Glan Natural Science Academy

    Boundless, endless darkness. 

Ryger felt light as a feather. Like a homeless soul, he wandered about in the dark space with no discernible directions.

Loneliness. The unknown. Fear. 

“Is there anyone?” 

Anyone? Anyone, anyone… anyo… 

“Hey!” 

Hey! Hey, hey, hey… 

Ryger kept shouting, but only his own voice came back. He walked on for a long way but found nothing in the end. He didn’t know where the echo came from.  

An unknown length of time that felt like several months passed.  

  Gradually, Ryger seemed to see a white light. In this dead, dark space, the light was so eye-catching.   

Like a traveller about to die of thirst finding an oasis in a desert, Ryger ran towards the light without a care in the world. As he got close, he found that the light was actually a milky-white flame.   

At the top of the flame was a constant flickering of bizarre images which seemed like fragments of someone’s memory.

“Who are you?” 

Inquired Ryger. In the pitch-black space, he couldn’t even see his own appearance at the moment. 

After a good amount of time, the white light still didn’t respond. 

Ryger braved himself, got nearer to the light and extended his hand. Under the milky-white spot of light’s illumination, he saw his hand. It was the purest of darkness with no details to speak of. 

Towards that, Ryger didn’t think anything of it. Like in a dream, everything was so natural.   

Ryger’s fingertip got closer and closer to the milky-white flame. 

Poof! 

The moment Ryger’s fingertip was going to touch the milky-white flame, the flame instantly released stunning light as if it wanted to illuminate the entire space. 

In this limitless milky white, Ryger’s tiny pitch-black figure was like a candle flame in a raging wind – possibly extinguished at any time, leaving only a smidge of shadow. 

The images of memory fragments atop the flame, also spread out with the milky-white flame.

  “This land will never be our home!” 

Gradually, the milky-white spot of light began to dim, and with an angry roar, Ryger, like a cold bystander, quietly watched everything that transpired in front of him. 

“This is…”

  Ryger calmly looked at everything in front of him like an emotionless soul. 

The cosmic void was vast and boundless. With an amazing fluctuation, nearby space rippled like water waves.  

Immediately after. 

A dusky crack suddenly spread out from the centre of the space ripples. The crack got bigger and bigger, as if there was something inside forcing it open and was going to charge out.  

  Crack, crack, crack! 

With the sound of space cracking apart, wandering light among the void and meteorites were sucked in. Together with a magical azure light, an unbelievably large metal castle squeezed through the special crack and floated in the vast and boundless void. 

In the metal castle, countless humans wandered around. They largely wore two types of clothing. 

Some of them were wearing pale gold armor and had a serious look under their metal helmets. They had the look of a well-disciplined army. Some others wore wide, grey robes with a mysterious hexagram, which seemed to be a family coat of arms, on the back of the robes.. 

At the top of the metal castle, a few high-ranking humans looked at that foreign world in the distant void. 

It was a huge planet whose outer layer is wrapped by dense asteroids as well as an eerie moon which emitted a faint red glow.

 

“This is the new world we discovered. The easily detectable refraction and diffusion of the power of faith was like a lighthouse’s faint flickering and marked it out in the background of the starry sky. Although no explorers have descended to the world, but because its atmosphere is surrounded by dense asteroids resulting in difficulty of penetration of starlight, we postulate this world’s rule of law1 to be one of an eternal veil of darkness. Thus, we temporarily name it the NightVeil world.”

" "

A family member who wore a wide robe calmly analysed.
 
“The power of faith?”
 
The general of the military department, a warrior of light with civilized discipline, sneered and scoffed.  

“Heh heh, I wonder to what extent has the gods of this world gathered the power of faith and how they compare to those prehistoric aliens’ degree of terror!”
 
“Ever since we mastered the technology of spatiotemporal channels, we have tried to explore the nearby void, interact with organisms of unknown worlds and trade superior resources. It’s a pity that the technology of spatiotemporal exploration is only in its first phase and that all of the native organisms of the few worlds we found didn’t treat us in a friendly manner.”

  “This is inevitable. Different civilisations borne from worlds with different laws, backgrounds and cultures will always be suspicious and fearful of aliens from another world who suddenly visit them.” 

Everything in the metal castle spoke of power, civilisation, discipline, order and rationality. 

