The Holy City of Estali. Although it was called a city, there were no walls to protect it. Compared to the area that needed to be protected, this place would definitely be looked down upon by the military figures of the Lost Land. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it was full of loopholes.
But … no one dared to attack this place.
Because Estali had a unique building of the Wonder level. Six five-story Magic Towers were set up in a hexagram formation. This didn't even include the Magic Towers that were built sporadically in the city.
Five Alliance City in the Sijia district of the southwest peninsula was also built with a five-story Magic Tower as the center. Four four-story Magic Towers were located in the north, south, east, and west. They were connected by air bridges. But in terms of the effectiveness of magic, each Magic Tower was an independent entity and had no connection with each other.
But Estali's six five-story Magic Towers were a whole. And when magic was cast in the form of a Magic Array, its power was more than just doubled. The Magic Array formed by the six five-story Magic Towers would make anyone who tried to attack Estali feel despair.
But this hexagram Magic Tower wasn't the reason why Estali became the center of Magic Belief and thought. It was because there was a building that could be said to be the most important in the entire Lost Land — the Great Library. At first, all historical materials, documents, or any medium used to convey information and record things that had survived the Dark Age were collected here.
And every branch of the Society of Sorcerers would send a copy to the Great Library of the Holy City on a regular basis, even if they didn't turn in the knowledge of the Mages within their area of responsibility and took the initiative to copy it to other branches. Even some forbidden magic, curses, and knowledge that shouldn't be spread but was worth preserving would be sent over.
Some unorthodox magic knowledge, such as undecipherable notes of Mages, or notes left behind by famous Mages that could be interpreted and copied would also be collected by the Great Library.
And gradually, the books and media sent over weren't limited to magic-related knowledge. There were poems, scripts, history books, and all kinds of insights, such as agriculture, smelting, forging, and so on.
It could be said that the Great Library of the Holy City of Estali was both a treasure trove of knowledge and the last seed of civilization. All the disputes between the countries in the Lost Land didn't involve the Holy City. This was the consensus of all the emperors and kings. If anyone dared to violate the taboo, the Mages who regarded themselves as the inheritors of knowledge would let the nobles know how scary intellectuals were.
This place was different from Earth. 'Even if a scholar tries to rebel, he will not succeed in three years' did not apply to the mages in the land of magic.
If knowledge was raised to the level of faith, the mages living in Estari would definitely all be fanatics. Therefore, even if the mages did not praise the name of Enki, the Lord of Knowledge, the Holy City was still under the protection of that god. This was one of a kind in the entire Mystic Lands.
Other than that, the branches of the Society of Sorcerers had almost no contact with the churches of the gods, even if the gods represented the eight powers. This was because mages often spoke blasphemous words and even did research on them.
It was as if someone had once analyzed the divine power of curses. If the results of his research were to be made public, it was likely that all the churches in the Land of Confusion would place him at the top of their wanted list. There would be no exceptions.
It was precisely because of this that knowledge was valued so highly here that the Holy City also became an opportunity for mages, even though the knowledge of magic was so strong that it pushed out the development of other kinds of knowledge. Those with real talent might rely on taking in apprentices in exchange for what they needed, or take on some difficult commission that was unimaginable to ordinary people, doing something that could easily earn a year's worth of remuneration.
Sometimes, the target of knowledge was not necessarily a magic apprentice who didn't know anything. Mages also exchanged knowledge with other mages, but of course, it was paid. And knowledge was protected. Not just anyone could learn something from someone else and then teach it to someone else for a fee.
In other words, this place was similar to Earth, which was protected by patent laws. As long as one or two attractive skills were available, they basically didn't have to worry about food and clothing.
Of course, it was inevitable that someone would steal something. But as long as it wasn't made public for profit, no one would know who had learned whose knowledge. However, as long as there was a slight slip up, the Land of Confusion didn't have to go to court to fight a patent lawsuit like Earth. The Land of Confusion had too many ways to make people spit out the truth. As long as it was used, it would be clear who was right and who was wrong.
Mages rarely cared about family background when it came to judging right and wrong. Of course, those who really wanted to cause trouble wouldn't drag things out to the point where they needed a notary to make a judgment. He must have dealt with everything that could be dealt with before that.
But just like the self-healing potion on Earth, using this kind of magic was quite dangerous for the person being cast. Becoming an idiot or being crippled in some way was considered the best outcome.
According to the most common method used by a certain Lich, after killing the person, directly questioning the soul, guaranteed that the person wouldn't and wouldn't lie, unless the deceased's understanding of a certain matter was wrong from the beginning. But, if the person was wrongly accused … a moment of silence.
