CHAPTER 170: STORIES OF THE PAST

In Aleisterre's capital, Wang Yu lounged in his residence on Redmaple Street. The mana crystal lamps in his room were lit; outside, night had fallen. The light from the windows faintly illuminated parts of the courtyard.

Seated at the dining table in the living room, Wang Yu looked at the sole item he had managed to retrieve from the Grand Library—a biography of the librarian Samuel Hayden. It was a memoir condensed from the last of his power.

"He was truly a great librarian..."

Wang Yu quickly finished reading the book, written in a concise yet strikingly clear style. It told the story of Samuel Hayden, former priest of the God of Knowledge who became a Flamewarden during the epic battle of the Abyssal Depths, in which five races united and shaped the continent of the present. And in the end, he became the new God of Knowledge.

By his virtualization, Samuel had almost no strength left. His last effort to condense a memoir omitted large portions of his childhood, his time as a student, and his years serving as a priest of the God of Knowledge.

"Yes, he was undoubtedly a great man. Even if we set aside all of his past achievements, the fact that he used the last of his power to save us is more than enough to deserve our deepest respect."

Sitting across from Wang Yu was Avia, who was examining her fully healed arm. Beside her sat another presence. Though she remained silent, she was listening attentively to Wang Yu's words—the Lady of the Night, Darkness. This divine friend of Wang Yu, whom Samuel had mentioned before, seemed lost in thought.

Wang Yu recounted Samuel's story to Avia and the Lady of the Night. The Flamewardens were born from the battle of the Abyssal Depths, and their role was to preserve the embers of knowledge.

The war against the Abyss had dragged on for nearly a century, and no one knew who would ultimately emerge victorious—the bottomless abyss that ceaselessly spawned monsters, or the intelligent races that had united to fight against it.

In that era of turmoil and uncertainty, the intelligent races hadn't developed as much as they had in the present. Back then, divine power was the most potent force available. Clerics were the strongest warriors of the intelligent races.

They called upon divine blessings and used the gifts of the gods to tear their enemies apart. For Samuel, the son of an ordinary noble, to become a priest of the God of Knowledge must have required immense effort.

The Flamewardens were an organization born in that age with a singular purpose—to ensure that, should the intelligent races be defeated, they would still retain the embers of their civilization, allowing them a chance to rise again.

The inheritance of knowledge was key to making the intelligent races stronger. It was this knowledge that the Flamewardens were tasked with safeguarding.

Even if the main forces of the intelligent races were shattered and destroyed in the final battle against the Abyss, the embers protected by Flamewardens would survive. These embers would help the remaining survivors find a way to rise once more.

And only those who bore the divine blessing of the God of Knowledge, who was deeply entwined with the intelligent races and immensely powerful due to his omniscience, could store such vast amounts of information.

As a priest of the God of Knowledge, Samuel Hayden, a young noble who had climbed to his position step by arduous step, chose to become a Flamewarden without any hesitation.

The concept of nobility in those olden days was significantly different from that in the present.

Back then, humans hadn't conquered as much of the continent as they had today; neither Aleisterre nor Selwyn were yet kingdoms.

The only human kingdom, Atlan, had instituted a peculiar system: those who achieved military merit were granted land and became nobility. Those who expanded the kingdom's borders by claiming land were given the privilege of ruling over that land and hence becoming nobility.

Later generations would critique the king of Atlan's actions as bordering on insanity.

In order to win the war against the Abyssal Depths, that king had allegedly privately told his officers, "I don't care about maintaining control over this kingdom. After this war, with all the land grants and rewards, there will be nobles everywhere. These lands will no longer belong to us, the royal family. If you want to be well off, you'd better start planning for the future."

That king was willing to give up everything for the sake of winning the war that would decide the fate of the intelligent races on the continent.

It was sheer madness. If an ancient emperor from Wang Yu's homeland on Earth had made such a decision, he would have been assassinated by his own ministers the very next day.

Fortunately (or not), this was a fantasy world. The king was a mid-rank legendary knight, and any assassin would have had to first overcome the grand mages, legendary wizards, and high priests surrounding the king.

That king not only survived the war against the Abyssal Depths but even ruled until he died of old age, holding the throne longer than any other king in history. This was the sort of wonder that could only take place in a fantasy world.

Samuel Hayden's family was in a similar situation. His father had been a battlemage in the army, only to later retire and become a teacher.

When he heard about the kingdom's new laws, something must have snapped in him—he gathered some retired veterans and younger soldiers who had been discharged due to injury, responded to the king's call, and set off to claim new territory for humanity.

