Chapter 610: Information about Ancient Humans

Ripples of disturbance shimmered with faint blue specks among the silver-white stone forest. The once-calm space was now being torn apart by a rapidly operating ancient human magic circle, creating holes of varying sizes.

Chaotic elemental particles poured from the void into reality, then were drawn back by Charlotte’s mental energy, maintaining a delicate dynamic balance.

The silver-white stone pillars continued glowing, completely concealing the shadow patterns cast by withered branches. When everything coalesced into unity, Astrid saw a circular rift about the size of a small swimming pool. Surging magical currents brushed against her cheeks, gently swaying her silver hair.

Half a minute passed. The magical tide gradually calmed. Upon the silver-white spatial transfer disc stood a group of tattered skeletons.

Noticing the horrifying sight before her, Astrid didn’t act rashly. She stood straight, waiting until Charlotte completely finished channeling her mental energy and confirmed there was no danger, before slowly approaching.

Tattered cloth draped over pale skeletons, their bare bones exposed on the silver platform. Some had already scattered. Judging by their size and structure, they were extremely similar to modern humans. As far as the eye could see, there were at least six to eight such humanoid corpses.

Circulating airflow around her body to avoid potential toxic gases, Astrid carefully examined a severed finger on the platform. A slender, smooth finger bone wore an exquisitely crafted ring that seemed ready to fall off at the slightest breeze, along with the brittle joints crumbling into dust.

"I think I understand... Astrid..."

Charlotte, having finished channeling her mental energy, gazed thoughtfully at the silver stone above. The damaged surface of the pillar on the central axis, she spoke softly.

"The missing and damaged part of this spatial circle is likely a landmark indicator, or something similar, a magical formation capable of specifying the transmission direction."

While filling the carvings with arcane particles, she felt it. This magic, as expected, wasn’t complete. The infused mental energy was mainly used to tear open spatial rifts and construct passageways.

But where this passage led, and how to reopen the spatial aperture, since the subsequent pillar carvings were missing, could no longer achieve the corresponding effect.

Upon hearing this, Astrid’s red eyes flickered slightly. She glanced at the remains before her, then responded softly. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"So, Lady Charlotte means that this spatial circle we’re seeing now still possesses the ability to teleport people or objects."

"It’s just that its destination isn’t selectable, making the entire process incoherent."

Like opening a spatial wormhole from one point in reality, then jumping to another designated point, now, with the coordinates of that second point undetermined, mages attempting to traverse through this spatial circle couldn’t find the transition point back into reality. They’d be trapped in the intermediate corridor between reality-void-reality.

Then, they became exactly what Astrid saw now, piles of lifeless skeletons, stacked together with their personal belongings.

"Mm, that seems to be the case..."

Charlotte continued sensing the residual magic in the air, her elemental vision fully expanded, trying to capture the foam-like currents of magical energy that had spread along with her mental energy during the spatial collapse and reformation.

As a devoted seeker of knowledge, being able to observe the activation of spatial magic up close would undoubtedly benefit her immensely. If she could comprehend something from this, it might even become the breakthrough moment for Charlotte to reach the pinnacle of Arcanist magehood.

Astrid nodded slightly upon this, carefully examining the unfortunate hearing souls before her. After a while, her pink lips parted gently.

"They were sent to another location by the spatial circle, but mid-transit, the directional magic at the starting point was destroyed by external forces. These mages became trapped in the void, unable to reach their destination for their entire lives."

Like a spacecraft deviating from its original trajectory, without communication signals, without propulsion to return, and with no one even aware of their existence, every struggle and effort was futile. They could only drift aimlessly in the boundless universe, watching distant galaxies, silently awaiting death.

Just thinking about it felt utterly hopeless. If they ever truly had a chance to restart the spatial circle, this safety hazard had to be eliminated.

"Lady Charlotte, is it dangerous to approach them now?" Astrid asked.

Charlotte shook her head. "Shouldn’t be. I’ve wrapped the wind completely around your skin, any contact will be mediated by a layer of wind elemental particles. As for any other possible offensive magic, Elise will be watching too."

Of course, there probably wasn’t any left. At least according to Charlotte’s mental energy detection, there were no traces of large-scale magical manipulation here.

They had met their end in despair, all their magical circles eroded away by the river of time.

"I understand."

Astrid acknowledged, then condensed a thin layer of ice onto the surface of her black silk gloves, gently touching one of the corpses.

The brittle skeleton made no sound. Lifting the tattered cloth revealed a human skull, its deeply sunken eye sockets empty, cleanly severed from the spine and tilted toward the sky.

"It seems time isn’t entirely absent in the void either."

Feeling the decay of the objects before her, Astrid spoke calmly, her eyelashes trembling delicately with her words.

"If our deductions are consistent, these people must have lived during the period when the spatial circle could still function normally, that is, before the world-ending disaster, or during its onset."

"They were members of the ancient humans, attempting to use this spatial circle to reach some destination for a certain purpose."

"They might have even been trying to escape the impending catastrophe."

People scrambled to board the dreamlike Noah’s Ark, hoping to escape the range of the world-ending disaster, only to face an even more unbearable suffering instead.

Circulating wind stirs the dust, revealing more remains within Astrid’s field of view.

Charlotte listened and gently added.

"My speculation aligns with Astrid’s."

"However, it’s obvious that the flow of time in the void must differ from reality. Otherwise, these people who lived during the age of the ancient humans couldn’t have been preserved in such good conditions."

She even saw several books clutched in the bony hands. Judging by their external appearance, they seemed to have existed for no more than a few hundred years. Even accounting for environmental differences, the discrepancy shouldn’t be so vast.

Moreover, from just a brief glance, Charlotte could tell the technological level described in those bound books might not be lower than that of the modern Valeria Empire.

