Chapter 170: Stories of the Past

The year draws to a close, and the tasks have piled up, but rest assured, there will be no interruption in the updates. Whether it be New Year’s Eve or the first day of the Lunar New Year, the posts will continue as usual; they may be slightly shorter, but nothing else will change. Today’s chapter is a substantial one, and for the following days, I guarantee a minimum of four thousand words, rising to five thousand once the second day of the New Year passes, with occasional bonus chapters.

In the royal capital of Alestler, within Wang Yu’s residence on Red Maple Street, the magic crystal lamps were aglow. Outside, the night had fallen, casting the light from the windows to illuminate the scenery in the courtyard.

Sitting at the dining table in the living room, Wang Yu looked at the only item he had brought back from the Great Library: the story of Mr. Samuel Hayden, the librarian, a personal autobiography condensed from his final reserves of strength.

"This was a librarian who could truly be called great."

He quickly finished reading the concise yet remarkably clear account of Samuel Hayden, once a priest of the God of Knowledge, who became a "Firekeeper" during the epic "Bottom of the Abyss" battle—a conflict between the five races that defined the current landscape of the continent—and ultimately, became the "God of Knowledge" himself.

In the very end, before falling into silence, Samuel had been almost entirely devoid of power. The autobiography he finally condensed skipped over the majority of his "life"—his childhood, his years of study, and his time as a priest of the God of Knowledge.

"Indeed, Mr. Librarian was a truly great man. Setting aside his past deeds, the fact that he used his final strength to save us is enough to warrant our most sincere tribute."

Sitting across from Wang Yu was Evia, who was examining her restored arm. Beside her sat a presence who listened in silence: the Lady of the Night, Darkness. Sitting in the chair next to the girl, this divine friend whom Wang Yu and Samuel had mentioned seemed lost in her own thoughts.

Wang Yu recounted Samuel’s story to Evia and the Lady of the Night. A "Firekeeper" was a vocation born from the "Bottom of the Abyss" campaign, tasked with preserving the "sparks"—which were, in essence, knowledge.

The war between the five races and the Abyss was a protracted struggle. No one knew who would emerge victorious: the bottomless Abyss, which spewed forth endless monsters, or the intelligent races united against it.

In that turbulent, precarious era, the intelligent races had not yet reached their current level of development. Gods seemed to be their most lethal and powerful force; priests were the most formidable professionals of the time.

To call upon divine grace and tear enemies apart with the gifts of the gods—one can only imagine the effort it took for Samuel, the son of an ordinary nobleman, to become a priest of the God of Knowledge.

The Firekeeper was a profession forged in that era, designed to preserve the embers of civilization so that the intelligent races might rise again should they fall.

Knowledge—that which develops through inheritance and empowers the intelligent races—was what the Firekeepers were sworn to guard.

Even if the main body of the intelligent races were to crumble and perish in the final battle against the Abyss, the sparks guarded by the Firekeepers would remain, helping the survivors find a chance to rise once more.

Only those who received the grace of the God of Knowledge—a deity who walked closely with the intelligent races and was exceptionally powerful because the concept of knowledge is omnipresent—could store such a vast quantity of information.

And so, Samuel Hayden, a young nobleman who had climbed his way to that position, resolutely became the Firekeeper of the intelligent races.

It is worth noting that the nobility of that time differed greatly from the hereditary great houses of today.

In an era before humanity had expanded to its current borders, and before Alestler and Sevinthan had even emerged, "nobility" was a difficult thing to define.

The only human kingdom at the time, Atlan, had a simple rule: those who performed military feats were granted fiefs and became nobles; those who expanded the borders claimed the land they conquered as their own territory, and they, too, were nobles.

Bizarre, right? Indeed, the king at the time was considered a bit "mad" by later historians.

To win the war against the Lord of the Abyss, he told his officers in private that he no longer cared for the kingdom. He knew that the zeal of those pioneers, combined with the rewards for their service, would leave the land filled with nobles, and the kingdom would no longer belong to the royal family.

He told them that if they didn't want to be left penniless, they should seek a more promising path elsewhere. To win the war that decided the fate of all intelligent races, the king had sacrificed everything.

It was sheer madness. If a monarch in Wang Yu’s home country on Earth had made such a decision, he would have been betrayed by his own staff the next day and assassinated in some dark corner.

But alas, this was a fantasy world. The King was a legendary mid-tier warrior; anyone who tried to assassinate him would quickly learn the meaning of cruelty from him and his circle of archmages, legendary wizards, and high priests.

Such was the absurdity of this King: by the time the war ended, the honors were distributed, and the lands were granted, most of the kingdom no longer had anything to do with the royal family.

Yet, he sat securely on his throne until he died of old age, becoming the longest-reigning monarch in history. One can only say that fantasy worlds are truly magical.

The situation of Samuel Hayden’s family was much the same. His father had been a military mage and later became a teacher after retiring.