Since so many excellent mages were gathered here, of course it would attract some local lords and organizations who wanted to recruit these excellent talents, or people who admired them and were willing to follow or learn magic knowledge. And to provide services to the mages, for people who had needs outside of magic.
These people who came here to make a living, most of them had families or started a family here. In addition, the mages themselves might also form families. In the end, in terms of population, Estali became a large city ranked at the top of the Land of Confusion. In the Guevana Empire, the only city on the same level as Estali was the empire's capital — Lion City.
The reason it attracted so many people, apart from being the most important holy land for mages, was also because of the strength of the Guevana Empire itself.
In the face of natural threats, adventurers or mercenaries would be needed to deal with them in other places. But in the empire, each lord had their own local army, the emperor had his own reserve army, and important hub cities had their own regular army. The power of the government was enough to protect its people, so of course, there was no room for adventurers or mercenaries to move around.
Since there was no room for them to move around, these people would naturally go where they were needed. Warriors would choose to join the army or leave the empire to develop. Apart from the first two choices, most mages would still gather in the holy city closest to them, looking for any possible opportunity.
This was the most popular news in the holy city of Estali, and it was highly credible, making this city a place that many people yearned for. Not only mages, but countless ordinary people also hoped to find opportunities here.
However, when he actually saw the city, a certain someone's knowledge of the world, which he thought he had seen, was still too poor.
Looking down from the high altitude of the Sid, one could see that the rumored six five-story magic towers were not simply arranged in a hexagonal formation. They were built on six hilly highlands, surrounding the Great Library that was located in the basin terrain.
The mountains and distribution formed a perfect magic formation, which made a certain person suspect that this was not a natural terrain, but a modified one.
The great library in the basin was also not a single building, but a complex of buildings. There was another explanation for this.
The predecessor of the great library actually existed in the past, even older than the Dark Age of Fen. A group of people who called themselves book keepers secretly collected knowledge in the past, and used all kinds of methods to protect it. They even went through the Dark Age, struggling at death's door in the corner, just to preserve these priceless treasures.
It was rumored that one of the four heroes who fought against the demon king, the great sage Atoli was once a book keeper. So after the demon king was defeated, he returned to this place and established the Association of Sorcerers, which was the prototype of the Society of Sorcerers.
The first five-story magic tower was built to protect the mages who gathered here, and it was the first power. Of course, the existence of the great library was also publicized, and it was also included in the protection. Under the planning of the great sage Atoli, the power of the mages gradually grew. In the end, the Society of Sorcerers was established. At the same time, there were also adventurers' guilds and mercenaries' guilds, which did not belong to any country.
The strength of the mages was largely due to the knowledge collected in the great library. With the old knowledge as the foundation, the mages constantly created newer, more powerful, or more useful magic. The progress of civilization was driven by these results. The role of the great library was to make the knowledge available for free, and at the same time, to borrow the power of the mages to collect more knowledge.
But the collected knowledge had to be stored somewhere, and someone had to organize and take care of it. However, the arrogance of the book keepers that had been passed down from generation to generation became an obstacle to the promotion of this work.
The most realistic problem was the need to add a library. However, building a house required land, and the land around the great library was occupied to build the houses of the book keepers and powerful mages. Of course, the original reason was to make it easier for these people to manage or read the books in the great library. No one would have thought that such convenience would become a constraint on the expansion of the great library in the future.
In the face of such a problem, communication between the mages was easy to solve, but the stubbornness of the book keepers was not so easy to settle. They thought that they, who had been guarding the knowledge for countless generations, had the right to decide on the matters of the great library. They even had many objections and obstructed the entry of some miscellaneous books into the great library.
At that time, the book keepers were divided into two factions. One faction wanted to maintain the original state. The other faction wanted to continue to let the mages collect knowledge, but they were unwilling to open the collection of the great library. At the very least, they had to treat the book keepers differently from outsiders, so that the great library would form a closed atmosphere similar to that of a floating island.
In other words, they wanted to monopolize everything, but the mages had to continue to provide them with services and supplies, and the two sides did not have to cut off contact. Only when they were satisfied with the service, perhaps they could reluctantly give some time to the mages so that they could enter the great library to read.
However, on one night, this contradiction erupted into a conflict. The book keepers were completely massacred, and countless ancient families had their bloodlines cut off.
Under the power of the five-story magic tower, the ancient inheritance that had survived the Dark Age with a mission could not withstand the Society of Sorcerers led by six Warlock Saints and the most powerful war weapon of the era. Only Warlock Saints could truly control the magic tower that had three energy pools and chanted fatal spells at them.
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