Aztec Civilization: Destiny to Conquer America!-Chapter 1442 - 996: Scholar’s Nautical Diary: The Mountain Giants of the Ancestor Island Chain!
"Chief Divine’s protection! This is North latitude 52 degrees, the longitude that Your Majesty mentioned is indeterminable. We are in the middle of a long island chain, on a very long and large island, perhaps the largest in the chain... Standing at a high point on the island, looking north is the vast ocean, and south is also the vast ocean. I feel that the northern ocean’s color is lighter, is it because it’s colder? Or, is it because to the north of the island there is a high ice-covered Divine Mountain, shimmering with pure white light?..."
The vast ocean is wide to the north and south, and the long island extends east and west. Shiny icebergs stand on the protruding northern side of the Great Island, while the southern side has a concave, sheltered bay. At this moment, Scholar Mikki stands on the hill by the bay, wearing a hat made of seal skin, wrapped in thick walrus fur. From a distance, he resembles a grayish large "marmot" standing on the hill.
The wind by the sea is strong and cold, carrying icy sand. Scholar Mikki shivers slightly, "Ha-ha’d" his cloth-wrapped hands. A faint white mist flows from his mouth, like the spirits of clouds in myth. He vigorously rubs his palms, hops in place for a moment, before picking up his charcoal pencil to continue writing and drawing on parchment.
Upon closer inspection, this roll of parchment already shows a long island, a large bay, and a northeastern ice mountain range. Besides, on the island there’s a mark of a little person, and in the bay, a mark of a longship. The marks of person and ship are very close, almost connected together. But in the final ice mountain, there’s a mysterious mark of a leaf, it’s unclear what it represents.
"Chief Divine! It’s so cold here, really very cold! It’s early October now, the Great Island has already had several terrifying snowstorms, with winds strong enough to blow people away! We almost had a longship blown away by the storm... Chief Divine’s protection! That longship finally hit the rocks, grounded on the reef, barely staying, but it’s not fully repaired yet..."
"The island is covered with strips of white snow, strips of gray barren soil, and strips of dark brown rock... But, there is some green on the island, though rarely seen, yet indeed visible. That green is not tall trees, the island might have no tall trees. It’s low shrubs by the river, short grass unknown around the bay, and moss on rocky hills..."
Scholar Mikki pauses, surrounds the bay with a circle, representing the grassy area, perhaps potatoes can be planted? He’s uncertain... Then, he stares at the mark of the ship in the bay, blinks his eyes, then turns around, looking towards the twenty-mile-wide natural bay.
In this natural bay, at the moment, there are three kingdom’s longships anchored, faintly visible "marmot group" dots on the ships, busy with something unknown. It’s either catching fish and shrimp or processing seal and walrus bodies, or reinforcing the storm-damaged ship hull?...
Scholar Mikki doesn’t know the answer since these are managed by Fleet Commander Zuwaro. His task is to record geographic hydrology, draw terrain sketches, and write the seafaring journal. Thus, his gaze slightly shifts westward, seeing a small area of low round-top huts, and another busy "marmot group" by the huts. This time, he clearly knows what they are doing.
"Tall Unanga people (Unangax̂, i.e., Aleut tribe), are relocating their low Barabara huts. In about a month, maybe a bit later, or perhaps a few days earlier? Anyway, certainly in November, the terrifying snow season and freezing period will arrive!... By then, the horrible, horrible cold waves will surge, snowstorms will last day and night! The sea will be completely frozen, thickly incapable to pierce, forget catching fish. And the high Sun God will be shrouded in dense darkness!... Daytime becomes very short, even without seeing the sun. Night becomes very long, sometimes with colorful flying cloud spirits painting mysterious prophetic talismans in the night sky... Truly a terrifying, cold, hungry, and brilliant winter, lasting five long months!..."
Scholar Mikki gazes at the sky, looking at the not-so-bright sun, dazed for a while. He recalls last year’s long winter spent in the Far North land, suddenly shivering, as if feeling once again the bone-chilling, toe-freezing, finger-breaking, ear-dropping cold, and smelling the storm, snow, hunger, and death’s scent.
"Chief Divine’s protection! Chief Divine’s protection! He protects us, enduring the longest winter! He grants us light and warmth, also gives us the force to continue heading west!"
Scholar Mikki grasps the pure gold Sun Amulet around his neck, earnestly praying for a moment. In this far remote, cold, and mysterious Far North land, only his heartfelt faith in the Chief Divine can bring him steady courage and determination to continue marching towards the prophecy’s end!
After a moment of prayer, Scholar Mikki calms down his emotions, continuing with the unfinished content.
"Hmm... where did I write to? Oh! The Unanga people preparing to migrate entirely to beneath the northern snowy mountain by the sacred spring before freezing arrives, which is at the mark location of the leaves! It’s the only place on the whole Long Island where tall trees can be seen. It’s said to be blessed by the Goddess of Spring, having a spring that won’t freeze in winter, it’s the Unanga people’s warm winter camp, their source of drinking water during the harsh winter. Oh, they lack firestone, have few trees, usable fuel is scarce..."
