Chapter 11: The Fourth Floor - 11
After 10 hours, Zhou Fan had finished 30 bookshelves. Although he had only completed around 1 sixteenth of the books on the 3rd floor, he was starting to get tired.
Even though he could go 3 days without sleep, Zhou Fan had never read this much. In fact, he had never spent 10 straight hours doing anything before today.
Zhou Fan quickly made it to the inn where he didn't even bother to take off his shoes before hopping in bed.
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The next day, Zhou Fan ate breakfast before immediately heading to the library to study. It wasn't long before he was standing in front of the huge tower.
Wasting no time, he walked in. While heading to the third floor, Zhou Fans ears picked up an interesting piece of information.
His empire, also known as the boundless empire, was close to war with another empire , the truth empire.
Thanks to yesterdays studying, Zhou Fan had learned that 10 empires made up the worlds greatest powers.
Both the boundless empire and the truth empire were ranked in the top 10 empires. This was the reason the news was so big. Another reason this information was so important was that his kingdom, the wishan kingdom, was bordering the truth empire.
Thankfully, Lang Yang city was closer to the center of the wishan kingdom. However, due to the fact that the mayor used to be the kings advisor, it was also a prime target for the truth empire.
That was also something Zhou Fan had learned through yesterdays studies. The information he had read yesterday was mostly about the empire as a whole and the wishan kingdom. Later bookshelves consisted of other kingdoms information.
Although the war piqued Zhou fans' interest, he didn't care too much. The war was unlikely to even happen, much less reach Lang Yang city.
He continued his way to the third floor after stopping for a moment.
When he entered the 3rd floor this time, Zhou Fan noticed that there were much fewer people. The people who were there looked at him with slight fear. Yesterdays 'fight' seemed to have an impact on them.
Zhou Fan hardly spared them a glance before continuing where he left off yesterday.
After another 10 hours of reading, Zhou Fan still didn't feel tired. It wasn't until another 10 hours that he started to feel fatigued.
Putting up his book, Zhou Fan noted that he had finished 60 bookshelves. He was more than 1 fifth done!
Heading back to the inn, Zhou Fan paid 1 silver and 50 copper in order to stay at the inn for another 30 days. That should be more than enough time to get his first paycheck. If he got the job, of course.
Since Zhou Fan didn't feel too tired, he cultivated for 5 hours before going to bed. In fact, Zhou Fan had no concept of day or night recently. He stayed up until he was tired, then went to sleep before repeating.
This time, he fell asleep at noon.
After a 5 hour sleep, Zhou Fan once again headed to the library. He read for 30 hours before he felt tired and headed home.
Like this, 7 more days passed.
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Contrary to Zhou Fans estimate, it took him 9 days to finish the third floor. Although it took longer than he had estimated, Zhou Fans' reading speed would only become faster from here.
On the ninth day of studying, Zhou Fan broke through to the 8th level of foundation establishment. This meant that he could finish a bookshelf in 3 minutes!
At his current speed, Zhou Fan could finish an entire floor in less than a day if he didn't take breaks!
After finishing the 3rd floor, Zhou Fan learned an abundance of information. One has to remember that Zhou Fan wasn't just reading these books. He was memorizing them. Not only could he name every kingdom in the empire, he could name every noble and king. He could also name their children, relatives, and even their last 5 generations.
If the knowledge was deemed important enough to be saved, it was in the library. More specifically, it was on the third floor. Zhou Fan could also name every noble, nobles relative, and nobles ancestor in alphabetical order.
Interestingly enough, the first on that list would be the house of count Aaabel. It was weirdly spelled with three A's. Following closely behind was the house of count Aaaron. Also weirdly spelled with 3 A's.
Zhou Fan felt that even if he had a battle of knowledge with the last 5 imperial scholars combined, he wouldn't lose out. Only in the history of the boundless empire, however. Throughout the last 9 days, he, of course, was weirdly stared at while flipping through books. Even then, nobody was brave enough to tell him to stop.
Zhou Fan decided that his next floor would be floor 4. That floor contained the history of the entire world. Although the information was unlikely to be as detailed as the information on the boundless empire, it had a lot more information than the third floor overall.
When he arrived on the fourth floor, Zhou Fan instantly counted 1000 bookshelves. That was twice as much as the third floor! Even though the space was much less, it was still plenty.
Looking at the first bookshelf, Zhou Fan didn't waste any time before he started reading. It took less than three minutes to finish the first bookshelf before he headed on to the next.
All of a sudden, Zhou Fan bumped into someone. Due to Zhou Fan powerful body, the man was sent flying with a broken arm. Luckily, he didn't destroy any books. The fine and penalty for that was no joke. Although Zhou Fan was confident that even the entire kigdoms forces couldn't keep him imprisoned, he still didn't want to be labled a criminal.
