Since the coronation of His Majesty Gawain and the reintegration of the entire kingdom into one, the Government Council has issued an order:

A comprehensive collation of all the books and files in the country was carried out, and all knowledge was restored in a protective manner.

The significance of this work is to sort out the technical data that have been scattered in the human world since the pioneering era, so as to curb the impact of the technological discontinuation of human civilization. It is to preserve the historical evidence and the various regional records of the Old Kingdom, so as to put an end to the confusion of records in various places, and the mixing and distortion of history and legend; It was to collect and organize the texts of all the churches, to further co-opt and transform the religious forces in the empire, and to weaken and eliminate the intellectual monopoly of the missionary class.

Countless scholars, clergy, and clerical staff have devoted themselves to a cause that could affect the empire for the next hundred years, and unlike the vigorous engineering projects that attract countless attention, their work is low-key and boring:

Endless entanglement with stale ancient books, weaving through a mass of repetitive, fragmentary, and even contradictory texts, moldy old books and dusty scrolls, some of which contain powerful techniques from the ancient Gondor era, or just the coarse words written by a crappy aristocratic poet, all of which are drowned in piles of old papers across the country, worn away beyond recognition in court struggles, ecclesiastical struggles, and lordship wars, are almost forgotten.

Centuries of declining civilization and chaotic medieval aristocracy have destroyed too much, and too many treasures have been dusted in the process.

As one of the participants in this project, Severn Terry's work actually began much earlier: he worked with these centuries-old books here shortly after the city of Luan was taken over by the Cecil family.

As the headquarters of the Church of the Holy Light in the south, Lu'an was the largest cultural center and "knowledge hub" in the south at that time, and the clergy who monopolized the divine right and a lot of knowledge continued to collect books from all over the south into the large and small libraries of this church city, and they did this for a full hundred years since the Second Dynasty - in the era when books were equal treasures, this was something that almost every nobleman and church would do.

The tireless "plundering" of the missionaries of the old days led to the decline of the rest of the South, but on the other hand, Severn Terry had to admit that it was this greedy plundering and collecting that kept many of the precious texts alive in the chaotic and declining environment of the South.

Severn Terry stopped in front of a towering bookshelf, and he looked up, his gaze swept between the tomes with deep covers, and gradually moved upwards to the majestic stone dome.

This is the last library in Lu'an City that has not yet been archived and organized, most of the books stored here are manuscripts of books collected from various eras and "books of faithlessness" that have nothing to do with the teachings of the Holy Light, similar books are not valued in this city, so the preservation conditions are also relatively poor, the ancient magic circle used to filter the air in the library is running like a bellows, and the blessing effect on each shelf used to delay the moldy weathering of books is also incomplete, Many of the precious materials that could have been preserved were slowly reduced to wreckage in the absence of the light of day, and even then, the work was slowest in the Lu'an region, where the best revisers, scribes, and grammar scholars were brought together to salvage these precious books.

Fortunately, progress is being made every day, and more and more valuable materials have been discovered, repaired, or copied, copied, or stored in new media before they are completely destroyed.

At this moment, a church attendant in a short gray robe walked over briskly from the side, bowing his head respectfully in front of Severn Triry: "Grand Priest, we found a book that looks a little strange. ”

Archbishop, a new title after the reorganization of the Church, was used to replace the previous cardinal or diocesan archbishop, Severn Terry never imagined that he would one day sit in such a position, but considering the martyrdom of the bishopric of St. Sunil in one day, the expulsion of most of the bishops in the regions, and the reshuffle of the mid-level and above clergy in the southern diocese, there is no way that he, a priest who has both qualifications and enough progress in Luan, can be promoted to the rank of archpriest in a row for several years.

"Some strange books?" Severn frowned, "Take me to see it." ”

A book was spread out on a workbench between the shelves, the dust and mildew had been cleaned of the surface, the smell of some kind of alchemical potion wafted through the air, and there were neat potion bottles, copying utensils, and tools for restoring ancient books, tooth boards, parchment sheets, and other tools, which made the book on the table look like a corpse to be dissected—surrounded by autopsy tools, and tinkerers and scribes were waiting for the corpse to tell its secrets.

Severn Terry shook his head, shook the boundless nonsense out of his head, and after checking the condition of the book with the tinker next to him, he sat down and carefully turned the pages, asking the man next to him, "What did you find?" ”

"It's a patchwork book—the collector doesn't seem to know the complex origins behind it, but treats it as if it were a country biography, a rude blend of several unrelated fragments," said a gray-haired scholar, standing nearby, "and we only noticed the opening of the country tale and the annotations made by some down-and-out nobleman on the page, and almost missed the rest of it......"

A rude patchwork of books – Severn Terry is no stranger to such situations. The down-and-out aristocracy of the remote lands would do this, they were not much smarter than the farmers in the fields, but they had to maintain their aristocratic dignity and "wisdom", and collecting and organizing the fragments of the books that had been passed down into books was one of the means by which they showed their knowledge and aristocratic heritage - but the real work of repairing the fragments was something that only a knowledgeable scholar could do, and all that the unlearned could do was to piece together some tattered books that they themselves could not understand.

The archpriest shook his head, skimmed over the boring tale at the beginning, and turned the pages back, while the scholars on the side leaned closer and pointed to the corners of some of the pages or the inconspicuous places in the middle of the pages: "Pay attention to these, here...... And here, these patterns ......"

