Since the coronation of His Majesty Gwen, the whole kingdom had become a whole again. The government office issued an order:
Carry out a comprehensive reorganization of all the books and files in the country, and carry out a protective restoration of all the knowledge.
The significance of this work was to sort out the technical data that had been scattered in the human world since the pioneering era, to curb the impact of the technological gap of human civilization; to protect historical evidence and various regional records of the Old Kingdom, to end the confusion of records and the distortion of history and legends; to collect and organize the books of all the churches, to further incorporate and transform the religious forces in the Empire, and to weaken and eliminate the knowledge monopoly of the missionary class.
Countless scholars, priests, and clerks devoted themselves to this project, which might affect the Empire for the next hundred years. Unlike the large-scale and eye-catching engineering projects, their work was low-key and boring.
Endless entanglement with the ancient books, collation of a large number of repetitive, fragmentary, and even contradictory texts into the case files. Some of the moldy ancient books and dusty long scrolls recorded the powerful technology from the ancient Gondor era, while others were just the vulgar words casually written by some lame noble poet. And all of these things were buried in piles of old papers all over the country, worn out beyond recognition by the numerous palace struggles, church struggles, and feudal wars. They were almost forgotten.
The centuries-long decline of civilization and the chaotic medieval-style aristocratic system had destroyed too many things, and too many treasures had been lost in the process.
Severn Terry, as one of the participants in this project, started his work even earlier. Not long after Louen City was taken over by the Cecil family, he had been dealing with these centuries-old books.
As the former headquarters of the Church of Holy Light in the south, Louen City was the largest cultural center and "knowledge hub" in the Southern Territory at that time. The priests, who monopolized the theocracy and a large amount of knowledge, kept collecting books from all over the Southern Territory into the large and small libraries in this city of churches. They had been doing this for a hundred years since the beginning of the Second Dynasty. In the era when books were equivalent to treasures, this was something that almost every aristocrat and church would do.
The tireless plundering of the missionaries of the olden days had led to the decline of other regions in the Southern Territory. But on the other hand, Severn Terry had to admit that it was this greedy plundering and looting that allowed many precious books to be preserved in the chaotic and declining environment of the Southern Territory.
Severn Terry stopped in front of a towering bookcase. He raised his head, and his eyes swept over the heavy tomes with their deep covers, and gradually moved upward until they reached the solemn, heavy stone dome.
This was the last library in Louen City that had not been archived. Most of the books stored here were copies of books collected from various eras and the "Books of the Faithless" that had nothing to do with the doctrine of the Holy Light. Similar books were not valued in this city, so the preservation conditions were relatively poor. The ancient magic circle used to filter the air in the library was like a broken bellows, and the blessing effect used to slow down the moldy and weathered books on the bookshelves was incomplete. Many precious materials that could have been preserved slowly became wreckage in the dark environment. In order to save these precious books, the best repairmen, scribes, and grammarians in Louen were gathered together. Even so, the work here was still the slowest.
But fortunately, there was progress every day. More and more precious materials were found and repaired, copied, or stored in new media before they were completely destroyed.
At this moment, a church attendant wearing a short gray robe quickly walked over from the side. He bowed his head respectfully in front of Savon Terry and said, "Archbishop, we found a book that looks a little strange."
Archbishop, this was the new title after the reorganization of the Church. It was used to replace the previous Cardinal or Archbishop. Savon Terry had never thought that he would one day be in such a position. However, considering that the entire Saint Sunil's Archbishops had been martyred in one day, most of the Bishops in the various regions had been expelled, and the clergy above the middle level in the Southern Diocese had been reshuffled, it was inevitable that he, a clergyman with enough experience and progress in Louen City, would be promoted to Archbishop within a few years.
"A strange book?" Severn frowned. "Take me to see it."
A book was placed on a workbench between the bookshelves. The dust and mold on its surface had been cleaned, and the smell of some kind of alchemy potion was floating in the air. There were also potion bottles, copying tools, scrapers, and parchments for repairing ancient books placed neatly on the side. This made the book on the table look like a corpse waiting to be dissected. There were autopsy tools all around, and the repairmen and scribes were waiting for this corpse to reveal its secrets.
Severn Terry shook his head and shook the irrelevant thoughts out of his mind. After confirming the condition of the book with the repairman next to him, he sat down and carefully opened the book. At the same time, he asked the repairman next to him, "What did you find?"
"This is a book that was pieced together. The collector did not seem to know the complicated and profound origin behind it. Instead, he treated it as a rural biography and rudely mixed several unrelated incomplete works together," a gray-haired scholar standing next to him said. "At first, we only noticed a few rural ghost stories at the beginning and the notes made by a fallen noble on the page. We almost missed the rest of it …"
A book that was crudely pieced together — Severn Terry was no stranger to this kind of situation. The fallen nobles in remote places would do this. They were not much smarter than the farmers in the fields, but they had to maintain their aristocratic dignity and "intellectual image". Collecting and arranging the incomplete and lost books into a book was one of the means for them to show their knowledge and aristocratic heritage. However, the real work of repairing the incomplete works was something that only profound scholars could do. Those ignorant and incompetent fellows could only piece together some tattered books that even they could not understand.
The hierarch shook his head, skipped the boring ghost stories at the beginning, and turned the pages to the back. The scholar next to him leaned closer and pointed at the corner of some of the pages or inconspicuous places between the pages. "Please pay attention to these, here … and here, these patterns …"
"It looks like some kind of coat of arms … a shield frame, thorns, frost symbol …" Severn Terry's brows gradually furrowed. "It's a noble coat of arms, an upper-class noble, but the recorder deliberately changed it. It seems that he did not intend to disclose his identity. We need a heraldic scholar or an expert in the genealogy of nobles. "
"Just now, Mr. Berkman has identified these patterns, Your Excellency," the scholar said. "After reverting the patterns according to the rules of heraldry, we can confirm that this is the emblem of the Weald family in the north."
