Chapter 443: An Unexpected Acquaintance

"Amos Aldrich," the Eye of the Chosen said, closing the book in his hands as he called out the White Dragon Lord's name. "Though the City of Truth is hidden here, we are not entirely ignorant of the outside world."

He stood up. Bringing his right index and middle fingers together and curling the rest, he pressed his fingertips to his heart. This was the ancient mage salute of the Arcane Empire.

In his dragonborn form, the White Dragon Lord removed the Cloak of the Faceless One and returned a Nordhill mage salute.

It was a mutual display of respect between truth-seekers from two different eras.

The atmosphere grew amicable, and the White Dragon Lord cut straight to the chase. "Your Excellency, Eye of the Chosen. I have come here to stand on the shoulders of my predecessors and take a step closer to the truth. I wonder if you might fulfill this wish."

"The Arcane Empire does not reject truth-seekers, but neither do we share everything for nothing. Gifting knowledge so cheaply would disrespect our forebears." The Eye of the Chosen looked at him. "I assume someone has already explained the City of Truth's rule to you: equivalent exchange."

"Your Excellency, I cannot currently produce wealth to rival the knowledge of the Arcane Empire."

"That is fine. We accept IOUs. Even Merlin of Nordhill is still in our debt."

This surprised the White Dragon Lord, but upon further thought, it made perfect sense.

"If you need to write an IOU, you can come directly to me." The Eye of the Chosen raised a hand, palm up, and an invisible magical servant handed him a card. "This is an outsider's pass for the City of Truth. With it, Lord Amos, you may move freely anywhere outside the core region. Entering the core requires prior application. The Tower Spirit will explain the details; simply channel your mental energy into the card to activate it."

The card drifted slowly toward the White Dragon Lord and hovered in front of him. It was a dazzling purple pass that resembled a crystal.

He plucked it from the air and infused it with a wisp of mental energy.

"Mental energy identification in progress."

"No matching mental energy frequency found. Identification failed. Creating a new file."

"I am the primary Tower Spirit of the City of Truth. You may call me Gaia. May I have the honor of knowing your name, stranger?"

The White Dragon Lord was quite familiar with this synthetic voice; it was the standard tone of a Tower Spirit. However, the Tower Spirit of the City of Truth spoke with a trace of emotion, making it feel almost like a living person.

"Amos Aldrich. It is an honor to visit the City of Truth, and an honor to know your name."

"Welcome to the City of Truth, Mr. Amos. You are our sixty-first visitor. I am about to establish your file and need to run a Scan of your physical data, but the energy barrier surrounding your body is too strong. Please lower your defenses temporarily."

The White Dragon Lord dispelled his defensive energy field and felt a peculiar wave wash over his body.

"Scan complete. File saved. Name: Amos Aldrich. Race: Ancient Dragon Level White Dragon. Class: Arcane Grandmaster Rank Mage. Overall combat strength: Great Archmage Rank. You possess Level 2 clearance..."

The Tower Spirit then gave him a detailed overview of the City of Truth.

During the Arcane Empire era, the final arcane emperor had gone mad. Obsessed with studying deities, he gathered hundreds of Great Arcanists and commanded hundreds of Sky Cities to assault the Divine Kingdoms. This enraged The Gods, who united in retaliation, sparking a cataclysmic war.

One by one, the Sky Cities fell. The mad emperor eventually regained his senses, but it was too late. With the divine armies at his gates, he forcibly tore through space, allowing his son to take the Arcane Empire's last hope—the City of Truth—and hide it within the folds of time and space.

Because the city rested within the seams of time and space, the flow of time here was distorted. Spending three years in the City of Truth equated to only a single year passing on the outside.

Naturally, the Tower Spirit also explained the system for exchanging knowledge. The City of Truth employed a points-based system. Visitors could offer knowledge, materials, or anything of value to the city, and the Tower Spirit would award points commensurate with the offering's worth. Every piece of knowledge within the Great Library had a clear, fixed price.

The Tower Spirit shared a massive amount of information, but since it was all transmitted mentally, only two or three seconds had actually passed in the physical world.

Seeing the realization on the White Dragon Lord's face, the Eye of the Chosen asked, "What knowledge can you provide, Lord Amos? May I have the pleasure of seeing it firsthand?"