"Chief Divine bless! I have never been to that sacred spring, and have never seen the great trees on the island. But from the Unanga people’s descriptions, it should be the hot springs that both the Alliance and the Kingdom have, right? So, does this desolate island in the far northern cold also have the divinity buried in the earth by the Chief Divine, with the volcanic hot springs bestowed by the Chief Divine? ... Truly! It truly makes me curious! Since proceeding west along this island chain, this is already the fifth large island with hot springs that we have encountered. Almost every large island has towering glaciers and unfrozen hot springs!..."
"Could it be that inside those glaciers, the divinity of fire is hidden? Or is this precisely the Land of Divine Revelation from the Chief Divine, guiding us along a westerly route? ... Ah! Praise to you, Supreme Main God! We will surely follow your Divine Revelation along this chain of hot spring islands to reach the new continent in the West!!..." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮
At this point, Scholar Mikki grasped the cold amulet again and offered a sincere prayer. He knew that around those hot springs, potatoes could definitely be grown. Then, beside the marking of the tree leaf hot spring, he carefully added the emblem of the Main God before picking up the pen again.
"Chief Divine bears witness! Our large ship has brought firestone for warmth and ample food supplies. The Unanga people warmly welcomed us, very friendly. They eagerly invited us to join their winter camp and stay in their ’Barabara’..."
"Oh, ’Unanga’ is how they refer to themselves, and according to the Unanga guides, it means ’truly tall people’! They are indeed tall, generally taller than me by a head... Sometimes I wonder, why are they all descendants of the Jiao People, yet able to migrate to such distant lands, grow so tall, and tolerate the cold so well?... Could it be that during their migration, they also encountered the favor of the Main God, thus gaining the divinity of growing tall and resisting the cold?..."
"By the way! ’Barabara’ is their portable dome-shaped small hut, very low, so low that the tall Unanga can’t stand up inside. These huts have frames woven from small trees and shrubs, with some frames having been passed down for dozens of generations, making them the tribe’s most precious heritage... Hmm, it’s still because the island lacks large trees and even small trees are scarce... As for the hut frame, it is covered with layers of seabird feathers, various fish scales, and thick sea lion and walrus skins... and finally plastered with thick mud..."
"Hmm, I feel their hut-building skills are not bad, but their huts are still inferior to those of the Slavs. Ultimately, it’s the shortage of wood and fuel on the island. Every day, I watch them busily collecting dry grass and shrubs for winter fuel. But those things, how could they compare with the firestone we brought?... Thus, each winter’s arrival becomes a test of life and death for them, taking away living lives!"
"Under such brutal winter tests, this vast large island has only a little over two hundred Unangas. And this, has been the largest Unanga tribe we have seen all the way here!... It seems that every day of their lives is spent preparing for brutal winters, storing food and fuel, busy from morning till night. And when the dreadful winter comes, they can only huddle in their shelters, clinging to each other day and night, praying for the ancestors’ protection, minimizing all activities to endure the long, lightless winter nights!"
"This darkness and cold have persisted for thousands of years, never changing until our arrival! Until we, under the guidance of the Chief Divine, sailed thousands of miles here, bringing the light of the Main God to them! Praise be to the luminous Main God!"
This long record ends with a lengthy praise for the Main God. Then, Scholar Mikki puts down his pen and once again offers a devout prayer. His frostbitten, reddened face is full of the pride of preaching!
Along this journey, the fleet followed the island chain and encountered many small Unanga tribes of dozens to hundreds of people. As long as the fleet gifted these small tribes firestones, gifted them food... these small tribes would put on the Chief Divine amulets without hesitation, chant the Chief Divine’s name with them, looking ’excited’ and ’praying.’ The conversion speed of these far northern small tribes, and their flexible attitudes, completely exceeded Scholar Mikki’s expectations. Even throughout the entire fleet, many strong and tall Unanga (Aleut) sailors were recruited, mostly exchanged from local tribes with food and fuel! In reality, without these Unanga capable of enduring extreme cold, the fleet wouldn’t have been able to reach here at all!...
"Chief Divine bless! We sailed westward along the long thousands-mile island chain... finally reaching the largest island seen in early October! After discussing it with Zuwaro, we plan to establish a true supply port here, but I haven’t yet decided on the port’s name..."
"By the way! In the local Unanga Elder’s songs, the island chain of Divine Revelation to the ’west’ is referred to as the ’Ancestor Island Chain.’ Each island on the chain, it is said, is transformed from an ancestor giant who died and sunk into the sea... And this largest island, located in the middle of the entire ’Ancestor Island Chain,’ is precisely the place where the greatest ancestor giant of legend died and sunk! And that giant’s name was ’Atka,’ ’The Real Mountain Giant’!"
Note: The Easter Egg Chapter will include the position of the ’Barabara’ hut and ’Atka’ island.
