[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies":3,"chapter-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-332":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Notes on Kraft Anomalous Studies",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2283810,4467,"Chapter 332","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-332",332,"\u003Cp>“Honestly, I think it’s not entirely out of the question to use more extreme but more convenient methods to solve the problem.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After two days of rummaging through the humus layer formed by books, Kraft successfully proved that the Wood family’s genes contained not a single trace of archaeological or historical talent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was actually understandable: Old Wood and Professor Anderson had spent most of their lives studying anomatology and still hadn’t collected a single relic tainted by supernatural forces. Facts speak louder than words—this alone spoke volumes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It had nothing to do with memory or learning ability; a medical school professor could precisely clamp a retracting, spasming arterial stump amid bloody mess, yet that didn’t mean he could extract useful information from a pile of paper pulp fit only for recycling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Brother Raymond, Kup, and Yvon were successively summoned to assist in this massive project, helping to clear a corner of the sea of books.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Their practical utility was limited. All salvageable texts were severely fragmented—missing beginnings, missing endings, or simply half-destroyed. The rest were in a paradoxical state: unopened, their full content remained hidden; opened, the paper surface would be instantly ruined.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Someone who loved difficult jigsaw puzzles might enjoy them, but everyone here carried some degree of trauma-related stress from decryption.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The earlier hypothesis was correct: the main components came from the monastery’s library, notable for their vast and comprehensive scope. Besides the dominant religious scholarly texts, they included regional hydrological and geographical records, agricultural guides, and other practical manuals.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft even found a book on herbal medicine—not a general textbook, but one detailing how to treat common and widespread illnesses using locally unique resources.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was likely an early pioneer monk’s practical guide, unorthodox and highly personal, revealing ingredients never mentioned in standard pharmacopeias. Unfortunately, it was too badly damaged to be useful—only worthy of preservation as an antiquity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Keep this one for me.” After eliminating suspicion, he might send it back to Dunling for Dr. Dai Wei—he’d surely find it interesting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The remaining few books may have been personal possessions, yet they were uniformly gathered together for reasons unknown.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These books rarely had titles marked on their covers, and their contents were wildly varied—anything could be found: personal notes, diaries, ledgers, hobbies—items lacking literary value or practical utility, and thus lacking identifiable features.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They offered a glimpse into monastic life: under strict, conservative rules, nearly everyone lived a repressed, regimented existence, like some endless closed-school system.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even their hobbies were “proper” pursuits: calligraphy transcription, botanical medicine, sacred music, historical literature studies—all meticulously recorded in notebooks, making it hard to tell whether these were genuine passions or attempts to convince themselves they had any.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Over time, it was only natural for mental illnesses to emerge.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These records were already the only personal expressions left. Objectively speaking, they were indeed more interesting than those lengthy theological classics.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So Kraft unhesitatingly delegated the task of reviewing the massive volumes to professionals, and began reading through the filtered, niche texts himself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He’d initially hoped to find something specific, but as he read deeper, perhaps because he hadn’t read casual books in so long, he genuinely found a subtle pleasure in them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lower-ranking monks were often the ones who interacted most with locals; through their records, one could see how the Church gradually infiltrated the fragmented mountain regions and came to rule their spiritual territories, both visibly and invisibly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First came a few obscure missionaries. They did not reject the unfamiliar local culture or its unique belief systems; instead, they engaged normally, even participating actively, observing, understanding, and recording.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After flipping through just a few, he found evidence of several natural spirits and ancestor worship practices. The recorders tried to describe these entities through text or sketches; due to the mountainous terrain, natural totems were primarily wild beasts, especially birds capable of crossing high peaks and guiding to water sources.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Burial customs and ancestor worship were also closely tied to mountains, favoring high elevations with prolonged sunlight, evolving further into more direct imaginations: ascending mountains to reach heaven, entering the clouds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After understanding local customs and taboos, missionaries began adapting their teachings locally, emphasizing universal values: encouraging virtue, promising posthumous blessings, and gathering small groups willing to listen and accept.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once their scale reached a certain point, the Church groups, gradually gaining resources, built churches or monasteries—not primarily for communal prayer, but as bases for social services.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Missionaries provided residents with nearly free comfort-based medical care, essential basic education, shelter when needed, and small weekly distributions of food and clean water on Sundays.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With their already mature social service capabilities, the local primitive beliefs stood no chance in competition, and in theological debates, they suffered a devastating downgrade at the hands of educated monks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Within two generations, mainstream doctrine would fully localize and replace the old beliefs. For the few truly capable heretics who dared resist, the Church had no objection to showing them their own century-old methods of indoctrination.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Various superstitions scattered among small settlements gradually became textual specimens, quietly decaying nestled within these notes. Then studying these primitive beliefs became a discipline and a hobby.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even today, faint echoes of the past can still be found in local folk customs and the Church’s localized adaptations; monks were also happy to record relevant content collected during field excursions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In local legends, those who went up the mountains and never returned, with no bodies ever found, were often believed to have been carried off by some enormous flying creature—hence their complete disappearance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Repeatedly mentioned rumors like these formed the primary source of early worship: fear of the unknown in nature.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Inaccessible high peaks and unfathomable mists provided ample space for imagination, accumulating elements of fear—fangs, bat wings, talons, scales—each new rumor adding more.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some monks speculated this imagery might have evolved from classic monsters in traditional tales, at least serving as inspiration.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The enduring cult of mysticism ensured that peaks, mists, and monsters retained a special status in local hearts, which in turn influenced incoming lords and the Church: the former drew inspiration for their family crests, the latter relocated many churches and monasteries to high, perilous locations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Fascinating,” Brother Raymond was still sorting through mountains of religious texts, while Kraft had already finished reading over a dozen essays.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Forcing him to absorb historical and religious knowledge would make him resist, but presenting it as leisure reading was a different matter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With his memory, it was practically no different from memorization; the diverse texts accumulated like grains of sand, forming a half-faded, half-new sandbox that presented a concrete image of this land.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I have an idea—what if we add folklore studies as an elective?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“As long as you’re willing to hire someone—or write the textbook yourself—I have no objections,” Brother Raymond straightened up from the book pile waist-high, slightly worried about the future workload. “Why bring this up suddenly?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I don’t know if you’ve realized it, but the events in Dunling offered great insight: some things weren’t taken away by time—they never left at all. They’ve always been right beside us, just in other forms we’ve grown accustomed to.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Like certain unexplainable habits or tendencies, familiar stories—you don’t perceive them because they’ve become part of us.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Stop talking like that, Mr. Kraft—it’s giving me the creeps,” Kup said, laughing and shivering as he pulled his coat tighter, feeling something colder than early autumn drifting around him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He wasn’t sure if the monastery had problems, but Kraft had lately seemed off—time to find a chance for a private talk.\u003C\u002Fp>",1258,"2026-06-20T02:15:56.940Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","3febdafa5f245911af57b54d3f8cd360d321c0467b58f5b7e3804e9e7c13fa98","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-333","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-331",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]