Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

"You're welcome. You can read the books here at will, but you have to be a little gentle. Some of them are no younger than me."

The gray-haired old priest opened the window for the two visitors. The long-lost light from the outside entered the only locked room in this small church, illuminating the outline covered by the cloth.

The wooden floor creaked underfoot, and a few old grains of bran were scattered in the gaps.

"Sorry, the dust is a bit big. It has not been opened for a long time." The priest coughed a series of times and uncovered half of the cloth, revealing several layers of bookshelves full of volumes and small bags of broken lime.

"Since then, it has been difficult for young monks to stay here for a long time. When there are not enough people, these will become a big problem. After all, there are many people who do not understand the value of knowledge, but few people do not know the price of books."

He wiped the dust on the surface of the book with a corner of the cloth. The collection is obviously aging, but the condition is still good. The dry and cracked leather covers have hand-painted holy icons and emblems. Most of them are stitched instead of glued, and some are also pasted with decorative panels, which are suitable for long-term preservation.

For a small village church that is only maintained by an old priest, this collection is really too large, and even maintenance is a problem.

"Look, I'll go to the backyard to pick some peas first, and you can taste my cooking for dinner."

"Thank you for your generosity."

Dominic thanked this respectable predecessor, holding his nose and slowly lifting the remaining half of the cloth, revealing the entire bookshelf.

Things went more smoothly than expected. The two just randomly chose a village church that was close to the transportation line and convenient for transportation, but they didn't expect to encounter such a rich collection.

Even as a village near the transportation line between the monastery and the outside world, it didn't seem like there would be so many paper products left during the prosperous period. For small country churches, there are not a few that only have one holy book.

If they are not particularly lucky, it is because the local parish has such a special preference for this, so they will spend a lot of money and energy on collecting books, which is a huge investment and has limited missionary effect.

Of course, due to financial constraints, most of the books here are not purchased, and most of them are handwritten by themselves, so the format looks quite uniform.

Without Dominic's invitation, Field actively dived into the pile of old papers and started searching.

As for the stereotyped scriptures and liturgical books, the two of them glanced through them roughly and set their sights on the textual content of the monks' spare time narratives.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few of these contents. The Heavenly Father was helping them find supporting materials for the report. Just by screening the first layer of the bookshelf, they found several books that might meet the requirements.

Except for two books related to logic, philosophy, and literature, the rest were more or less related to the monks' life experiences in the local area.

Some of them could not even be completely regarded as books, but were just personal notes, with some experiences and memoranda about missionary and personal life.

There were limited records about astronomical phenomena, and most of them were related to agricultural activities. There were not many records specifically about thunderstorms.

But after a closer look, they found some other content that resonated with them, for example, they were not the only ones who noticed the special local basket weaving techniques.

In books with different handwritings, there were more or less one or two sentences about this, mentioning these unique creations and their widespread existence.

Field was not the only one who received gifts after providing help. Sometimes it was a woven hat, and sometimes it was a basket full of wild fruits. Some people have also speculated about the specific origin of the spiral pattern in local customs.

"So it's not just Priyal that has this kind of thing?"

"Indeed, and it's quite uniform." Field habitually wanted to lick his fingertips to turn the pages, but considering the age of the document in his hand, he forcibly restrained his conditioned reflex and used his fingernails to carefully pick up the next page.

The original owner of this booklet moved from another church far away and found that two semi-enclosed settlements that had no connection actually had quite similar and complex woven handicrafts.

As a person with strong curiosity and free time, he paid attention to this matter when he passed by nearby villages and towns several times.

The result is that most of the settlements in the parish, despite significant differences in accents and customs, have similar woven products.

The materials and uses are different, but the finished product appearance and details of the technique are extremely uniform, and can even be said to be exactly the same.

He described it as a "Tower of Babel."

Just like after the collapse of the tower that reached the sky, each fragmented settlement got a brick and a half tile. With the long-term separation, they gradually forgot its origin and meaning, but the extremely gorgeous brick and stone was still firmly embedded in the foundation of the new building and could not be removed.

After that, the record of this matter was lost, because in a place where the illiteracy rate is infinitely close to 100%, there is no information that can be traced back more than three generations.

Some families are not even natives three generations ago, but immigrants who moved with the lord. I don’t know where they learned it, but they just think it is really beautiful, so they keep it as a craft and a symbol of protection.

Personal ability limits curiosity, and the narrator soon gave up halfway, leaving two monks who did not see the follow-up scratching their heads.

Unfortunately, this is already the most complete record. Most monks, like local residents, have been trapped by mountains and ridges for most of their lives, and all their energy has been spent on the localization of doctrine.

Looking further up the bookshelf, I found that the books were much fewer and the materials were simple and cheap. They were obviously from an earlier era when the church was still in its infancy and there was not much free time.

"I think this is very interesting and can be used as a backup report content. After all, rare astronomical phenomena are rare, and local folk customs are everywhere, so it is much easier to write something new."

No mistakes in one poem, one post, one content, one 6, one 9, one book, one bar!

Field stood on tiptoe to reach the top shelf of the bookshelf. Dominic helped hold the ladder with one hand and read the notes of the curious predecessors with the other hand.

The cold light of the shadow rose and fell with the pages of the book being blown. The pattern drawn with simple strokes was quite vivid, and it captured the essence of the dynamic sense of the vortex.

Attention was attracted by it, and he put himself in the writer's shoes, imagining what kind of situation he was writing in and how he was thinking.

"Why use the 'Tower of Babel'?" The inspiration of debris fell, and he subconsciously looked up, only to see the dust raised by his companions moving the books, which was blown by the slight airflow connecting the indoor and outdoor, and rotated and floated.

"It's really quite vivid."

"I mean, does it look like a reference? The shapes of these hats, baskets, and other things are unlikely to be coincidental. They can only come from something larger and more unified."

The words stopped abruptly, and his thoughts paused. He couldn't come up with anything to describe the concept in his mind. It was a kind of large-scale unity of time and space, which visibly and invisibly enveloped the mountains.

Just by imagining, in the inexplicable panic, he gave birth to a trace of instinctive reverence for the grandeur.

That feeling came again, it swam across the tall bookshelf, leaving ripples like hallucinations.

"Don't stand there, help me catch it." Field bent down and handed a book that was about to fall apart to his eyes.

Book recommendation: "The Kingdom of Nations"

I suddenly found that Jiuyu has published a new book, and it is set in the background of the Crusades. I have to read it now.

Speaking of which, "The Saint" is one of my favorite Western fantasy novels. Even the inspiration for the fusion of two consciousnesses in this book is partly derived from the two souls bound together in "The Saint".