4777 Traces of a Forgotten Age

"The skeleton deserves a name." Helena said as she continued to stare at the slightly glowing leg bone that still looked as if it was a cool glow toy. "I think that we will be working with it a lot now that we have discovered it. I know you well enough that you will never let go of this discovery, no matter what the Big Two might think about its existence."

"That's right."

Ves practically drooled at the sight of the human skeleton that lay neatly between a pile of recently displaced alien bones.

He had always been on the lookout for spiritually reactive materials. Despite issuing instructions to his clan as well as certain external organizations for materials that possessed the properties he needed, he had failed to get his hands on anything like Unending alloy despite offering rich rewards.

Aside from internal skull bones from galenta whales, a non-intelligent aquatic species, Ves had no clue where he could get his hands on known spiritually reactive materials in the new frontier.

These apparently human bones presented him with a pleasant surprise!

Ves grew bolder and began to touch another leg bone.

This time, he infused it with more spiritual energy. This not only caused the ancient organic object to light up a bit brighter, but also gave him a better sense on how much energy it could absorb before its pool became filled.

"These bones can hold a lot of energy!" He gasped. "Their capacity exceeds that of Unending alloy and P-stones!"

He loosely estimated that he could pump tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Ves worth of spiritual energy inside all of the bones before they became saturated.

By that time, the entire skeleton would probably light up as if it was a god that had descended onto the mortal plane!

"Wait." Ves abruptly said. "This fellow isn't coming back alive by injecting my energy into these remains, right?"

"Don't worry, brother. As I said, too much time has passed. That is the point where the traces of death have long faded away. Even the most stubborn humans cannot escape the claws of death. These ancient bones are nothing but the dust that the previous owner has left behind in his passing."

"Alright."

He trusted his sister's judgment on this matter. She was the Daughter of Death, after all. Her expertise on this subject vastly exceeded his own. He just wanted to be sure in case he accidentally revived an ancient monster. Again.

Since it became clear that this skeleton couldn't have belonged to an ordinary baseline human, Ves and Helena began to guess at the ancient human's identity and life experience.

"The shapes and structure of these bones definitely correspond to that of a human male." Ves surmised. "Even if it is clear that these bones are exceptional and consist of an exceptional mixture of exotic materials, the pelvis and hips of this skeleton are not as wide and flared as that of a female human."

His intangible sister concurred with his assessment. "I cannot detect any traces of the human's past life, but it looks unmistakably male in my vast experience of looking at dead human corpses."

"Uh huh."

"You should give it a name." Helena suggested again. "How about calling it Adam?"

"The first human? Let's not go overboard. The identity and the power of this ancient human was most definitely awesome, but that is no reason to deify these remains. Maybe David is better."

His sister looked impressed. "After the giant slayer? That is an apt name. Since this ancient human was buried under so many bones from larger alien species that he may have a hand in slaying them. This is a warrior's grave."

Ves shrugged. "Actually, I just want to call him David because we found him in a pocket space in Davute."

"..."

They quickly moved on to decipher other information from this skeleton.

"I am completely uncertain how old David used to be." Ves frowned. "The skeletal structure suggests that he was an adult at the time of his death, but that is all. His bone composition is so far removed from the baseline human standard that his aging pattern may be completely different. For all I know, he may have lived through several millennia, but still look like a middle-aged guy."

"I truly wish that the passage of time hasn't been so harsh on David's skeletal remains." Helena lamented. "We could have learned so much about his identity and his place in history if even a trace of him remained."

"Is there truly nothing left?" Ves frowned.

"What are you doing, brother?"

"I am taking a closer look at the skull. If there is any trace of life left of the man who we currently call David, then it should definitely reside in the temple of his mind."

Ves bent down and carefully grasped the skull on both sides before trying to wrench it from its spine.

It remained stubbornly attached. He had to apply a bit more force than he liked to pop out the skull from the rest of the skeleton.

Oddly enough, the jawbone also remained attached to the rest of the skull, but Ves felt that he could pull it out if he liked.

From the moment his armored hands grasped the sides of the skull, he could already feel a significantly stronger attraction towards spiritual energy!

Ves cautiously fed it with a bit more spiritual energy.

"Wow."

As soon as it took in his spiritual energy, the skull glowed considerably brighter than the leg bones!

Not only that, but two pale green points of lights had lit up in the middle of the empty and hollow eye sockets!

It gave him the illusion as if a revenant spirit had just awakened!

Of course, Ves knew better. He hadn't actually revived any ancient undead human entity. The light show was merely produced by an unknown natural mechanism that fed off spiritual energy.

Since Ves' domain was predominantly attributed towards life and metal, the glowing eye orbs reflected this by taking on a silvery green hue.

