Three days later, after selling out overcoats and doing a bit of small business, Guy was ready to return and came to bid farewell to Tilan.

"Leave these two ponies with Hexia." Guy led the two ponies he had exchanged for at the Lake Wind Settlement to the shed beside the small house.

When he left, he had purchased quite a few supplies, and using these two young ponies to pull the cart wasn't sufficient, so he exchanged them for two larger packhorses.

"Hexia might find them useful for outings in the future." Guy informed Hexia.

"I understand." Hexia nodded, accepting the two still naive ponies, then conversed with Guy for a while longer.

"Regarding the expedition to the ruins, it will have to wait until after winter next year; the weather is about to turn cold, and the settlement is short-handed, with many things needing to be done."

Guy then told Hexia that if he set out to explore the ruins next year, he would come to the Mountain Castle to invite Hexia along, since this girl's strength was well recognized.

"Farewell then, Hexia, Ores." Guy then climbed onto the carriage, waved to the two of them, and drove away out of the city.

Hope that the boss of the reindeer, Sura and Guy, can safely get through this winter, the girl prayed in her heart.

Returning to the small house she shared with Ores, over the past three days, she and Ores had used buckets and brooms to clean every corner, making the place much cleaner. Although the floor's stone bricks had plenty of cracks, they were now free of stains, and walking barefoot on them felt the coolness and smoothness of the stone edges.

On the first floor was the living room and kitchen, with a storeroom on the side. The second floor had their bedrooms and a place for Tilan to work and read.

After hauling up a bucket of water from the well behind the small house, Tilan poured it into the stone trough in front of the two ponies, petting the little ones as they settled down, even licking the girl's wrist with their tongues.

After interacting with the little ones for a while, the girl returned to the second floor, where Ores was sitting on the bed flipping through the illustrated book Tilan had borrowed yesterday. It's a treasure of Scholar Sigismund, said to be the work of a painter from a hundred years ago, depicting many famous spots and places around Shilin Mountain Castle with brush strokes.

"Is it beautiful?" Seeing Ores engrossed, the girl asked.

"It's beautiful, Tilan." The Ice Spirit girl replied happily, interested in vibrant colors and fresh things like a child.

Patting Ores, she continued helping to check and tidy the Transcendent Core inside her. Like Hexia, Ores' Transcendent Core suffered damage during the forced ascension ceremony. Coming to this world, Hexia had always been wary of teaching Ores anything too complicated, to prevent any accidents.

With daily attention and care over the past month, Ores' Transcendent Core gradually recovered, even overtaking Tilan back to Sequence 6's perfect state, with an inkling of stepping into Sequence 7.

Regarding the talent for practice, Ores is indeed a genius but does not surpass Hexia. Though the Crown ceremony failed, it had a small side effect of accelerating Ores' Sequence practice progress significantly, making her near the brink of Sequence 7 before thirty.

Sadly, she's now lost her memory, and the complex theoretical knowledge and mindset required for ascending to Sequence 7 would need to be relearned and cultivated.

Releasing her fingers, Hexia fell into thought.

In the future, it seems she'll have to also act as Ores' introductory teacher. It's unknown whether the Ice Spirit's secret technique she grasps is outdated compared to Ores' original family skills.

Putting these thoughts aside for now, Tilan returned to the desk, opened the book borrowed from Sigismund yesterday, and began to read thoroughly. This was also her first systematic understanding of the origins of this world from written records.

From the records of Shilin Mountain Castle, Hexia didn't see the full picture of history, but from the many detailed descriptions, she deduced that this planet had changed hands several times and was a contested place for several Black Suns at the time, with various forces involved.

However, this chaotic scenario ended suddenly one day, according to the records, when the entire sky darkened for several months and then returned to brightness, with no trace of satellites and spacecraft originally orbiting the planet.

Despite the presence of many newborn races on the ground, possessing the most advanced technology at the time, the planet lacked a complete industrial chain for building superluminal starships.

Then came a chaotic war period, while the old humans termed them newborn races, there were vast differences among the newborn races, mutually incompatible.

The fight lasted about 200 years, with no ultimate victor; the war ended because the newborn races were surrounded by various issues and could no longer sustain high-intensity warfare.

Following that was a long period of decline, with the planet's environment slowly deteriorating, many technological inheritances severed, and war machines gradually eroding various strongholds, forcing the surviving newborn races to frequently migrate. Such movement led to the loss of many technical documents, eventually forming the current situation.

Surprised by how things have come to this, Tilan closed the book, leaning back in the chair pondering.

According to the analysis in the book, newborn races were quite powerful initially, having the ability to build space stations and space carriers even without superluminal spacecraft. Back then, wars were almost saturated bombardments, with supersonic fighter competitions in the sky and heavy-armored mecha racing on the ground.