Upon hearing the kingdom’s new law, he must have had a change of heart; he gathered some retired veterans and younger soldiers who had been discharged due to injuries, answered the call, and set out to expand the borders for the human kingdom.

A band of rough-and-tumble soldiers and their families somehow managed to reclaim a vast territory, transforming from commoners into so-called nobles.

Becoming nobles was one thing, but who would be the lord and govern the land became the next problem.

After some deliberation, these burly veterans—men and women whose abs were hard enough to withstand a hammer—pushed Samuel Hayden’s father, the mage who was the sharpest among them and had once been a teacher, to become their lord.

That was the story of how Samuel became a noble. The thin autobiography contained quite a bit of detail about the Atlan Kingdom; one can imagine that in the long years that followed, Samuel must have looked back on that strange era with profound emotion.

The rest of the story—Samuel’s studies, his friendship with Roland and Yale, and his success in becoming a priest of the God of Knowledge through talent and hard work—was glossed over in his autobiography.

After becoming a Firekeeper, Samuel began to collect knowledge provided by the intelligent races. Whether it was arcane sorcery, knightly cultivation techniques, dangerous forbidden spells, or even taboo historical accounts of Void evil gods and other chaotic matters, all were provided to him.

Samuel’s task was to use the divine arts of the God of Knowledge to carve this information into his soul, preserving it for posterity.

The "Hall of Knowledge" was the divine art used to record this information, and it was the power granted to him by the God of Knowledge to manifest this information within a space, turning it into a library.

This was the prototype of the Great Library. Perhaps its scale was not as staggering as what Wang Yu had seen, but as the war with the Abyss dragged on, the knowledge Samuel recorded grew, and the library expanded frantically until it reached the near-infinite state Wang Yu had witnessed.

Wang Yu knew the outcome of the battle at the Bottom of the Abyss well: the intelligent races won. They had constructed a super-weapon—a bomb packed with countless forbidden spells, sorcery, and an unimaginable amount of alchemical explosives—which they detonated, obliterating the Abyss and all the monsters within.

The moment of that explosion, which cracked the very continent, signaled the end of the century-long war.

The campaign that brought this ultimate weapon to the depths of the Abyss was known as the "Bottom of the Abyss" battle. The physical traces of that event had long since vanished into the echoes of the blast.

What happened inside had been buried in the dust of history by that final roar. The intelligent races only knew that several gods had fallen there, among them, the God of Knowledge.

Afterward, Samuel the Firekeeper found his ability to record knowledge failing, for with the death of the God of Knowledge, his divine power was slowly fading.

He could not understand how the God of Knowledge could have fallen in that battle. The God of Knowledge was not a deity who charged into the front lines; he merely recorded, transmitted, and protected knowledge. How could he have fallen?

It was not until much later that Samuel realized what a great decision the God of Knowledge had made.

Deprived of divine power, Samuel found it difficult to maintain the library. Those sparks of knowledge would likely dissipate once his power was gone.

He made a decision: using alchemy and mage-craft, he modified himself into a form capable of recording that knowledge—the form Wang Yu had seen: no lower body, draped in robes, floating in the air.

The autobiography included a self-portrait of Samuel. The Samuel of the past looked like a scholarly young man, bearing little resemblance to the librarian Wang Yu had met.

Having been modified into a vessel for knowledge with the help of the various races, Samuel took up long-term residence in the Great Library, existing as the Firekeeper of all he knew.

As time passed, Samuel noticed changes within himself. He was regaining the power he once held as a priest of the God of Knowledge.

He could feel himself transforming into the very concept of the God of Knowledge. After the god’s death, Samuel Hayden, possessing a terrifying store of knowledge, began to manifest more and more of the god’s traits.

Whether it was the ability to remember infinite things or the power to use that manifested knowledge as a devastating weapon—powers that once required prayer to obtain—they now manifested directly within this priest who had lost his god.

He did not fully understand what was happening, but he surmised that, possessing such vast knowledge, he was becoming the next God of Knowledge.

At first, he did not think this was a bad thing; these abilities helped him better preserve the knowledge he was tasked to protect—until he discovered the shackles locked upon that knowledge.

He found he could no longer convey certain truths to others. It seemed the identity of the "God of Knowledge" carried a constraint that sealed the window through which he could share information.

With the power of the God of Knowledge, he could call upon and understand all the knowledge he possessed with ease.

But as he approached a state of "pseudo-omniscience" among the knowledge held by the intelligent races, Samuel suddenly realized with horror that the power of the God of Knowledge was too terrifying.

He possessed perhaps only a thousandth of the original god’s power, yet he could already use existing knowledge to deduce further truths, optimize forbidden spells, and refine sorcery—all with a flick of his wrist.

When he contemplated what the former God of Knowledge—who possessed far more power and a deeper reservoir of information—could have done, he was first shocked, then terrified.

The God of Knowledge could have done so much. His power was beyond the definition of "strong"; he was a being of infinite possibility.

