Chapter 360: Probing the Way

"Will there be any from the Church of Nightfall we can call on? Perhaps. I suppose there's no harm in asking."

Sieg found Wang Yu's idea more or less plausible. And even if it were to fail, there would always be other approaches.

"Then I'll leave it to you two—ask the administrator of the Midnight Library."

Since Wang Yu himself could not enter the Midnight Library, the task naturally fell upon Sieg and Avia.

Without hesitation, Sieg whispered a prayer under his breath. His consciousness sank into the realm of the Lady of the Night as he stepped into the Midnight Library.

It was far livelier now than when it had first been established. Countless silhouettes moved through the aisles, seeking books they required or bartering with fellow devotees in the restricted section of the Church of Nightfall.

"Eniac, are you here?"

Sieg did not step inside. He remained at the threshold and called into the void. At once, the shadows pooled upon the ground and shaped themselves into a figure.

A woman appeared, wrought entirely of shadow and far smaller in stature than the Lady of the Night. She was the administrator of the Midnight Library, Eniac, who now also bore the duties of the personified Tree of the Night.

Above her head, words in massive script bloomed into existence. [What is it you seek?]

Eniac still lacked the faculty of speech; her thoughts could only be read in the characters that appeared overhead. Her name, too, was Wang Yu's idea—his peculiar knack for naming had left its mark once more.

"Would you check whether there are any merfolk among the faithful of the Church of Nightfall?"

Sieg explained his request. The shadow-woman nodded, her head crowned anew with floating words: [Very well. Please wait.]

Her body rippled, dissolving into a great whirlpool of shadow that spun slowly—almost like a loading animation.

After a pause, Eniac plucked a small, unassuming book out of nowhere and handed it to Sieg. [Confirmed. Some merfolk are indeed among the faithful. Here is their distribution on the continental map.]

"Thank you."

Sieg took a look. Though the book looked slim at first glance, it revealed a full map of the continent once unfolded. Tiny crimson dots glowed upon it, each marking the presence of merfolk devotees.

"How fortunate. It's almost exactly as Wang Yu surmised. Beyond the St. Anna Snowpeaks, there truly are merfolk devotees by the Endless Sea... Though if memory serves, that whole region falls now within Aleisterre's domain..."

Sieg studied the map, astonished. The Lady of the Night's faith had spread quietly across the entire continent. There were even merfolk devotees in scattered enclaves along nearly every coast that bordered the Endless Sea.

"Well, it makes sense. The Prayer Network, the Void Chatroom, and even the Midnight Library are all divine implements of staggering worth. Their use requires nothing but faith. Such a bargain would be far too good to resist."

Sieg's mind returned to the material world, where he relayed his findings to Wang Yu and the others.

"So, it's possible—if we reach out to those merfolk across the St. Anna Snowfields, they might be persuaded to vouch for us and help us cross the Tidewall?"

Wang Yu hadn't expected results so swiftly, but it was welcome news all the same.

"Then I'll make contact. If they agree, we can set out at once. We'll head from the Snowfields straight to the Endless Sea, and from there cut westward across the glaciers to the corridor. Time is tight, but we should still be able to make it."

Wang Yu resolved to have the Lady of the Night serve as intermediary. He himself would speak with the merfolk devotees—perhaps they might grant the nominal Archbishop some small favors.

"Then I'll change my plans," Avia said softly. "There isn't enough time to finish optimizing the Spellweaver's Tome here in Skyborne City. The Seed of Eden has been growing rapidly, and is now a cube 20 meters long on each side. There's enough space in there for my needs. Give me three days to move the alchemy workshop within."

Originally, she had intended to spend half a month perfecting the Codex before they departed. Their constraints meant that that was no longer feasible. Instead, they would transplant the workshop into the Seed of Eden so that she could make refinements during the journey.

The Seed of Eden had been in constant growth. Since settling matters with the Central Assembly, they had scoured the vaults of Skyborne City for rare materials to feed to it. Whatever the Seed consumed allowed it to expand its inner world.

By now, the Seed of Eden was vast enough to fit a fully outfitted alchemy workshop, and it wouldn't even feel crowded at all.

"Then it's decided—Wang Yu, you handle the contact. Avia and I will transplant the workshop into the Seed of Eden." Sieg gave a brisk nod.

Wang Yu gave Sieg a casual OK gesture, and they set to work at once.

Meanwhile, Sieg and Avia busied themselves gathering materials for the move. Wang Yu remained within the Seed of Eden, reaching out to the merfolk while lending his strength—the power of the Chariot—whenever a helping hand was needed.

Noelle, too, had a role. Though she was but a juvenile red dragon, her breath was already formidable. It was far stronger than that of her older brother when unaided by magic or wizardry. The sole dragonbreath furnace within the Seed of Eden was fueled by her flame alone.

Their pace was brisk, their efficiency high. Before long, Wang Yu had results. The merfolk in the St. Anna Snowfields had gladly agreed to lend him their aid.

As it turned out, some were old devotees who had joined back in the capital's shadow. They had fled with the others and resettled nearby.

