Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1373: The God’s Grand Archive

By the time Father God and I returned to the Brilliant Divine Court, half a day had passed.

Uncle Kuwayin was wrapped in bandages while he greeted us at the temple entrance, but surprisingly Aunt Aisali seemed unharmed. During the initial Void Shock, both of them were simultaneously blown away by Father God’s power, yet now it looked like only Bingdisi’s unscrupulous old dad was left unable to take care of himself.

"Just shadow protection," Uncle Kuwayin said, looking disheveled but still smiling, "I took the brunt of the shock wave, couldn’t let my wife bear it up front, right?"

I looked at the bandages on his head and felt uneasy, whispering to Father God: "Xingchen, did you go a bit too hard?"

Bingdisi’s dad wrapped in bandages isn’t related to me. He was blown away by the shock wave released during Father God and I’s first clash. I honestly didn’t expect him to welcome me with such a creative image afterward.

Father God didn’t say anything, but instead approached cheerfully and casually tore off the bandages from Kuwayin’s head: nothing was wrong.

"You’ve used this trick to skip class since you were a kid, then to skip work later, you even tricked Aisali with this trick to win her over. How have you not improved at all over the years?" Father God slowly murmured, while Aunt Aisali sighed, poking her husband’s side: "I told you this wouldn’t work, can’t trick Father God. You should’ve just let me beat you up and be done with it..."

I was dumbstruck for a while, then whispered to Bingdisi through the spiritual connection: "Do your parents always act like this?"

"Who do you think educated me into being like this?"

I: "..." So, this female hooligan knows she’s already messed up!

Uncle Kuwayin didn’t seem too disappointed by the failed trick, glancing up and down at me and noticing no difference from before, he asked: "So, Bingdisi, she..."

"It’s all settled," I smiled, my gaze involuntarily falling on Bingdisi’s (shell) standing dazedly not far away, "The assimilation process has ceased; now, we just need to wait. Bingdisi’s soul will slowly be liberated from me, and this phase shouldn’t last too long."

At this point, I couldn’t help but recall the earlier confrontation with Father God, or plainly put, a one-sided guidance.

There’s no need to mention the gap between me and Father God; this time, I clearly realized where precisely this gap lies: my understanding of my own power is still in the shallow layer, while Father God has entirely discarded the need to think about how to use his abilities. As he said, Void Creatures don’t need skills, don’t need power, don’t need moves or abilities. Anything that can be precisely described, regardless of its strength, is a secondary product of the Void. I’ve been obsessing over how to develop my "prowess," which is equivalent to walking into a dead end from the start. As a Void Creature, "Void" is the only thing needed; it is simultaneously everything. If you need power, Void is power; if you need skills, Void is skills; if you need your enemy’s death, Void is your enemy’s death; if you need a world reduced to ashes, Void is the result of "world reduced to ashes." It is the ultimate conclusion and the goal you want to achieve; whatever the process requires to achieve that goal is not something Void Creatures should consider: process and tools are prepared for races under the Void.

The force more irresistible than "Let there be light" is that you yourself are light, are heat, are all things, are the result you need. I don’t know when I might reach this level, but at least now I have a direction to strive for.

Half a day’s sparring ended with me almost dying of exhaustion and Father God being mildly worn out—after all, the sole purpose of our "fight" was to exhaust my strength, so we deliberately chose the most demanding method. Practicing combat skills and offensive power was meaningless. I pummeled the dummy for half a day until I collapsed from exhaustion, solidifying in me a belief: whoever I fight in the future, I can’t fight Father God. His capacity to withstand blows is outrageously insane; I genuinely have no idea if exhausting myself to death four or five times would knock him down once.

As for the protection over Bingdisi’s soul... Well, truthfully, I’m clueless about how it was done. Just as mentioned earlier, Father God has surpassed the stage of relying on "skills," any of his actions are traceless, including the protection applied to Bingdisi’s soul. When I collapsed, he simply said, "The protection layer is done, let’s head back," and that was that.

"We still have some time now, we can visit the Book Tower to take a look," Father God glanced at the sky, extended an invitation to me, "Sovare should have completed the data indexing, Kuwayin, do you want to come along?"

"We won’t be coming!" Uncle Kuwayin responded at lightning speed, evidently the Book Tower left a considerable psychological shadow on him. Then he glanced at me for another reason, "Oh, isn’t Chen staying at our place tonight? I’ll go back with Aisali to prepare for our guest; you two feel free to have a chat..."

"Actually, I planned for him to stay with me..." Father God had just started saying, but Kuwayin was already running away, leaving only his voice in the spiritual connection saying to Bingdisi: "Sweetheart, you stay with Chen for now; your mom and I are heading back..."

Bingdisi: "Hmm, go on then."

"Is the Book Tower a scary place?" I blinked, incredulously asking Bingdisi through the spiritual connection.

"The Divine Realm’s first public library, some layers are test sites for major academies used as exam halls, my dad was a slacker back in the day."

"...It’s hard to tell, your dad’s high-order level, and you’re a straight-A student. I thought he’d at least be a divine-level exam taker."

