We walked along the wooden path until we got to a medium-sized hut, there wasn't a common dining hall where you could eat in the community.
Instead, we were going to eat homemade food from Catharine. The inside of her house was cozy to say the least, cow's leather was on the ground like a rug from my world, a one-block painting on the wall, with an image of a family of three.
There were some chests here and there but it all felt like a warm home.
We sat at the table and Catharine gave us some bread, bowls of milk, and some jam.
Since this can't be crafted I can only assume she made it with her own two hands which made me curios about other types of foods, one bite from it I could tell it was Berry jam, I liked to have this every morning for breakfast if possible.
After some casual chatter and our bellies full, we went to meet one of the Elders once again.
This time we didn't go to the big building in the middle of the settlement, instead we went to one of the bigger houses besides it.
It was three stories high all made with dark wood, tinted glass, and a brick chimney on top of all of that.
We arrived at the entrance, it was a double wooden door.
Catharine knocked on the door and waited.
Not too late after someone opened both doors at the same time. It was a butler with a dark coat, white shirt, and an elegant pose, his face was pale like everyone else in this place, which meant that he was also a witch.
"Ah, Miss Catharine, I've been informed about your arrival. Master Flora is waiting for you in her study room."
"Thank you Sebi, I know the way there, you don't need to guide us."
The butler made a small bow before going back to his work.
"Follow me."
Catharine walked inside the house and went upstairs. On the walls, I could see the portrait of the owner and other witches that I didn't recognize.
Red flowers were chosen to bring life to the house, and I loved how it looked.
We stopped in front of a wooden door where Catharine knocked a few times.
"Come in!"
A voice yelled from the other side. And with her permission, we opened the door.
Inside was a big room with shelves all over the walls, the floor was filled with red carpet and at the end of the room stood Flora behind a desk while a big window illuminated her from behind.
She had books stacked on top of each other and some writing utensils not too far away. From the messy desk, I could tell she was busy for a few hours at least.
When all of us got into the room, she stopped writing and looked up.
"Good morning gentleman's, I hope you had a good rest."
"Good morning Elder Flore, I feel much better after a good night of sleep. Now we're ready to start."
"I'm glad to hear that. I've been doing some reaching about our times with the Piligers and found some interesting information. While it's vastly outdated it still holds valuable information, here have a read for yourself."
She gave me and Froggy a book to read. Mine had the tile "Creation of life" while Froggy held the "Forgotten history" title.
Both of them were thick books, which means it's going to take a while to read through them.
So I opened the book and started to read. Meanwhile, Catharine has silently left the room since her job was done here.
*Experiment 210
Of all the ores and items we use, lapiz seems to have the most effect on the human. If we dilute the ore with water we can see the color of the skin change. Further tests need to be done.*
*Experiment 290
Mixing lapiz with Redstone and injected into the bloodstream, seems to give the person the ability to use a small amount of magic. This is revolutionizing, we only need to find out what's the correct ratio so the test subject will have a longer lifespan than 10 minutes.*
*Experiment 510
The test subject 'Iron Skin' is going through a major operation today. Plates of iron will be fused with his skin, In hopes that his iron-fused blood will accept the superior skin.
*Experiment 889
Today we have a party! Our first living experiment is a great success, the higher-ups are very pleased with the results. Even though the beast keeps ravaging his cage, this is not a problem for my department anymore, so I don't care. Today we're only drinking like there's no tomorrow. *
That was the last thing written in this book, there are still a few empty pages after this and I can only guess that something did happen after the party.
This was horrifying to read, no wonder the System had to step down to shut everything off. I wonder how did it do that?
It seems like those kinds of experiments had a big budget and a lot of resources invested into this.
I do remember the Skeleton Forteres was weirdly built from the other places, was that one made by this organization?
Even on the other side of the portal, the room was all made with iron, which is not that easy to get even for me.
And those experiments sounded brutal. What did they try to achieve after the war?
Did they try to recreate to iron golem?
There are so many questions that I don't know if I even what the answers, but one thing is clear. The Piligers are something not to be messed with, they played with fire and now they have guns.
Half a day has passed since I got this book, so we decided to get something to eat and then continue.
Froggy hadn't finished his book yet, and I could see it didn't interest him that much, so we exchanged books.
Catharine left us a while ago, she didn't seem too interested in those stories and she probably had some other work to do.
Flora instead stayed with us the whole time, she was still at her desk reading books and papers.
I thought she would be busier after having such a high position in this compound, but apparently, I was wrong.
She was an important person and allowed to laze around and do her own projects, how convenient.
"If you want to eat something you don't need to leave this place, I'll call my servent to bring some food."
She then got off her chair and went toward the bell that sat on a shelf, with a light touch the bell rang and all of a sudden I could see the outline of everyone around me.
I knew about this mechanic in the game, but from what I remember you could only see the outline of the villagers, not all the moving entities.