"Interesting."

He tried to figure out whether anything new showed up. So far his life-attributed energy did not feed any spiritual remnants or anything. There was absolutely nothing inside the giant void inside the skull.

Ves grew disappointed. He would have loved to revive an ancient guide that could provide him with valuable information about the layout and the secrets of this ancient prison facility.

He also wanted to ask 'David' how the hell a human like him ended up hundreds of thousands of light-years away from humanity's supposed homeworld long before the first starships ascended from its surface!

"You know, I get the feeling that the Milky Way and the Red Ocean used to be more interconnected than everyone assumes." He speculated. "I have witnessed sights back in the old galaxy that suggest that the native aliens of the Red Ocean may have ended up in my home galaxy. If I assume that is true, then it is not a stretch to believe that natives of the Milky Way made their way here as well."

The strongest proof of 'cross-contamination' was the Unending One.

He didn't know it at the time, but now that he looked back on his encounters with this cruel but powerful dark god, the tentacled whale's spiritual appearance closely matched that of an unclean whale!

Helena crossed her arms. "The story is probably not that simple. It is best not to draw any premature conclusions."

"Mmhmm."

Ves turned his attention back on trying to derive anything useful from this find. Pumping the skull with spiritual energy caused it to glow a little brighter, but it still lacked an essential spark of life, which was a shame.

Nothing else happened as Ves tried to manipulate it in various ways. He studied the skull and the rest of the skeleton to see if he could see any remains of clothes, weapons, equipment or access passes, but the ancient human truly didn't leave any of that behind.

That was another disappointment. Although Ves had become incredibly interested in David's story and the properties of his remains, none of this provided him with any immediate help. He hadn't forgotten about his original purpose.

Before Ves was ready to wrap up this examination, Helena raised her palm. "Wait. Let me give this a try. Can you take back the energy you put into the skull?"

"Sure."

Once he did so, Helena's intangible form slowly approached and placed a palm against the side of the human skull.

Soon, a trickle of death energy entered the skull's giant pool, causing it to glow in a darker and more ominous tint!

"I knew it! This skull can not only absorb different elements, it can do so without exhibiting any obvious bias!"

Ves looked at David's skull with astonishment. The eye sockets which previously held two silvery green points of light now held a pair of dark gray orbs.

The skull had taken a much more ominous vibe. Ves subjectively felt as if he was holding a colder object in his arms, but that was just an illusion created by negative energy.

"Can you do anything else with it now that you have pumped it with your energy?" Ves asked his sister. "If this is the extent of what you can do, then this doesn't really change anything."

A skull that could hold different spiritual energy attributes was not functionally different from P-stones and Unending alloy. It was hardly worth getting excited over alone.

"Hmmm… why not try injecting your own energy into it again? Don't drain my energy away this time. I am curious to see what will happen."

He shrugged. "Okay, sister, but I don't think anything special will happen. I have tried that before with P-stones. The only thing that happens is that they will get jumbled together and turn into a compound mush."

As Ves cautiously injected his own spiritual energy into the skull again, it did not do what he expected it to do. Instead of blending with the death energy that Helena had provided earlier, the two energies remained separated from each other!

Ves became a lot more alert all of a sudden. "That isn't supposed to happen."

The injection of spiritual energy from two different entities seemed to trigger an unknown mechanism that caused the skull to exhibit more activity.

The two energies began to cycle around each other like a typical yin-yang symbol. The interplay between life combined with metal on one side and death on the other side seemed to form an engine inside the skull!

The eye sockets began to change as well. One of them glowed in silvery green while the other in ominous dark gray.

"I knew it, hahaha!" Helena suddenly cackled. "Our mother would definitely be interested in what we have discovered today!"

Ves remained confused.

"What's the big deal?"

"I know who David used to be. Our mother told me stories about them. If I am not mistaken, you are looking at a primordial form of the human race."

"Wait, what? Primordial form? This skeleton is nowhere close to that of a baseline human!"

His sister glanced at him as if he was an idiot. "The variation of humans you call 'baseline' are anything but normal, you silly brother. They are not the default form of the human species. They are… well, they are the low-end version of what humans could be. David is an older and less downgraded version of humanity. He used to be so powerful back when he was alive, and he didn't even have to work as hard as normal humans in this day and age! Do you understand now, Ves? David is a relic of the most glorious period of human history! You might think that the Age of Conquest is already impressive enough, but you know nothing of the age where human gods such as myself used to be a lot more common than in the past!"

"And that makes you so excited because…?"

"Don't you see, Ves? With a lot of creative processing, David's skeleton can easily be used to reconstruct a human body for our mother! Not the Superior Mother, but your original mother who gave birth to you at Cloudy Curtain!"

"REALLY!?"