Above The Sky
Chapter 272 - 272 258 Ancestors of the Redwood Natives 13

272: Chapter 258 Ancestors of the Redwood Natives (1/3) 272: Chapter 258 Ancestors of the Redwood Natives (1/3) “Activate visual recording.”

Ian wasn’t about to waste any time on frivolities; now wasn’t the moment for shock and awe.

He directly requested the core chip to record all the murals his eyes were seeing in video form!

The murals were simplistic, yet extremely vivid and full of spirit—a clear indication that the painter was a professional trained in this discipline.

Ian held his breath, intently observing each scene depicted within the murals.

The earlier murals had been damaged.

He could only start from the shattered moon.

After fragments of the moon fell to Earth, all beings on the planet were engulfed by flames; towering cities and structures crumbled in the meteor showers, and flying vehicles and skyships plummeted, their engines belching black smoke.

This wasn’t likely caused by meteors, but rather a massive machinery failure due to a powerful electromagnetic pulse or changes in the Spirit Energy Field that swept the entire city.

The residents, garbed in robes and various other attire, scattered in terror throughout the streets.

They didn’t all look the same.

Ian easily spotted Humans, Elves, and Dwarves, among other common races.

Demihumans with various beast-like features were also plentiful, as were the Descendants of the Sea.

Upon closer inspection, one could distinguish the White Folks, Iron Folk, Crimson People, and Golden Folk from the details in the unfaded pigment.

It appeared that during the previous era, the multitude of races that now exist had already appeared; they were all equals, without any hierarchical disparity.

Some people had cyber retrofitting parts on their bodies as they walked through the streets, only to be suddenly stricken by a cataclysmic disaster.

The impact of the meteors was just a prelude.

With the moon’s fragmentation, all light vanished from the Earth, and everything in the murals turned to black and white.

Ian speculated this might be an artistic representation of all electronics being temporarily inoperable.

Then, the scene shifted back to the coast—a towering skyscraper was collapsing and toppling over.

It seemed that something even more terrifying occurred in the ocean.

Although there were no depictions of meteors falling into it, massive tsunamis, earthquakes, and geological upheavals were at play, destroying all the coastal cities.

The towering skyscraper was no exception; it sank into the ocean along with the prosperous cities.

But deep underneath the ground, a base designed to withstand natural and man-made disasters was still operational.

That was none other than the Redwood Base.

It seemed that people inside Redwood Base were arguing.

Because the base was shielded by the earth’s crust and seawater, it was not affected by the electromagnetic or Spirit Energy Field disruptions that plagued the rest of Terra World; colors still existed within the base.

Yet, they too were in a state of panic.

A group of people were fighting and civil strife erupted around a glowing object; many died within the base until four leaders stepped forward and reached an agreement.

They created Four Keys, each representing ‘Energy,’ ‘Maintenance,’ ‘Recycling,’ and ‘Future.’ They locked down many of the base’s hazardous and damaged areas, and remodeled the inside.

Only when all four keys were brought together could the sealed-off hazardous areas and the base’s grand gates be unlocked.

The natural disasters continued on outside, but inside the Redwood Base, stability was achieved.

The four great leaders worked together to govern and managed to build an internal ecosystem within the base; they used omnipresent light for farming, bred livestock, and sustained a sufficient number of people.

Time flew by, and the leaders, who were already old before the moon shattered, passed away one by one.

The subsequent leaders who took over were also very capable and led the personnel inside Redwood Base to continue maintaining the biosphere and repairing many facilities within the base.

This segment of the mural was brief, captured in just a few images that told the story of several generations’ change in leadership.

It was clear that the painter wasn’t very familiar with this historical period, or perhaps felt there was no need to go into great detail—the important point was that over several generations of leaders, Redwood Base maintained internal stability.

But, time is always the greatest killer.

Suddenly, Ian understood why the murals specifically illustrated the process of changing leaders.

Because after a water purification and irrigation facility was destroyed by livestock, the leader wearing ‘green’ garb representing ‘Recycling’ looked helpless, and the others were silent as well.

