Evetrona's old stories

"These goblins are very strange. They are creatures evolved from the tree of deep space. Apart from collecting nectar and weaving silk threads, they are also very interested in reading... So, it is not surprising to meet them here, Maybe it was brought in by a certain student," Fochte explained.

"Really? Can they read? Can they understand text?" Eve was a little surprised.

"Whether they can read or not, we haven't confirmed yet, but they are at least reading." Fuchte took a book from the shelf next to her, spread it out and placed it in front of Eve.

Eve couldn't understand the words in this book, but the goblin sat quietly on her shoulder, facing the words in the book, and seemed to be reading with gusto.

"It's ingesting information from books," Fochte said, "maybe not for itself—just like they collect nectar, it's purely a collection."

After the goblin finished reading a page, it raised its head and watched everyone quietly, so Eve turned to a new page, and soon, it turned its attention back to the text.

"It sees so fast." Erinde sighed.

"After all, it is only 'reading', it may not think about the content of the text." Pani said.

During everyone's conversation, Eve didn't hear the echo of the speech, and the walls and carpets in the reading room had a good sound absorption effect.

They sit in the center of the circular reading room, where there is a large table that can seat eight people, and there are decorative plants and paintings on the walls, as well as several sets of single seats with bookshelves, adjustable In addition, there are even facilities such as wine cabinets, dining tables, toilets and hammocks for use during rest.

"It's not bad here, right?" While Fochte was introducing the facilities here to the other two, Pani approached Eve again.

"Very good, but it's a pity that I can't read the books here, otherwise, I can live here forever." Eve replied.

"Bubbles come in different sizes, this one is more suitable for group activities, and there are smaller ones for one or two people, which are more comfortable." Pani's eyes flickered, and Eve knew that she probably wanted to say something A topic that is not suitable for children——Sure enough, she said again: "For example, I like to use some small toys to relax the body and mind while reading, or wear some things that I don't dare to wear outside... The closedness here is very OK, so someone will choose to 'do' here as well."

Eve opened her mouth wide, trying to digest what she had said.

"Are all the people here like you?" She said, "Actually, I'm still not used to this kind of topic. If I remember correctly, we seem to have known each other for less than two days."

"Did it scare you?" Pani was laughing, "But it doesn't matter, people can always adapt to this kind of thing quickly."

"Tell me, does this count as... sexual harassment?" Eve looked at her with a false seriousness in her tone.

"I know what you mean, but it's almost non-existent here."

"Why? Is it because you all call yourself women, so there is no one side taking advantage of the other?"

"Who knows, maybe."

Fochte had already finished talking, so he just overheard the conversation between the two.

"There are many reasons for this, but the most important one is that there are no differences in gender and orientation in Forest City. In other words, everyone has disarmed themselves." Fochte said, "What Forest City presents may be a very typical ultimate form of society. Generally, at this time, civilization is actually only one step away from extinction."

"What does death mean?"

"Death means that this city will disappear naturally one day. You may have already seen how out of place a person like me is living in such a city... If I hadn't been useful, I'm afraid it would have been They were kicked out by these citizens." Using this topic, Fochte talked about some things about Forest City, "Sometimes, the final form of society may be to return to the original, for example—from single-gay marriage to Group marriage system, from private ownership to public ownership, from the establishment of the country to the elimination of the concept of the country... But there is nothing wrong with the process, but the technology needs to be developed, the living standard needs to be improved, and there are enemies that need to be resolved, so we have to go through this. until one day, all difficulties disappear, so there is no reason why we should not return to this primitive state of life.”

"When will the difficulty disappear?" Eve said, "Everyone has different needs. Even if there is no enemy, you can still create an imaginary enemy."

"It is true that resources are limited, and greed is human nature, so the enemy will always exist. In a closed environment, people will be encouraged, blindly stand in line, they attack each other, and seek self-preservation in the chaos." Fochte said, "But in essence, this is not a struggle, but a chaos from within."

"How did Parnas resolve this confusion?"

"It's done in a particularly bastard way — that is, to make it difficult for people to tell friend from foe. De-androgenization is a good way to do it, to remove all masculinity and create a society that is selfish and loving."

