Age of Adepts

The Castle in the Sky, the Diviner’s Tower.

Even within the Silver Union, the Diviner’s Tower was an exceptionally mysterious and classified place.

Outsiders hardly knew of this place, and the only ones that could enter the tower were unique individuals in silver robes, often seen holding thick tomes in their hands as they walked around. These adepts were individuals with the unique profession of Archivist.

The Diviner’s Tower was an important location from where the archivists could observe the world’s movements and record its secrets.

A strange old man dressed in white robes with a pair of tortoise-shell glasses stood on a stone balcony extending out of the Diviner Tower’s seventh floor. He was silently assessing the Castle in the Sky as the bright sun shone down upon it.

After a long time, he finally retracted his gaze and turned back into the tower.

This place was a magical room filled with the aura of knowledge. There was barely any furniture around. Instead, there were only all sorts of books and tomes. All of the books were stacked atop each other, such that the massive piles reached the ceiling a dozen meters above the ground. The books were messily arranged. The only reason the pile had not simply collapsed was the sheer weight and number of the books there.

If one took a look around the room, the only thing they would see, apart from books, would only be more books. There was a small desk, about half a meter tall, at the center of the room. Many scrolls, tomes, notes, and books lay on the desk; some sprawled open, others remained shut, and some were crushed beneath the other documents.

There were several stacks of books along the path where the old man walked towards the desk. Anyone who walked through here would have to be very careful not to cause all the books to collapse instantly.

Given the old man’s frail Physique, he would not be able to survive such a disaster.

Moreover, most of these tomes glowed with magical light and were protected by defensive arrays. If they all collapsed onto the ground in a massive fall, triggering their magic, a calamity would erupt in this room.

A young child with tender features sat at the desk, cross-legged. He had a strange quill in his hand, seemingly scribbling something on a scroll.

The child lifted his head when the old man returned from his break. The light of curiosity gleamed in his shiny eyes.

“Teacher, did you see something again?”

It was no wonder that the child would ask such a question.

The old man’s habit was to take a look at the Castle in the Sky’s scenery from the balcony once every evening. Typically, this break wouldn’t take more than half an hour and was his only leisure activity.

Most of the time, the old man bunkered down in this sea of books, writing and scratching, continually recording the important events happening across the world.

Indeed, this was the strange ability of archivists.

Archivists were witnesses to history. They were the recorders of history. They could see all sorts of mysterious and unknown happenings occurring all over the plane, no matter how far away. These events could be minor or major. Without exception, all of them would profoundly affect the future of the world.

Archivists did not require powerful and mighty magic. The only thing they needed was a firm and devoted conviction towards Fate. If the World of Adepts was a world that belonged to the adepts, then the archivists were the spiritualists among the adepts. However, the archivists did not believe in or worship any god or higher being. Instead, they revered the River of Fate that ran behind the scenes, like an impossibly complicated yet incomparably accurate machine that held the strings to everything.

They were servants to the Fate powers and devoted believers of Fate.

They never intervened in the flow of Fate. They simply watched with their eyes as lowly servants and recorded every event that would affect the future of the World of Adepts with their pens.

When and where they appeared, it would often mean a critical event that would drastically affect the world’s future was about to occur.

They would use their pen and paper to record the birth of a genius adept, record their trajectory of growth, as well as their instant of glory. They archived these detailed records in a secret room within the Diviner’s Tower.

Even the senate heads of the Silver Union had no authority to read these scrolls and documents. The archivists were the only ones allowed to access them.

The Diviner’s Tower was like a mysterious organization that remained completely isolated from the outside world. They did not rely on anyone, and they did not harm anyone. They only observed in silence from a height that no ordinary adept could imagine, monitoring every crucial thing that happened within the plane.

What gave the archivists such authority was the Omniscient Eye placed above the top of the tower.

The Omniscient Eye amplified every archivist’s powers while they were in the Diviners’ Tower. Apart from a few areas within the World of Adepts that were affected by unusual powers, everything in the plane was like an open book to them. They could cast their gaze towards any location at any time.

In the eyes of the archivists, there were no secrets in this world!

However, at this moment, this inconspicuous old man who held the ultimate authority of the Diviner’s Tower and the one hundred archivists within seemed exceptionally excited. He waved his arms around uncontrollably upon walking into the room.

