After receiving the maester's chain, Gu Ding tied it around his wrist.
The Citadel had tens of millions of books. All the publicly available and privately collected books in every other city across the continent combined amounted to less than half of what the Citadel possessed. This was also what attracted Gu Ding most to Oldtown.
Most of the Citadel's books were kept in the Citadel hall. It was also a place all maesters could freely enter and study in.
Gu Ding quickly found the section on mysticism and immersed himself in reading.
While Gu Ding was away, King's Landing faced an increasingly grim situation.
After the Vale of Arryn, the cities around the Trident River were slaughtered one after another by the army of the Others. Riverrun fell completely after holding out for twenty-one days. Then Pinkmaiden, Stone Hedge, and Golden Tooth were taken one after another.
In just one month, everything west of the Trident River had fallen.
What gave King's Landing a slight reprieve was that after taking the Trident Lands, the Others did not turn south toward King's Landing. Instead, they continued southwest, crossed the River Road, and headed for Casterly Rock.
Casterly Rock was the territory ruled by House Lannister.
The Others' assault on Casterly Rock left the Queen restless every day during this period. Her father was the lord of Casterly Rock. Although she had never had a good relationship with him growing up, he was still her father, and Casterly Rock was where she had been raised.
She brought up sending reinforcements to the king several times, but he rejected her each time with various excuses. She even went to Eddard, but Eddard remained neutral on the matter.
Although Casterly Rock, like the Eyrie, was easy to defend and difficult to attack, the