The Great Cataclysm was a turning point in the history of this world and marked the beginning of what is now called the "Deep Sea Era."
From what Nina explained, Duncan began to understand the enormous changes that had once occurred in this world. He realized that it had not always been as strange and dangerous as it is today. According to historical records, the world before the Great Cataclysm was a thriving and safe paradise. Back then, the oceans were not the "Endless Sea," and the limited seawater did not cover more than ninety-five percent of the world's surface as it does now. People lived on vast and safe land, and even the seas were free from dangers like the Spirit Realm, Abyss, and Subspace.
The "Era of Order" recorded in history felt more familiar to Duncan. While modern people might look back at that ancient time without "anomalies" with wonder and disbelief, for Duncan, the current state of the world seemed completely wrong.
The history books did not explain the Great Cataclysm in detail. Despite efforts in archaeology, there remained significant disagreements among different city-states and cultures about ancient history. No one knew exactly how the Great Cataclysm happened or what the disaster truly was. A huge chaos and fog surrounded that transformation, and beyond the fog lay the Deep Sea Era we know today.
Mysterious waters flooded over ninety percent of the land. The remaining survivors of civilization established city-states and fleets on the few islands and small landmasses left. The Endless Sea and the fog brought strange things called "anomalies" and "phenomena," which still threaten the survival of civilization.
Nina, however, was unaware that a ghostly captain from another realm was absorbing knowledge from her words. She thought her uncle was just testing her studies. It had been a long time since he had been in such a good mood, and she felt happy and treasured this moment. She worried that at any time, Uncle Duncan might revert to his old self. Based on past experiences, this was almost unavoidable.
Once the strong drink stopped working or the painkillers ran out, her uncle would become irritable, angry, and hysterical. So, before Duncan had another episode, she wanted to show him her progress—maybe that would keep his good mood going for another day or two.
“Mr. Morris is very interested in the history of the Kingdom of Crete. He is an expert in this area. He told us that although the ancient Kingdom of Crete lasted only a hundred years, it was the first civilization to rise from the ruins to resist anomalies and phenomena after the Deep Sea Era began. The experiences they gathered in that hundred years still guide most people in the world today. The most important of these is their classification method for ‘anomalies’ and ‘phenomena’…”
“Classification method for ‘anomalies’ and ‘phenomena’? You’ve learned this already?” Duncan raised an eyebrow, encouraging her to continue.
He had been curious about this since he started listening, and now he was even more convinced that ordinary people in this world must have a strict way of distinguishing these unreasonable things. Some things were called “anomalies,” and even had numbers, while others seemed to be specifically called “phenomena,” rather than being lumped together as “anomalies” as he had previously thought.
He had never heard such detailed knowledge from the goat-headed figure on the Lost Homestead, and now what Nina learned in school was finally filling in his gaps in knowledge.
Nina nodded, recalling what she had learned in class. “Mr. Morris taught us the simplest way to distinguish between anomalies and phenomena is by scale.
“Generally speaking, anomalies are smaller in scale, often limited to a single object, an animal, or even a ‘person.’ Most anomalies can be moved by humans, and their effects are limited. Many anomalies only affect one target at a time, and with specific methods, most anomalies can be safely sealed or isolated. Some harmless anomalies can even be ‘utilized’ like tools through specific methods.
“Phenomena, on the other hand, are much larger than anomalies. The smallest phenomena can be as big as a house, while larger ones can cover an entire city-state, or even more—so big it’s hard to imagine.
“A significant number of phenomena cannot be moved by humans. They either remain fixed in one place or operate according to their own will, and their influence is far greater than that of anomalies. Usually, within their effective range, phenomena can affect countless targets, making them almost equivalent to ‘natural phenomena,’ which is why they are called ‘phenomena.’
“Unlike anomalies, almost all ‘phenomena’ cannot be sealed or controlled. They exist in the world like natural phenomena, operating without external interference and naturally affecting everything that meets their conditions within their range. Since most phenomena are dangerous, people can only avoid these dangerous phenomena or use specific methods to avoid becoming targets of their effects…
“Fortunately, the most dangerous phenomena usually do not move. Pioneers have helped us identify these dangers, allowing us to keep a safe distance…”
Nina spoke seriously, then suddenly remembered something and quickly added, “Oh, right! The old gentleman also mentioned that these judgment methods and characteristics are only ‘generally effective.’ Anomalies and phenomena are unreasonable things, so no matter how people summarize their experiences, there will always be anomalies or phenomena that don’t fit the definitions suddenly appearing. Sometimes, anomalies and phenomena can even swap places, and there are cases of phenomena being interfered with or eliminated by human power.
“For example, in the year 1830 of the New City-State calendar, there was an anomaly called ‘Mycelium’ that went out of control in the Lensa City-State. The local church guardians spent a lot of effort to banish this uncontrollable anomaly to a nearby island, which was later recognized as a phenomenon in 1835, known as Fungal Island.
But in 1844, the great saint Paladin sacrificed his life to contain Fungal Island in his urn, so the phenomenon ‘Fungal Island’ was removed that same year. It became an ‘anomaly’ again, called ‘Paladin’s Mushroom Bottle,’ and is now sealed in the underground relic vault of the Lensa City-State cathedral…”
Duncan listened intently to everything Nina was saying, his mind racing while he maintained a calm expression to hide the emotions stirring inside him.
In this short breakfast, the information he gathered exceeded what he had collected over the past many days on the Lost Homestead!
Establishing communication with the land and setting up a forward base in the surface city-states was indeed the right approach—civilized society is where most information gathers!
He instinctively looked at the girl who was still talking in front of him, feeling quite enlightened.
A civilization that develops normally to the industrial stage will find ways to compress and summarize the basic knowledge needed for its operation within its educational system. A child living within this system might find it hard to realize how the textbooks they encounter daily are like a treasure trove:
They are the accumulated knowledge of countless people over many years, organized into the most suitable structure for learning and absorption. Those books contain the world’s most refined “nutritional packages,” aiming to help a blank slate of a person quickly become a functioning part of society with minimal time and effort.
Even Nina, who usually loves learning, might not fully appreciate this—only Duncan, the “outsider,” could recognize how precious and easily absorbable this knowledge is.
Nina, however, didn’t notice what Duncan was thinking. She just remembered what her respected history teacher had said in class—
“…So Mr. Morris told us at the end of the last lesson that people have summarized countless rules in dealing with ‘anomalies’ and ‘phenomena,’ but only one rule is truly always effective: no matter how many rules we summarize, there will always be anomalies or phenomena that do not conform to the rules appearing in the world.
“This rule is also known among scholars as the ‘Eternal Zero Rule,’ and it is defaulted to be placed at the top of all related books and papers. Based on this, people proposed the famous ‘Law of Permanent Discrepancy of Anomalies and Phenomena,’ which has not been broken to this day…”
(End of Chapter)