Chapter 392: Date and Time
“Woah, I didn’t expect the city to be this developed,” Ning said silently as he looked at the almost modern city.
Ning could see people walking down the street, people in carriages, people in bicycles, all in their own little life.
He was on the side of the street, in front of the train station looking at the changed world. A carriage rushed past him in a swift manner. It was close to hitting him, but the driver at the front seemed to know his limit.
“Oh, that carriage doesn’t have a horse drawing it. Is there an engine in it?” Ning asked, wondering if this was the first of the cars that would soon become prevalent.
“Engine? No, those carriages are expensive ones that have Enchanters moving them. Only the rich ones use them,” Reever said.
“Are they better than horse-drawn carriage? I don’t see the point,” Ning asked.
“Well, for one the driver has more control than just having a horse drawing it. Other than that, it’s just the rich people’s way of showing off, saying they can even get aether art users to do things for them.”
“But it pays well, so the drivers don’t really mind, I guess,” Reever said.
“Hm, could you do that if you wanted to?” Ning asked.
“Uh, maybe. But I never had the interest to do it,” Reever said. “Anyway, let’s go. I need to sell this stuff and go home.”
“Ah, okay,” Ning said and started following Reever. They walked through the crowded streets along the sidewalk, walking past the many buildings that were selling something or offering something.
The buildings were so big that Ning couldn’t see anything past his immediate vicinity and would have to fly in the air if he wanted to get a better view.
“The weather is a lot cooler here, isn’t it?” Ning asked.
“Yeah, we’re not in the desert anymore so it’s a little cooler. But it’s still quite hot,” Reever said. “You southerner must not be used to this much heat, right?”
“Yeah, it is always cool down there,” Ning said, remembering the days when he lived with Famir and the rest.
“Haha, just wait for another 6 hours, you will get your cool air back,” Reever said.
“Oka— wait, 6 hours?” Ning asked as he looked up at the sun. From what he could tell, the sun was already way past noon.
“What’s the time right now?” Ning asked.
Reever reached into his pocket and brought out a pocket watch that he flipped open to look at the time.
“It’s 5 in the afternoon, why?” Reever asked.
“It’s 5 and the sun is still going to be up for another 6 hours? How?” Ning asked.
“Sigh, you southerners must have it easy with your short and cool days. We here have to suffer nearly 24 hours of sunlight in a day, barely getting 12 hours of night time to cool off,” Reever said.
“But, don’t worry. The insides of the buildings will be cooler, so you won’t have to worry about heat at all. Some of them even stay cool for all 36 hours of the day. Sigh, I wish they ran that way for all 5 days of the week though,” Reever said.
Ning was flabbergasted. ’36 hours a day, 5 days a week. Was it always like this?’ he thought. From what he could remember, this was not the case the last time he was here.
At the very least, a week was 7 days long. However, it seemed that had changed over the last 2500 years that he was gone.
“System, give me the information about dates and times of this planet,” Ning said, quickly trying to learn what he had missed.
The system gave him the information and he started to learn what it had said.
The planet of vilmore had a slow speed of rotation compared to earth. So, a day here lasted 35 hours, 59 minutes, and 55 seconds. A week consisted of 5 days, and none of the days were named at all.
Instead, the people of Vilmore referred to them by their number in the week. The first day was called the first day of the week, the second day was called the second day of the week, and so on.
The thing that shocked him the most was that there was no month in the Serian Calendar, which was established by the Serian Empire to the west.
Ning was a little confused at first as to why they wouldn’t use months, but the answer came very soon which shocked him a little.
Planet Vilmore only took 100 days to go around its sun. Meaning, in a year there would only be 20 weeks at most. So, they didn’t really need to implement a system for the month.
“Uhh, system?” Ning called, worried about something. “Now that the days are 36 hours long, does that mean my cap cooldown will also change to reflect the same?” he asked.
“Oh, phew! That’s good. Still, 100 days around the sun, huh? I never knew that. I focused way too much on the Energy aspect of the planet, and not the others,” Ning thought. “But why did they change? This… Serian Empire. Was there a need for it?”
Ning continued reading all the information that was available to him. Unfortunately, there was nothing like that available to him through the information he had just gotten. So, he instead asked the system.
“System, when exactly did this calendar system change? And why it changed too,” Ning asked.
Ning’s eyes went wide as he said, “the Peak of Afterlife… exploded?”
“Wait, what? What do you mean the Peak of Afterlife exploded? How? When?” Ning asked… and the system answered.
The blood left his face and his face turned ghastly white as he listened to what the system said.
“… it happened… because of me?” Ning asked. When he had brought Hyesi up to the portal and he had exploded, the portal inside was destroyed as well. That let out shockwaves that made earthquakes and tsunamis all around the world.
Many weak houses and buildings fell, leaving people without homes. The majority of the desert was taken over by the ocean water. Many people died.
When Ning learned this information, he felt a chill go down his spine because of it. “How… how many people died?” He asked.
<23,144 in total died. Over 500 thousand were injured>
Ning had expected the number to be high, but not this high. For some reason, he didn’t feel any sort of remorse or sadness over this death, despite them being his fault.
Due to the deaths being so high, they just looked like numbers to him instead of lives that were lost.
‘Did not having amplified emotion make me callous?’ he wondered. Just then, he remembered something and asked the system.
“Wait, if I killed that many people, all of whom were innocents… then why didn’t I get punished? Did the system change?” Ning asked.
“Still, sigh. This sucks. The world changed calendar because I overlooked something in a hurry,” Ning thought.
“I wonder if something terrible happened in Kumia too. Although, the explosion took place on this side of the portal so they should be okay,” Ning said.
Ning wanted to talk to them right now, but unfortunately, he couldn’t communicate with people out of the planet, unless he bought something specifically for that.
“Brother Ning? Brother Ning?” Reever called out.
“Sorry, what?” Ning asked as he brought his attention back to the conversation.
“Where do you disappear from time to time? Do you really hate the sun so much that just having it for 6 more hours pains you?” Reever asked. “Don’t worry, the heat will start to get milder in just 2 to 3 hours. Besides, we will be in buildings with cool air soon, so you won’t have to worry.”
“Oh, that’s… that’s great,” Ning said with a smile.
Reever took him about 2 blocks of buildings over, where Ning saw a small market was set up on the side of the streets. The whole street was blocked off from vehicles going in and people set up vendors all over it.
“What are we doing here?” Ning asked.
“Oh, I’m going to sell the stuff I got from the village here. Hope you won’t mind waiting around for a little longer. There is stuff here that I can’t just sell in normal stores,” Reever said.
“Oh, okay. Please do so,” Ning said and went along with him.
Reever took out a large cloth and laid it on an open space that he seemed to have reserved beforehand. He brought out a few items from inside his storage bracelet and placed them all on the sheet.
Once everything was out in the sheet, he too sat down behind them and started shouting.
“Come on, Come on. Buy the best products handcrafted by the people of the sand. You will not find these masterpieces anywhere else. Buy them for yourself, buy them for your wife, buy them for your mistress.”
“Buy it while you can, because after they are sold, you will not find these ever again.”
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