"Everything that has passed leaves its mark."
This was how The Possibility of Dragon Evolution described Amber Bugs. Due to the translated phrasing, Ading Lieyang's wording was rather convoluted.
But after Russell summarized it, he roughly understood what Amber Bugs were.
"Amber trapped certain small creatures within it before being deeply buried underground. These small creatures died without truly decaying, absorbing stray thoughts drifting between heaven and earth. Under the stimulation of Earth Power, they revived as Amber Bugs."
These stray thoughts could be a fragment of a lingering soul's insight into swordsmanship, or the vigorous life force of a cluster of thorns.
They could also be all sorts of other strange thoughts.
Raising his hand to look at the M-shaped Mark on his palm, as well as the Sword Butterfly Mark and Thorn Mark around him, Russell now had a general understanding of the origins of the sword butterfly and the thorns.
These two Amber Bugs had been born while carrying stray thoughts.
"They were newly reborn, yet they were no longer the butterfly and thorns they once were. Instead, they were traces of something that had once existed in this world, appearing once more."
Russell pondered softly. "So this is... everything that has passed leaves its mark..."
No matter how the earth changed, even if warm seasons turned into ten thousand years of ice, some things that had existed would still be preserved, weathered by time before shining again in another form.
That was the secret of Amber Bugs.
Russell moved his gaze away from the book and looked through the gaps in the shelves at the narrow patch of sky beyond the window.
A thought suddenly occurred to him. *Since amber can preserve thoughts and allow them to revive, then... what about fossils? Could fossil bugs exist?