547 Years 1 (1/2)

Chapter 547: Years 1

Kovitan Kingdom

Around the mountains surrounding the Kingdom, there were many mushrooming towns and villages of different sizes.

These villages were centered around the Kingdom, with many farms and windmills everywhere. What used to be the Kingdom was no longer just a small area, but was now a gigantic city more than ten times larger than what it used to be.

Garen stood on the large white road far away, watching the huge city that used to be covered by the Ultimate Protection, his expression unnaturally calm.

The Ultimate Protection above his head had vanished completely a long time ago, and there was no longer any hint of totem power in the air.

He had come all the way here following the road, and of all the people he met along the way, basically none of them had any totem power.

There was vaguely the sound of radio music coming from a car repair shop by the road nearby, a little boy humming as he arranged the things inside the shop.

Coming straight at him were two bull carts with some unsold fruits. There was also a wooden plaque beside it, with a sign on it, with the words 'Square Stone Road' on the wooden plank pointing forward.

He had no intention of making a fuss, on his way here, after discovering the condition and general situation of the world, Garen knew that his face, that had not aged for several dozen years, represented something huge in this time.

He walked forward slowly, his steps looking slow but actually far faster than a normal person's walking speed.

After going through several little towns and villages outside the city, the sky had already gone dark outside, and the road that wound around the mountain, that had led into the Kingdom and was once heavily guarded, was not too far ahead of him.

There was nobody on guard anymore in the arrow guard tower, this was an era of peace, the arrow tower no longer posed any threat now that cannons were everywhere, and there was a sign that refused visitors on the door.

Finding a carriage that went uphill, Garen was kindly taken up the hill together with a talkative old carriage driver, he sort of hitchhiked, as the two of them chatted idly on the way.

The old man had also experienced the warring times, and believed completely in those matters regarding the totem users, and as he spoke, he kept on lamenting how the young people these days did not believe all that had happened back then, or how they did not respect the true history, so many of the older generation had seen the Kingdom under the Ultimate Protection with their own eyes back then.

Now many of the elderly had passed away, the totem power had wasted away, and this younger generation began to treat the legends of the totem users with incredulity, they could not believe that those could match up to the bombs and cannons they had now, and assumed that those were just the results of the fear and respect the previous generation had, allowing things to be slowly deified.

Garen kept nodding in time beside him, but also found out a lot about the situation in the Kingdom.

He found out that the Black Swamp Palace had somehow become a general university now, and that prodigy disciple that he had acknowledged back then was now one of the Black Swamp Palace's two most accomplished scholars, he even held the power in Kovitan, and was an extremely influential person throughout the whole country.

Garen could not help but sigh inwardly, the time had passed like an arrow, and to think that the little fella back then had now become a pillar of the country.

Just as it was about to become completely dark outside, Garen got off the carriage at the entrance to the Kingdom on top of the mountain, there were no more guards there, and instead there was a lot of traffic there, many people ascended the mountain at night in search of entertainments, and left the city at night to return to their own estates and cottages, interweaving and flowing like a stream at the city gates.

The house prices inside the Kingdom were too high, and many people who could not afford it had to stay outside, so over time, many small areas came up around and outside the Kingdom, halfway up the mountains, and the whole Kingdom had truly become a city within a city.

Garen walked towards the direction of his cousin Hathaway's place, completely familiar with the way.

Many new buildings had come up in new places around the roads and streets from several decades ago, and several places on the road had also been changed.

He still had to ask many people before he finally found the house Hathaway was living in.

At night, standing outside the house, Garen raised his head and looked up at the little bit of yellow lamplight on the second floor of the house. This world had no more totem power, and the technological pathway that had been developing slowly before was now blossoming.

With the foundations of the totem forgers, the development of science far exceeded everyone's imaginations, and electricity was created to meet the demand.

This was originally just an unstable source that totem users had stumbled across in their experiments, and after totem power disappeared, it had finally and rapidly replaced totems in their functions.

These forgers were also now what modern people called scientists.

The electric lightbulb was one of these scientists' newly-invented products.

Garen glanced at the guard post outside the house, there was a guard sleeping there.

Soundlessly, he darted, as though floating, past the guard post, leaping up and landing in the garden behind the metal gate.

Walking up to the door of the house, his palm jolted towards the door, and with a crisp 'ker-chak', the house door was opened lightly.

Sitting on the living room sofa, an old white-haired woman with a white towel on her knee entered his line of vision.

Maybe the sound of the door opening had attracted the old woman's attention, she put down the book in her hand, raised her head, and glanced over at him.

With that look, she never lowered her head again.

Garen was also staring dazedly at the old woman on the sofa, the fifty years of time had carved deep traces on her once-handsome features. Her previously smooth and fair skin had become wrinkled, loose skin. Her once bright and beautiful eyes, had also become the muddled, calm eyes of the elderly.

Her hair was snow-white, and Garen could only sense a vague hint of his cousin's image from that indescribable aura of hers.

”You… you are his son?” Hathaway's voice was slightly hoarse.

Garen shook his head, a hint of gentleness in his eyes as he looked at his family's cousin, who had once been pretty and handsome.