Astrid also agreed. She gently lifted the tattered mage’s robe, revealing the book underneath, handling it even more carefully, afraid of accidentally destroying these precious relics.

Dark gloves wipe away the dust. The gold-embossed book cover saw daylight again after thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years.

Astrid slightly narrowed her eyes, her fingers moving away from the surface, her gaze resting upon it, trying to discern what was written there.

"..."

It wasn’t the modern human common language, nor the imagined elders speech. The title on the book’s cover was a sequence of markings resembling hieroglyphs.

"Astrid, do you recognize this script?"

Although restricted by the world’s constraints and unable to read or chant in elders speech, Charlotte was still a widely knowledgeable magic professor. Just by looking at the characters, it didn’t seem like any traditional elders speech she’d encountered.

Astrid shook her head in response, answered honestly.

"No, this isn’t elders speech."

Calling it hieroglyphs wasn’t quite accurate either. Astrid couldn’t identify exactly what it was yet. The only clear thing was that the script on the book’s cover wasn’t any of the linguistic sciences taught at the Elizabeth Academy of Magic.

"How strange... then why would he be holding it..." The dark-haired beauty drew closer, speaking softly.

"Could it be a book from another intelligent race?"

Facing Charlotte’s confusion, Astrid continued examining the skeletons on the ground. Undoubtedly, they were all normal human remains, without obvious characteristics of other half-human species.

"We can’t rule out that possibility. Perhaps they borrowed books from another race."

A bold idea surged in Astrid’s mind. She stood up and checked other potentially preserved books. Although the covers of several others were slightly weathered, it was still possible to vaguely make out that they were written in the same script.

One book might be a coincidence. All of them? It could only mean the books in their hands truly matched their native language. It’s not as if these unfortunate souls happened to be some translation team, coincidentally discovered by them after such a long time.

The covers were still readable, but the inner pages, if opened without special means, would likely stick together, get damaged, or crumble to powder.

Astrid immediately abandoned the idea of flipping through them and turned to ask Charlotte.

"Lady Charlotte, do these rings have spatial storage functions?"

"Let me try."

After such a long time, even if they once had owners, the soul imprints would have long worn away.

With little effort, Charlotte directed her mental energy into the ring’s space. The items inside were well-preserved, unlike the remains of their owners.

"Indeed, a sealed small space is best for preservation."

The space ring contained no excess elemental particles nor life, books, staves, strangely colored potions, all complete.

She took out a book and handed it to Astrid, who carefully flipped through it. Sure enough, the inscriptions inside were the same strange primitive script as the previous books.

"Ancient humans... but the script isn’t the elders speech..."

After flipping through the entire book, she couldn’t find a single word familiar to Astrid. The idea that had just surfaced gradually gained dominance.

"Have I mentioned to Lady Charlotte before, the truth about the ancient human language?"

"Astrid, which aspect do you mean?"

"The origin of its existence."

Astrid closed the book, slightly adjusting her words. Warm sunlight shines on her body, casting layered shadows of her skirt.

"Modern people generally believe elders speech was the communication tool used by ancient humans. They used this direct and effective language to chant magic and build their ancient magical system."

"But in the records of the Imperial Scepter, the memories of the first-generation king, Lady Gemini, referred to this language as Divine Tongue."

At that moment, Astrid realized part of the truth about this world. Further supported by Breyne’s haughty demeanor and the combat scenes within the brooch, the relationship between ancient humans and deities seemed far from harmonious.

"Divine Tongue?" Charlotte softly repeated, then heard Astrid continue.

"Yes, that’s exactly what Lady Gemini called it."

"She said it was the language closest to the origin of magic, the great existence supporting the fundamental structure of the entire world."

Astrid gently stroked the book’s pages. Her night-sky-colored sleeves fluttered in the wind, revealing her snow-white, delicate wrist and part of her smooth forearm.

"Lady Charlotte, you should know why modern magical theory asserts that elders speech was the language used by ancient humans."

Even that busty, seductive linguistics professor, Evelyn, firmly believed in this.

Charlotte promptly picked up the conversation upon hearing this.

"Because among all known ancient scripts unearthed so far, elders speech is the only one."

"They’re engraved on many tools used by humans, on books for chanting magic, on stone tablets for worship, showing high similarity and consistency. This basically confirms that this script was the language ancient humans used for communication."

"Those murals, buried ruins, special magical barriers, all can serve as supporting evidence."

After speaking, Charlotte saw Astrid pick up the book, her fingertip resting on the cover, enunciating clearly.

"Then what about this script, Lady Charlotte?"

"What does it represent?"

"..."

"Could it be some dialect?"

Using magic required chanting in standardized human common language, but not everyone had access to magic. In some regions of the Valeria Empire, commoners might never chant a single magical phrase in their lifetime, their accents lean toward local cultural customs.

"Even if it were a dialect, the written form shouldn’t differ so drastically, basic punctuation symbols are entirely different."

"Or perhaps the ancient human empire never underwent a process of unified measurement and script?"

Pink lips parted, clear red eyes reflect Charlotte’s face. Astrid fluttered her eyelashes, continuing to speak.

"That possibility isn’t impossible, but as I just thought, the probability is too small. written Especially when there’s an already refined magical script like elders speech, yet they still book in this script as textual materials for others to read, regional script can only remain another theoretical possibility."

"If my guess is correct, combined with Lady Gemini’s statement, perhaps the real answer is already emerging."

Looking into Charlotte’s eyes, Astrid paused briefly, articulating her viewpoint with striking force.

"The so-called elders speech was never the language used by ancient humans before the world-ending disaster. They merely borrowed it, for magical study and religious praise."

"And this book in my hand right now, this is the truth, commonly used human language of theirs."