Castle of Black Iron
Page 222Chapter 222: The Value of Knowledge
Translator: WQL Editor: DarkGem
Most of publications before the catastrophe were easy to be identified. The printing skills of people before the catastrophe could not be surpassed by people of today at all. Many books in that age contained delicate images or photos, at the sight of which, people would know which age those particular books belonged to. What concerned that roughly printed book "Mental Arithmetic by Abacus" that Zhang Tie had bought from a roadside booth in the railway station which only had a few pages with no pictures except for an abacus on its cover, Zhang Tie was definitely very lucky to own it.
Consumers who were able to read on the fourth floor were matched with a personal reading room, like a chartered room. When one read on the fourth floor, one should wear a pair of white gloves. In each reading room, there was a serviceman who just watched from the side in case you tried to copy or damage one of these books as valuable as cultural relics. Of course, you could also ask the serviceman to bring you books that you wanted to read.
As a "high-end customer" who paid two gold coins in the library at once, Zhang Tie was also provided with two sumptuous meals, a lunch and a supper. If he was tired, he could also take a rest in the reading room. You could even take a nap on the sofa. The serviceman would also prepare a woolen blanket for you.
However, nobody would feel like sleeping here at the cost of two gold coins which would leave only several hours to read. At least, Zhang Tie would feel great regret if he did that. With the exception of eating lunch and going to the toilet, he was immersed in reading for the entire day. He grit his teeth, wanting to make the two gold coins cost-efficient.
With sharper spiritual energy, Zhang Tie found that he could read much faster than before. Additionally, his memory had also become very terrifying. He skimmed through the pages. He could read ten lines with only one glance, and it would take him only a bit more than ten seconds to finish reading a page.
Even with such an amazing speed, Zhang Tie found that he could still clearly remember all the content on the pages. This time he found found another usage for his sharp spiritual energy besides remembering the sizes of the girls of the Rose Association.
The fact was that Zhang Tie's two gold coins were very cost-efficient. In over ten hours, he gained a lot of knowledge and information from the books.
From the book "Gods' Codes" written by a geneticist before the catastrophe, Zhang Tie learned what human DNA was and the differences between human DNA and other living beings' DNAs. Additionally, he came to understand that millions of his gene fragments were not activated yet, which accounted for above 98% of his total gene fragments. During the very long period before the catastrophe, as no discovery was made on these gene fragments, they were taken as useless "waste genes". However, the author of "Gods' Codes" firmly believed that the creator would not just put so many "wastes" into human body for no reason.
As a geneticist, after dozens of years' research, the author found that the alleged "waste genes" in human body were not useless; instead, as their coded structures were too weird, they were not activated yet. After many years' research, the author also discovered that among the gene fragments that were not activated yet, there seemed to be weird codes that enabled people to survive in more special and extreme environments...
In the end of the book, the author of "Gods' Codes" also posed a puzzling presumption and prediction that if all the gene fragments in human body were activated, humans' DNA structure would totally change from double-spiral structure to 12-spiral structure. Maybe the alleged God's DNA was in a 12-spiral structure.
After reading this book, Zhang Tie recalled a human body's description that he had read in the Castle of Black Iron last night—"your body contains everything like the God's". Zhang Tie felt like he understood something now. Although the 12-spiral DNA was just a brave presumption of the author of the book "Gods' Codes", its entirety instantly broadened his vision and horizons. He saw something very exciting from the book.
By this point already, Zhang Tie felt that the two gold coins had been valuable.
In the book "Oriental Occultism Phenomena", Zhang Tie had some more surprising discoveries. The author of this book mentioned that in the east, since the ancient times, monks and masters from mysterious schools had been guiding their believers to set free various animals to cure their diseases and health problems. Many tricky diseases that puzzled doctors in hospitals could see amazing treatment effects after the patients set free live animals. The author of the book also recorded how he accompanied a businessman who had a long-term eye disease to visit a master to cure that person's eyes. The occultism master told the patient that if he wanted to cure his eye disease, he only needed to set free crabs.
After hearing the master's enlightenment, that person truly went to the crab sales center, tasked this by the mast, to buy some crabs and then set them free in the sea. He insisted on doing that twice a week. Each time he would buy several bamboo baskets of crabs. Several months later, the miracle happened. His eyes were cured without even taking any medicine.
That person then went to the temple to extend his thanks to that master and asked him about the karma. The master told that person that as those crabs on the market were supposed to be cooked by people, before they were killed, all of them would become blind first. Since the man had saved those crabs and gave them a new life and sight, as payment, they gave him their sight too.
The author of this book was a scholar in the western continent. He attributed this phenomenon to intricate oriental occultism. However, Zhang Tie knew this was not occultism at all; it was true karma. All the crabs's appreciation to that person for saving their lives converged into spiritual energy which could help that person recover his health.
