171 A City Of Shattered Dreams and Hopes (1/2)

Crumbled skyscrapers loomed around them like fallen giants of a bygone era as the group continued pushing forward toward the center of the city. Even now, more than five thousand years later, some of them still only appeared to be half-weathered.

Eons in the North's unforgiving permafrost hell had done little to damage the buildings that had not been destroyed in the fight against the Infestation during the Great Barrier War. They still stood magnificently as the day that they had been built, if only a little bit weathered on the outside...

Reed quietly observed the Itroch's many murals, statues, and oddly-shaped buildings and said, ”What purpose did this city serve back in the day? Was this a civilian city? Perhaps a noble city? There's always an underlying theme, intention, or belief behind everything the Ancient Mulians made.”

Astor shrugged his shoulders helplessly as he looked around and said, ”...Does it matter? See any Ancient Mulians who'll answer your question? This city might've been something of interest when it thawed out of the ice, but right now it's nothing more than a slumberingmenace to the North.”

I guess I should have expected that sort of answer from him. It's not like I was born here, nor do I hold any particularly strong attachments to this land and its bitter history. It's a different story for him, though...

Thankfully, the true recipient of his question spoke up and said, ”Itroch is the name of an ancient god-spirit that the Ancient Mulians used to worship back when they were nothing more than a primitive people of stone, wood, and fire.

It was a mixed-diety, who was half-man and half-woman. Itroch was a representative of the duality of the sexes and the relationships that formed between them. Think of it as the divine arbiter of all affairs that involved both a man and a woman.”

”So Itroch was the god of love?” Reed said, ”But what does that have to do with this city? Why name an entire city after an obsolescent god from an era when people lived in religious ignorance?”

Lu'um sighed and said, ”It's not about abandoningthe gods, dear. Of course, they eventually realized that Itroch wasn't real, but that didn't matter to them. What mattered to the Ancient Mulians was what Itroch meant to them during that period of youthful ignorance when their civilization had begun to sprout.

Though they did not worship Itroch anymore, the old god was still an important part of the cultural makeup that made their culture what it once was. The Ancient Mulians did not throw out their outdated traditions and gods because they no longer served their original purpose.

More than often, they repurposed them and in doing so, gave them a second life to live. It was a part of a great—”

He pulled her toward himself and whispered, ”Save the cultural anthropology lesson for when we're alone, babe! Look at Astor, for crying out loud! He looks like he's about to go comatose any second! I understand, I really do, but now ain't the time or place for this level of discussion...”

Reed had completely forgotten not to set off any of Lu'um's lecture triggers, which obviously included anything Ancient Mulian in origin. As much as Reed enjoyed hearing her enthusiastic voice and loved to learn more in lengthy discussions with his blabbermouth, it was clearly not something for everyone.

Astor's dull, glazed eyes were proof enough of that, despite the polite smile he had plastered on his face...

It turned out that Itroch was a part of an experiment to create a brand new method of education that would revolutionize how future Ancient Mulian pupils would have been taught. They would have been instructed and cared for by the greatest scholars of the past.

Deep beneath the city itself, a complex web of light-speed communication arrays had been built to house an information system beyond anything the universe had ever seen. The Quetzal Collective.

The brightest minds of the multiverse would have had their very souls flash-cloned, converted into a digital format, and then stored in permanent stasis underneath Itroch for use in the Quetzal Collective.

Their unique talents would have then been preserved indefinitely and allowed to teach hundreds of thousands of students on an individual basis by merit of the cutting-edge communications infrastructure that had been built to support it.

”Imagine having the brightest souls in the universe as your personal mentors! Commoner or noble, rich or poor, it would not have mattered a single bit! Every single child would have been taught by the most brilliant individuals in their fields of expertise from childhood to adulthood in a fully personalized educational program geared toward polishing their strengths and removing their weakness!

The Quetzal Collective was designed to wring out every single drop of potential within a growing child! To, in a very literal sense, make them the very best that they could have been! Entire generations of enlightened children from all races across the cosmos would have flourished right here were it not for...!”

Reed comforted her and said, ”A city for the enlightened, huh? ...I would have enjoyed visiting this place during its heyday. I'm sure this place must have had some pretty nice libraries, right?”