Apocalypse Gachapon

The old Dean pondered for a long time before speaking in a slightly desolate tone: “No one is born a librarian, but some people made us believe we were born to be librarians.”

This sentence was a bit difficult to understand, but Ye Zhongming still grasped some of it.

Although he didn’t know the specific events, he imagined that the librarians must have learned some secrets from the past, which led to strong resentment and hatred towards certain individuals or races, or even all the cosmic races.

“If there’s a chance, I’ll tell you in detail later. Saying too much now would only put too much pressure on you.”

Ye Zhongming nodded. Since a great expert like the old Dean had no solution for now, he certainly would be powerless too.

“What do you need me to do?”

Although the old Dean had mentioned some advantages of the Library Palace, he hadn’t yet specified the details, such as how exactly they would help Ye Zhongming and the others. However, before clarifying these points, Ye Zhongming needed to determine what he himself could do for the Library Palace.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust this amiable old Dean, but he dared not trust him completely. No one knows what others are thinking.

Right now, he couldn’t afford any missteps among the Ten Thousand Races of the universe. Otherwise, given his current weakness, the outcome would certainly be death without a whole corpse.

He was Ye Zhongming, but he was not the nearly invincible presence he was on Earth.

“Actually, it’s very simple. Help us break the chains.”

The old Dean looked at Ye Zhongming and said, “There are two reasons that constrain us to spend our lives staying in this Library Palace.”

“The first is the vow made by our ancestors back then, using something from the wheel. Once violated, they would die from the most painful torment in the world.”

“We cannot leave Starshine City. No, to be precise, we cannot leave a certain range around the Library Palace. We cannot even go to the edge of Starshine City.”

Ye Zhongming opened his mouth, then hesitated.

Knowing what Ye Zhongming wanted to say, the old Dean directly explained, “We have tried before. We even find someone willing to sacrifice their life to test it every few decades. This contract has always existed. Once you become a librarian, the contract descends upon you.”

Having to find someone every few decades to challenge the contract, knowing it likely meant death, yet having to try regardless—the taste of that was truly unbearably difficult.

But they had to try; what if the contract were to loosen one day?

Ye Zhongming couldn’t help but admire those librarians who ‘tested the law with their own bodies’.

“The second is that every selected librarian, before entering the Library Palace, must be injected with a ‘Sky Floss’ mental toxin that acts directly on the origin power. It is extremely difficult to remove. Once we break the rules, the three major factions will activate this toxin, controlling our life and death.”

The rule for librarians was that once a previous generation died, they could select a very young infant to replace them. How were these very young orphans chosen? Weren’t they provided a selection pool by the cosmic races for the librarians to choose from?

These selected orphans would be injected with this Floss toxin early on.

Over the years, through successive generations of librarians, all of them now had this toxin in their bodies.

Listening to this, Ye Zhongming couldn’t help but develop a somewhat incomprehensible thought.

Why did the cosmic races want to control the librarians in the Library Palace so strictly? It felt like they were guarding against something.

But what about these librarians, who were unremarkable in both numbers and influence, was worth such vigilance from the cosmic races?

Their individual strength? Yes, they were strong, but not invincible, right? A single super race should be much stronger than them, right?

“With your high strength, can’t you expel this toxin either?”

Ye Zhongming looked at the old Dean and asked. According to the old man himself, he should be one of the most powerful individuals among the cosmic races. So, someone of that level had no way to deal with this toxin lurking in his body?

The old Dean shook his head. “Because this toxin is injected when the life is extremely young, it penetrates very deeply. As life grows, it gradually fuses with the body. By the time one has the strength to remove the toxin, this thing has become part of the body and is everywhere. How can it be removed then?”

“Even me, after many years and finding many methods, can only reduce the toxicity but cannot completely remove it. The effect is roughly that once it activates, I might become a fool, while others would die. That’s the difference.”

Hearing this, Ye Zhongming also couldn’t help but sigh. This toxin was truly too venomous.

“External forces?” Since they couldn’t rely on themselves to remove it, whether through wheel technology or the cosmic races’ own technology, wasn’t there an antidote?

“This is one of the things I need you to do.”

The old Dean casually tapped a few times on his terminal, and a light screen appeared beside them, densely listing the names of many medicines and numerous raw materials.

“If we want to escape here, we must solve these two restraints that bind us. For the first one, we need to find it on the wheel. The item should be very precious, called ‘High-Level Vow Release Scroll.’ I don’t know if you’ve heard of it?”

Ye Zhongming thought carefully. On Earth, for all the wheels Cloud Peak could find, their locations and rewards were recorded. Ye Zhongming remembered the items on the level eight and level nine wheels. He was certain that, at least from the wheels he knew now, there was no such thing.

Seeing Ye Zhongming shake his head, the old Dean was very disappointed, but this expression lasted only a second before he retracted it.

The wheel was a vast and complete system. Even though Ye Zhongming hadn’t seen this ‘High-Level Vow Release Scroll,’ it didn’t mean it didn’t exist elsewhere. Since the old Dean, through long ages, knew that this thing truly existed, there was a chance to find it.

What the librarians lacked was someone who could assist them in their search.

Ye Zhongming was undoubtedly that candidate.

“As for the Sky Floss toxin, after thousands of years of research, we have finally cracked it. That unnamed medicine at the top of the light screen you see is the final answer. We call it… Freedom.”