"The Duke of the north?" Severn's expression suddenly became serious. "This part of the pages was left behind by a member of the Weald family?"
"A relatively core member — very professional in heraldry and qualified to use the family coat of arms at will. In addition, we also found a weak magic imprint in the pages. These parchments are already 600 years old, but the magic in them has not completely dissipated, which means that the one who left them behind may even be one of the earliest Dukes of the north! "
Severn Terry could not help but exclaim in a low voice, "600 years?!"
"Yes, the results of the alchemical identification surprised us. It's a miracle that they can survive until now under poor preservation conditions, but I think this has to do with the magic in the pages that has not completely dissipated," the scholar nodded. "But although the pages are mostly intact, the writing inside is more or less worn and stained. We are trying to find a way to repair this."
"… Maybe we need to report this matter to Duchess Victoria. She will be interested," Severn Terry sighed softly and nodded. "Also, can you find out the origin of this book? I'm very curious as to why it is here. "
"We can only find a part of it. The collection records here show that this book was donated from a small church in the southeast. It was almost stolen there. After that, the priests of the local church thought that it was not suitable to keep it in the small church, so they donated it to St. Lucian's Cathedral. It's obvious that this book wasn't taken seriously after it was presented. "
Savin Terry frowned as he listened to the report from the person beside him.
…
The wind blew past their ears. The summer sky seemed high and open. A dim shadow jumped from the top of the buildings and finally stopped on a bell tower in the Mage District. In the shadow, Amber slowly emerged.
The half-elf girl sat on the edge of the bell tower in a posture that seemed very thrilling to outsiders, enjoying the pleasant wind and overlooking the city with a smile on her face.
She liked the feeling of jumping from roof to roof, but it was not because of the "incurable occupational disease" that Gawain often joked about. What she really liked was the open and unrestrained feeling she felt while jumping. The sky was boundless, and the wind brushed past her ears. This feeling might make many people tremble in fear, but it made Amber feel inexplicably at ease and enjoy.
She had never considered whether there was a reason behind this hobby, but now that she thought about it carefully, she felt that it might be because she had lived in a dark and closed place for a long time.
Compared with the monotonous Shadow World, this colorful "modern world" was more interesting.
Amber opened her small bag and took out a variety of snacks she collected. She spread them out on the narrow platform outside the bell tower and began to enjoy this rare moment of leisure (fishing).
The road to Imperial College extended diagonally below her, and she could see all kinds of passersby on the road.
There were locals dressed in summer clothing, mainly shirts and trousers or simple dresses. There were also foreign visitors dressed in all sorts of attire. There were ordinary citizens who were busy with their lives, and there were also students in the Imperial Academy uniform. In the bustling crowd, Hu Po even saw Gray Elves with grayish-white hair who looked like children, as well as muscular Orcs. They spoke all sorts of strange dialects and even foreign languages, coming and going in the bustling capital of a foreign country — for education, for wealth, or just to broaden their horizons.
Ever since the series of diplomatic actions last year had yielded results, under the background of more and more economic and cultural exchanges, the once rigid and isolated countries of the continent had gradually loosened. Every day, more and more visitors would visit this first international city of the new era, or visit several other bustling cities of the Empire. These visitors brought unimaginable benefits to the merchants of the old era, and these benefits … made even more people scramble for the new era.
Everything was in a cycle.
The Empire's Minister of Intelligence and the Supreme Committee of Internal Security sat on the high tower, munching on sunflower seeds while overlooking everything.
"There are more and more people in this city, and there are also a lot of strange land races." A voice suddenly came from behind Amber. "There are so many strange intelligent species on the land …"
Amber was startled by the sudden voice and almost fell off the tower with her snacks. "Oh my God!"
She finally steadied herself and turned to look. She saw Tyre's face poking out from the shadow of the bell tower behind her. Behind him was Miss Siren's upper body and a large coiled snake tail.
"You scared me!" Amber stared at the deep-sea salted fish in shock. As a Shadowmaster, this was one of the few times she was startled by someone suddenly popping out of nowhere. What was worse was that she did not notice Tyre was behind her. "What are you doing there?"
"I'm looking for a place to sleep." Tyre yawned. "Betty is bringing people to change the water in the pool in my room, so I came out to find a place to sleep …"
"I almost fell off." Amber glared at Tyre again. "I'm telling you, you should be prohibited from using public facilities to sleep …"
"I don't believe you can fall to your death from this height. Last time I saw you jump off the magic broadcasting tower in the city center, you used 60 Shadowstep all the way to the ground, and your hair was not even messed up. At that height, I could fall to my death three times, the worst kind, broken into pieces," Tyre said proudly, and then ignored Amber's subtle expression. He leaned forward and poked his head out of the clock tower, looking at the scenery below and muttering, "It's so lively … In Antaverne, we haven't seen such a lively scene for a long time."
"Antaverne … I remember that's the capital of the sirens." Amber quickly adapted to Tyre's topic. "Actually, I've always been curious, what kind of society is the siren society?"
Tyre glanced at Amber. "No wonder you're the Minister of Intelligence. Are you trying to collect information?"
"I'm just chatting." Amber rolled her eyes. "You're thinking too much."
"It doesn't matter," Tyre said casually. "If you want to hear, I can tell you a little."
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