"What do you think," Freya said. Ragna and his cousins were in the Royal Library, walking through the great halls filled with manuscripts and books of all subject. The Royal Library was huge with brown walls adorned with runes and sigils. Thousands of shelves were lined up in both horizontal and vertical lines, located in each of the nine floors that made up the Library. There was a large golden orb floating up above, contained within a black round cage. The Library was attended to by Librarians, Volur dressed in brown robes with a hood covering their face. The Royal Library was an establishment that any Viking or Volva could access for their use, but there was hardly anyone in the library. The only ones Ragna had seen were Volur who were probably studying various kinds of enchantments. Ragna had woken up and attended breakfast with his cousins. it was then that Freya had proposed showing him the way to the Library if he was interested. Ragna had accepted as he was interested in getting to know his cousin. Freya seemed timid at first, but when it was just them, in the library, she began to show her personality. She was very ecstatic when it came to talking about Magic. She seemed to love it and had devoted her life to learning about magic. Ragna couldn't help but feel nostalgic. Back in his former world, when he was younger, he had been in love with Magic. Learning about the Arcane arts and the Arcane secrets of the universe had been so much fun. But as he grew up and ascended in his path of cultivation, Ragna as Salazar Ashtarmel had lost that feeling. All he cared about was accumulating power to survive first, and then later on for no reason. Listening to his cousin describe the various basic runes she was learning had been very pleasant.

"I think the Library is awesome," Ragna said as they entered a section that had to do with history. "it's just a shame that no one visits it," Though the Library was not well visited, it seemed like the books were still taken care of with great care as there were hardly any drop of dust on them.

"Mother says that in the days before the Conquest, Norsemen didn't care for papers or books." Freya said. "She said that we Norsemen were very stubborn to the point that our bias against books had been inherited from our ancestors."

"The Conquest was the best event that happened to Midgard," Ragna said as he found the book he was interested in. It was the Heimskringla book that the King had mentioned. It was a heavy tome but Ragna had no problem carrying it to a table where he could seat down and read. Freya followed him to the table he had chosen.

"What makes you say that," Freya asked. She was interested in knowing why he would say something like that. From what Freya knew, apart from the Desolation which had wiped 8.2 million lives from the world, the Conquest had seen the lives of 1.5 million lives taken in total. It was a brutal event that had gone on for a decade, and each battle reaping the lives of the Vikings who fought in such battles.

"The Conquest is the reason why we survived the Desolation," Ragna said. "The Conqueror not only conquered the world, but he also unified the people. It's the reason why when Ragnarok came, humanity didn't fight among each other, but were singular in fighting against the forces of darkness that had plagued them during Ragnarok. Thousands of tribes and clans both who believed in the Aesir and who did not were bought together under one banner. It was this unity that allowed us to persevere through the dark ages till we arrived on this land,"

"And now we're all divided again," Freya said. Yes, the Norsemen were back to how they were before the Conquest when there was various Kings and leaders among them. Ragna smiled as he opened the book. He knew it was deplorable to suggest that the Conquest was a good thing when the Conqueror destroyed so many lives and many atrocities were committed. But the end result from just that event was one of the reasons humanity is alive right now. Ragna read through the book, reading about the first royal dynasty that had formed in the Norse society. The Yngling royal family. It was written that the first king of this dynasty was named Yngvi- Frey. Not much is known about Yngvi-Frey, except for he had been a mighty Viking who was the son of a powerful being and went out to explore the vast world. He was the one who discovered the land of Scandinavia in the north and established his territory there, forming the ancient kingdom of Sweden. It was said that upon his death, Frey was venerated by the people and before long like his ancestor, he was considered a god. Ragna paused as he contemplated what he had read. He knew in this world death was one of the ways in which one could easily become a god. At least that was before Ragnarok. When Valhalla was still a thing. The god Frey was one of many gods that were still worshipped in this modern times. The people of Swedland in the west worshipped the god Frey and his family of the Vanir gods. After all the Vanir gods did not abandon mankind like the other groups of gods. Of course the Swedes were the only ones who truly worshipped the Vanirs even though they didn't get much answers from them. The Vanirs were dead, either killed by the Jotnars in the war of Ragnarok or by the Rune Walkers after Odin lost control of them. Ragna sighed as he continued to read more about the various dynasty that shaped the early Norse society. He finally found the earliest mention of his family lineage. It seemed that his family had been the ones who depose the Yngling dynasty. The first ancestor of the Lothbrok lineage was a Viking known as Ivar Vidfamme, a Norseman from the land of Zealand who was rumored to have been the son of Odin. Ivar Vidfamme's great great grandson was called Ragnar Lothbrok, who killed his own cousin and took the kingdom of Sweden and also inheriting the Kingdom of Zealand that would become Denmark. Ragnar's children shared rulership of Denmark and Sweden among each other. There was also mention of the Fairhair dynasty who had founded the Kingdom of Norway. What was surprising was that Ragna learned about the Conqueror's bloodline, who happened to share relations with the Fairhair dynasty that ruled Norway. The Conqueror's ancestor was a Viking known as Rolf the Walker who was descended from Nor, the first King and founder of Norway. Rolf was one of the Vikings who went beyond the land of Scandinavia in the Ancient days, raiding and pillaging. The land he managed to conquer was a land known as Normandy, and he became the king of such a place. It didn't take long for his great great grand son, William to spread his desire to the North where the Scandinavia land was located. With his Norman brethren and army, William conquered the the three lands of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. He unified the entire north into the Norman empire before he set his sights on conquering the lands in Midgard that did not belong to the Norsemen. This event would be known as the Conquest. A bloody period when William, an obviously powerful Cultivator would achieve something that has never before happened. He conquered an entire world and put it under one rulership. It should be noted that back then, Midgard was divided between the Northern continent which included the Norsemen. The Western continent which included the land of Normandy that Rolf conquered. And then there was the Southern continent. There was no eastern continent as the rest of Midgard was covered by the World sea. But even with all that death and destruction, the Norman empire's conquest and expansion saw the spread of Norse beliefs to the other side of the world while Norse society was introduced to so many things. As Ragna read the Heimskringla, he also noticed his cousin watching him. Ragna didn't feel anxious or nervous from the staring but he was curious to know why she was doing such thing. He closed the book and raised an eyebrow at Freya.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Are you a Reincarnator, cousin," Freya asked.