Abyss Sequence-Chapter 360 - 17: Books
In the Elvish language, there are also terms like ’soul’ and ’spirituality’.
Thus, Number Five could understand what Sasa was saying.
He raised his hand, summoning a book from above, and before long, a book fell down.
Number Five handed the book to Sasa, saying, "This is the catalog of related books. You can take a look and see if there’s anything you wish to read."
Just a catalog?
Sasa remained calm on the surface, but was somewhat surprised internally.
She silently opened the thick catalog and began to look at the names recorded within.
At this moment, Sasa casually asked Number Five: "I want to understand the nature of the soul and spirituality. Do you have any recommendations?"
Sasa had only asked casually, yet unexpectedly, the catalog in front of her automatically opened, and names formed of light flew out from the pages continuously.
"These," Number Five said.
Sasa looked at the names of the fifteen floating books in front of her and casually pointed to one name, "This one!"
——"Bassaming’s Essence of the Soul!"
Number Five raised his hand to summon, and a book elegantly fell down.
Sasa opened the book and was immediately stunned by the content on the first page.
The book stated: [The soul belongs to the individual, but the force shaping the soul belongs to the collective. The strength of the soul is determined by the strength of the will and the breadth of knowledge of the individual. The stronger the will and the greater the knowledge of an elf, the stronger their soul tends to be. Since willpower and knowledge can often be judged by character, the more confident a person, the higher the strength of their soul often is.]
Is soul strength related to the strength of will and extent of knowledge?
But upon further thought, there seemed to be nothing wrong with this.
The research on ’the soul’ in Blue Star hasn’t even begun. Even when researching why Second Rank cannot progress normally, some considered whether it was related to the elusive soul, but in the end, the research direction did not veer that way.
Therefore, Blue Star doesn’t exactly know what the ’soul’ is.
Perhaps even their understanding of the soul was passed down from ancient Blue Star Civilization.
The elves have never cut off contact with the Abyss. Although most elves are not interested in matters outside their own lives, over the years, there has been some research on the ’soul’.
The author of the book Sasa was reading described the essence of the ’soul,’ enlightening Sasa to know that the soul exists in a state of both existing and non-existing.
To call it non-existent is because it does not exist on any physical level, yet to call it existent is because it can be observed when measures are taken.
Sasa used her lenses to record the text she had read, planning to study it carefully upon returning to Blue Star.
Thus, her reading speed was fast, almost skimming through the lines.
This left Number Five, standing behind her, feeling a bit surprised.
Was Sasa really here at the Great Library to find lost human history?
Soon, Sasa finished reading the whole book "Bassaming’s Essence of the Soul."
The only part that amazed her was at the beginning. The rest of the book was filled with various methodologies to prove the author’s assumptions, which made it feel much like a thesis.
Unfortunately, the book couldn’t explain what the soul actually is, only letting Sasa know that it exists in a state of both being there and not, though the perspectives in the book were indeed interesting.
Putting the book down, Sasa picked up another one, "Poems of the Soul."
From the title, it seemed like a literary work, but upon getting the book and opening it, Sasa discovered it was more practical than the previous one.
Describing the soul as a ’poem’ is a romantic metaphor.
In this book, the author described the methods he used to observe the existence of the soul and pointed out that the slow growth rate of elves is because they need to increase their soul ’capacity,’ which requires meditation.
The author metaphorically referred to meditation as writing poetry. Most elves are like untalented poets who can only compose mediocre poems despite racking their brains, but some elves with talent can achieve better training results with a mere flash of inspiration than most others.
The author believed there might be a shortcut to increasing the soul’s capacity — which Sasa thought the author implied as ’mechanism’ — as long as that shortcut is mastered, the growth speed of all their soul capacities could be improved.
Having scanned the knowledge through her mind, Sasa proceeded to read another book.
Number Five had been standing behind Sasa all along, helping her to summon books.
After a few hours, Sasa suddenly felt a bit hungry, so she took out an energy gel from her pocket, opened the seal, and squeezed a tube into her mouth.
It could replenish nutrients and water, making energy gel a very useful emergency food when time is of the essence.
Number Five suddenly asked, "What did you just eat?"
Sasa, while reading, answered Number Five’s question: "Energy gel, an emergency food that can replenish both nutrients and water."
Number Five pondered for a moment, then asked, "Can I try one?"
He wasn’t actually hungry, but from Sasa’s behavior, he could tell that the food could provide her with emergency nutrients, relieving hunger.
For many scholars and apprentices who enjoy immersing themselves in research, food like this should be very favored.
There had been many instances in the academy where scholars died of starvation because they were too absorbed in their research.
Number Five wanted to try it. If it worked well, he planned to propose to the Academic Committee to purchase this food from the human side.
Sasa, with a thought, took out another energy gel from her pocket and reminded Number Five: "Regardless, it’s still just an emergency food. Although it replenishes both nutrients and water, consuming it for long periods will lead to various physical problems."
Hearing this, Number Five nodded, lifted his mask slightly to reveal his mouth, mimicked Sasa’s earlier action, opened the magnetic seal, and squeezed it into his mouth.
Slightly sour and sweet, the taste wasn’t bad.
Standing still, Number Five made no motion, but within minutes, his slight hunger was successfully alleviated, replaced by a sense of fullness.
"Not bad." Number Five commented.
Then Number Five did nothing more and didn’t continue to disturb Sasa, calmly watching her as she read the book.
Sasa focused all her attention back on the book in front of her, speed-reading page after page.
As Sasa read more books, she gained some understanding of ’soul’ and ’spirituality.’
Whether it’s humans or elves, it seems the innate soul capacity is not very large.
However, elven soul capacity appears smaller than that of humans.
Human soul capacity could at least support to the Second Rank, yet elves need to cultivate their soul capacity from a young age.
But in terms of soul capacity growth, elves have the advantage.
The elven soul capacity can grow over time, whereas human soul capacity is fixed, at most reaching up to the Second Rank capacity.
In a book titled "Society and Soul," Sasa encountered an interesting thought. The author wrote: [I speculate a race or society actually shares a common soul, within this vast soul, each individual has their own position and part. To strengthen the soul, societal development must be promoted simultaneously.]
This could explain why there are different yet similar standards for soul capacities between elves and humans.
Sasa’s understanding of ’soul’ increased notably, and similarly for ’spirituality.’
Elves generally believe that ’spirituality’ is a secret treasure commonly owned by high-level demons.
The more spirituality they plunder from demons, the stronger their race becomes over time.
In other words, plundering spirituality from demons raises the lower limit of the race.
Combining the ’shared race soul theory,’ Sasa applied the histories of both elves and humans into this hypothesis, surprising to find that the race lower limits of both elves and humans have been rising.
To illustrate, before the first Second Rank strongman appeared, the number of Sequence Three Engravers was incredibly scarce, but after the first Second Rank strongman appeared, Sequence Three Engravers began to emerge like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
Does this indirectly confirm the ’shared race soul theory’?