It was obvious.

They had forgotten how to repair the facility.

Perhaps it wasn’t a case of forgetting.

Ian silently watched this part of the mural; he knew all too well that in a highly specialized modern society, many functions were being replaced by highly specialized repair machines or carried out by professional workers.

A mechanical engineer might only be familiar with the machinery in their own area of expertise, and a repair worker couldn’t possibly know how to fix every piece of siege equipment.

Aside from spacecraft and exploration vessels that needed as few crew members as possible, there was hardly a need for professionals to master a variety of skills.

The larger the civilization, the more intricate its departments, the stricter the division of its labor became, and the more people were needed to maintain the ‘knowledge’ necessary for its existence.

Put simply—although everyone knew some basic or advanced mathematics, apart from mathematicians who specialized in studying it, hardly anyone understood what they were actually researching on a daily basis.

The same applied to other technologies.

After the disaster, the Redwood Base chose to seal itself underground, avoiding the calamity and disconnecting from the world.

They established a complete ecosystem using base energy to breed animals and cultivate food, solving the survival problem.

But when all the first-generation workers of Redwood Base slowly aged and even died, the loss of technology became inevitable.

Their progeny did not have the conditions to receive the same level of higher education as them, and even if they mastered many technologies, it was impossible for them to cover all bases and deduce further.

Not to mention, it was possible that among these people, none possessed the expertise to repair water purification facilities.

Based on Ian’s personal experience, such matters were generally outsourced—cost-effective, professional, and no need to worry about creating positions for new hires.

Thus, decline began.

Aside from the water recycling equipment, many other devices also began to malfunction over time.

Of course, only a minority could not be repaired.

Most of the key facilities were of utmost importance; the first-generation people of Redwood Base had anticipated this issue.

Their descendants might not compare to their elite parents, but their standard had not fallen too much.

They could be considered intellectuals who had completed higher education in the previous civilization.

However, what about the children of their children?

Continuing this way, within three generations, the Redwood People would change from survivors of the former era to complete technological barbarians—they held some advanced technologies, but could not analyze and develop them further.

To change this, people in blue and white clothing, representing the leaders of the future and maintenance, thought of many solutions.

—For instance, using colossal machines to facilitate learning.

—Or artificially cultivating an external memory organ to record key knowledge within, transplanting it from one generation to the next to pass on memory and skills.

—Another idea was to engrave the knowledge directly into the bloodline so humans could gradually comprehend the knowledge within their veins as they grew.

These methods were already being developed and perfected by the previous civilization.

In the end, due to the excessive luxury of the massive learning machines, their ease of damage, and the inability to manufacture some critical parts, they opted for altering their own bloodline and creating an external memory organ as methods to help future Redwood People maintain their technological level.

They placed newborns and even fertilized eggs into containers similar to cultivation chambers and then adjusted them, imprinting numerous knowledges into their instincts…

The Redwood Base had a lot of genetic engineering equipment, which corresponded with the various alien ecosystems Ian had seen.

Bloodline inheritance was not difficult for them.

—Now, Ian had almost understood the origin of the Redwood Natives.

Without a doubt, the Redwood Natives were the descendants of the Redwood Base workers!

No wonder the majority of the Redwood Natives were Golden Folk because among the workers at the time, those with genes from the Golden Folk were most suited to the environment.

The offspring of intermarriages were mostly Golden Folk as well…

The other races, due to their inadaptability, suppressed their dominant genes to ensure the continuation of their lineage.

But then a question arose…

In the Redwood Base, or rather the Southern Sea Ruins, there was an abundance of energy, ample resources, and a complete ecosystem—Life within was definitely more comfortable than living outside.

At the very least, the ancestors living in the base never worried about food or suffered from a lack of nutrition to the point that the whole tribe had to ‘adaptively’ become small-statured.

“Why would they want to leave?

To give up their status as base members and become ‘Natives’?”

With such doubts, Ian gradually looked beyond the wall painting.