Dragon Canon

Chapter 34: The Origin of the Human Race

The Founder Commemoration Ceremony concluded, and classes commenced the very next day.

It was still dark outside, but Wei Yuan had already performed his ablutions. He was currently making his way to a small plaza by the valley entrance. The classes were held at the Enlightenment Hall thirty li away from the valley. Every early morning, horse-drawn carriages would show up at a fixed hour to transport new disciples to the hall. If they missed it, then they would have to travel there themselves.

By the time he arrived at the plaza, he noticed that several carriages were already standing by. The horses were snow white in color and one zhang and five chi tall. Faint clouds could be seen spreading out of their hooves. Each carriage had a symbol that signified where it was headed to. Wei Yuan quickly identified the carriage headed for the Enlightenment Hall and verified his identity with the carriage driver. Then, he climbed inside.

The carriage was two zhang tall and resembled a mini siege tower. It was extremely spacious on the inside and was filled with rows and rows of seats. It was big enough to fit fifty people in total.

More passengers entered the carriage after Wei Yuan. No one else came when the number of passengers had reached a little over twenty.

After confirming that everyone was present, the carriage driver shut the door and took off.

As soon as the carriage left the plaza, Wei Yuan felt as if someone had stepped on his chest and pinned him to the back of his seat, immobilizing him! The scenery outside the window was moving backward at an extraordinary speed, but the carriage itself was incredibly steady. It was only shaking a little.

Wei Yuan had just recovered from the sudden pressure and taken two gulps of air, when suddenly, the carriage shook, and he found himself hurtling forward. Thankfully, he reacted swiftly and grabbed the seat in front of him with both hands, clinging on for dear life. In the end, he managed to prevent himself from getting hurt.

The rest of the children weren’t as lucky though. Some of them failed to react in time and slammed head first into the seat in front of them. Their foreheads and their faces instantly became swollen. For a time, screams echoed throughout the entire carriage.

The screams were still ongoing when the scenery outside the window changed again to reveal a three-storey pavilion. It was then the door opened, and the carriage driver peeked inside with a bright smile on his face. He said, “We’re pressed for time this time, so I had to move a little faster. If anyone is late again tomorrow, then we will be moving even faster.”

A boy with a swollen forehead immediately complained with displeasure, “How dare you! You’re just a carriage driver! And just how stingy is the Palace of Absolute Beginning to afford its disciples a shabby carriage that doesn’t even have a Wind Resisting Array?!”

The cultivator merely smiled and pretended that he couldn’t hear him.

The boy wanted to say more, but someone sitting next to him clamped a hand over his mouth.

Wei Yuan disembarked the carriage and looked up. The signboard hanging in front of the pavilion read “Enlightenment Hall”. Its courtyard looked incredibly beautiful and secluded. Bluish green bamboos were planted next to the walls, and they looked so lush and vibrant that one could almost feel their vitality. Clear qi could be seen rising out of the leaves from time to time.

Wei Yuan followed his fellow disciples into the Enlightenment Hall. There were rows and rows of study desks inside the building. His name was flashing on one of the tables, so he went over to it and sat down.

After everyone had taken a seat, a young cultivator wearing a smile on his face stepped inside. He was none other than the carriage driver. He stopped in front of the room and introduced himself, “My name is Feng Chutang. For the next twelve months, I will be teaching you all A Comprehensive History of the Human Race.”

The boy who hooted against him earlier was flabbergasted to say the least. He hurriedly bowed his head.

This new centralized learning method was of paramount importance to the Palace of Absolute Beginning, so none of the instructors conducting the classes were ordinary figures. It was said that some of the younger teachers were genius-level talents who possessed the potential to become True Lords. Thus, even the aristocratic families sought to cultivate good relationships with them and were unwilling to antagonize them if at all possible. Before classes even began, the elders had specifically warned their scions to make a favorable impression upon their instructors.