On a larger level, the most effective way to build general trust is to eliminate all inequalities, and one of the easiest ways to understand is to disarm all—first destroy the enemy, and then disband the army and even the country, so as to complete local autonomy and solve class problems to the greatest extent.On the personal level, men are more aggressive and powerful than women. This is also an objective factor. Parnas has modified the appearance and hormone levels of male elves through a series of medical methods, so that they can be well disguised among women, making them difficult to distinguish from each other.

"Selfish and loving?"

"Selfishness refers to the pursuit of pleasure and indulgence, while loving-kindness means that there is no conflict and mutual trust." Fochte continued to explain: "In fact, the library and Forest City have shaped two completely opposite paths. ——Either rely on rationality, restrain desires and emotions, reduce the time spent on material things, and pursue deeper meanings; or, like now, have an empty head and live only to vent desires and pursue happiness, and for this, they It's also called 'love'. It's not love, it's just a bunch of pathetic sex addicts."

"Maybe...you're exaggerating." Eve glanced at Pani beside her.

"It's not an exaggeration." Pani shrugged, "The situation here is actually very serious, but I can't say - there are certain things you don't want to know."

In Parnas, it is not uncommon for people to die due to lust or self-mutilation—indeed, in some particularly aroused states, it is easy for people to ignore their own physical pain and discomfort.On the other hand, Forest City is too tolerant of body modification. Many injuries caused by surgery are reversible or irreversible—sometimes, even Pani wonders whether these people are too casual about their hundreds of years of life.

After the rest, they left the reading room, and the goblin also flapped its wings and flew away alone.

The wall of the Parnas Library separated the two groups in the elf society, but the separation did not mean that they were people from two worlds.

Fochte took them back to the reading hall by the same route. On the way, Pani said something in her heart to Eve——she was expressing her feelings.

"Actually, I used to live like those citizens in a muddle-headed way." She said, "But one day, I suddenly became confused, because I thought I still had a lot of time... Intuitively speaking, I should do something, just as a pastime, so I came to the library. After coming here, according to the usual practice, I first entered the preparatory class, learned some basic knowledge, and later learned several languages. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be at first...instead, it was painful, and I still think so."

"But you persisted, isn't that amazing?" Eve said.

"But I have been thinking about whether to give up... But once I understand some truths, it is actually very difficult to go back to the past, because when people become sober, some stupid behaviors in the past will no longer make you happy... Sometimes I understand Fuchte very well. He is old and so arbitrary. He must know a lot... And it is difficult for a person who knows a lot to smile at people, because he needs to focus and think constantly—in his eyes, socializing is sometimes a waste of time." can hear.She continued, "I learned some things later - once I asked him: You are always so serious, did knowledge make you unhappy? He laughed out loud after hearing what I said, as if he was laughing at a fool. Instead of answering me, he came to ask me - which eye of yours saw that I was unhappy?"

Pani was imitating Fochte, and her nondescript rough voice made everyone laugh.

"I suddenly realized at that time that some happiness does not lie in the momentary refreshment - it may also be light and long-lasting, just like from the flowering to the twilight, every day in the process can be exciting. of."

"Pani, you never told me about this." Fochte said, "But I want to make a statement—I really didn't have any other thoughts at the time, I just thought you were being stupid."

Everyone laughed again.

"But it also proves that she does have some talents... being able to think is a kind of talent." Fochte added.

"What does Panny learn here?" Eve asked.

"Paleolinguistics. In the past ten years or so, she has been working with me as a translator of some books from the old era, mainly literature."

Oh, it's archeology again - Eve thought.

Back in the hall, they happened to meet a librarian, a small and slender girl.Eve saw that the elf girl was holding a large ball of pale golden liquid in her hands. She used spells to shape the shape of this liquid, allowing it to extend out like tentacles and wrap around the books or sundries scattered in the air. superior.

"You probably haven't seen this kind of thing before. She uses a cleansing gel, which has a good decontamination effect, and is also very effective when used for laundry or bathing." At this point, Pani added mysteriously, "It's non-toxic, so... it can also be used to clean the body."