"Nonsense, straight-A students are pressured by parents who were slackers themselves back in the day, haven’t you heard that?" Bingdisi grumbled, full of resentment, "My dad climbed up the ranks with his insane battle tactics, originally from the military, but now he’s settled down in high-level status."

Tailing Father God, I soon arrived in front of the famed "Book Tower," where the Star Domain Divine Race’s vast repository of data was located, while Bingdisi’s soulless shell followed along: I must watch over her to prevent her body from getting misplaced by me. Initially, I wanted Uncle Kuwayin to take her back, sparing me some concern, but he fled quite swiftly...

The Book Tower is situated in the center of the "Garden" city, entirely white, with elegant lines and subtle gold decorations, its outer wall slightly twists like flames in a spiral upward, exuding a mystic beauty. Around the tower, numerous golden runes drift around, and occasionally one can hear distant chimes that invigorate the spirit: it’s a beautiful structure, inviting admiration both for its creativity and form, though frankly, it was far smaller than I had anticipated: this tower is perhaps just three or four hundred meters tall, positioned in the busiest segment of the city surrounded by similarly sized buildings.

Is this the Divine Realm’s largest repository of data?

"This is just the entrance," Father God noticed my confusion, patiently explaining, "towers like this exist in the Divine Realm numbering over a thousand, wherever there’s a settlement there’s a tower, their internal space is shared, leading to a huge special region—the real Book Tower. Speaking of which, it’s one of my creations I’m most proud of; it resolved the issue of gods having long lifetimes, infinite knowledge yet lacking a unified way of storage."

Passing through the radiant teleportation gate in front of the Book Tower, I found myself standing in a grand hall almost boundless, just like Father God mentioned—the interior of the Book Tower leads to a special space, externally you wouldn’t guess its vast internal expanse.

White curved walls extend along both sides reaching the horizon of vision, here it’s almost impossible to see what the opposite end of the hall looks like. On the walls at intervals are fast-moving golden runes, filled with mystique; beneath my feet is a gray-white shimmering surface, polished like glazing, upon close observation, tiny specks of golden light can be seen roaming over this crystalline ground, and I found myself standing on a wide sky-blue stripe, following this stripe gazing far, I realized the ground bore a colossal pattern: its scale so massive that standing here renders its full picture invisible, likely only by flying to the hall’s ceiling could it be fully viewed. I gazed upwards toward high altitudes, finding the dome of the hall so far above, I almost perceived it as another sky; the slightly curved arched dome features a radial framework extending from the center to the periphery, those frameworks also displaying wandering runes, and within segmented fan-shaped zones between frames are exquisite reliefs.

The artistic standards accumulated over endless ages by the gods have made these reliefs exceptionally exquisite and elegant, depicting stories of gods or the customs and traditions of various Divine Realm continents. There are angels spreading their wings to fly, fierce dragons engaged in battle, picturesque landscapes of the Frozen Continent, and the inscription "Jiajia was here" sprawling across half of a dome.

Me: "..."

"This was left by Jiajia a long time ago," Father God glanced up, looking rather helpless, "The first time she wrote so beautifully, so I couldn’t bear to scrape it off..."

Naughty kids are everywhere, so a few more won’t make any difference, right?

In the hall, many Divine Race members can be seen busily flying back and forth, with people suddenly teleporting in or out at any moment. However, because this space is quite vast, and as I guess, there might be more than this one hall within the Book Tower, it still appears very empty. The bustling Divine Race members seem to highlight the emptiness of the area. I followed Father God towards a nearby column, with Bingdisi’s body silently following behind us. She sighed in the spiritual connection about the passage of time: "Oh, the nostalgia. Back in the day, it was in this hall that I received my graduation certificate, getting a certificate in the Hall of Knowledge of the Book Tower is not a privilege for ordinary students. I remember that scene vividly; all the teachers and assistants from the academy came, although they were usually quite annoying, at that moment, everyone was particularly happy... Hundreds of teachers stood in a row in front, and I presented flowers to each mentor from one end to the other according to the rules. Each time I presented flowers, I had to read the graduation declaration once. From early morning when the certificates were issued until it was dark at night before I got my graduation certificate into my hand..."

"That was their last chance in this lifetime to trouble such a good student as me, they really went all out," Bingdisi later added, "The teacher standing at the end of the queue kept a smiling expression for eleven hours."

Bingdisi’s story of outsmarting her hundreds of mentors thus came to an end.

Father God listened to Bingdisi’s ramblings with a cheerful smile, placing his hand on the white column in front of him, and the golden runes around him gathered more and more, refreshing at a rapid speed, probably the Divine Realm’s automatic query system. During Father God’s operations, a golden Holy Light suddenly appeared not far in front of everyone and quickly condensed into a tall, stern young man—it was Sovare. He bowed to Father God: "Master, you have arrived. The data has been roughly compiled, and some potentially useful items have been filtered."

"I see, it looks like a big project," Father God said gently, tapping lightly on the column, "After the initial selection, excluding worlds with mismatched ages and obvious characteristic discrepancies, the possible worlds are..."