Luckily for him, Feng Chutang didn’t dwell on the minor incident in the carriage. He began, “The history of the human race can be traced back to three hundred thousand years ago...”

The earliest recorded history of the human race came from three hundred thousand years ago. There were no documented accounts beyond that. At the time, the human race was just a minor race among the myriad races, and they were living in scattered groups across what was now eastern Lu Province and Hedong Province. They occupied only a couple commanderies worth of land and were surrounded by hostile races everywhere.

The human race was feeble back in those days. The foreign races didn’t just raid their borders, burn their houses, plunder their riches, and kill their people. Some even consumed humans as food or offered them as sacrifices. Thus, the first chapter of A Comprehensive History of the Human Race, titled the Foreign Race Chapter, spanned the first two hundred thousand years of the human race.

Feng Chutang recounted the terrible, ancient past of the human race in a soft, mellow voice. As he spoke, vivid images appeared in front of the lecture hall. They were a man, a woman, and two children. At first glance, they looked like humans. However, they were clearly taller and more robust. The man, for example, stood roughly a head taller than Feng Chutang, while the woman was his equal in height. There was a label marking the boy as ten years old, but he was nearly as tall as an adult male human. The girl was six years old, and she looked to be the same size and height of an eleven or twelve-year-old child.

On a related note, their most defining characteristics were their gray eyes, long, sharp ears, and four-digit hands.

“This is the Liao of the Vast Sea. A lot of books address them as Northern Liao, but this is actually an inaccurate appellation. The Liao do not only live in the north, they can be found in the northeastern and eastern regions as well. The Liao of Vast Sea are numerous, with countless small and large tribes scattered like stars across the lands. Nine of them have established kingdoms with their own laws and customs. Today, the borders Great Tang shares with the Liao tribes stretch for 1.5 million li. They are, without a doubt, the foreign race with whom we share the deepest and most complex of ties.”

“In ancient times, the human race was just a small foreign tribe in the eyes of the Liao of VastSea. From time to time, they would invade our borders to plunder food and supplies. Their soldiers only kill if they are met with resistance, meaning those who obediently give up their supplies usually live to see another day. That was why a lot of humans chose to secure peace via paying tribute.

“Occasionally, a Liao noble might want to engage in some recreational hunting. So, the human tribes would send their warriors into a designated hunting ground to act as preys. They could run, or they could fight. If they survived until the end, then they were rewarded for their struggles.”

Many students wore furious looks on their faces. Most of them hailed from aristocratic families and were naturally prideful. Naturally, the dark chapter in their history felt unbearable to them.

A bit of emotion entered Feng Chutang’s voice then, though no one could tell exactly what it was. “The Liao of the Vast Sea neither ate nor slaughtered humans indiscriminately. Human women appear ugly in their eyes, so rape cases were few and far between as well. On top of that, many human tribes paid tribute to the Liao in the first tens of thousands of years, so they gradually viewed our race as a vassal tribe and afforded us their protection. Frankly, there is a very good chance our race would have gone extinct a long time ago if not for them.

“The Liao of Vast Sea was also the foreign race that treated us with the greatest benevolence and generosity. There is no doubt that they viewed us as an inferior race, but they didn’t mind co-existing with us. And so our ancestors kept their heads down and continuously grew our numbers until a great war broke out between the Shamans and the Liao of the Vast Sea.

“At the time, our territory lay on the border between the two races. It wasn’t a particularly strategic location, and our race had produced several True Lords at the time. We were too weak to make any advances, but we definitely had enough power to defend our own land. Thus, the Liao of the Vast Sea entrusted this stretch of their defenses to us and marched their main force westward.

“They never imagined that we would open our border gates and allow the Shamans to advance into their territory unimpeded, however. Because of this, the Shamans were able to cut off their main force’s retreat completely.”

Everyone including Wei Yuan was stunned by this. As history was his forte, he asked immediately, “I thought the Shamans have been offering humans to their heaven since time immemorial, teacher?”