This time, I want to talk to you about the future, Planet Norma’s future, the future of the colonists, as well as the future of Earth...
The old man’s raspy voice suddenly turned deeper as he closed his eyes, seemingly in recollection as he said, “Do you still remember what I told all of you during the opening ceremony?”
“The part about the colonists? You said we would be able to obtain everything we want on Planet Norma; power, riches, territory and much more. Yes, I remember. No, it would be more accurate to say we couldn’t possibly forget.” Stopping, Xiao Lin smiled as he added, “That is the motivation for all of us putting our lives at risk.”
“That’s right, no matter what we say and what we admit to, there’s no way to deny that desire is the most basic motivation for anyone. How much do you know of the history of the colonists?”
“I’ve seen everything from the history lessons,” Xiao Lin carefully answered. They did have history lessons during the last semester, but he felt like the dean could not possibly be testing his classroom knowledge.
“Then what about Earth’s history? How much of that do you know?”
“I know quite a bit of Earth’s ancient history. I specialized in that when I was in university.”
The dean smiled silently before he sighed, “The thousands of years of Earth’s civilized history really is quite long, but compared to the Earth’s billions of years, thousands of years is not worth mentioning at all. The scientists on Earth have always been working hard to understand our home, and when the first colonists appeared on Planet Norma, there was also a group of people who tried to figure out the relationship between Earth and Planet Norma.”
That answer was within Xiao Lin’s expectations. He thought of the Atlantean civilization as well as Silverlight. However, he felt it strange that he had never seen that part of history in any books, including the extra-curricular onces in the library.
“Only a small portion of people have investigated the relationship between Earth and Planet Norma out of their own interest. It was just like they expected: there are thousands and thousands of connections between the two worlds. With the current most reliable information, the relationship dates back to three billion years.”
Xiao Lin was shocked again, because he had thought that the relationship would have originated from Atlantean times, but compared to the over four billion years of history Earth had, the Atlantean civilization was actually just a shooting star. However, he seemed to have thought of something, and curiously asked, “Hold on, was there really life on Earth three billion years ago?”
The dean nodded. “The current archeologists on Earth have found that the earliest fossils date back to almost three and a half billion years ago. Of course, we can’t use that to conclude that there was when life on Earth started, for it could have been much further ago, but if we use this as the starting point, the legends of Planet Norma say that God created life three-point-three billion years ago. Don’t you feel like those two timings are a little too close?”
“Is it a coincidence?” Xiao Lin asked.
The dean shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know. Of course, history only represents the past, but the more connections there are, the more we can predict the future. At that moment, the Supreme Council completely stopped every academy performing any research on the subject, and classified it as the highest of secrets. Other than those who were around during that era, there are very few of the later generations who know of this anymore.”
Xiao Lin nervously sat up. He felt like the dean’s next words would form the main topic.
However, the dean was still delaying it, asking Xiao Lin, “Do you know about the stability of the laws?”
“I do, Department Head Song told me that, if the laws keep being disrupted, it will break the balance, and could even lead to the extinction of a planet.”
“That’s right, and Earth is constantly moving toward that point of extinction.”
“It’s because the earliest colonists had constantly used their powers on Earth, right? That’s why the academies restricted those above Silver-rank from going back later on,” Xiao Lin said.
The dean smiled bitterly. “Song Junlang told you that? He did not tell you the truth, but it is the highest of secrets after all. It’s right; those of them who obtained power and returned did indeed use powers that exceeded the laws to satisfy their own egos and desires, but how many of them do you think there were? If only that tiny amount of people could destroy the laws of a planet, it would be way too weak.”
Xiao Lin could vaguely understand what the deans’ next words would be.
“In truth, the laws on Earth had already been shattered and crippled a long time ago, and we are just the last straws that broke the camel’s back.”
Xiao Lin was not surprised at the answer, because he remembered the last moments of Poseidon destroying Atlantis, and the scenery did shatter. However, thanks to Poseidon being sealed, the cracks slowly recovered. However, that still meant that, even during the era of Atlantis, Earth’s laws were already in danger of breaking.
If one used that as a basis to hypothesize, then a bigger question came. In the river of history, far away from Atlantean times, what form of power could so completely destroy the laws of a planet?
“It’s war,” the dean answered.
“A war with Planet Norma?” Xiao Lin guessed the answer.
“That’s right, but knowledge of when the war started has already been lost, but conservative estimates put it at hundreds of millions of years ago. Any records of the war have already completely vanished from both planets, but we still managed to find some traces from ancient remains, such as discovering an extremely ancient site that seemed to be the target of a nuclear explosion on Earth. Our current hypothesis is that it was a remnant of the war back then, and after the war, the passages between the two worlds were completely sealed. It was only reopened during the Atlantean era, and only reused by us on a large scale in recent years.
“Xiao Lin, do you know why we decided to colonize this place? Why did we abandon our families and everything we had on Earth to head to a different world, risking our lives as we uncovered new land?” The dean looked at Xiao Lin, coming back to the original question.
Xiao Lin finally understood, and he said softly, “It was not for territory, money or power, but only to live?”
“Yes, to live; it was just that simple. However, the reason has been classified as a secret by the Supreme Council, so we can’t reveal it to the students. I looked for you to tell you that we don’t have much time left. Even though lately all the academies have introduced more and more strict regulations to protect it, Earth is just like my frail body right now, in the fact that it does not have much time remaining.”
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