A group of rough, battle-hardened soldiers, along with their families, somehow managed to carve out a sizable piece of land—and so, they went from commoners to so-called nobles.

By then, however, they had new issues to contend with: just who would govern their new territory?

After some discussion, the old war veterans—the majority of whom were big, burly men—pushed Samuel's father, the only teacher among them and the one with the sharpest mind, to take on the role of lord.

That was how Samuel Hayden became a noble. A significant portion of his memoir was dedicated to Atlan, suggesting that even after countless years, looking back on that peculiar era still filled him with deep emotions.

From there, things moved quickly. The memoir described Samuel's studies, his friendships with Roland and Yule, and his rise through talent and effort to become a priest of the God of Knowledge.

After becoming a Flamewarden, Samuel began collecting knowledge from all the intelligent races—secrets of wizardry, of knight training, dangerous forbidden spells, and even records of the void's eldritch gods and various other obscure histories.

His role was to use the divine magic granted by the God of Knowledge to etch all this knowledge into his soul, preserving it for the future.

The "Hall of Knowledge" was the divine spell bestowed upon him by the God of Knowledge for this purpose. It allowed him to manifest knowledge in a spatial form—a vast library.

This was the origin of the Grand Library. Perhaps its initial scale was far smaller than what Wang Yu had seen, but as the war against the Abyss dragged on, and as Samuel accumulated more knowledge, the library expanded to an unimaginable size--eventually becoming the infinite repository Wang Yu had encountered.

Wang Yu was well aware of the outcome of the final battle at the Abyssal Depths: the intelligent races had won. Whatever lay in the Abyss had been obliterated by a superweapon created by the intelligent races, a massive bomb packed with countless forbidden spells, infused with wizardry, and loaded with an immeasurable quantity of alchemical explosives. Everything inside, including the chaotic abominations, had been utterly annihilated.

The explosion that fractured the very continent marked the end of the century-long Abyssal War.

The battle to deliver this ultimate weapon into the depths of the Abyss was known as the campaign of the Abyssal Depths. Any traces of that battle had been erased along with the detonation.

What truly happened inside had been swallowed by history, buried beneath the deafening explosion. The intelligent races only knew that several gods had fallen in the battle, including the God of Knowledge.

The Flamewarden Samuel soon realized that his ability to record knowledge was deteriorating. With the fall of the God of Knowledge, his divine power was fading away bit by bit.

He could not comprehend how the God of Knowledge had perished in the Abyssal Depths. The God of Knowledge was not a deity who fought on the frontlines—he merely recorded, conveyed, and safeguarded knowledge. How could he have fallen?

It was only much later that Samuel came to understand the monumental decision the God of Knowledge had made.

Without divine power, Samuel struggled to maintain the existence of the great library. The embers of knowledge he had preserved would likely fade away with his loss of power.

He made a decision. Using alchemy and wizardry, he transformed himself into a being capable of recording knowledge, taking on the form that Wang Yu had seen, a figure without a lower body, shrouded in a long robe, floating in the air.

His autobiography included a self-portrait. In the past, Samuel had been a scholarly young man, looking nothing like the librarian he had become.

With the aid of the intelligent races, Samuel had reshaped himself into a form that could record knowledge, taking permanent residence in the vast library that manifested all that he knew. He became its eternal keeper.

As time passed, Samuel noticed a change in himself. He was regaining the powers he once had as a priest of the God of Knowledge.

He could feel that he was transforming into the God of Knowledge himself. After the deity's downfall, Samuel Hayden, with his immense repository of knowledge, seemed to be starting to usurp that position.

His boundless memory, his ability to manifest knowledge in the form of devastating weapons—powers that once required prayer to obtain were now naturally his own.

He didn't fully understand what was happening, save that this was likely some form of apotheosis.

At first, he didn't see this as a bad thing. With such abilities, he could better preserve and pass on knowledge—at least until he discovered his newfound shackles.

He found that he was increasingly unable to share certain knowledge with others. It was as if becoming the God of Knowledge imposed some sort of a restriction, sealing off the window through which he could pass knowledge to others.

With the power of the God of Knowledge, he could access all knowledge at will and comprehend it effortlessly.

As he neared a level of omniscience previously only theorized by the intelligent races, Samuel was struck by a terrifying realization—the power of the God of Knowledge was far more horrifying than he had imagined.

He possessed only a fraction of the former god's power, yet even this was enough for him to extrapolate further knowledge, optimize forbidden spells, and refine wizardry with ease.

When he considered what the previous God of Knowledge who possessed far greater power had been capable of, he was first awed—then filled with fear.

