The foundation of every nation in this plane was created by many things, even the unpredictable luck would be a factor in it, but the most essential thing was always the knowledge, from politic to economy to strategy. The nation simply couldn't sustain itself without capable assistants filled with knowledge. A great ruler was not the one with absolute strength, but the one that knew how to make use of his resource.

But where did all the knowledge come from? Since the beginning of time, countless experiments and observations were carried out endlessly, incredible amounts of logs and records were left behind with no one to inherit them, causing them to be buried with their owner, not to be seen again.

A mysterious sovereign in the past came up with a simple invention, an invention that once shook the world, but as time passed by, the people of now gradually forgot about it.

Library. The first library was created for the purpose of storing all the information. It was called the Castle of Knowledge, the heritage of this sovereign soared up rapidly, quickly became one of the powerhouses of said era.

The Castle of Knowledge quickly became the centre of all knowledge, from magical experiments regarding the law of the world to the inventions of the Sages. The Castle of Knowledge was the highest and unreachable dream of many scholars.

Unfortunately, through the erosion of time, it was left as an unexplainable myth, the place was never documented anywhere, the location was the secret, many wondered if it was real at all.

But since then, every wealthy clan would have at least a library in which contained the knowledge that was passed from their founder, some even have more than one of them. The library would withhold the secrets and forbidden knowledge, the true difference between commoners and upper-classes were this invention.

But, commoners also had their way, with the wisdom of the Great Emperors, they built an Imperial Library, accommodating incredible amounts of information from many years of contributions of various Sages.

Only the worthy person could view the knowledge. This was the only rule regarding the entry of the Imperial Library, achievements from battlements, contributions from various studies, records from the past, inventions that benefitted the empire. All of them could be exchanged for the entry of this heaven. Depending on one's performance, how long the duration and which type of knowledge that could be given to said person was varied.

An old man was sitting next to the roundtable, using the ordinary-looking pen to write the content on many books, he would occasionally lift his head and gaze around his surrounding. The book he was rewriting was naturally The Introduction of The Library, one of the must-read books along with The Manner of the Readers, How to Find Your Desired Catagory and many more.

The surrounding was almost empty, not many people were in the building, and all of them were silently looking for what they wanted, not a single one of them would waste their precious time chit-chatting.

Although every one of them was at least a renowned expert admired by many, none dared to act wildly and went against the rule, one of the reason was the reverence of the place, but the true reason was the librarian that maintained the Imperial Library. He was the old man that was granted limitless amount of time within the library by the emperor himself, the Father of Mist, the last Grandarch Mage, the true Guardian of the Human Empire, Lord Caligo.

The current librarian of this scholars' heaven was the old man who was rewriting the content of the introduction books, with the help of the mysterious artefact that was gifted to him, the Book of Learning, he was able to make several breakthroughs regarding his knowledge and experiments, reaching the new height.

Maybe in the near future, he would single-handedly bring the new era of magic, or even better yet, archiving breakthrough to the realm of legends himself.

But for now, the overall qualitative change of the professions was needed in order to regain some period of peace, the only advantage that the humans have above those demi-humans was the advanced technology. Using the formation that created super-soldiers with the cost of intelligence, using the superior accuracy weapons to battle the enemies. Without technology, the humanity would have fallen long ago.

Although the reproductive rate of humans was enormous, the quality of the average individuals would fall flat against the counterpart. Without the contribution of the deceased Sages, we would be left with only numbers, whose quality was inferior to the likes of elves and demons, even our seemingly numerous population also paled in comparison against the Undying.

In conclusion, humanity needed either great minds to continue developing technology, or talents to replenished the lost professions.

As the old librarian reviewed the contents that we wrote, his gaze met with a slender scholar, who dressed in a casual greyish robe, the robe itself was notably worn-out, indicated that this expert was a wandering type. Not staying in one place but travelling around.

The old man had always stayed within the library, an emerge of an expert was not worthy of his attention. But something about that man was ominous.

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He felt that the gaze of that greenish eyes was different than the gaze of normal humans, there was some kind of mystical force concealing the man's feature. His curiosity was aroused, using his newly-learnt ability, Soul Eyes, he tried to peer into the soul of the mysterious scholar.

Spying one's soul was taboo amongst the mages, because, with slight tempering, the victim might unluckily go deranged due to an abnormality in one's soul. But with this marvellous ability that he got from studying the Book of Learning, he was able to spy on the soul of those that were weaker than him without being noticed.

But all things under heaven were balanced, such a miraculous spell would be too taxing for multiplied uses, and the user could not temper with the target's soul, coupled with heavy backlash if the spell was interrupted.