I looked around some more and saw some witches walking calmly on the wooden road, some frogs calmly hooping under the man-made structures, and how a certain servant was coming in a hurry to answer to call.
He was the only servant in the house, which I guess was logical with how small the population was here anyway.
Soon he was at the door and opened it.
"Miss Flora, did you call for me?"
"Yes, bring out some food, me and my guests are hungry after a hard day of work."
"Of course, I expected this to happen soon so I have everything prepared."
With that, he took some food items out of his inventory and placed them on a wooden plate.
We got some cooked chicken with beetroot soup and some green jello as a dessert.
Flora got a cup of milk besides everything else.
It was convenient to have an inventory where you could store items stopped in time. It's the best thing a butler would want.
While he was leaving the room, I could see the outline of everything slowly disappearing, the effect only lasted around a minute.
Froggy didn't have any change in his expression, he seemed more interested in the green jello than this fascinating effect.
Either he's used to seeing this, or he doesn't see it at all.
A weird but interesting ability to have as an outsider, maybe I can use it to see invisible beings next time.
While the beetroot soup wasn't that good on its own, in combination with the chicken it got a pretty good taste, and I could see why they would keep farming those useless crops.
Now came the main treat of those meals. The inventory described it as 'slime jelly', and I was afraid I knew what the main ingredient was.
But I still took a bite to taste it. It was chewy but sweet, with no other distinct flavor in this. I think they mixed sugar with something from the slime and poured it into a shape.
It's an interesting recipe but not something I would eat too often.
Froggy seems to love it and even asked for seconds.
With the meal brake over I opened up the history book.
Weirdly it was empty most of the beginning, like someone erased all the text but left the pages.
The first photographs that I saw, said something about a weapon powerful enough to break even the legendary bedrock, but I couldn't know what kind of weapon they were talking about since everything was erased beforehand.
"What happened with the first half of the book?"
"I don't know, unfortunately, from what my predecessor said it was like that from the beginning, but it's still had enough important information that it's worth keeping it."
And the more I read from the book the more I understood the reason.
While it was only half written, the rest described how the system fought against the rebelling nation.
For a few years, nobody was able to connect with the main system no matter how many achievements they got, so this caused them to rebel against its nature.
At first, it was small stuff, but slowly it got bigger and bigger until the System couldn't ignore them anymore. It ripped the world in half at his wrath, nobody knew how to fight against it, so the only result was a loss for the great nation.
Not everyone was killed, some were speared to be an example against the other nations. A warning to not fight against it.
The system sent lightning against the survivors, then the witches appeared, and the rest were engulfed by a mystical mist and changed into the Piligers.
And then the system disappeared like nothing ever happened, leaving the broken nation behind.
The Piligers were in greater numbers than the witches, and they now had an urge to kill and attack the normal people. The witches were more capable of holding their new urges, so after some years, they decided to not live like this anymore.
They split up, with the exception of a few, and came here to build their new settlement.
As time passed, the urge started to go down, and while the witches decided to stop their old lifestyle the Piligers went back to it.
But this time something happened, nobody knows what, all the written knowledge was erased, and they didn't have they couldn't recreate the lost equipment.
Time slowly passed, and the old generation died, while the newer generation tried to bring their people to their formal glory, with little results.
Now almost all, the knowledge was lost, and the experiments continued, but because of the lack of equipment, the results were not the best.
Even though the older generation died, every time the lightning strikes a normal villager they become a witch.
It's like a constant reminder about their past deeds, even though everyone wants to forget about those dark times.
I closed the book and gave a big sigh.
The sun was almost gone, and I put the book back on the desk.
It was a heavy book, and even though it was incomplete, whatever remained showed a dark history that everyone wanted to forget.
But the Witches and Piligers are a constant reminder about the dangers of angering the system.
I wonder if the other kingdoms know the history as well.
Maybe they do, but they keep it a secret, afraid that someone will try to test the system's power once again.
This would also explain the rich ruins all over the infected lands, it once belonged to a kingdom much more advanced than the others, but now forgotten by time.
"Do you know any more information from your predecessors? I can only guess the system erased everything that it deemed to be dangerous."
"Unfortunately it's been a few generations since that happened, and since we usually appear in this settlement when we're much older. Most information was lost to time from the lack of trusting the newcomers. I'm only lucky to get those journals with those crazy experiments because it was stored in an Ender Chest. Apparently, even the System doesn't have access to its inventory."
I learned too much information in one day, and this information could be more dangerous than even what I knew about the game.
I know only about glitches that can break the bedrock, not a whole weapon.
I'm kind of glad that this super advanced Nation got wiped out. Otherwise, this world would've been a much more dangerous one than it is now.
I continued to talk with Elder Flora about some things I didn't understand.
Meanwhile, Froggy got bored a few hours ago so he decided to leave us and get some sleep.
He's not the type to be overly curious about history, even if it's such an amazing topic to read in a fantasy world.
Time passed, but we were starting to get tired so we decided to get some rest.
Tomorrow I want to try something.