Recording History

The newly built Clan Hall was a size larger than the old one, but it was just as shabby, its bricks left exposed without any covering or decoration.

Lin Shan followed Si Zhennan up two flights of stairs to the third floor. Two men in blue guarded it, both outstanding among the Pseudo-Transcendents and only one step away from Transcendence. Without a Sequence Potion, however, that final step was impossible to cross.

"Minister Si." The two men gave Si Zhennan a military salute.

"This is Pioneer Lin Shan," Si Zhennan introduced him with a slight nod. "He'll be living in the library from now on."

Startled, the two immediately stood ramrod straight and saluted again. "Pioneer Lin!"

Lin Shan waved a hand. "Just address me normally. I don't hold any office in the clan."

One of them, a middle-aged man who looked to be in his thirties, said, "What you've done deserves the respect of every one of us!"

Lin Shan shook his head without saying anything more and stepped onto the third floor.

In his view, he really had not done all that much for the Human Race. Everything he had done was within his abilities, and if they truly counted contributions, his certainly fell short of those of the other ten.

If the second floor was an office space, the third was a huge library. A row of bookshelves stood in the middle, with just a few "books" on them. These so-called books were stacks of paper stapled together, without even covers, only a few large characters serving in their place.

A row of rooms stood at either end of the empty hall, used to store valuables. Si Zhennan led Lin Shan to the room in the very middle of the right-hand row.

As they drew closer, Lin Shan discovered that the door was not even closed. Left half-open, it gave the whole arrangement a rather slapdash feel.

They pushed open the door. Above a raised platform, a Jade Tome floated quietly.

"You just leave the Clan Artifact here like this?" Lin Shan asked, at a loss for words.

"What else would we do?" Si Zhennan replied casually. "Ordinary people can't move the Clan Artifact, and we can't stop anyone who can. Wherever we put it makes no difference. The guards are only there to keep people in the clan from treating it as some treasure, getting crooked ideas, and losing their lives for it."

Lost in thought, Lin Shan walked over and picked up the Clan Artifact. He certainly did not fall within the category of "ordinary people."

During their last relocation, he had carried the Clan Artifact without finding time to open it, then handed it to Zhang Zhonghua before leaving.

Opening the Jade Tome, he found it completely different from the first time he had looked at it. Beyond the original eleven names, another had appeared-Chen Liyun.

Moreover, every name gave off a faint golden glow. Lin Shan touched his own name, and a large expanse of writing immediately projected into the air.

Lin Shan.

One of the pioneers of the Human Race.

Year one of the Human Calendar: became the Human Race's first Transcendent, then helped seven pioneers attain Transcendence.

Year three of the Human Calendar: resisted the Cat Clan, led the Human Race through its relocation, and obtained advanced Cat Clan technology and documents concerning the Ash Fog for the Human Race.

Below that were densely packed records in smaller print, describing only the general course of events without details. Lin Shan breathed a sigh of relief at the sight. If it could record even the details, he feared he might dismantle the Clan Artifact.

"This is practically a history book, though the history is still brief," Lin Shan remarked after reading the entries in the Clan Artifact.

Si Zhennan nodded. "It's brief now, but if our Human Race still exists a hundred years, a thousand years, or even ten thousand years from now, what a long scroll of history it will become. And how many names will be recorded in it..."

Lin Shan put down the Clan Artifact and turned to Si Zhennan. "Am I staying here? In the same room as the Clan Artifact?"

"No." Si Zhennan smiled. "We now offer access to the Clan Artifact as a reward for people who strive to improve, so people come to read it fairly often. Having you stay here certainly wouldn't be appropriate. You'll stay in the room next door, which happens to be empty. I'll have someone bring over supplies and some essential furniture shortly."

"All right." Lin Shan had no objections and nodded. "Bring me two sets of clothes while you're at it."

He had been wearing these clothes for half a year, and they were riddled with holes. It was no small feat that they had lasted this long.

"Sure. If there's nothing else, I'll get back to work," Si Zhennan replied.

Lin Shan waved a hand and headed straight for the room next door.

The room was about twenty square meters and contained nothing at all. It was simply an unfinished shell.

Lin Shan sat on the floor and waited quietly. He had planned to go out for a stroll, but venturing out in these tattered clothes would attract too much attention, so he abandoned the idea.

Bang, bang, bang!

"Pioneer Lin, are you in?"

Before long, someone knocked on the door.

"Bring it straight in," Lin Shan said.

Then he saw two people carrying a wooden bed inside, followed by another holding a green quilt.

Once Lin Shan had made the bed, several more groups arrived one after another. They supplied a table, chairs, stools, and toiletries-everything he needed. There was even a glass orb.

Is this... the streetlight I saw in the Cat Clan's territory? Lin Shan found it rather novel.

"What's this? Is it a lamp?" Lin Shan asked the burly man beside him who was moving things.

"Yes," the man replied. "It's called a Spirit Energy Lamp. Ms. Yan and Minister Jin developed it. Feed it a little spirituality, and it can stay lit for a long time."

Ms. Yan-that must be Yan Ruxin. Looks like they've deciphered some of the Cat Clan's technology...

After everyone had left, Lin Shan picked up the Spirit Energy Lamp from the table and examined it curiously for a while.

He slowly fed spirituality into it. The next second, the Spirit Energy Lamp released a dazzling white light, glaring even in broad daylight.

I accidentally fed it too much. There must be a device inside that absorbs spirituality. I nearly burst it...

I'll leave it here. Hopefully it'll dim a little by nightfall.

Lin Shan picked up the new clothes delivered to him and vanished from the room with a teleport, appearing in the air above the Clan Hall.

He needed to find somewhere to wash first. The only river nearby seemed to be the one in the Purple Soul Flower Forest, but there was no need to go that far just for a bath...

After flying around once, he discovered an artificially dug irrigation channel. To save labor, it had been dug very narrow, only two meters wide.

He followed the channel outward, flying beyond the central district. Around it lay a vast area under construction, and farther out were sweeping stretches of farmland planted full of Peanut Wheat. The channel ran through the middle, supplying water to the fields on either side.

Lin Shan found a deserted field, gave himself a quick wash beside the channel, then put on his new clothes and shot into the sky.

Just before reaching the construction area, he landed and joined the flow of people on foot.

After half a year of steady development, almost everyone's eyes had regained their spark of life. They were no longer as numb as they had been six months ago.

Every place he passed was under construction. Lin Shan walked several kilometers through the construction zone, where everyone worked with blazing enthusiasm.

Passing through the construction zone on the outskirts, he entered the completed central district. The buildings here truly opened his eyes.