"Be serious." Eve felt a little helpless, she smiled and pushed her away.

"The librarians here are usually young people, and they are the only ones here who are allowed to wear skirts - which means that what she is wearing now is the uniform she wears at work."

It was only then that Eve noticed that the administrator was wearing a knee-length transparent skirt—the skirt was as transparent and soft as water, and it had the same style as her flared sleeves and trouser legs. The tight clothes outlined the girl’s graceful figure. She was cruising in this weightless space. The insteps of the feet arched downward, becoming slender and straight, making the elf's already slender legs look more elegant.

"I used to be an administrator for a while, and I kind of miss that time, but I can't do it now. After all, I'm not a child, and some places where books are stored may not be able to get in." Pani turned around in the air, and she looked at Eve, "Your figure is barely suitable."

"Pani, how old are you?" Eve asked her.

"I'm a little over thirteen this year." Her answer was surprising.

"130 years old? She seems to be only ten years younger than Dean Sigourney." Erinde said.

"I thought she wasn't much older than us," Eve said.

"How is it possible." Pani laughed, "Then guess how old is that little administrator this year?"

"About... fifteen or sixteen years old?" Eve believes that, judging from the growth rate of human beings, this answer is the most appropriate.

"Her name is Helvenli, and she is almost 40 years old this year." Pani said, "Different from humans in the current era, elves have a very long development time-it is not until after the age of 80 that the brain development process begins to slow down. You know, drinking alcohol is not recommended before the age of 50 here."

This place is located at the bottom of the Forest City—it was also affected by the falling fragments of the Sky Realm that created the weightless environment here.The reading hall extends in all directions, from here you can lead to many rooms, and the offices of Fochte and Panny are at the other end of this shuttle-shaped area, which is also the place they will visit soon.

During the flight, Pani told them some things in the "circle", and one of them deeply shocked the three girls.

[225] Rebirth under withering: the ordinaryness of the world · Part [-]

"Before... oh, about 20 years ago, I met a scholar here, named Rachel. She was a little cold, but she still took good care of us younger generations. Fochte had a good relationship with her teachers, and they used to talk about her, saying that she was young and promising—ashamed to say, this scholar was indeed very young—Rachel was only 50 years old at the time, but she already had several books of her own. Ni let out a long sigh, "She withdrew, not only that, but she also went to the hospital for an operation, broke most of the tendons in her body, and turned herself into an immobile doll."

Because what Pani said was too bizarre, the three girls all showed expressions of panic to varying degrees at this time.

"Why?" Erinde asked.

"Who knows." Pani shook her head helplessly.

"This situation... can it be restored?" Eve asked.

"It will be easier to recover in a short period of time, but it has been more than ten years, and she probably has no intention of recovering." Pani continued, "She is now placed in a supply store on the upper floor of the northern patio, and a bunch of adult toys are placed behind the window... facing the garden and the street. The owner of the store there seems to be related to her. Some people say that she is her sister. A delicate small bookcase is built beside her, displaying those works of hers for visitors to read."

Eve vaguely felt that when Pani talked about this female scholar, there was always an inexplicable excitement in her tone.Her story obviously had an impact on Erinde and Delize, who had never seen the world before—it was so shocking that they were a little depressed at the moment.

"Here comes the most interesting part. This scholar's behavior has had a very bad influence in the library, or... a shock. Many people came to visit this scholar, including relatives, friends, former classmates and her own students. I don't know how these people will feel when they see her. Her behavior has succeeded in biasing some people. I remember that at that time, many people gave up studying and working in the library and returned to Forest City to live an ordinary life. I have gained confidence. I still go to see her often, and sometimes help her change clothes. At the beginning, some people would deliberately tell her jokes, and some people who lost control of their emotions cried in front of her, so later, she simply underwent a few operations, and now she can neither hear nor speak, and there is no expression on her face—she hardly responds to other people talking to her. "

"Can she still see?"

"Probably yes. I heard that she used a special occulting spell. When she looks at others, others won't notice her eyeballs moving."

