Darius Supreme

Darius stood before the Great Library with a look of reverence. It was the first time he had displayed anything but a casual expression at any form of architecture since coming to Faust.

Everything he had seen so far had already been displayed in movies, games, and various media. Back on Earth, Darius had even toured ancient sites with his family after his retirement, so seeing ancient greek architecture or medieval housing was unable to move him.

However, this library was built in a way he'd never expected!

It was similar in design to New York's Empire State Building, utterly out of place among these other Greco-roman buildings.

However, it blended its own Greco-roman construction style in terms of the outer design of the building not being some sort of endless sea of glass windows - like modern skyscrapers - but rather some form of uniform stone material that was a sandy color with no openings anywhere.

Much like Gravitas' robots, it had various lines that ran through it in an orderly and profound manner, all of them glowing in a green light.

It was quite a unique sight, reminding Darius of some ancient Mayan depictions.

There was a large crowd before the building, but fortunately there were also multiple entrances, each one with a long queue. Nevertheless, the lines moved quickly as people were either promptly eliminated or admitted.

Darius joined a random short queue and waited patiently. It only took about 30 minutes to reach his turn, when he saw a short pedestal placed before those first in line.

The pedestal was eerily similar to a typical digital information kiosk commonly found in lobbies and malls back on Earth, surprising Darius. It was clear that the God of Knowledge had many of his design choices influenced by Gravitas.

There was a large display indicating for the visitor to place their palm. He did so, and felt the machine scan his handprint slowly.

{Scanning… 2%…7%…15%…30%…60%…90%…done…}

{User not found. Do you wish to purchase a guest pass or do you want to register as a member?}

Darius selected to become a member. Then, a long form appeared before him, asking for many of his details.

{Please speak out the details required to fill in the form.}

Darius did so in a soft tone. Even though there was a healthy distance between the person at each kiosk and those behind -seemingly for the purpose of privacy - at higher power levels the senses people would possess were no joke.

After filling in the form, Darius was fed more details.

{Scanning form for errors…. Complete, form valid.}

{Please note, initial signup fee is 10,000 Dius. Monthly membership fees are a flat rate of 100,000 Dius per month. Do you agree to carry on with the membership registration?}

Darius naturally chose to continue.

{The list of membership benefits are as follows. Firstly, the total read time for members comes to a total of 10 hours per day. Secondly, there is no daily limit on the number of books that can be read. Thirdly, by becoming a member you are eligible to use the member-only entrance. Fourthly, members have access to all books below the Restricted level.}

{Do you agree to carry on with the membership registration?}

Darius once again assented.

{Please pay the initial sign-up fee and your first monthly fee.}

Darius took out a special card that looked similar to Earth's credit cards, only without any numbers on them. Rather, they emitted strange waves of mana that were distinct yet hard to read.

He slotted the card into a receptacle within the device. This card contained the entire earnings he had received from the Beloved Auction House. After all, there was no way anyone was willing to carry hundreds of thousands of individual coins on their own.

Once the device received the card and processed it, it began working for a long while. Eventually, it spat out Darius' card from the payment slot as well as another, newer card from a slot adjacent to it.

{Please retrieve your Dius Card and your Membership Card. Upon entering the library your 10 hours will begin. Your Membership Card will emit a green light when you only have 30 minutes left, a yellow light when you are down to 15 minutes, a red light when you only have 5 minutes left, and a black light if you stay longer than your time limit. In the last case, you will be escorted out and will have to pay a fee.}

Darius received both cards and inspected the new one. It was designed similarly to the building before him, bearing a sandy grey color with printed green lines running within.

Apart from his name which was engraved on the card, it only emitted special mana fluctuations that Darius couldn't read at all. He then left the kiosk and entered the library itself.

The moment he did, it was like he had entered another world. The smell of books permeated the room, parchment, and vellum stinging his nose. There was utter silence as many parties stood among many shelves, browsing for their targets or reading at tables.

It had the serious air of scholarship and the burning drive to acquire knowledge. Darius was quite satisfied by such an atmosphere and walked towards the stairs.

As far as he knew, the knowledge here was practically endless. For a person to read through everything contained here, even with a photographic memory, it would require more than a few thousand years.

This was the God of Knowledge's source of confidence, and why he could implement his Membership System. It was far more beneficial than charging one-time visitors money for reading credits.

However, his customerbase was everyone within Faust, as such, he had to accommodate all comers. For most places, this didn't mean much as the standards across most continents were the same.

However, there was one special continent in Faust, wasn't there?

Just as there were books on the shelves for the various visitors of other locales to use, so too was there a digital repository for Gravitas' scholars who came here to acquire more.

Darius climbed the stairs until he reached the floor for the digital repository, seeing that it was quite unoccupied. After all, Gravitas citizens were extremely xenophobic when on their continent, so they hardly ever left its confines.

Even the few visitors who came here mostly downloaded what they needed over time and left silently.

Darius walked up to a free terminal and stood before it with a smile. Time to begin.