The intelligent races would tell the god what they knew through prayer, and the god would deduce further knowledge and pass it back to the believers. If this cycle had continued, the development of the intelligent races would have accelerated at an unimaginable speed.

But it didn't happen. The God of Knowledge of the past did not do this. He merely performed the duties of an ordinary god, granting divine arts and occasionally showing miracles, until... he suddenly fell in the "Bottom of the Abyss" battle.

In that moment, Samuel understood the intention behind the god’s actions. The shackles that prevented him from sharing knowledge seemed to be the very reason the God of Knowledge had acted as he did.

He realized that he had once thought the God of Death or the God of War were more powerful than the God of Knowledge. But now, possessing a fraction of that power and bound by the same shackles, he understood that the God of Knowledge was closer to the concept of "power" than any other deity.

Because knowing how to become a god is a form of knowledge; what a god is, is a form of knowledge. Everything about a god can be categorized as knowledge. Yet, the believers’ attitude toward gods—worship, reliance, fanaticism—ran contrary to the very concept of knowledge that the God of Knowledge mastered.

Simply put, a god cannot bear the concept of "knowledge." The existence of the God of Knowledge, in turn, shackled the knowledge of the intelligent races. His existence did not accelerate the development of knowledge; it locked it away.

"Humanity does not need a God of Knowledge; humanity only needs the concept of a God of Knowledge. Knowledge should be free; it should not be controlled by a so-called God of Knowledge."

When Samuel, having understood this, looked back at the sudden death of the God of Knowledge, he finally realized that the god’s fall had been his own choice.

And Samuel, gradually obtaining the power of the God of Knowledge and moving toward that very concept, chose a path similar to the one the god had taken.

He required time to erode the very concept of the God of Knowledge; he had to serve as a keeper of the flame, unlocking these shackled embers, and this process was known as the Silence.

He needed an age long enough for the world to forget the God of Knowledge, for the deity to fade from the pantheon of worshipped gods, for the wellspring of faith that sustained him to dry up, and for him to finally descend into silence.

Once the concept of the God of Knowledge vanished, the chains that bound the wisdom he possessed would cease to exist.

Thus, he sealed the library entirely, ignoring the prayers of all devotees, and dedicated himself solely to maintaining the library he had manifested.

Some time ago, Roland had entrusted the Codex of Dark Rites to his care, and throughout these long, stagnant years, he had studied the tome incessantly.

Yet, it was not until the eve of the Silence, when the power of the God of Knowledge had all but drained from his being and the shackles had dissolved, that he finally grasped the book’s secrets and used them to save Wang Yu.

Time caused the world to forget the God of Knowledge, who neither answered prayers nor performed miracles, and the divine power within Samuel grew increasingly frail.

In his final days, Samuel’s strength was perhaps less than one ten-thousandth of what it had once been; indeed, at that point, the old man would never have dared to invade the Great Library.

Yet, Samuel perceived that once his power vanished, these locked-away truths would be set free, scattering across the world as conceptual fragments to be discovered by any sentient race capable of understanding them, while long-hidden mysteries would reveal themselves to this era as the chains fell away.

Driven by a lingering human sentiment, he wished to grant humanity a measure of favor; concealing his identity, he passed on knowledge that, being less potent, had been freed earlier as his divine influence waned.

Thus came the Academy’s "Great Library" and the opportunities Father Fang provided for new members to enter its halls.

"In the end, he still hoped that someone would remember him... I am glad that my unique nature allowed me to record all that he had done."

Wang Yu closed the thin booklet, concluding his explanation with a touch of melancholy; Samuel could not reveal his identity to others, for if he were remembered, all the preparations made for the Silence would be rendered futile.

Fortunately, he had encountered the anomaly that was Wang Yu on the eve of the Silence; though he knew not why, Samuel sensed that revealing his identity to Wang Yu—telling him of the God of Knowledge, a deity long forgotten by every church—would change nothing.

And should Wang Yu pass these truths to others, it would have no consequence, for they had simply become part of the collective knowledge; at the very least, someone finally remembered his true name, his identity, and the sacrifices and contributions he had made.

From this day forth, as he had not fallen but merely fallen silent, the God of Knowledge would exist no more, and knowledge itself would never again be bound.

"Mr. Samuel’s efforts were not in vain; the progress of the five races following the battle at the 'Bottom of the Abyss' has been nothing short of meteoric—the development of the common tongue, breakthroughs in magic, and so on. The strength of the sentient races now far surpasses what it once was."

"Yet, I worry that with these truths unleashed, the things buried in history might bring about even greater turmoil."

There was apprehension in the girl’s voice; as a scholar far more learned than Wang Yu, Avia understood better than most the perils that certain knowledge could invite.

"Who knows? We shall take it one step at a time. For now, I must study my own condition."

Wang Yu placed Samuel’s autobiography back on the table; these distant, high-level matters still had little to do with him. To grow stronger, to keep growing stronger—that was all he had to do.