"Why did she make herself like this?" Erinde really couldn't understand, "Isn't it good to be healthy?"

"Maybe it's because...the pressure is too much?" Pani said, "People expect too much from her, but she can't write good works?"

"That's not the case."

"Everyone's opinion is different, who knows, it's fine if she thinks it's good."

"Maybe for her, giving up her freedom is the way she achieves it," Eve said.

Fochte turned to look at her.

"You really think so? Her teacher seems to have said something similar." Pani said.

The teacher was very disappointed with his student, but he couldn't stop Rachel's decision. In the past ten years, he only visited her once - that day, the shop owner closed the shop ahead of time.

And that was her wish...the only wish before it became an object.

"What a...pervert." Erinde blushed a little. Maybe she didn't really dislike this teacher's behavior, and there was even a hint of romance in it, but from her point of view, it was indeed against ethics and morality.

"What is the relationship between Rachel and her teacher?" Eve asked Panny.

"Not sure, maybe Fochte knows?" She looked at her teacher.

"Don't ask me, that guy and I never discuss anything other than work."

Fochte obviously didn't want to talk, so the topic ended here.

The working area of ​​the library is full of people coming and going at this time. It is located deep underground and has a gravity comparable to that of the outside world. In this wide hall, there are busy shadows everywhere.

Walking in the circular corridor on the second floor of the hall, Eve looked downstairs. She soon noticed that in this hall of scholars, there were not only elves, but also many races that she had never seen before. ——with furry ears, long or short tails, or skins covered with scales or feathers of different colors... They all wear the uniforms of scholars and students in the library, but the huge difference in body shape is not what uniforms can Make up, so the place looks pretty chaotic at first glance.

"These people are all descendants of the old era. There are many people from the Beast Race, and there are also a lot of dwarves... Some races I can't even name." Fuchte introduced to them while greeting the passers-by. The water of the Robin River will flow back to the Qingkong Realm—is it a bit difficult to understand? In short, the space there is like this. The former Qingkong Realm still has the knowledge heritage of old humans, and there are a large number of books and documents there. The people at that time probably had a premonition of the collapse of the Qingkong Realm.

Fochte took them to a studio—the environment here is a bit like a handicraft workshop. Here, some staff members are processing some old books that are incomplete or defaced. Some kind of classification.

"However, the end seems to come earlier than they imagined. Many books were not transferred in time. They were buried with the collapse of the Sky Realm. Some fell into the lake, some poured down, and were buried in the soil again. .Parnas was established here, in fact, it was originally for those buried books. In a sense, the library has a longer history than Forest City - but after so long, we still have not Complete the excavation of all the books, even if the total number of books here is only a few thousandth of the knowledge treasure house of the old era, the number is still incalculable."

Fochte picked out some cleaned samples from the pile of books and showed them to them.These books are not paper books, but a flexible and thin material, which can have a thickness of about a thousand pages at the width of a finger.

“The same character will change constantly during the development of a civilization and be affected by different factors—invasion, change, natural disasters... The reference and unification of characters, the extension and deconstruction of vocabulary, the birth of a new language, sometimes just A hundred years... and disappearing is the same." Fuchter said again, "The doomsday has swept away the human world, turning those words that cannot be traced back into meaningless scribbles, how long is the history of mankind? When did it become prophetic? We must find the answer in these books... The search for the future from the past is most appropriate at present, because the threat of the end is always present, and human civilization can never achieve stable continuity .”

"Language is prophetic?" This was the first time Eve had heard this statement.

"You say 'the wind is coming', so the wind is coming. This is the prophetic nature of the language—casting spells and using magic is actually the use of this effect." Pani explained to her, "Tati Grace is a language with strong prophetic properties, through which the dragon gods created the Sky Realm, which is essentially the same as the use of magic by humans."

"If the language is strong enough, all prophecies can come true... wouldn't this be a god?"

"No, that depends on how you explain 'God'." Fochte shook his head. "You stretched out your hand and said to the sky, 'here is an apple', and then such an apple really appeared in your hand—your language is powerful enough, so the prophecy came true, but have you ever thought about who gave you this apple? Where did it come from?"

