Behind the Ruins

Every cylindrical building in the Library was like this: the first floor held the most, with less on the Second Layer and still less on the third. Green finished recording everything in just five hours.

The Chip had been working nonstop, rapidly translating the contents of the books. It really did find some information among them.

The Library's books contained records of the organization that had once occupied these ruins. They seemed to include something like a handbook for new students, of which the Library kept a copy.

Green had the Chip devote all its efforts to translating that book, and at last he learned a few things.

The organization was called Soul Academy. It sought eternal souls and believed that, to achieve an eternal soul, one had to gather other souls and make up for the flaws in one's own.

Of course, "gather" really meant absorbing other people's souls and using their Soul Strength to strengthen one's own.

Generally speaking, recklessly fusing with another person's soul could easily contaminate one's essence, leaving one forever unable to advance.

But Soul Academy had blazed its own trail. Its members discovered that if they tortured a person until their soul collapsed on its own and their Mental Power dissipated, they could extract what remained. They called it Soul Origin. Not only did Soul Origin leave a soul uncontaminated, it even spurred its growth without any side effects.

The organization's structure was basically no different from a modern Academy's. The only difference was that it was less complete: many of its rules lacked detailed provisions.

Judging by the book, Soul Academy's philosophy resembled that of the Black Wizards. Competition among its apprentices was exceptionally brutal, and deaths were persistently high. Soul Academy did not forbid its students from killing one another. As long