"A secret so carefully concealed — it only makes me more curious!"
Following the directions on the map, Railing arrived in front of the library in the royal capital.
He was now in the central district, and most of the people passing by were nobles. In an era where knowledge was strictly restricted, even the so-called public library catered only to a handful of high-ranking freemen, along with scholars and wizards.
Railing was a regular here — even the doorman already recognized him.
"Mister Railing!" the doorman called out cheerfully, showing not the slightest surprise at his arrival.
Over the past two years, Railing had made frequent trips here, filling out the God World's database.
Now that the various datasets in the Chip were gradually being completed — especially after the foundational portions were finished — his visits had become increasingly rare.
The library was as serene as ever. The pale marble structure stood as if eternal, with only the soft rustle of turning pages breaking the silence.
The interior was spacious. Along the rows of bookshelves, there were chairs woven from rattan, most of which were occupied by scholarly-looking individuals.
Some of them had become nodding acquaintances of Railing over the past two years. Upon seeing him, they offered a slight nod before lowering their heads once more to drift through the ocean of knowledge.
Everyone quietly went about their own business, and this atmosphere was something Railing truly enjoyed.
"I never imagined that what I'd been searching so hard for was right beside me all along!"
Railing sighed inwardly and made his way toward the depths of the library.
The lighting here was rather poor, and most of the books on the shelves had fallen apart, their loose pages stuffed between tattered covers — a sight dizzying to behold.
A musty odor mingled with the smell of ink lingered in the air. It had been cleaned before, but the scent still refused to fade.
This section of the library was designated for piling up miscellaneous books and documents, and very few people ever came here.
"The result of elitizing knowledge is that once a gap forms, it becomes nearly impossible to pass it on…"
Railing gazed at the thick layer of dust on the bookshelves, sighing to himself.
Among the historical records he had gathered, there were numerous blank periods from the beginning of the
The descriptions surrounding the content of the Twilight of the
"Blind concealment solves nothing! In the Wizard World, even a first-tier Wizard knows about the Ancient War of Ending, and uses it as a spur to drive the entire world's constant progress, even gradually recovering the glory of antiquity... By comparison, the world of the gods tends toward conservatism... Is it because the World
Railing's eyes gleamed as he arrived at the far end of the library.
The location was extremely remote, surrounded by utter silence with not a single soul in sight. Even the cleaning staff rarely came here.
"Good, good! This saves me a great deal of trouble!"
Railing surveyed his surroundings, nodding with evident satisfaction. A transparent membrane of arcane light had already sealed this area off from the outside world. As an extra precaution, Railing had even layered a holographic illusion over it, so that anyone who approached would only see a cluttered, dimly lit repository of discarded books.
"The Primordial Spring Spirits..."
Railing slowly intoned a passage of arcane incantation. This, too, was a reward gleaned from the map — the incantation to open the passage had been hidden within the poem beside it.
"They actually used the lost Mek Encoding to conceal the incantation at the beginning of each line. Without the Chip running massive-scale pattern matching, it would have been impossible to decipher..."
"Furthermore, even the timing of activation is restricted. It can only be triggered after the ancient 'Rite of Spring,' otherwise there will be no response. Why does this method feel so familiar..."
Railing watched the transformation of the surrounding scenery with keen interest.
This method of concealment, and the elaborate setup behind it, gave Railing a sense of the Wizard's style!
Yes — it was the work of a Wizard. Only Wizards who pursued truth with the utmost rigor could have devised such intricate, even supremely complex encodings and incantations.
This filled his heart with a growing sense of anticipation.
"It's early spring now. The rite has just passed, and it's two o'clock in the afternoon — which matches the poem's description of 'the blazing sun reaching the northern turning point of the Celestial Seat' perfectly..."
Railing murmured, a sharp gleam flickering through his eyes.
Crack! Crack!
Once the specific time, the specific location, and the specific incantation were all aligned, an ancient bookshelf suddenly emitted a complex series of sounds.
"It's not a magical formation. My earlier scan didn't detect it either — this concealment technique..."
The light in Railing's eyes burned ever brighter.
The bookshelf moved aside, revealing a downward passage, but Railing didn't descend.