The White Dragon Lord had never slacked off over the years, and the unique magical knowledge he had accumulated was substantial. He took out a Memory Crystal and transferred the knowledge from his mind into it.

The Memory Crystal flew toward the Eye of the Chosen. After absorbing its contents, his eyes flashed with a sharp light, and he gave the White Dragon Lord a profound look. "I did not expect your understanding of ice magic to be so thorough. Even during the peak of the Arcane Empire, your research would have been enough to shock the world."

The Eye of the Chosen then produced a Memory Crystal of his own and imprinted some knowledge into it.

The White Dragon Lord caught the crystal as it floated over and absorbed the information within.

It truly was an equivalent exchange.

The knowledge provided by the Eye of the Chosen was of roughly the same value as what the White Dragon Lord had offered—perhaps even slightly more. All in all, he hadn't lost out on the trade.

After chatting with the Eye of the Chosen for a while, the White Dragon Lord eagerly made his way to the Great Library.

It was an enormously tall tower. Every floor was packed with bookshelves, where floating magical servants used highly specialized methods to maintain the tomes. Most of these books were ancient relics passed down from the Arcane Empire.

Besides the White Dragon Lord and the magical servants, a few arcanists were also present, quietly reading.

The White Dragon Lord impatiently contacted the Tower Spirit. "Gaia, I want to exchange for points."

He transmitted a large batch of research results to the Tower Spirit, which then rewarded him with a massive amount of points based on the knowledge's value.

"I need research findings related to the critical point of absolute zero."

The Tower Spirit also functioned as a search engine. Based on his request, it filtered out the relevant research and presented it to him in the form of a catalog.

Dazzled by a catalog that spanned over a dozen pages, the White Dragon Lord browsed the summaries and selected the ones he wanted.

After deducting the required points, an invisible magical servant fetched the books he had chosen. Taking the tomes, he walked over to the nearby reading area.

Among the crowd of readers, he spotted a familiar silhouette from behind. Testing the waters, he called out.

"Alan?"

Hearing his name, Mage Alan turned around. Seeing the White Dragon Lord, a look of shock crossed his face.

Not wanting to disturb the others, the White Dragon Lord cast a soundproofing Magic Barrier, enveloping himself and his friend. "It really is you. What are you doing here?"

"Amos, I should be the one asking you that. How did you find your way here?" Mage Alan asked, his face full of joy and curiosity. "This is my home."

"Your home?!" The White Dragon Lord paused, slightly stunned. "Wait! Aren't you from the Otag World?"

"You aren't wrong to say that. My mother is indeed a councilor on the Supreme Council of the Otag World, but my father is a resident of the City of Truth."

"No wonder." The White Dragon Lord then briefly recounted the matter regarding the Faceless Ones.

Hearing that the once-wise Great Arcanist had been reduced to such a state, Mage Alan fell silent.

"Let's not dwell on such depressing things. Amos, since you're here, why don't you come over to my place?"

The White Dragon Lord glanced at the books in his hands. The Great Library's rules stated that once a fee was paid, the material could be reread at any time, so he wasn't in any immediate rush.

He followed Mage Alan out of the Great Library and onto the streets, taking in the sights of the City of Truth's outer perimeter.

Outside the transparent Magic Barrier lay a gray and white sky—a stifling expanse where one couldn't tell up from down or left from right. Inside the barrier, however, stood tower after tower. The closer they were to the center, the more massive the towers became. Arcanists weaved between them on all sorts of flying contraptions, riding everything from flying discs and magic carpets to surfboard-like devices.

Those who required tools to fly were generally arcanists below the Legendary Rank. The White Dragon Lord and Mage Alan, on the other hand, flew under their own power.

As they flew, Mage Alan introduced the city to his friend.

"The City of Truth is divided into two zones. The outer ring houses the commoners. The interiors of those residential towers have been enlarged using spatial expansion techniques, allowing a single tower to accommodate hundreds of thousands of people."

"The core region contains important facilities and serves as the residential area for the Great Arcanists. Great Arcanists are what the outside world refers to as Abomination Rank mages. Right now, there are thirty-two Great Arcanists in the City of Truth. My father is one of them."

"I'm truly envious. All three members of your family are..."

The White Dragon Lord recalled Mage Alan's mother, a powerful Mage no weaker than Merlin Heavenly Principle. It stood to reason that his father would be no less formidable.

Led by Mage Alan, the White Dragon Lord passed unhindered into a tower within the core region.