Unexpectedly, his Soul Eyes was met with a formless barrier, when his wave of magic touched it, the barrier sent forth a mystical ripple, hitting his invisible eyes and decaying them slowly. The magical eyes gradually withered and had its power sucked into the barrier.

The old man was stunned, praising himself that he decisively abandoned the connecting treat of magic after he knew that something wasn't right, allowing the magic to dissipate naturally before the flow of magic turned chaotic and backlashed him.

At that moment, this strange mage turned his full attention onto the librarian, causing the old man to be able to view the full extent of his feature, but only burry. Only his glowing eyes that weren't concealed within the greyish robe.

The man walked over toward the Father of Mist, his footsteps were not too heavy nor was they too light, but they were infused with supernatural force, with every step, the atmosphere seemed to turn colder. Noticing this uncanny change, the other experts increasingly shifted their attention toward the two.

Upon realizing the identity of the old man, they subconsciously retreated a few steps, not willing to have a hand in this ominous situation. Alas, the wandering expert stood in front of the Human Guardian, they were separated by a wooden table and some books. Yet in the others' eyes, those small and insignificant objects were like towering World Tree, shouldering the sky and separated the ground.

"Lord Caligo, could we have a moment of discussion?"

The voice of mysterious man was static and unchanging, it was obviously modified using some high-level magic, looking from how he was able to defence against Soul Eyes, his attainment in magic would probably be very high, maybe even rivalled himself.

The last Grandarch Mage smiled lightly. If there was more high-level mages for humanity, the better chance to overturn the war and defeat those demi-humans.

And of course, to discuss with fellow mages might result in an unexpected breakthrough that might change his fate forever.

"Let us go into the meeting room, this place was not suitable for discussion. Remember, we are still in the library."

He put his finger in front of his mouth, signalling everyone to be quiet.

He drew a magic formation mid-air, its shape was changing continuously, sometimes it was a circle, sometimes it was a hexagon. Nevertheless, it produced the flowing bluish ball of flame. The experts in the way of magic gasped in awe, these balls of fire were the inspectors of the mage, able to send information to the owner instantly.

For him to use such an ancient magic, his accomplishment in magic much be higher than ever before!

The old mage then walked into the private room, those rooms were used for debate and discussion of the experts, every room was filled with protection talisman, aiming to intercept all spying magic. Making them the perfect place for information exchange.

Watching the two figures leaving, the remaining experts slowly retracted their attention, continuing to effectively use their remaining time correcting information. With the surveillance of the floating heat, no one would dare to cause the ruckus.

...

The room was covered in plants of varies species, the dark-greenish colour was reflected whenever the faint light hit them, the temperature of this room was cold, to the point that air condensed into the fog. The room itself gave off the ancient and depressing feeling, coupled with the seeming broken yet complete appearance, the onlooker would mistake it as the prison or jail, if not for the neatly placed roundtable.

Next to the table were many types of furniture, the bookshelf that stored secret unknown to normal, the showcase that displayed extraordinary items converted by many, pictures of influence character from the past were hung on the stained wall.

But the most noticeable item in the room wasn't any of them, it was a mysterious item created by the legendary figure. It was placed at the quiet corner of the room. It was made by magic-infused wood, the highest quality of them all, copulated with the marvellous skill of said figure, it was created in three months.

The lower part of it took the form of a wooden box, quadrilateral-shaped box, many incomprehensible mechanisms were connected within the box. The upper body of it was a large golden horn, created by pure gold, it was seemingly attached to the wooden box with no problem. The mysterious technique of the said figure was too strange.

Two figures were sitting spiritually in the room, those were not their real body, it was their illusion that projected by their powerful mental force. Something that was called Avatar.

The first one that moved was an old man, it wore a golden robe and carried a white cane with him all the time, his face was concealed by the strong divine light. He picked a circle-shaped object, the object was pitch black, the surface was smooth and had a word engraved on it.

"Windy Night"

With a flick of his pale-white finger, the object floated straight into the most valuable treasure in the room, it fell on top of the lower wooden part and connected with it, the object started rotating slowing. The entire thing trembled softly, many puzzling yet relaxing sound came out of the golden horn.

"You seem to never get bored of this piece of art, don't you?"

The second figure was also an aged figure, but his long and pointy ears indicated that he was an elf.

"This treasure, the Phonograph, was too amazing to not be used. There was no sign or trace of magic formation that could create sound within it, but, it still created pleasing sounds by simply powering it with pure magic."

"The rumour said that the creator claimed that it was the production of fate, that he came to our plane. If not for this thing, everyone would think of him as a madman."

"Alright, enough with the chit-chat, you should have known already, about the objective of mine. Why I came to this meeting."

The holy light that covered his face flicked suddenly, indicating the seriousness of the discussion.