"If my interpretation is correct, simply walking down would only lead into the 'Dimensional Labyrinth'—even high-level Wizards face the danger of perishing there... The true treasure is here..."
Railing approached the displaced bookshelf, and a Spell Model materialized at his fingertip!
Not the standard magical web spell templates used by Wizards, but a true, high-level template similar to those from the Wizard World!
Countless 2D and 3D points of light and circuits fused perfectly, forming a specific symbol.
"In the name of my sk1ng1a! Open!"
Railing chanted, the Spell Model in his hand flashed once and vanished into the bookshelf.
The light quickly dimmed, and nothing seemed to change, but a hint of joy appeared on Railing's face.
He tapped the back of the bookshelf, producing a hollow sound.
"The originally solid wooden shelf has become hollow..."
Railing murmured, "The original item wasn't hidden here, but in another spatial node. Only at a specific time, with the correct incantation, can the spaces overlap to reveal the true treasure..."
His expression shifted constantly, "This spatial overlapping technology... it's practically a replica from the Wizard World!"
With a thrill of excitement, Railing used a dagger to cut open the bookshelf and retrieve the treasure left by a predecessor.
At this point, he was certain that Siegfried had never been here; the man had just been lucky to obtain the treasure map.
The space inside the bookshelf was small, and even though it was hollow, it only contained a single thick, black parchment book.
This was the harvest from Railing's expedition.
"I sense it... this aura similar to the Wizard World... A Rule Wizard must have previously conducted experiments on localizing Wizardry..."
Railing didn't rush to read immediately. After verifying it was harmless, he stored the black book into his dimensional bag and began to clean up any traces of his presence.
By the time he left the library, the bookshelf had silently returned to its original position, and even the hollow wooden panel had been replaced.
Back at the mansion, after dismissing the maids, descending to the underground chamber, and activating the protective formation, Railing finally poured himself a cup of hot tea and began to examine the fruits of his expedition.
Once the black cover was opened, the parchment beneath — more than half decayed — bore a strange, twisted script that exuded a singular, otherworldly feeling.
"Ancient Amedic script. Fortunately, I've read about this before... The Chip also has the data stored, enough to decode it..."
Railing began translating the text in the book: "The stars at the horizon fell! I... saw the shooting stars of true gods perishing! They were a group of powerful deities from another world, and they called themselves... Wizards!!!"
"The history of the Final Battle as recorded by the natives? Interesting! Interesting!"
Railing read on.
"The heavens wept, the earth wailed... The entire continent shattered in an instant. After the Supreme God fell into slumber, the God of War Ares and the Earth Mother Goddess also fell one after another..."
"The Wizards and the gods squandered their power recklessly; a single casual strike seemed to consume hundreds of millions of years' worth of accumulated energy from the entire dimensional universe..."
Because so much time had passed, even though the protective measures had been remarkably well-crafted, a great deal of damage had still occurred, making Railing's decryption work extraordinarily troublesome.
"...During the Dark Age... a god from another world descended directly. It called itself the Shadow of
"The Shadow of Distortion enlightened human intelligence and passed down the great power named Witchcraft..."
"The gods sent down their incarnations one after another, mercilessly slaughtering every mortal who had inherited the power of distortion..."
"The rejection of the world caused the Shadow of Distortion to ultimately fall..."
"The gods ultimately defeated the Wizards, sealed off the entire God World, and established a magical defense network, strictly preventing such events from ever occurring again..."
"Year 327 of the Dark Calendar, a new generation of mortals emerged. They successfully conducted experiments in spellcasting independent of the Mana Web and called themselves — Arcanists! The powerful Arcanists wielded arcane might great enough to burn mountains and fill seas, a power that even the gods feared..."
"Year 981 of the Dark Calendar, the
Slowly, a long-suppressed dark history of the gods began to surface before Railing's eyes.
"As I suspected — the experiment to localize Wizards had already been attempted by law Wizards as far back as the Twilight of the Gods, and it succeeded..."
The emergence of Arcanists was clearly the result of Wizard localization.
Arcane magic that could cast spells without the Mana Web was plainly a variant of Witchcraft!
"To derive a new profession from scratch would be far too troublesome, and even with the Chip it would require an enormous amount of time. But if I could obtain the Arcanist's inheritance, then..."()