Wang Yu hadn't realized that there were merfolk among them, but then again, unlike the unmistakable gnomes, merfolk in human form were nearly indistinguishable from ordinary men and women.

The entire matter was settled in less than half a day. With that done, Wang Yu wasted no time. He hurried straight to the libraries of Skyborne City. His rank afforded him access to nearly everything, save for a single small study now closed to him.

There, he put the Perfect Fractal spell to use. As he entered a library, he swept through its shelves at blinding speed, the power of the Chariot amplifying his efforts. Others looked on in bafflement as he strode past, books leaping from the shelves, splitting into mirrored copies, then snapping back into place without so much as a whisper.

Some scholars, discomfited, tried to protest—only to realize that Wang Yu's actions were entirely soundless. Even the alchemical golems that served as librarians didn't intervene. At last, they could only let him be.

In the span of an hour, he could clear half a repository. In a single day, he had scoured clean every library in Skyborne City, each book duplicated by the Perfect Fractal spell and uploaded to the Midnight Library. After proper review, the knowledge would be released to all faithful—piece by piece, batch by batch.

"What are you doing...?"

Wang Yu continued doing the same thing in the restricted archives. Few residents of Skyborne City held the clearance to enter this place; as a result, he had the cavernous library entirely to himself. Finally, Astartes could no longer hold back and stepped out to confront him.

"Copying anything that might be useful," Wang Yu replied without hesitation. "That way I'll have it on hand to read while we're on the road."

"You're just... openly hauling the city's knowledge away like this? Isn't that a little much? So you really mean to leave Skyborne City. I thought you'd stay longer. With your clearance, you could have built something extraordinary here."

Astartes could scarcely believe how brazen Wang Yu was being. He was pilfering the archives right under its eyes!

Wang Yu waved it off with disarming ease. "Come on, it's not like I'm stealing. I've got the right to read these books, right? If I memorized them all and passed them along later, it'd amount to the same thing. The problem is, I don't have that kind of time. This is faster. So just... pretend you didn't see it."

Infuriatingly enough, his logic did seem to make sense.

Astartes sighed. "That's what I have been doing. If I really wanted to stop you, even if I can't throw you out by force, I can at least hide the books where you'd never find them."

Wang Yu's eyes lit up with sudden interest. "You've got books hidden away? Bring them out. Let me take a look!"

"You—!"

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Astartes was nearly sputtering with rage.

"Alright, alright, no need to get upset." Wang Yu chuckled, sliding the last of the tomes back into its shelf after imprinting it into his Perfect Fractal memory. "Don't worry—I won't spread any of this knowledge carelessly. Truth be told, I treasure it too much to share lightly. I'm still far from the lofty ideal of Samuel Hayden, I'm afraid."

This time, his tone was earnest. Once the final volume was stored away, he brushed the dust from his hands and straightened.

"There are matters I must attend to. If I don't, the consequences might ripple far and wide. I may return someday, but I'll be leaving for now."

He paused at the threshold, then added with a faint smile, "If you're curious, you might look into the Church of Nightfall. Its Midnight Library could prove a fine supplement to Skyborne City's vaults of knowledge. Consider it my parting gift."

With that, he departed without further explanation.

"Church of Nightfall... Midnight Library..." Astartes murmured, its mind gnawing at the words he had left behind. "Samuel Hayden... How could he possibly know that name?"

The name echoed in its mind, looping endlessly.

On the way back from the library, Wang Yu pulled a shard of alchemic alloy from his satchel, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. His newly fortified muscles made short work of such unnatural fare.

"Just as I thought, Astartes isn't what it seems. No ordinary AI would be given so much authority, nor pilot a construct tailored so precisely for it. Still, I can't sense any malice. For now, I'll count it an ally."

He sent word to Avia that the archives had been copied in full even as his thoughts churned. Speaking Samuel Hayden's name earlier had been deliberate bait. Whether Astartes knew it or not, any reaction would betray something.

And during that very moment, Wang Yu had slipped into a state of Extrasensory Convergence, the power of the Chariot at its most focused. He caught the subtlest tremor in the mechanical walls beyond the archive, the tiniest of shifts that betrayed Astartes' hidden knowledge.

Samuel had known Roland, and anyone acquainted with Roland could only have been extraordinary. By that token, Astartes must, at the very least, be tied to that bygone age. What its true purpose was, Wang Yu could not yet say.

But if it accepted his "gift" of joining the Church of Nightfall, then he would learn far more from the Lady of the Night's perspective.

That was Wang Yu's advantage: no matter how others dug at his past, they would find nothing but a blank slate—a sudden rise to power, a new faith, an archbishop with nothing to his name. If anyone did unearth his origins, Wang Yu would be the first to celebrate.

When he wanted to probe at others' secrets, on the other hand, they would spill forth with just the right nudge.

A message brushed against his mind. "Wang Yu, the alchemy workshop is ready."

It came from Avia.

"Good. No reason to waste time. Let's depart at once."