375 600 Years Old

"Alright everyone, I'm going to take a quick attendance, get ready," one of the teachers said and started calling out the student's name.

Soon, she called out everyone's name. Alex responded to his own when he was called, and once everyone responded, they got onto the tour bus.

It was a double-decker bus with 60 seats per deck. So, all 100+ students and teachers fit inside easily. Alex and Emily sat on a seat towards the back on the lower deck.

Just after 15 minutes of getting on the bus, they had to leave again. They had reached their destination.

Alex walked down and saw the massive building that was in front of him. 'So this is where the museum is,' he thought as he looked as high as he could. The building was at least 200 meters tall if not more.

At the top of the building was a massive golden sphere that shined in the sunlight. It had some sort of pattern or drawing that he couldn't make out from this far below.

As he brought the vision a little below, he saw a name for the building.

"How do you say that word? Gol- no, Gl-"

"Global, right?" Emily said from the side.

"Yes, Global. So the building is called The Global Building huh. Wonder if that's the owner's name," Alex said.

"Might be," Emily replied.

A lady wearing professional clothing walked from inside the building and shook her hands with the teachers.

"Hello, You guys must be from Oakleaf University. I will be your tour guide for the day. Welcome to the Archaic National Museum."

"Please follow me," the lady walked inside. The crowd followed her and soon, they were all inside the building. The inside hall was grandiose in its size and color. The chandelier hanging from high up in the ceiling looked very expensive and made the students a little apprehensive about where they were.

The lady took them up the stairs to the actual museum.

They all walked in and were surprised by how crowded the place was. Everywhere they turned to, there was nothing but people. They couldn't even see anything that was inside the museum.

"Haha, don't mind the crowd. It's been like that ever since that one TV special a few weeks ago where they talked about the museum. Now, everyone thinks the content in our museum influenced the game, Eternal Cultivation, and visit here," the lady said.

"Is there any truth to that claim?" a professor asked.

"Um… Kind of. While the game certainly seems to be inspired by the contents, there are also things in here that… uh you may call the ancestors stupid for even thinking about," the lady said.

This statement only made the students and teachers more curious. The reason most of the students had even come to this field trip was for this exact reason.

Alex was also looking forward to once and for all clearing his confusion about the game being real.

The lady took them along and showed them the first exhibition of the museum, A car.

This was a simple car that was rusted in many places and was encased in some sort of resin to stop it from rusting any further.

'What significance would a rusting car have?' Alex wondered.

The lady looked to the group and said, "As everyone can see, this is a car. However, the reason this is being kept in a museum is that…this car is over 600 years old."

"What?" everyone was shocked at the revelation.

"No way, miss. Didn't cars only come to existence a little over a hundred years ago?" a student asked.

"Yes. The first car was indeed made 112 years ago, and it was also inspired by this car too. However, the car we currently have and this car is completely different, " the lady said.

"We aren't sure how this car works or where the electricity is stored. We don't even think it uses electricity. According to the records we have, it used something called 'Petrol' and 'Diesel', but there is no proof that such a thing even exists."

"Even if they did, they aren't here anymore," the lady said.

The lady let them look at the car for a little longer and took them to another exhibition, A smartphone.

"Once again, the current smartphones were copied from these phones as well. They couldn't immediately make these, so they had to go through other creations first, but in the end, they managed to reach and surpass what existed 600 years ago."

"These clothes used to be worn by people over 600 years ago."

"These are metal utensils made over 600 years ago."

"They used to have plastics over 600 years ago when plastic was only able to mass manufacture some 50 years after the war ended."

The lady kept on walking and showing one exhibition after another.

"Look at this, do you know what these are?" she asked the crowd who turned to look at the next items. Alex looked at the items and frowned.

They were circular plates made up of something that looked like glass and had a hole punched through the middle. 'I know these things. What were they called again?' he tried to remember what he was taught in the computer science class.

"That's a CD, right? They are supposed to store data," somebody said. "They lasted for maybe 4 months after they were made."

The lady smiled and said, "Yes, that's true. However, they didn't make CDs for it to last long. They made it so that they could see what was inside these things."

"Don't tell me… " one of the teachers said.

"Yes. These CDs were made 600 years ago as well," the lady said. "Most of these had lost all of its information. However, we managed to salvage a few."

"These CDs ended up containing movies made 600 years ago. Here is a clip from a movie," the lady said and pointed to the screen.

The movie scene played was a normal one about a man walking in the city. However, the thing that surprised everyone was the world around the man.

It looked just like the current world. They watched the scene until it ended and the lady spoke.

"That was from 600 years ago. Either, the people from 600 years ago were good at guessing what the future looked like, or… the more possible reason, the world 600 years ago was very advanced."