BXBX NOVEL Book 6 1.1
Changes quietly took place. When the changes to the world arrived, there were no announcements, no gunshot sounds, nor any moving speeches. It just came, descending on a blood-colored dusk.
Many ability users were ignorant to the changes. In their eyes, the new day wouldn’t be any different. Only a few keen individuals could sense something, many of them Mysterious Fields ability users. However, the number of those who could communicate with the world were very few, and it was extremely difficult to say whether it was a good or bad thing. Some of the mutated creatures who developed initial or advanced levels of intelligence were hiding in their nests, shivering, losing the courage to even run.
For ordinary people without abilities, no matter what the world changed into, it was unrelated to them, to the extent where they even welcomed change. Regardless of what kind of change it was, their fates couldn’t be any worse, right?
The human race was still mostly made up of ordinary people without abilities, but compared to all the different types of mutated creatures, the human population didn’t occupy an advantage at all, and they were also gradually losing their ruling status in intelligence. In the boundless world outside the human race’s area of activity, it was unknown just how many creatures were currently mutating and evolving at lightning speeds, waiting to claim sovereignty over this world. However, this process wasn’t that easy, because the human race had ability users. The superiority ability users held over most mutated creatures, was as clear as that of olden era humans against wild beasts. Meanwhile, in the eyes of certain forerunners, the human race was currently dividing into two species, ability users and ordinary people.
The world changed, but only the small few standing at the top of all living things sensed these changes, shivering inwardly because of it. It was because the changes were closely bound to them, while for most creatures, whether anything changed or not, it wasn’t completely unimportant.
Regardless of how the world changed, the sun would always rise again; this was what the ordinary people thought.
This was also what Sally thought. After experiencing a night of nightmares, she woke up again. She moved her sore and heavy body, climbing up from the creaking metal bed. The cold wind that passed through the gap between the door and window made her shiver, and then she hurriedly put on the thick outer coat, only then did she feel a bit better. She pushed open the wooden plank-nailed window, and then looked outside. It was still dark black, only a trace of light in the horizon. Most of the lights in the inhabited area were dark, the people who were worn out after a day of work still sleeping. Sally woke up a bit earlier than normal, but that was mostly because she didn’t slept that well. However, when she looked at this world that should be familiar, she suddenly felt a sense of estrangement.
Sally was already extremely familiar with this camp, as well as everything within several dozen kilometers of it. This wasn’t as simple as just being familiar, she remembered every fine change in terrain, the precision down to the meter. She understood the changes in weather that had taken place in this region, the possibility of minerals existing underground, and was also well aware of the river’s flow output and water quality. Sally possessed an astonishing memory, still remembering the contents of several hundred books in detail. Right now, in the inhabited land’s surroundings, there was a small-scale clean water reservoir made from a five-step water pond system that could barely provide enough water to drink. Through the surrounding minerals and plants, the residents’ resistance towards radiation could be increased, and they already found several new types of edible crops, just waiting for the warmth of springtime when flowers bloomed to plant in large amounts. If their genes remained stable, then after five or six years, they could stably provide food for three to five thousand people.
Everything looked just that wonderful.
However, for Sally, the wonderful prospects were all cast from time and sweat, and she also knew how weak the foundation of all of this was. She only slept five hours each day, always frantically busying about, the knowledge she accumulated during that year and some from the Black Dragonriders now being converted bit by bit into clean water, food, as well as medical products that could treat sickness. She brought close to thousand people out from the Blood Parliament’s range, avoiding the flames of war, and then successfully helped them survive through the first winter. However, this was just the beginning, as well as the comparatively easiest stage. If they wished to develop a step further, they had to establish a mature and complete industrial system. Forget about where they were going to get the machine tools, just energy alone was an issue that couldn’t be resolved with only her two hands.
The other issue, was safety. Until now, the inhabited area only suffered one small-scale armed mob assault, and successfully repelled them. However, that was only because when they left, they brought enough weapons and ammunition, but there was no way of replenishing these things. The other important reason was that there were more than ten ability users in their group, many of them previously dragonrider subordinates, possessing combat skill armed mobs couldn’t compare to at all.
However, her experience in Dragon City told Sally that as long as they encountered two or three low level dragonriders, everything here will collapse like a sandcastle under the tide.
Sharp and clear pounding sounds rang out from within the camp again, Sally knew that the priest began to sculpt again. In the inhabited area, the priest seemed to be the one who worked the hardest. He always got up before the sky brightened to sculpt, build the church and divine altar, explain teachings to believers, resting only very late into the night. However, from another perspective, he also seemed to be the most useless person. At the very least, he didn’t engage in any production type work.
Sally never doubted the priest’s existence. In her perspective, only the priest could find the path into the future for everyone in the inhabited area. She wasn’t a believer, only thinking like this because of her admiration for the priest’s profound knowledge, as well as her female intuition. The temperature was extremely low, the sky also dark. She would have normally slept another hour, but Sally couldn’t fall asleep again, so she decided that she might as well push open the door and walk in the direction of the sculpting sounds.
The current church was only a wooden house that was slightly taller than the rest, the holy altar a spherical table in front of the church’s stone steps. All of this was made by the priest himself, created one rock, one piece of wood at a time. What was rather eye-catching was that there were seven apostle sculptures around the holy altar, among them five already completed, the priest currently sculpting the sixth apostle, while the seventh was currently just a piece of stone material. Not a single lamp was lit on the site of sculpting, the priest able to complete the sculpting work by borrowing just a bit of the sky’s light. When the fifth apostle sculpture was finished, the divine altar suddenly had a type of austere, overcast, dark, and desolate aura. All those who passed through this place would inadvertently lower their voices and quickly move past. However, when the fifth apostle image was finished, the number of believers suddenly shot up greatly, moreover still continuously growing.
The five apostle images that were already completed seemed almost entirely the same, but if one looked carefully, they would discover that there were vastly different temperaments between them. If one stared long enough, they would even feel the illusion as if the sculptures were alive, independently possessing life.
Meanwhile, whenever Sally passed by the church and divine altar, on more than one occasion, she felt as if these apostles were currently silently watching her from behind.
The moment dawn arrived, Sally arrived by the divine atar’s side again, silently watching the priest work busily. She discovered with her sharp feminine instincts that the sixth apostle was considerably different from the previous five. It was more slim, yet similarly possessed a deep feeling of power, to the extent where it might even be a bit greater. Meanwhile, its face had a fine scratch on it. This was originally not that remarkable of a blemish, but when Sally saw it, it looked especially harsh, becoming the sixth apostle’s most striking characteristic.