"You mean to say that I did not create this apple, but someone in the dark responded to my request and gave it to me."

"That's it. Maybe magic and alchemy are the same phenomenon under the microcosm and macrocosm—magic is not free of cost, but that the factors used for exchange exist around us, so we only need to use language to complete a process." It is a relatively simple conversion; more powerful magic needs the help of Fengluwei, and you have to make a deal with this "someone in the dark"; the same is true for using the printed array plate for alchemy , 'printing' is more predictive than human language, which may be similar to the creation of the world by the Holy Spirit."

"So who are we making a deal with, a 'god'?"

"Do you believe there is a god in this world?"

"To be honest, I don't quite believe it."

In Eve's heart, maybe Evetrona is the one closest to God—she is so supernatural that she can find herself in another world... But even so, Eve doesn't think she is a god, Because this woman obviously has an unspoken purpose, she may even ask for something from herself.

After hearing her answer, Fochte laughed loudly, "That's it, we don't know anything, so we can only find answers from books."

He took back the sample books in everyone's hands and threw them into the standby machine beside him.

These tough books were cut into fine pieces by the net-shaped light beams, they fluttered in the transparent tank, then were compacted, and finally were thrown into a special solvent to slowly dissolve.

"Is this being destroyed?" Seeing those books destroyed so thoroughly, Eve felt a little pity.

"It's destruction, but it's also recording." Fochte replied, "We cut these books into pieces, and recorded the images of each piece in a very short time, and then reassembled them in a special way whole."

"How do you fight it when it's broken like that?" Erinde only felt that he was talking big.

"It's really not easy to explain. In short, this kind of machine was invented to do this kind of thing." Fochte said, "Generally speaking, only books in some common languages ​​can be entered in this way. If there are words that have never been seen in the book, there is a high probability that they will not be spelled together. These recorded books will be processed automatically, then translated and polished by humans, re-bound in several more common languages, and registered in the library's bibliography."

"That's what I do, translating certain ancient languages ​​into Orosecant," Pani said.Orosean is the language of dwarves and giants.

The research room is located in the innermost part of the working area. Along the way, Fochte explained some problems of prophecy language to them.

"Different languages ​​have roughly the same speed at which they transmit information, and they are within the category of being able to speak clearly, hear clearly, and understand clearly. After all, this language is used for communication between people—and prophetic languages ​​usually have a higher speed of information transmission. For example, dragons are much better at processing language than humans. They can arrange syllables like a matrix to form a higher-dimensional language through singing with multiple vocal cords. From this point of view, the prophecy of a language is related to its rate of information transmission, and on the other hand, the individual who uses the language also determines the strength of prophecy—that is to say, a person’s expressive ability also determines the level of his magic. How do we improve our expressive ability? We can rely on training, learning, reading and being well-informed...In short, the more you know, the more ways you can express it.” They were able to think and understand, and then he continued, "Who are you? What do you want? You think hard, and then try to describe. In short, you must have a clear understanding of yourself and everything in this world. In fact, this is an interpretation of the so-called 'comprehension'-comprehension determines the strength of the prophecy. The dragon gods have integrated many similar thoughts over the long years-yes, it is a fusion in the true sense-their comprehension is obviously immeasurable, and because of this, Relying on the particularity and strong comprehension of the Taiti Grace language family, the prophetic ability of the Holy Spirit is sufficient to create the world."

In the research room, Fochte held up both hands. On his left hand were two heavy gold-green coins, and on his right hand was a slightly fat silver glove. The patterned light path flowed in the palm of his hand.Under everyone's gaze, he recited an obscure incantation, and Eve saw that a phantom of a group of vines slowly emerged in his hands, and then grew and entangled - the Fengluwei coin was disappearing, while the turquoise shadow formed a round ball, and finally gradually turned into a solid, turning into a glowing red apple.

Fochte's face was a little pale, and Pani wiped the sweat off his brow for him.

"Using Ortigia's dream vine, I created this apple—the apple of my imagination," he said.