Part One: The Archaic Era: The Wave of Realm-Creation

【Overview of the Era】 The precise beginning and end of the wave of Realm-creation can no longer be determined. Modern scholarship uses the term “wave of Realm-creation” for the long period after the earliest discernible phenomenon of Realm-creation during which great numbers of created Realms continued to form. Different regions entered this historical process at different times; while final leaps were still occurring repeatedly in some places, large-scale civilizations had already begun to arise in other stable worlds.

Historians use “Realm-creation” as a general term for the historical process in which the final leap forms an independent world. The many surviving ancient created Realms, remnants of dead Realms, and terminal traces led later generations to a highly influential conclusion: the archaic past saw a denser period of path completion than the recoverable ancient era, though the chronological compression caused by the Great Loss may also have magnified that impression.

[Ruins and Chronology] Modern scholars cannot reliably determine how long the Wave of Realm-creation lasted or how many acquired Realms formed over its course. Many ancient Realms can be assigned only extremely broad date ranges. Some were later confirmed as acquired Realms, others may have been Primordial Realms, and the origins of many more remain unknown. In ancient history, “ancient Realm” is therefore first and foremost a chronological designation, not a classification by formation mechanism.