When the man turned over, Zhou Fan recognized the familiar face. it was the man he had hit a week ago. Zhou Fan was about to apologize and help the man up when the man saw his face.
Getting up immediately, the man sped off as fast as he could. Zhou Fan simply shrugged before continuing to read.
Chapter 12: The 2nd Floor - 12
The 4th floor contained a lot more information than the 3rd floor. It took Zhou Fan 2 days to finish it even with his new reading speed. The most information was on the 10 biggest empires.
The boundless empire ranked 5th in the world. The truth empire was ranked 4th. However, even though the truth empire ranked higher, its overall combat strength was not much more than the boundless empire. In fact, except for the first-ranked empire, the top 10 empires were fairly equal.
The first-ranked empire, however, was on a different level. The first-ranked empire, also known as the empire of mortaniel, was twice as strong as the other empires. Even if the 2nd and 3rd ranked empires were to combine their strength, they would at best be on par with the empire of mortaniel.
Luckily for the entire world, the empire of mortaniel was a peaceful empire. Their main focus wasn't even battle! Instead, they focused more on knowledge in general. When going to war with the mortaniel empire, the most fearsome thing wasn't the amount of soldiers, but their strategies and weapons.
Each kingdom in the mortaniel empire was said to have a library the size of the Lang Yang city library. They alone ushered in a new era of literature and science.
Now that Zhou Fan was done with the 3rd and 4th floor, he went to the inn and went to sleep.
When he woke up again he did not take an off day. Instead, he headed straight to the 2nd floor of the library. After asking around yesterday, he knew that the 2nd floor contained knowledge of literature and science while the 5th floor contained the research of science. As for the ground floor, it contained biographies and life experiences of many of the world's most influential people.
When he arrived at the 2nd floor, he counted 450 bookshelves. This time, the floor was split into two sides, or categories. Fiction and non-fiction. They equally took up half of the available space on the floor.
Another thing worth noticing was the round table in the middle of the floor. There were a couple people there, arguing about who knows what. They were whispering and Zhou Fan didn't understand half of the words they were using.
Soon, Zhou Fan tuned them out and headed to the non-fiction section. After all, he was here to study for a job. It took 15 hours to read the non-fiction section due to the fact that the books were much larger than before. Of course, throughout this time many people cast weird stares at him. After about 5 minutes, most people just tuned him out and went on with their reading.
After finishing the non-fiction side, Zhou Fan headed over to the fiction side. It only took 10 hours to finish that side. Zhou Fan was actually looking forward to the fiction side. He was hoping that it contained some theoretical information on Qi. Alas, not to mention Qi, there wasn't even mention of a magical energy in the world. Most of the fiction side was fantasies of taking over the world or a kingdom.
Even more involved marrying a pretty girl. At some point, it was hard for Zhou Fan to continue reading them. They were mostly about the same two ideas. Zhou Fan had no more interest in another round of reading those fantasy books.
While walking out of the library, Zhou Fan noticed that there were much more people at the round table than before. In fact, out of the 150 seats, only 8 were unoccupied.
Now that Zhou Fan had read every book on this floor, he was able to understand what they were saying.
"It is clear to any intelligent person that wuksen was arguing for peace through war. It would have only caused more harm in the end."
"Nonsense! He was arguing that killing the few would have saved the many. If not for those assassins, he would have brought world peace."
After listening for a while, Zhou Fan recognized what they were arguing about. In the non-fiction section of the library, there was an entire bookshelf dedicated to one man. Agregot wuksen. Perhaps the most influential writer in the world's history.
He was alive in the biggest war throughout the world's history, the war for peace. Although it sounds honorable, there was no clear good guy or bad guy. Although they both agreed on war for peace, many disagreed with the idea. Agregot wuksen was the biggest spokesperson for ending the war.
He was so influential that the war was almost ended by him alone. However, once he came to power, he immediately sent out an army of a million. Neither of the alliances were expecting the man who was the biggest advocate for peace to send an army.
Therefore, the two biggest empires at the time, the rising sun empire and the falling moon empire, were destroyed. If it wasn't for the assassins, who knows what would have happened.
In his last book, Agregot wuksen wrote, " I ended the war in one fell swoop. That one action will bring peace to all who live."
Many, however, viewed wuksen as a hypocrite and were close to banding together in order to kill him before the assassins ended his life.
Zhou Fan actually agreed with wuksens actions. Every year that the war raged on, millions died. It was estimated that half of the world population was culled during the war. If it wasn't for wuksens attack, perhaps millions more would have died.
Many others believe that even if he didn't attack, the war would have stopped with his words.
It was after that war that the empire of mortaniel took over. Some say that his inspiration formed the empire itself.
Walking past the arguing group, Zhou Fan had no more interest in their discussion. Unless time rewinded, no one will know what could have happened. All the knowledge and opinions were purely theoretical.
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200+ Power
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121 Power
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