Darius Supreme

"The information transfer is complete! Hpmh, this God of Knowledge is really two-faced! When it comes to extracting information, the speed is so slow and the features are outdated, but when it comes to inputting, it's as fast as needed!" Miranda complained while turning her head away angrily.

Darius chuckled. "That is the way of the world, my dear. You've seen from my business knowledge how often this trick is used, especially with financial institutions."

Darius checked the response from the terminal, which was showing a 'processing' bar. He guessed that the info was now being fed to Krona and he was curious to see see what effect it would have.

Soon, he got his answer, as the terminal displayed an error message with flashing red lights. On the other side, a fellow who was recounting some new findings in Magical Theory was forced into silence as the floating orb became red and then cracked.

The next second, the entire sector began to shake and tremble at the intensity of a magnitude 5 earthquake, toppling many and sending them to the floor. Darius frowned and held onto the terminal to brace himself, guessing the probable cause for this and wondering if he should, in fact, leave.

However, he paused as his eyes, like everyone else in this sector, were locked on a greenish-brown beam of light that fell from the heavens and struck the spire of the Great Library.

Not many would recognize it, but Darius certainly did since he had caused such a phenomenon just about a week ago.

The God of Knowledge, Krona, was descending!

Darius' expression became solemn. He wondered just how valuable his information was perceived as the deity had straight-up come down from his Divine Kingdom. One should know, in Thor's case Mjolnir had made up half the battle power of the Thunder God.

For God Krona to descend…

Immediately, the area before the door to the restricted section glowed as a form manifested from the same greenish-brown light. All had to shield their eyes for a bit, giving the descending deity time to form his body.

Interestingly, God Krona looked nothing like what one would expect.

Instead of an aged man with a long flowing beard bearing the vicissitudes of time, he was a tall young man with parted black hair that reached his shoulders and a dark goatee.

His body was compact and lithe, bearing muscles while still being relatively slim. Instead of a robe, he wore what looked like a scaly version of polymer armor for his torso and back pants for his legs.

He had striking green eyes and brown boots on his feet, topping off his look. God Krona reminded Darius of the protagonist of a very famous vampire game… what was his name again? Gabriel Belmont or something of that nature.

Darius tried to Analyze the deity, but as expected, the skill returned to him as nothing, not even the God's name. He would need to upgrade it far more than this if he wanted to gain comprehensive information about such powerful beings.

God Krona didn't bother to look at anyone else, his eyes honing in on Darius straightaway. His green pupils blazed with fervor and interest, the deity walking to stand before Darius with a contemplative look.

God Krona was really tall once he came close. Even Darius at 6"2 was slightly shorter than he was, making the fellow smile wryly. Whatever the case, he fearlessly folded his arms and smiled softly towards the deity.

"Great God of Knowledge, I am humbled by your presence. Is there anything I can help you with?" Despite his seemingly tough stance, Darius's words were polite.

God Krona seemed surprised by this, grinning slightly in the end. "Darius Stone, your submission was incredibly useful to me, as such information is graded far above anything I've ever received before, despite being so simple and short."

Darius remained silent, only smiling. God Krona saw that the fellow was, despite being polite, not yielding, so he could only narrow his eyes and carry on with what he wanted to say.

"I understand you want to gain access to the restricted section. In truth, your contribution has made you earn almost 25,000 reading hours by my scale, although I can assure you that even that is not enough to acquire all that is within this floor." Krona revealed as he patted the door behind him.

The others nearby were stunned out of their minds. 25,000 reading hours was unheard of! Most of them were pining for at most, 3 hours so they could acquire specific knowledge, but with the amount Darius got, he should have enough time to clean out the entire library!

However, when the deity stated that what amounted to more than 34 months of reading time was not enough to clear the entire section, many revealed contemplative looks. As for those who had entered before and were coming for a second time, they smiled thinly, a mocking glint in their eyes.

Darius himself smiled softly. He was long aware of something like this, not through research, but simple deduction. Krona was the God of Knowledge and while he might not be business savvy like Waukeen, given all the knowledge at his disposal it would be strange if he wasn't well versed in many methods.

This entire library was just a means for him to expand his power passively, by exchanging information of little value to him for information of great value. The common knowledge could be exchanged for money, allowing his library to run and his followers to receive endless funding for the development of the sector.

The truly valuable hidden knowledge that most powerhouses craved was locked behind a 'paywall' that required unique info. It didn't matter how groundbreaking as long as it was something God Krona had not encountered before.

However, what if something groundbreaking was delivered? What if a person won the ability to extract almost all the information within the restricted section, especially if they had some scanning or memorizing ability?

The number of people supplying new info would dwindle slowly. This was not conducive to the growth of God Krona.