"It looks like some kind of heraldry...... Shield-shaped borders, thorns, frost symbols......" Severn Terry's brow furrowed, "It's the coat of arms of the nobility, the upper nobles, but the recorder deliberately deformed it, and it seems that he does not intend to reveal his identity." We need a heraldic scholar, or an expert in the genealogy of the nobility. ”

"Mr. Berkron has just identified these patterns, Your Excellency," said the scholar, "and after reversing the patterns according to the rules of heraldry, we have confirmed that they are the emblems of the House of Northern Wild. ”

"Duke of the North?" Severn's expression suddenly became serious, "This part of the page was left by a member of the Wild family?" ”

"He is still a member of the more core - he is very professional in heraldry, and he is qualified to use the family coat of arms at will. In addition, we have also checked the pages for faint magical imprints - these parchments are six hundred years old, but the magic inside has not yet completely dissipated, which means that they may have been left behind by even one of the earliest northern dukes! ”

Severn Terry couldn't help but exclaim in a low voice, "Six hundred years?!" ”

"Yes, we were surprised by the results of the alchemy reaction - it's a miracle that they've survived in poor condition, but I think it has something to do with the magic in the pages that hasn't completely dissipated yet," the scholar nodded, "but while the pages are largely intact, the handwriting inside is worn and defaced, and we're trying to fix it." ”

“…… Perhaps we need to report this, and the Duchess of Victoria will be interested," Severn Terry sighed lightly and nodded, "Can you find out where the book came from?" I'm curious as to why it's here. ”

"Only a part of it can be found, and the records in the collection here show that the book was brought in from a small church in the south-east, where it was nearly stolen, and then the priests of the local church decided that it was not suitable to keep it in the chapel and dedicated it to the Cathedral of St. Luan. Obviously, the book didn't receive much attention after it was presented. ”

Severn Terry listened to the report of the person next to him, and his brow furrowed slightly.

……

The wind swept in his ears, the summer sky seemed high and wide, and a faint black shadow jumped on the tops of the buildings, and finally stopped on a bell tower in the mage quarter, and in the shadows, an amber slowly emerged.

The "half-elf" girl sat on the edge of the bell tower in a thrilling posture to outsiders, enjoying the pleasant wind and looking down on the city with a smile on her face.

She likes the feeling of jumping between rooftops, but the reason is not that Gawain usually jokes that "occupational diseases are difficult to cure", what she really likes is the openness and unrestrained feeling during the jump - the sky is endless, and the wind is passing in her ears, this feeling may make many people frightened, but it makes Amber inexplicably feel at ease.

She hadn't thought about whether there was a reason behind this preference, but now that she thought about it, she thought it might be because she had lived in a dark, closed place for a long time......

Compared to the monotonous shadow world, this colorful "present world" is still interesting.

Amber opened her pouch and took out her daily collection of snacks and spread them out on the narrow platform at the edge of the bell tower, beginning to enjoy this rare moment of leisure (fishing).

The avenue leading to the Imperial College stretched diagonally below her, and all sorts of passers-by could be seen on the path.

There were locals dressed in summer clothes, shirts, trousers or simple dresses, foreign visitors dressed in a variety of clothes, ordinary citizens with busy lives, and students in Imperial College uniforms—in the bustling crowd, Amber even saw gray elves with gray-white hair like children and large orcs, speaking various dialects and even Chinese with strange accents, coming and going in the prosperous imperial capital of this foreign land - for education, for wealthor just to gain some knowledge.

Since the results of a series of diplomatic actions last year, and in the context of increasing economic and cultural exchanges, the once isolated and rigid countries of the continent have finally loosened, and every day more and more visitors visit the first cosmopolitan city of the new era, or several other prosperous cities of the empire, and these visitors bring benefits that are unimaginable to the merchants of the old era, and the benefits are ...... Let more people flock to the new era.

And so it all went into a loop.

The Empire's Minister of Intelligence and the Supreme Council of Internal Security sat on a high tower, munching on melon seeds and looking down on it all.

"Anyway, there are more and more people in this city, and there are many strange land races," a voice suddenly came from behind Amber, "There are so many strange intelligent species on your land......

Amber was startled by the sudden sound, and almost fell off the tower with snacks: "Mom!! ”

Finally steady, she turned her head to look and saw that Tyr's face was peeking out of the shadow of the attic where the clock was located behind her—and behind that was Miss Siren's upper body and a large coiled snake's tail.

"You're scared me to death!!" Amber stared at the deep-sea saltfish in horror, one of the few times she had as a Shadow Master to be startled by someone else popping up out of nowhere, and even worse, she hadn't even noticed that Tyr was behind her, "What are you doing there!" ”

"Find a place to sleep," Tyr yawned, "Betty is bringing someone to wash and change the water in the sink in my room, so I'll go out and find a place to sleep......"

"I almost fell," Amber glared at Tyre again, "I'll tell you, you have to be legislated to prohibit this kind of casual occupation of public facilities to sleep......

"I don't believe I can drop you to death at this height - the last time I saw you jump from the magic broadcasting tower in the center of the city, and you walked all the way to the ground sixty times in shadows, and your hair didn't mess - I could fall to death three times at that height, the most miserable kind, shattered to the ground," Tyr said proudly, and then directly ignored Amber's subtle expression, arched forward, poked his head out of the clock tower, and muttered as he looked at the scenery below, "What a hilarity...... It's been a long, long time since we've seen such a lively scene in Antavien. ”

"Antavian...... I think that's the capital of your Kraken," Amber quickly adjusted to the rhythm of Tyr's conversation, "Actually, I've always been curious, what kind of society are you Krakens?" ”

Tyr glanced at Amber: "As you deserve to be the Minister of Intelligence, you want to gather intelligence?" ”

"Small talk," Amber rolled her eyelids, "you're thinking too much." ”

"Actually, it doesn't matter," said Tyre casually, "you want to hear it, I can tell you a little bit." ”