The spiritual energy could not be seen by naked eye. However, water could sense it. The author of "Water Knows the Answer" was a scientist before the catastrophe. Through studying water, he found that the awareness energy of human and all other living beings could be projected onto places outside their bodies. This energy projected onto places outside their bodies then could influence the surrounding environment on macro substance level.
When this energy was projected into a cup of water, it could make water form various crystals. The more love and positive emotions were included in the energy, the more regular and beautiful the water crystals would be. The more hatred, fear, and greed were included in the energy, the more disordered and ugly the water crystals would be.
When he read this, Zhang Tie was suddenly enlightened. He understood the source of the Fruit of Redemption. Each Fruit of Redemption came from condensed positive awareness energy of some organisms projected onto Zhang Tie because of their appreciation for his act of saving them.
As Zhang Tie had that marvelous small tree, it could gather all the positive energy and present it in the form of the Fruit of Redemption. Since others had no such marvelous small trees, although the same energy worked on them and could also bring great benefits to them, they could not see it nor know the method of extracting and converting this energy into a precious item.
When he read this, Zhang Tie felt that the two gold coins were very valuable. He recalled the "story of an ugly stone" told by Donder—the same thing had different values for different people.
The alleged cultivation could be carried out in a more special pattern.
Zhang Tie was filled with pleasure.
In the book "Initial Exploration of Human Beings' Special Professions in Black Iron Age", Zhang Tie saw the introduction to that mysterious profession of rune master for the first time. In that age, due to studies and the development of mysterious runes, some mysterious and powerful professions had come into being, among which, rune master was the top one.
What concerned rune origin and their principles, the author didn't know them either. He only knew that the application of runes was related to people's spiritual energy, which might be one of the top secrets in the world. From the time when the runes appeared, they could be categorized into two kinds.
Before the catastrophe, there were many mysterious knowledges about various runes in various religions and mysterious groups in all the ancient civilized countries headed by China in the eastern continent. After the catastrophe, people discovered some runes in the earth core world and some prehistoric civilized ruins.
After one-thousand years' integration, the two rune systems formed the universal runes usage pattern in the world today.
In this book, the author only gave a brief introduction to various knowledges and mysterious professions dealing with runes. From it, Zhang Tie could see that the author didn't know much about the runes. After reading this book, besides confirming that his binding skill was a rare kind of rune skill, Zhang Tie got nothing new.
Since he read the books very fast, after finishing the previous books, he had a lot of time left. He then hurriedly read some more. As the books on the fourth floor were all relatively expensive, Zhang Tie chose to read the publications off before the catastrophe here first.
That's how he ended up reading two books on the Internet, which was a miracle before the catastrophe.
Zhang Tie was really puzzled by that marvelous Internet world. There, what Zhang Tie did in this private library was really inconceivable. With that Internet, anybody could do a lot of things: obtain mountains of information, interact with other people, make friends, write letters, talk with others, entertain themselves, make money, hold conferences, find wives, pilfer, monitor and follow-up that news, etc.. That Internet could even manipulate various machines and weapons to launch wars.
That world was really too unimaginable for modern people.
In a book "Animals Galaxy", when Zhang Tie saw the introduction about some earth worms on a colorful photo, he was shocked as if struck by a lightning bolt. His body started to quiver all over. The paragraph of words and the photo finally cleared up his inspiration that had flashed across his mind last night like a light that broke the darkness.
Earth worms, as trivial annelids, had strong vitality. They could grow new parts no matter how severe their injuries were, even if they were slashed into several fragments. Because of this strong vitality property, small earth worms became one of the most powerful organisms in this galaxy.
Compared to the earth worm's super strong recovery ability, Zhang Tie's wounds were trivial.
Zhang Tie finally caught that inspiration that had flashed across his mind...
...
He ate his supper in the library too. Not until the place was going to be closed did Zhang Tie leave this private library. After that, he stopped a horse taxi and told the cart driver to drive him to a neighboring cheap adults' clothing shop. After buying several sets of average clothes for changing, Zhang Tie returned to his rental estate.
When he came back, Zhang Tie took out his pocket watch to check the time. It was already later than 10 pm. . Mr and Mrs Green on the first floor and the young couple on the second floor had long fallen asleep. With common fluorite lamps hanging above the passageway, it was neither too dark nor too bright.
In order not to wake them up with his footsteps, Zhang Tie stealthily moved upstairs with many bags of clothes, big and small. The room on the third floor was also dark, but Zhang Tie didn't pay much attention to it. However, when he came to the fourth floor, he saw a person pulling his door handle, trying to use the key in her hand to insert in to the lock, yet continuing to fail.