Deep Sea Embers

According to historical records, the world before the Great Annihilation was a prosperous and safe paradise.

Back then, the ocean was yet the “Boundless Sea” of today, which now occupied ninety percent of the world’s surface, nor were there all these dangerous “Anomalies” and “Visions” running rampant in the world.

Although the modern folks looked at their world as “normal”, to Duncan though, this “normal” was in fact the weird and twisted version.

Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing the exact details of the “Great Annihilation”. Sure, the archaeological community has been making efforts in this regard to search for clues, but the discrepancy between the states and races was too different to give a proper conclusion. All they knew was that the current Deep Sea Age, an era of water and malicious danger, had come out of the chaotic fog thereafter.

Nina naturally didn’t know there was a ghost captain drawing knowledge through words; instead, she only thought that her uncle desired to test herself.

This brought a lot of joy to the girl’s day because they had not shared in these warm moments in a very, very long time, especially when her uncle would return to the irritable state the minute after the spirits and painkillers wore off.

So, before her Uncle Duncan fell ill again, she wanted to show off her progress—which might keep his good mood going for another day or two at least.

“…… Mr. Morris is very interested in the history of the Kingdom of Crete, and he’s one of the leading experts on this subject. He told us that although the ancient Kingdom of Crete lasted only a hundred years, it was the first civilization after the advent of the Deep Sea Age to rise from the ruins to fight against anomalies and visions. Even now, their research continues to dictate our advancement in the world, especially the classification of ‘anomalies’ and ‘visions’…”

“There’s a classification of ‘anomalies’ and ‘visions’?” Duncan raised his eyebrows, not forgetting to guide the girl on the path he wanted.

He had been very concerned about this topic since the beginning of their conversation. Unlike his original assumption of all supernatural events being called “anomalies”, there’s apparently another classification called “visions”, which was entirely different if he had to guess.

Nina nodded, remembering what she had heard in class, “Old Mr. Morris taught us that the easiest way to distinguish between anomalies and visions is the scale they exist as.”

“Usually, the scale of anomalies is small, often limited to an object, animal, or even a person.”

“Anomalies can also be artificially moved due to their limited range of influence – usually to only one person at a time. Knowing this fact, we can move the anomalies to another location for sealing or isolation. In rare cases, we would even exploit the more innocuous anomalies by using tools and such as a medium.”

“The scale of “visions” is far greater than the anomalies, and the smallest vision is the size of a house, with the larger ones spanning the whole city. In rare cases, the size can become so big that it’s hard to imagine.”

“A considerable number of visions are incapable of being moved by man, they are either fixed in one place or operate according to their own will, and their ability to affect is far greater than that of anomalies. Usually, visions can affect so many targets within their effective range that they can almost be equated with the idea of ‘natural phenomena’, hence the term ‘vision’.

“Unlike anomalies, almost all ‘visions’ cannot be sealed or controlled. They exist in the world like the natural order, operating undisturbed by outside forces. Since most visions are dangerous, the only thing one can do is to avoid these dangerous locations and not get tagged by their range….”

“Fortunately, the most dangerous visions usually do not move, and the pioneers of the past have helped us identify these dangers so that we could safely keep our distance from them…”

Nina said very seriously, and then as if suddenly remembering something, she quickly added: “Ah yes, Teacher also mentioned to us that these distinguishing methods and characteristics are only ‘usually effective’ and not absolute. Anomalies and visions are unreasonable things, so no matter how people sum up their experiences, there will always be anomalies or visions that do not conform to the definition. On top of that, the two can sometimes interchange between the two categories.”

“Like in the new City-State calendar for example – in 1830, the city-state of Renza had a runaway anomaly called Fungal, forcing the local church officials to pay a great price to banish this uncontrolled anomaly to a nearby island, which in 1835 got identified as a vision. Then in the year 1844, the great Saint Palatine took his own life on the fungal island and used his own urn to remove this threat. Nowadays, this urn housing Fungal is renamed Mushroom Urn of Palatine in honor of that great saint and his sacrifice. It’s currently sealed underground in the cathedral of City-State Lenza as a relic …”

Duncan listened intently to what Nina was telling, causing his mind to race wildly from ups and downs.

In this short breakfast alone, he had gathered more information than he had spent so many days on the Vanished combined! Once again, he’s proven that communication on land and setting up an outpost within the city was the most effective way of aggregating intelligence about this world!

A civilization that has developed to the industrial stage must find ways to compress the basic knowledge of the functioning of society into its own education system. Otherwise, it would become difficult for the rest of society to follow. As a result, Nina could never fathom how much of a treasure-trove of knowledge she truly held in her hands. For that, Duncan appreciated her kindness and innocence.

“So….. Mr. Morris told us at the end of the last lesson that in dealing with ‘abnormalities’ and ‘visions’, there is only one true and eternally valid rule. That is, ‘No matter how many laws we summarize, there will be anomalies or visions that do not conform to the law in the world’.

“This rule, also known by scholars as ‘Eternal Zero’, is by default at the top of all books and papers in the field.”