The moment he entered the tower's hall, blinding sunlight washed over him. He looked up at the sky to see an artificial sun set into a rich blue canopy, moving slowly overhead. It was a perfect imitation of a material plane.

Basking in the heat radiating from above, he noticed the difference between this artificial star and the real one. The light it cast was a pseudo-sunlight forged from a specific blend of fire and light elements, though it still provided the necessary energy for plants to grow normally.

Mage Alan pointed out across the endless plains, where waves of green wheat rippled as far as the eye could see. Clay Golems toiled in the fields—solar-powered variants, no less. "This is the first floor of the Tower of Xihe. It's the primary wheat-producing area for the City of Truth. Ordinary folks still need to eat, after all."

The two made their way to the second floor. The spatial expansion here wasn't as exaggerated as the first floor, but it still far surpassed that of an ordinary Magic Tower, providing more than enough room for the White Dragon Lord to fly freely.

Before long, the White Dragon Lord met Mage Alan's father—a Great Arcanist who looked like a young man. If he hadn't heard Alan personally call him "father," he would have assumed the man was his older brother.

It wasn't just his appearance; his spirit and demeanor were incredibly youthful as well.

Mage Alan introduced the two.

"Father, this is my comrade-in-arms from the Abyss Battlefield and a good friend of mine, Amos Aldrich."

"Amos, this is my father, the Great Arcanist—Arman - Blade of Space-Time."

From the moniker "Blade of Space-Time," the White Dragon Lord deduced that Arman had mastered both time and space magic, achieving significant accomplishments in both. Based on those two fields alone, he was certain the man's combat prowess rivaled at least the strongest of those with Intermediate Divine Power, perhaps even reaching the level of Greater Divine Power.

As expected of the remnants of the Arcane Empire. Even a starved camel is bigger than a horse.

"Greetings, Your Excellency, Blade of Space-Time. It is a pleasure to meet you..."

All three of them were entities at the Abomination Rank, making for a highly harmonious conversation.

The White Dragon Lord stayed at Mage Alan's home for a day before returning to the Great Library to continue his studies. He had come here in search of knowledge, after all, and for a Mage, knowledge was power.

He hadn't left Alan's home empty-handed, either. For the sake of their friendship, Arman - Blade of Space-Time had granted the White Dragon Lord the right to trade for the books housed in the Tower of Xihe—though, naturally, this still strictly followed the principle of equivalent exchange.

...

The Yafeiawei Empire.

An avatar of the White Dragon Lord was summoning the empire's ministers. The officials gathered inside the White Castle.

The massive White Dragon coiled upon the throne, looking down at the neatly assembled ministers in the great hall.

"The New God of Fishmen has successfully ascended to godhood. From now on, we must promote his faith and expand his following."

"Bucky Darkscale, you are most familiar with Feixi Darkscale's affairs. You will be responsible for compiling his deeds. Hand them over to the empire's propaganda department to spread the word. Strive to convert the entire Murloc race into followers of the New God of Fishmen."

Bucky Darkscale gladly accepted the order. Feixi Darkscale had once been his subordinate and disciple. His student's successful ascension to divinity left him with mixed feelings, though joy far outweighed any other emotion.

The White Dragon Lord wasn't worried in the slightest about whether the Murloc race would accept the New God of Fishmen. Feixi Darkscale was already the patriarch of the Murlocs, and his prestige among them surpassed even that of the low-profile Bucky Darkscale. It was only a matter of time before the Murlocs of the Yafeiawei Empire fell entirely under his sway.

The combined population of Murlocs and New Murlocs within the Yafeiawei Empire exceeded one billion. These believers would be more than enough to help the newly born New God of Fishmen survive his period of weakness.

The White Dragon Lord intended to put the icing on the cake by pulling the other races of the Yafeiawei Empire into the New God of Fishmen's camp, providing the empire's citizens with an all-inclusive, one-stop service from birth to death, and from death to the eventual dissipation of their souls.

It was a beautiful idea, but implementing it came with many problems. The main issue was that he couldn't simply order his citizens to change their faiths—doing so would undoubtedly offend a massive number of deities. He could only rely on normal competition between the temples to vie for believers.

Aside from the citizens of Yafeiawei, the White Dragon Lord also set his sights on the deep sea regions. The variety of species living in the depths was quite abundant.