NOVEL NEXT Chapter 943 Getting to Know the City (2)
Chapter 943 Getting to Know the City (2)
Upon entering the Central Library, Vicente stood in front of a place so large that it seemed to have no boundaries. Of course, if you looked at the S-shaped building behind this place from a distance, you would see all its boundaries. But when you entered it, the corridors and book passages were so large that they made the place seem infinite.
The interplay of light through mirrors and matrix that expanded the building's functional area also added to the sense of spaciousness within the place. This clever manipulation could even deceive someone as perceptive as Vicente.
The Central Library was the only truly free place in the entire central area of Ravengarde, so it was easy for Vicente and Prisiche to enter it.
Soon he was floating through the long corridors filled with shelves that went from the surface up to 150 meters high.
There were so many books that Vicente felt lost as soon as he reached the area and did not know where to start.Fortunately, Prisiche was by his side and showed him where to go in the immense library.
The place was divided into information about one of the ten thousand lower planes, or one of the ten thousand 'islands' of Anicane.
Each of these sections of the library contained many, many books, enough to keep even the most powerful Magus busy for months until they had read all the volumes available to them.
"This is truly incredible. How many books are there in that part of Polaris Realm?" He asked Prisiche, who had guided him through the book section on his old plane.
"I don't know… Thousands?" The blonde woman replied, putting a finger to her lips. "There are a lot of books around here. But most of them are ancient. They date back over a million years."
The books in the Central Library were not made of paper or easily perishable materials. Each book that could enter this place was inscribed on a version made of a nearly indestructible spatial type of crystal. Digital copies of these books were then available throughout the library and could be easily accessed by anyone.
Because of this information storage model, the books in this area didn't seem as old as they were.
"Do you know about this past information?" Vicente asked, imagining that the people of Anicane knew the prehistoric truth of every plane that existed in the universe.
"No," Prisiche said quickly and honestly. "There is so much information here that I would have to use all my processing power just to store all that information. I probably wouldn't be able to talk, walk, or do anything else. No one can learn that much, master.
That's why we have specialists in every area of the library." She pointed toward a man with glasses on his face, sitting behind a desk, reading, while he was free to attend to anyone with questions in his section of the library.
"There are specialists in Anicane that we simply call Scholars. They are individuals who devote their time to learning about specific things, usually in the theoretical domain. There are alchemist scholars, warrior scholars, but also scholars who specialize in the history of Anicane, the universe, the Light Cay, the Polaris Realm, and so on.
What I know about the 10,000 planes is as much as you can get out of Anicane before you come here. Something superficial, probably not as certain as you imagine, but better than pure ignorance." She finished.
"But you could hire an expert on the history of Polaris Realm and ask questions about the past of your homeland. I hear there's a specialist in the history of your continent somewhere on the Light Cay."
"Hmm? Are you saying there aren't many people like that?" He understood her tone perfectly.
"There certainly aren't. Currently, there are only ten great scholars who specialize in Anicane in the Light Cay, and five of them are members of three of the major powers on our 'island'. So an expert with knowledge of Polaris Realm is even rarer to find." She continued to lead him to the wing he was most interested in at the moment, the one about Anicane, especially the Light Cay.
Vicente continued to be impressed by the things he discovered about the reality of this world, imagining that it would be interesting to talk to such scholars, but it would also be expensive and of little use to him.
It would certainly be valuable for the people of Polaris Realm to understand their ancient history. But was it of any value to him today? The most important thing for him now was the future, changing the situation for himself, or at least for his family.
So he came to the information area of the Light Cay, where there were even more books about this 'island' than in the area regarding the Polaris Realm.
In a way, this place had even more history than the one Vicente came from, even though it was much smaller.
Vicente found himself in a library within a library, with wings of books that talked about professions, geography, territorial division, cultivation, external and internal relations with the 'island', culture, etc.
He chose 30 of the most important and basic books and read them in the study area.
Because of the size of the place and the ease of access to the books, most people would think that Vicente's place was always empty. But that wasn't the case. There was always a lot going on in the Central Library, but because it was so enormous and its users usually went to different places each time they passed through, it wasn't common to find areas of the building that were crowded.
Vicente began his reading, learning about the division of power on the Light Cay, the major powers, the culture, interesting areas to visit, cultivation, and magical creatures.
On the Light Cay, as on the over 10,000 'islands' of Anicane, there were native and foreign beings who gave origin to pentagrams that could be absorbed by beings like Vicente.
Not only that, but unlike Polaris Realm, the people of Anicane had a good understanding of what was behind the formation of natural pentagrams.
Some had even mastered the art of creating pentagrams!
'It makes sense. That's why natural pentagrams appeared in places where there had been many deaths. By directing the elements that come from a soul that has just died, the chance of them condensing back into a single 'body' is very high. All it takes is a 'snap of the fingers' for the process of forming a pentagram to take place.'
Vicente thought about the formation of natural pentagrams.
But as easy as it seemed to control such a process, it wasn't easy at all. According to the book he had used to confirm his suspicions he had since his time in Polaris Realm, only a few powerful peak Grand Magus could manipulate elements to create pentagrams. And even then, only the most talented could create pentagrams up to the green grade.
Above the cyan grade, only magicians at the 9th stage or higher were said to be able to create such magical essences.
Because of the ability to create pentagrams, there were specialized shops selling magical essences all over the world.
This discovery greatly changed Vicente's perception of this reality.
'But if that's true, then the people here can easily develop their—'
He was thinking about something when he changed his mind.
'No. Impossible. Even if some specialists manage to create pentagrams themselves, the cost must be extremely high. The normal method of acquiring pentagrams must still be to hunt living creatures.'
He sighed, because if all beings in this world used 'natural' pentagrams, then they could all evolve their pentagrams as they grew stronger!
But as Vicente would later learn, most people in the Light Cay had a maximum of two pentagrams that could evolve continuously during their magical growth.
Besides this more important information, he also learned smaller things, such as how the technology of this world interfered with people's magical cultivation lives. Even though cultivators above the 4th stage could fly through the sky, and even though it seemed easy to achieve such cultivation in Anicane, there were very advanced vehicles in this place. Why was that?
Vicente learned that in Anicane, magicians were much more careful about maintaining their peak states than in Polaris Realm. A Paragon or even an Archmage would hardly lose a portion of their mana to travel between cities, for example. They would most likely use an existing transportation model to conserve their mana and be prepared for anything dangerous.
He soon understood why!
Unlike Polaris Realm—where there were few beings above the 4th stage and it was worth using their mana to travel between cities—there were too many beings with 6th and 7th stage powers in Anicane.
It was too dangerous to risk your power for a simple flight!
Only 8th stage or higher-level magical beings made such displays of power on this and other 'islands' of Anicane!
At this point in Vicente's reading, he devoted some of his time to understanding who his major enemies would be at the beginning of his journey in Stonewall, and what his role in that sect would be.