As he finished speaking, large swathes of light screens instantly appeared around us, showing numerous dense charts and Divine Race texts. Among the charts, there can also be seen similar indications of numbers and arrows.

"So many." Father God gazed into the distance. The charts before our eyes were only a small part; more had already been arranged hundreds of meters away. To display so much content, even the surrounding space warped—this hall automatically expanded the area around the column Father God was using, so that the materials he was reviewing had enough space to be displayed.

"Each entry is a world," Sovare quietly said, this overwhelming workload seemingly had no effect on his calm demeanor, "The Ancient Spirit of the Book Tower is still compiling, and it’s estimated that once it’s done, the data will increase by one-third. Master, you need more manpower; this is the largest scale query we’ve ever conducted."

I never thought I would witness such a magnificent scene; the insane quantity, the appalling scale—the space of several hundred meters around was occupied by dense documents, and new materials kept refreshing. Father God touched the white column again, a radical transformation occurred around us; the dome above and the ground beneath vanished, replaced by points of starlight glittering like stars. I instinctively reached out, a nearby point rapidly approached and landed in my palm. Upon touching it, illusion-like images flooded into my mind.

It was an expansive and aged universe, with a deep backdrop, few stars, and dim nebulae. I seemed to stand in space within this ancient universe, watching stars rapidly evolve and vanish, occasionally glimpsing fleeting traces of civilizations. Space ships of native universe inhabitants swiftly streaked by before me, as I reached out to touch them, I realized they were merely scaled-down illusions.

"These are cosmic snapshots," Father God’s voice awakened me from the illusion, and I found myself back in the Book Tower’s Hall of Knowledge, gods moving in the distance, still facing the daunting sea of spreadsheets, "Every world entry has a snapshot folder recording each historically significant moment this universe has experienced since its birth, including the emergence of the first life, the first civilization to step out of the cradle, the first race to break out of the universe—if any exist, and of course, the last glimmer before a world’s doomsday. These snapshot files are critical in determining if they match the world depicted by the Xyrin Ancestors. But the snapshot documents are not comprehensive, with your submitted data being too vague, many universes have distinct similarities in basic rules and material lists, especially those positioned within the same quadrant. Just using snapshots, basically, each could match the data you’ve brought."

"As long as there’s a thirty percent match, it’s considered a high probability target," Sovare explained with a zombie-like face from beside, "It’s the best matching rate after considering mortal memory errors and world evolutionary errors."

"Damn..." I murmured, looking at the star-like points scattered above and below, now increased to an overwhelming number due to Father God’s constant arrangement of materials, these "stars" circulate quickly, practically like a fast-paced galaxy view, "What do you think the probability is of finding the hometown world from here..."

"As long as the data is accurate and the Xyrin hometown is indeed recorded in the data vault, it will eventually be found," Sovare replied frankly, "For you and me, time shouldn’t be a concern, but if the data isn’t accurate..."

"Then we can only list and dispatch teams to eliminate each suspected target one by one," Father God slowly said, "These worlds have all been logged out, their lifetimes far surpass any normal universe. If your hometown world still exists, it would only be near these listed universes, not within any of them. This creates significant trouble for the investigation, the probe teams are not looking for a single coordinate but a large area surrounding a vanished coordinate."

I thought it over, and figured this could instantly solve the employment problem for half the population in the Star Domain plus the Empire: if we had an unemployment issue.

"Isn’t there more accurate data?" Father God probably found this vague inquiry unreliable, so he looked at me expectantly.

"The ancient equipment for recording voyage logs is completely broken," I replied with a bitter smile, "Reviving the Ancestors was already a miracle, I wouldn’t dare hope to also restore the navigational systems they used back then. Now all these logs come from the memory-based accounts of the Ancestors, and I am aware of the gap between such data and authentic ship logs... Next time, I may bring more detailed data, but prepare yourself, it won’t be much more precise than now, at most... more detailed."

Father God elongated an ’oh’ sound, his voice still leisurely and unhurried: "That’s fine, as long as there’s data. As for now... let the Ancient Spirit of the Book Tower filter further, it should reduce the amount by half."

Then Father God turned to Sovare: "You’ll need to work hard, gather more help, and use all the Ancient Spirits of the Book Tower—regardless, they’ve been idle lately."

"There are enough Ancient Spirits, but manpower..." Sovare seemed a bit troubled.

"Isn’t it holiday time lately," Father God thought for a moment, "Notify all academies in the Divine Realm, add an extra holiday assignment: come to the Book Tower and assist in organizing the materials. Students can voluntarily participate, those participating get an additional ten points for final exams. Teachers can join in too, with active work eligible for an excellence evaluation."

Me: "..."

Is this popular in the Divine Realm too?!

"Perhaps we should take a look at the virtual storage area," Father God suddenly musingly suggested as I was full of complaints unsure where to start, "Something else came to mind... The timeline, this should be a crucial clue."

I looked at Father God in confusion, and he did not elaborate, merely opening a teleportation gate casually: "Come with me, let’s go to another layer of the Book Tower." (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to cast recommendation votes, monthly tickets—your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)