Chapter 328: The White-Haired Scholar Cannot Be Seen

Kraft had always thought that throwing money into water was an exaggerated metaphor, but now he was a bit unsure. The books here, if exchanged for silver coins, would be enough to train everyone into experts at skipping stones.

His timely intervention spared the rest from further damaging the items on the ground. Those information carriers made of leather and plant fibers had warped and shrunk due to repeated cycles of dampness and drying.

Poor preservation conditions had already rendered the vast majority of them beyond repair, melting into mud-like masses. Insects crawled in this natural hiding place, unknowingly gnawing at the dissolved, distorted words.

They looked like remnants of a hasty evacuation; some unforeseen accident had forced the original owner to abandon this huge spiritual and material wealth here.

However, a closer look would reveal that this seemingly reasonable guess still had unexplainable aspects.

The books were not piled randomly; they had been deliberately spread out and laid one by one in the center of the church, like straw flattened on winter ridges waiting to rot, occupying a large area of the floor, leaving only a few narrow walkways, as if someone needed to walk back and forth frequently to check the book contents.

Even the long rows of chairs used for prayer gatherings had been moved aside and placed against the walls, with seats piled high with stacks of books.

"What is this for?"

Everyone was puzzled by the same question. The scene before them was clearly something no individual could accomplish, and the Dean of the Yuande Sect did not have the authority to arbitrarily mobilize such a number of books from the collection. Usually, they were only taken out of the warehouse in batches to dry and maintain during the brief dry season each year.

Unless the vast majority of upper and middle-level managers reached a consensus and executed with firm will, emptying the library would be impossible.

Moreover, drying books indoors with insufficient light was obviously unreasonable; this looked more like they were...

【Looking up information?】

Lei Mengde had seen monks in the library of the Cathedral of the Holy Mother who studied day and night, gathered around wooden tables large enough to lie down several people on, with books spread across the tabletops, their eyes scanning for specific content like egrets searching for live fish beneath the water's surface, to verify trivial details whose meaning was completely incomprehensible to ordinary people.

As an external agent under Green, he rarely had the chance to interact with those people; his last impression remained from his student days, when an extremely difficult-to-understand old scholar had blocked half of the students' degree progress.

They could always pick out particularly tricky, ambiguous details from the dark corners and nooks of these books to study, then cite various sources to find supporting arguments and treat them as gospel.

Of course, the instructor for that course was replaced the following year.

Every place of some scale had such people, responsible for managing book collections and providing evidence for debates.

As the monastery that had once received the greatest investment in this region, its academic talents, even if not reaching the level of Dunling, would not be much worse, and might even come from the School of Theology at Dunling University.

Lei Mengde once felt they could recite the specific volume and section where every sentence appeared in the books; as long as a small group of such people was gathered, nothing could not be found.

While most people were still immersed in marveling at the wealth represented by the books, he quickly approached Kraft to examine the remaining cover held in those leather-protected hands.

Thanks to the widespread practice of excessive decoration, to facilitate the carving and inlay craftsmanship, the cover material was quite thick, and its preservation condition was far better than the contents.

The pattern pigments had mostly peeled off and changed color, but the filled gold and silver foil still outlined the embossing and the large title letters; the wing-shaped metal fasteners and corner protectors indicated it belonged to an internal work of the Church, not a personal work casually picked up from somewhere.

While the professor was still struggling to read the incomplete text, Lei Mengde had already identified its identity.

"It should be a 'Collection of Admonitions'."

"What?" A blank look, having only heard of the Holy Canon, turned toward him.

Brother Lei Mengde barely restrained the urge to impart basic knowledge: "You can think of it as annotations to the Holy Canon, compiled from the sermons of authoritative figures. It is more obscure and profound than what is taught to ordinary believers, primarily containing interpretations of doctrine and exegesis of specific scriptures, used for our internal worship and study."

"I understand, it's teaching aid material." The professor nodded with sudden realization; this was too familiar to him.

Lei Mengde did not feel at all that the other party had listened, but he had lost the desire to argue. He took a pair of gloves and carefully began handling other books on the floor.

These books were already stuck to the floor tiles; one needed to slowly peel off the adhered areas and gently "scrape" them up, otherwise a large piece would tear off, seriously damaging the surface.

"Hmm, 'Psalms', a very common collection of hymns. I memorized a few passages from it; even the first one is the same as mine, used in rituals."

"Recitation is no longer required now," added a knight who had just graduated from the academy, "after all, it's a minor elective."

Lei Mengde shook his head, sighing at the poor self-learning ability of the younger generation; the value of degrees was truly declining year by year.

"'Lives of the Saints', you must have seen this. Back then we read it as a storybook, borrowing it to flip through every so often, especially the parts about the Prophet and King Pendra drawing their swords... Ah, never mind."

Putting this book and the memories aside, he briefly looked at a few books that were easier to pick up and fluently read out the titles.

"'Proof of Existence', 'Compendium Against Heretics', 'Treatise on Theology', 'Summa Theologica', 'Research on Charle's Doctrinal Reform', 'Studies in Scotus Theology'. The famous works here are quite complete; among the people I know, only Father Green has probably read them all."

And that was limited to having read them; when it came to nitpicking words, three of their mouths combined couldn't debate a professional.

But they were a group of professionals. Having set up such a large formation here, searching within their specialized fields, or even within church collections personally copied by themselves, it seemed they still hadn't found what they were looking for?

"I feel something is not quite right. Do you have any thoughts, Professor?"

As someone who had experienced certain special events, Lei Mengde felt he was becoming a bit hypersensitive.

"That possibility cannot be ruled out," Kraft answered obscurely. He asked Yvonne for confirmation again and received the same negative answer. The girl acted quite lively, but it seemed only the local climate made her feel especially comfortable. She walked around observing, twirling the mason's hammer in her hand, until the original owner timidly asked for it back.

"But I really... didn't feel anything special." Kraft truly felt his rhinitis was activated; not only was he itchy from the dust, but he always felt there was a smell he should be able to detect but couldn't.

It was like seeing a pile of unorganized tableware and an open-door refrigerator in the kitchen of a newly occupied second-hand house; instinctively feeling something rotting in the dark, with a phantom smell lingering on the tip of the nose, only to vanish upon careful scrutiny.

"Damn it, the hardest thing to find is what you can't find." Especially not only can't find it, but don't even know if it exists; it could drive an obsessive-compulsive person crazy.

After a slight hesitation, Kraft issued orders to the team: "Clear the courtyard. We'll camp outside tonight. This place has been empty for too long; who knows if there are any safety hazards? I don't want a chandelier to fall on my head in the middle of the night."

"Don't touch these books for now. Tomorrow morning, we'll clear the entire monastery first, and sort them out slowly later." This pile of books, which would even give archaeologists trouble, showed no signs of danger for the time being; the immediate priority was to inspect the entire building.

"Stay safe, avoid acting alone. Even in groups, report to Brother Lei Mengde. You can ask Kup to accompany you. Keep the fire burning brightly before sunrise tomorrow; I'll keep watch with you."

"Now, let's clean up our new home."