“Fate is flowing. Fate is flowing…the River of Fate is warning me again. A revolution that will change the future of the World of Adepts forever is happening in the Central Lands right now. Hurry…hurry! Inform Indal immediately. I want all of his Eagles to move out now and record everything happening there.”

It was the first time the young archivist had seen his teacher so excited, so much so that he seemed almost insane. The young child hastily brushed away the scroll he was writing on and took out a crystal from between the books. He placed the crystal on the desk, rubbed it slowly, and whispered into it.

A short moment later, lights flickered in the room as the image of a middle-aged man with firm facial features appeared. The man wore an emblem with a scroll and quill on his robe. The strange tattoo of an eye was also drawn on his forehead.

That was the symbol of the Omniscient Eye!

“Tower Master, what has happened? Why did you summon me in such a hurry?” The man bowed respectfully to the old man, somewhat confused.

“Indal, send out all members of your Eagle Squad and hurry to the Central Lands! There, in a place known as Ironwood City, something important is currently happening. I ask that you observe from a close distance and accurately record everything that happens there.”

“All members of Eagle?” The man lifted his head in surprise, but quickly nodded and said, “Understood, my lord. I will give the order immediately! I will also be going there in person to oversee everything personally. I won’t let you down.”

“As long as you understand! Remember, the main Fateline is always hidden and concealed under countless events and happenings. Your task is to peel away everything and find the true Fateline. Then, observe carefully and record how Fate affects the future through each individual involved and each event that occurs. Most importantly, you must find out the individuals that are pushing the Fateline forward. They are the core of Fate that we must observe and understand!”

“Understood!”

As Indal acknowledged his orders, his image slowly faded away.

Five minutes later, several strange individuals dressed in silver robes with scrolls and quills in hand walked out of their rooms all over the tower. They walked to their balconies and transformed into handsome and majestic eagles. They cried out loud and dashed into the air.

Eleven massive eagles circled above the Diviner’s Tower before turning under their captain’s lead and flying towards the Central Lands.

The young archivist apprentice crouching on the banister had no choice but to turn his envious gaze away and back to his teacher.

“Teacher, I—”

“Don’t even think about it! You’re still young. You have not experienced the real world and have no idea of the evil hearts of people. You will suffer greatly if you go on an expedition now.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem if I go with Uncle Indal, will it?”

“Hmph! They have a mission on hand right now. They can’t be distracted by taking care of you. Also, how many of the scrolls on the Central Lands have you read?”

The apprentice felt his head swell when the old man mentioned those records.

“Teacher, there are over three hundred rooms full of records on the Central Lands’ history alone. I…I’m only on Year 31,428.”

“So you’ve only understood the most recent 1,500 years of the Central Lands. That’s 31,000 years more to go! I won’t let you go out until you’ve finished reading the complete history of the continent and become an actual archivist.”

The young child’s face twitched when he heard the old man’s reply. He had been studying diligently without rest for two years, and he barely managed to grasp the changes and development of the Centra Lands in the past thousand years.

If he had to master the history that reached over thirty thousand years ago, along with the development of the three major organizations, he would go insane just at the thought of all the reading he had to do.

“Sonke, these are the basics of an archivist. You won’t be able to hold that quill firmly if you don’t wear away the instinctual impatience and sloth of humans upon the vast sea of books. Every scholar that walks out of the Diviner’s Tower as a representative of the Omniscient Eye is a reliable companion. You, on the other hand…have a long way to go!”

“Then…teacher, if an apprentice can’t bear this boring and tedious lifestyle any longer and wants to give up halfway through, what would happen to them?” Sonke’s eyes started gleaming.

“Haha! What kind of place do you think the Diviner’s Tower is? No one can take away any secrets of the world from here. If you can’t become an archivist, then the moment you give up, everything you committed to memory will vanish without a trace.”

Having said that, the old man looked towards the distant horizon out of his window. “No one can take away the secrets here! They belong only to this tower.”

The young Sonke wiped away the cold sweat from his forehead and composed himself. He bowed to the old man and returned to the desk, committing himself fully to his studying and recording again.

A strange eyeball glowing with a golden sheen watched the distance tirelessly atop the tower.

Where its gaze landed, the mists of Fate dissipated, and an image would appear, revealing the truths of the world.