Chapter 155 Life
...I always feel like I'm a bit superfluous.
When I looked up to rest and saw people running around busily, this thought popped into my head.
When everyone is busy with their own things, and you are the only one asked to sit idly by and daydream, you can't help but have fantasies that you have transcended the world, or that you have developed some kind of irreconcilable sense of alienation from the world.
While this is indeed true, it feels quite novel in the current climate.
It's like an idle game, or a building game that gradually changes over time. Although the prompts repeatedly state that you don't need to keep staring at it or pay attention all the time, you can't help but want to keep an eye on it every moment to see if there are any new changes or if you can find any parts that have been added or modified, so that you can intervene in the events that happen in time.
The process of simply watching is quite interesting.
Reinforcing the exterior defenses of buildings, repairing damaged tools and weapons, wrapping the edges of sharp and fragile decorations, or even turning them directly into indispensable attack components for certain weapons... In addition to some people busy with dinner and bedding necessary for sleeping at night, you can hardly see anyone idle.
Even the little children were unusually well-behaved, walking around the bookshelf in the corner, tilting their little heads up to check the catalog of books.
"But why did you suddenly say you wanted to collect books?"
Sheng pointed curiously at the large pile of books in front of me, tilting his head in confusion.
Judging from the titles and categories alone, most of these books are about countries, history and war, with a few religious pamphlets mixed in, which seems completely out of place with the current situation.
Thankfully, Sheng didn't directly say, "This is a useless effort that does nothing to improve the status quo," otherwise I would have been depressed for at least two seconds.
I quickly flipped through the book in front of me, placed it on the stack of books on my left, and took another one from the right, casually replying, "I just wanted to confirm a few things."
For example, the specific time, geographical distribution, national status, major events, etc., of the game world.
Although most of it is futile, if you can find some useful information in it, it might be of great help.
At times like these, I miss Yao terribly. If she were there to help, even if it was just to have the doll maid prepare a delicious meal, this arduous and difficult task would immediately become much easier.
However, this is not the only main reason why I want to collect books.
At first, I just thought, "Since I'm already here, I might as well take a look and see what's written inside." So I picked up a book and started flipping through it, but the result surprised me greatly.
I can't understand the words in the book at all!
No, wait, there needs to be a correction here.
The reason I use "cannot understand" to describe it is not because of language differences or changes in the shape of characters that I fail to recognize them. On the contrary, it goes further. Even though I am sure I recognize each character, I am completely unable to understand the meaning of each character on its own, or the meaning obtained by combining them.
It was as if something had interfered with me, or perhaps there was some malfunction in my understanding of the language itself. In the end, it even seemed to reach the limit of near-complete collapse—those familiar yet unfamiliar handwriting seemed to have come to life, leaping out of the flat paper in my vision, stretching and swaying its limbs at will, gradually turning into unrecognizable shapes.
I tried to confirm with Sheng, but he just shook his head with a strange look, indicating that nothing had happened.
"It's just an ordinary book, filled with stories from a period that everyone is very familiar with... What's wrong?"
I reached out to stop Sheng from continuing to read, looking at him with confusion: "Did you just say it was a story about something?"
"——"
He repeated the noun again, puzzled.
From my perspective, however, I couldn't hear any sound; I could only clearly see his lips moving, but the sound simply disappeared as it traveled.
There were no issues with the mediums that could transmit sound in the surroundings. Although the flow of magic was thin, it was very stable. There were no additional spells that could affect the surroundings without my noticing. Even my mind was very calm, so I wouldn't miss any channels for collecting information.
I then asked Sheng about the stories written in several other books. He answered most of my questions, except for a few that he said he hadn't read. However, most of the books showed similar signs in their narration.
"Hmm, that's strange, I don't know why either."
Slumped over the table, Sheng shrugged listlessly, indicating that such a situation did not exist in the game, so he had no idea what had happened: "It can't be that in the eyes of a mage, even an ordinary book contains some kind of mysterious knowledge that cannot be explained, or some kind of magical forbidden technique that needs to be passed down, right?"
It's not impossible.
In short, after some confirmation, this is how things turned out.
"Isn't it unnecessary to start collecting data now?"
Sheng still expressed his confusion, but also showed a hint of indifference: "In the later stages of the game, on a mountain near the center of the continent, a huge white library will suddenly appear. It is said to contain all the books that have ever appeared in the world. If you want something, you just need to say the name of the book you want to find in the hall, and then follow the navigation to get it."
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