The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (top books to read TXT) 📕

Ten steps later, I finally noticed a message in the system log.

You caught the interest of the god Tormis!

Your reputation with Tormis was increased by 150.

Current value: 1200/5000 (Friendly)

Again? I looked back, but the beggar had vanished as if I had hallucinated him and his bowl of coppers. Hmm, so the mysterious god was looking after me. Had I piqued his interest? I needed to find out...and locate his temple.

Chapter 6

A PLEASANT CHIME informed me that the transaction was successful. The numbers displayed after the transfer warmed my heart. After the COSMOS fiasco, I took to withdrawing money from the game as soon as possible; if necessary, I could always invest it back, especially since it wasn’t that hard in Sphere.

Alena called me, barraging me with her impressions of the first day on board the Star. Yesterday, a twenty-seat rocketplane had carried them to orbit, and now, they were enjoying all the perks of the highly popular space tourism industry. She sent me lots of photos and videos, and then the connection was terminated — the station had probably left the area where Net was available.

In a few hours, I was to take the Watchers exam. It was the event anticipated by the entire Liberty for almost two months. I was sure I wouldn’t fail, although it didn’t prevent me from feeling mildly anxious. To relax, I turned on the hot tap, added half a cap of foam, and climbed into a bath. Having made myself comfortable, I activated the holographic projector and started studying the photos sent by Alena.

The images were majestic: an entirely transparent dome of a huge hall, giant blue water spheres soaring everywhere, with people flying in zero gravity among them, some of the more daring swimmers diving inside, piercing the balloons right through. I saw smiles, happy laughter, people with their children having fun.

In the background, the sky was burning black, studded with silver dots of stars, while the Earth, blue and green and white, took up a good fourth part of the view. A surreal yet gorgeous sight.

Then came photos taken in the restaurant and the gym, inside the rocketplane — Alena, smiling, trying on an unwieldy silvery spacesuit helmet; the famous space zoo; levitating plants; my beloved grinning against the backdrop of our continent, lit up in a web of night lights, big and small.

The remaining photos were of the Earth, from various angles and perspectives: the Star was slowly circling the orbit, right above the technicolor land sometimes seen in the gaps of the cloudy veil. Africa, Eurasia, Australia, even the Antarctic, the edges of the latter starting to grow green after being freed of the rapidly melting ice cap. In recent years, it became home to archeological excavations: with the ice sheet gone, the scientists had discovered the traces of an ancient civilization, the extent of which boggled the mind. They were already certain they had found the legendary Atlantis. It hadn’t drowned, but simply relocated to the South Pole due to the movement of continental plates, and froze for five thousand years.

Oh, even our grandfathers wouldn’t have recognized this planet. I recalled the geographic maps having been redrawn at least three times, with the borders of the continents inevitably changing. Thirty-five years ago, the Great Tremors had triggered a number of volcano eruptions, both underwater and above. Japan had disappeared from the face of the Earth, while Britain had slowly sunken into the depths of the sea. Horrible tsunamis had destroyed the Pacific coastlines of America and China hundreds of miles into the land. Almost five years of terror and suffering, millions of victims, and a global panic in the face of awakened forces of nature. Civilization had seemed to be on the brink of collapse. Ash, dust, and carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere had led to a worldwide ecological disaster. Half of the Earth hadn’t seen the Sun for a year, while the long-predicted greenhouse effect had blanketed the planet.

Coupled with the second sun burning in the bellies of factories and the engines of cars, the stray heat generated by our civilization had caused irrevocable climate changes. It had happened in a flash, lasting only decades instead of eras. Formerly warm areas had turned hot, with already hot places becoming inhospitable. Polar caps, permafrost, and the ice of Greenland and Iceland had started to rapidly melt. The water in the world’s oceans had begun to rise as fast at dozens of feet per year.

Humanity had fought that, of course. Stopping the video on the image of Europe, I saw the thin threads of dams protecting the Northern Union; they were stretching from Denmark all the way to the south of Norway, defending the Baltic area. The Straits of Gibraltar were blocks, while bars of hydraulic structures covered the coasts of France and Germany. How long would they last, I wondered.

Both Americas had changed their shape, almost unrecognizable. A series of tsunamis and vicious hurricanes raging all over their shores had ruined the coastal infrastructure, while the ash of the awakened Yellowstone caldera covered the inland areas. The hub of Western civilization had barely withstood the onslaught of the roused elements.

The Great Lakes in the north of Canada had fused together with the Hudson Bay. Florida and California had vanished underwater with the ocean invading the continent along the flow of the Mississippi, creating a new gulf. Over the last ten years, all cities of the Eastern Coast and Mexican Bay had been flooded, the hills of San Francisco turning into islands.

In the center of South America, water had overflown the base of the Amazon, transforming it into a huge landlocked sea. Buenos Aires was gone, as was a large part of Paraguay. The Isthmus of Panama was now a chain of islands.

All of that had