In truth, the doomsday idea sprang from learning of the Divine Molt and from the fear I felt seeing aberrants with my own eyes. Since then, the fear has stuck in my head like a nightmare,
filling me with deep concern for humanity’s future and finally pushing me to do something—to guard against an outcome that might never happen at all.”
“I don’t know how the ancient civilization thirty thousand years ago fell, or whether it had anything to do with the Divine Molt, the Green Diadem, or the Heartcore—but I don’t want human civilization to repeat that tragedy.”
“So I founded the Civilization Preservation Society, quit medicine for politics, and ran for president—paranoid as it may seem—to try to leave a fireseed for humankind.”
“That way, whatever comes—ruin or greater glory—I can rest easier, because I’ll feel that at least humanity still has a flame: a flame that may never be used, and that we hope never needs to be.”
“As long as that flame remains.”
A few minutes later, as their talk wound down, Yvette ended the call with Firebearer. She turned to the window. Dawn was near; under the dim sky, a blade of silvery light stabbed through the night.
She had to admit she felt a measure of respect for him. He had borne loathing, paid costs, climbed to the world’s peak of power, and still kept a heart set on all humanity. She’d thought such idealists existed only in novels; she hadn’t expected to find one in reality.
Then another feeling rose. If you asked her the greatest goal of entering dreams, the answer was clearly the treasure of origin civilization represented by the Civilization Preservation Society. Yet after obtaining that treasure, her shoulders felt a little heavier—as if she now held the passing of a civilization’s torch.
Of course, in the Lands of Termination, that treasure might not even exist,
and even if it did, no one could force her to take on something as troublesome as reviving human civilization. It would all depend on whether she wanted to.
She stared in silence at the breaking light outside and wrestled with herself, weighing gains and losses.
Soon she realized that even if she could overcome her laziness and wished to revive human civilization, the Lands of Termination were not fit soil for its return—what with the aberrant monarchs, the Machine God, that mysterious polar garden, and so many secrets yet to probe.
So—
A task as grand as reviving human civilization was far from its moment. There was no need to rush.
With that thought clear, Yvette exhaled, let herself fall back onto the soft bed, and felt her worries fade away.
In any case—given where things stood—sleep first.
With the New Year two days away and school out, Lianna stayed with Yvette to study runology, laying a foundation for future magic training.
She was downcast these two days. Having lost her parents, Louisa had been sent to live with relatives in the countryside and, naturally, had transferred schools. She wouldn’t be attending the middle division of Lingman Academy anymore.
Yvette offered a bit of comfort and decided it was for the best. She and Lianna weren’t staying in Garde City for good; since they would part sooner or later, they shouldn’t have tied themselves too closely at the start.
Over the next month, Yvette decoded from the tens of millions of words she had stolen from Greenlight Tower some technologies concerning magic plants.
Put simply, she could build Peashooters now.
And compared with summons like skeletons, magic plants such as Peashooters had a key feature: they could absorb mana from the environment—like the Magelight Vine—so even without resupply, they could draw ambient power and survive a long time in a low-consumption, half-dormant state.
She also parsed a lifeform-switching technique—but it required special gene edits, and the effect was about on par with Agasha’s werewolf assassins: the ability to shift between beast form and human form. You could call it druidic tech.
But that was entirely different from the creation-from-nothing Imogen had shown in Greenlight Tower. That life-creating power was undoubtedly born of the Green Diadem—something cross-confirmed in the classified data she’d decoded.
At the end of January, in the final days of dream-mist, the middle division of Lingman Academy began winter break. Lianna’s first term had wrapped up nicely.
The day Yvette went to pick her up, a rare cold front swept in. As the northernmost city on the Jadeite Continent, Garde saw a surprise flurry.
At dusk, the two of them—disguised as black-haired, black-eyed sisters—walked the street in cute sailor uniforms, heads tilted up as fine snow fell like powdered sugar, turned by the streetlamps into a haze of amber. Music drifted from nearby shops.
Yvette paused to watch a while, then turned to find Lianna staring, unmoving even as snow melted on her nose. “What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Sis, Louisa made new friends at her new school,” Lianna said, voice unreadable.
“Yeah? Are you a little sad?” Yvette asked.
“A little.”
“It can’t be helped. New surroundings mean new circles. People are social animals, after all.”
“Do we count as people?” Lianna looked over, suddenly serious, as if she truly wanted the answer.
“Not completely,” Yvette said noncommittally. “So you don’t have to force yourself to fit into human society. You’re not ordinary; neither am I.”
Gazing at Yvette’s calm, exquisite face, Lianna was quiet a moment, then asked softly, “Sis, what about you—if,
if one day you leave me for something else, and when we meet again there are new friends by your side—will there be?”
“I won’t leave you,” Yvette said gently.
The words had barely fallen when her vision blurred, like pigment bleeding in water.
Then she saw Lianna smile again and say something she couldn’t hear. When she came back to herself, the world before her was pitch black.
The dream was over.
Standing in darkness thick as ink, Yvette was silent for a long time.
There was a secret she hadn’t told Lianna: after this bout of dream-mist, she didn’t plan to enter any more.
So long as you didn’t enter, the dream-mist could be preserved indefinitely—and she had already gained enough of origin civilization’s legacy.
Until she had the power to unearth the world’s full truth, she didn’t want to spend even one more dream-mist—better to save them.
Of course, Lianna wouldn’t feel the passage—but for Yvette, it could be oceans and ages.
With a soft sigh and a quiet “see you next time,” she stepped out of the shadows, bathed in elegant moonlight, and walked toward the motorhome glowing with light not far away.
Book 2: Chapter 163: As Long as This Flame Remains
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