“Seek peaceful relations as much as possible. At the same time, analyse as soon as possible the information about this world’s high-energy materials and greater organisms, record it into the Starcore and send it back to Aurora. Once the other side refuses peaceful relations, analyze whether it is worth plundering by force!” 

Rumble! 

The metal castle finally crossed the long void, squeezed into the strange world’s protective layer of asteroids and entered into the inner atmosphere.

“Hm? It’s not nightfall!” 

Uttered somebody in surprise after noticing that the inside of the atmosphere was in daylight. 

Beeppppp! 

Warning! Warning! Warning! 

Castle shrouded by unknown rule of law and affected by unknown energy magnetic field. Energy power units failure. Anti-gravity field escape failed. Spatiotemporal barrier breakthrough failed. Rescue message launch failed. Affected by world’s gravity. Void Castle crash imminent. Please prepare for forced landing. Countdown: 664, 663, 662… 

The metal castle, which lost its power, was like a huge burning fireball in its friction with the atmosphere. It made a dull explosion in the sky and crashed at high velocity from the sky to this vast and desolate continent. 

Rumble rumble rumble!

  The earth-shattering collided. The dust that it stirred up was like a huge mushroom cloud and soared up in the air.

Affected by the impact of the fall of the metal castle, rock fragments blasted off into the sky then down onto the earth like flower petals at a wedding. Each fragment immolated with a red flame. In a corner of the vast and desolate continent, countless tribes of primitive organisms were affected by the shock waves and died out instantly. Such an unnatural disaster thoroughly stirred nearby civilized organisms. 

At the same time, those in the metal castle also suffered deaths and serious injuries. It was chaotic all around.

  “Starcore analysis!” 

It was an unprecedented disaster. Amid the turmoil, the space exploration technicians  roared out.

  “Beep! Because of the infinite reflection of the NightVeil moon’s unknown magnetic field between the NightVeil world and the protective layer of asteroids, the Void Castle’s power units which were designed around Aurora’s rule of law have failed to function. Please leave the NightVeil world’s protective layer of magnetic field as soon as possible and contact Aurora.”

 

The crowd’s face was ashen. 

“This is not a world of night veils at all; this is an world of star veils isolated from other worlds and protected by a layer of meteorite!” 

In this world of bizarre laws, they suffered from a tremendously large force of oppression and compression. At the same time, the world was like a large magnet – sucking them to the world. 

To break out of the world’s protective layer of magnetic field by virtue of the physical body, was simply impossible! 

…… 

The mighty Gu Lan2 civilization has existed for for tens of thousands of years in this desolate corner of the continent. 

In this vast and desolate corner of the continent, the Gu Lan civilization enslaved dwarves to forge the best weapons; captured elves to gouge out their most beautiful eyes to use as totemic sacrifices; ordered gnome and halflings slaves to build magnificent pyramids of eyes… 

Until one day. 

From the azure sky, a huge metal castle which emitted smoke and burned with crimson flames crashed. Alien organisms that call themselves human have barged into this world.

 

They always look up at the moon in the sky in fear and constantly try to fly higher into the sky. They had trouble adjusting to everything in this world. 

They constantly claim to come from a place called Aurora and possess unfathomable power. After losing the ability to go back, they despaired and an internal division began to occur.  

With their terrifying strength, the hexagram humans kept exterminating the surrounding indigenous organisms, plundered their resources and looked for a way to return to Aurora.

On the other hand, the armored humans gave up trying after experiencing failures after failures and instead started to stop the senseless massacres of the hexagram humans, even uniting the surrounding indigenous tribes. In a corner of this desolate continent, the armored humans fought a protracted battle with the hexagram humans!   

The hexagram warriors roared in anger, “You traitors! You want to hide here to enjoy yourselves and escape the rule of the family!” 

The golden-armored warriors refuted, “You lot start tragic, inhumane wars of genocide. You’ll cause us all to be wiped out from the natives’ endless retaliations!” 

Time passed and the killing continued.

Hatred buries all. 

“Burn those evil sorcerers. Let the world be eternal in light, fairness and order!”

  Like a rat in the shadows, a member of the hexagram took out the ship’s central information Starcore, looked up at the stars in the night sky, and roared in despair, “This land will never be our home!”

Footnotes

The law here is this sort of law.  Note that the last character of Gu Lan is the same as in Glan, Finnland, Utlan, Sealand