The God of Knowledge was capable of too much. His power was beyond comprehension; he was an existence of infinite potential.

One might suspect that such a scheme could be carried out: have the intelligent races pray to the god, offering their knowledge as tribute, and request that the god refine that knowledge and return it to them to advance their understanding.

By repeating this cycle indefinitely, the intelligent races could accelerate their development to an unimaginable level.

However, the God of Knowledge had never done this. Instead, it merely performed the duties of an ordinary deity—bestowing divine spells, occasionally displaying miracles—until it suddenly perished in the campaign of the Abyssal Depths.

Samuel suddenly understood why the God of Knowledge had done so little despite all his power: his shackles.

He had once believed that deities like the God of Death and the God of War were stronger than the God of Knowledge, but after gaining a portion of the latter's power and experiencing the same restrictions, he realized the truth—the God of Knowledge was the closest thing to absolute power.

The very concepts of divinity—what it meant to be a god, and how to become a god—were all forms of knowledge. And yet, faith in gods was rooted in worship, trust, and zealotry, ideals that clashed with the very nature of knowledge.

In simple terms, gods could not bear the weight of "knowledge" as a concept. The God of Knowledge's existence had not accelerated the spread of knowledge but had, paradoxically, locked it away.

"Humanity does not need a God of Knowledge. It only needs the concept of knowledge itself. Knowledge should be free, not controlled by a so-called God of Knowledge."

When Samuel reached this understanding, he finally realized that the God of Knowledge had chosen his own demise.

And now, as he too neared the threshold of divinity, he chose the same path.

He needed time to erase the concept of the God of Knowledge. As a Flamewarden, he intended to unshackle that bound knowledge—and this was what had prompted his virtualization.

He needed enough time for the world to forget the God of Knowledge, for the belief in such a deity to fade, for his sources of divine power to wither away—until he finally vanished into the void himself, once and for all.

When the concept of the God of Knowledge ceased to exist, so too would the chains binding his knowledge.

That was why he had sealed his library and ceased responding to prayers. All he did was maintain the vast archives that he had manifested.

During that time, Roland had entrusted him with the Dark Ritual codex, which he had been studying since.

Only at the cusp of his virtualization, when the power of the God of Knowledge had faded entirely from him and his shackles had disappeared, did he finally comprehend the codex and use it to save Wang Yu.

Time had made the world forget the silent, unresponsive God of Knowledge. Samuel's divine power had withered to a fraction of what it once was.

By his virtualization, his strength was less than a ten-thousandth of what it had been. That was the only reason the elder had dared to invade his Grand Library.

Samuel sensed that as his power faded, the knowledge once locked away would be set free. It would disperse across the world, waiting for those who could understand it. Some ancient secrets, too, would emerge once those chains fell away.

Out of lingering attachment to humanity, he secretly favored humans, concealing his identity and bestowing upon them some of the lesser unbound knowledge in his reserves.

That was the true identity of the Academy's Grand Library, and the reason Fang was able to secure access to it.

"In the end, he hoped that someone would remember what he had done—and I'm glad that, thanks to my unique constitution, I can record everything he did."

Wang Yu shut the thin book. His tone was edged with melancholy. Samuel could not reveal his identity to others—if he were remembered, all his effort toward virtualization would be undone.

But he was fortunate to have encountered Wang Yu. For some reason, Samuel knew that telling Wang Yu the truth—the name and sacrifice of the long-forgotten God of Knowledge—would change nothing.

And even if Wang Yu were to pass this knowledge on to others, it would no longer make a difference. Samuel Hayden was now part of history. At the very least, in the end, someone had remembered his original name, his identity, and the sacrifices and contributions he had made.

From this moment on, because he had not fallen but chosen to fade into the void, there would no longer be a God of Knowledge in the world. Knowledge would no longer be bound.

"Mr. Samuel's efforts were not in vain. After the Battle of the Abyssal Depths, the development of the five races has advanced by leaps and bounds—the establishment of a common language, breakthroughs in magic, and much more. The power of the sapient races is far beyond what it used to be.

"It's just... I worry that with knowledge unshackled, those things long buried in history might bring even greater upheaval."

Avia frowned in concern. As a scholar far more knowledgeable than Wang Yu, Avia understood the potential dangers that knowledge could bring.

"Who knows? We'll take it one step at a time. For now, I still need to figure out my own situation."

Wang Yu placed Samuel's memoir back on the table. These distant and profoundly complex matters still had little to do with him. Getting stronger, continuing to grow stronger—that was what he needed to focus on.