623 Talen (2/2)

It was a notebook that the Church would burn at all costs if they were to ever find out about it. In fact, the Church would also burn everyone who had touched it, read it, heard about it, or even anyone who had been within ten meters from it.

It was Hermes' final work before he died.

— The Net of Aether!

After being inspired by Ye Qingxuan, as a token of apology and a reward, Hermes created a grand blueprint tailored for him.

An idea that... was destined to be unaccepted by the world!

If the idea that had only existed in Hermes' hypothesis, consisting only of a few formulas and lacking any concrete track of thought or details, could really be finished up by Newton and could be materialized... the taboo proposition of artificial musicians would be fully completed and become reality.

The new world was at their fingertips!

Abraham's way of deciphering, the newly built division in the Royal Academy of Music, the much scorned and ridiculed plan of mass producing war musicians, even the refusal to return Genesis to the Sacred City, and the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth hidden in the reflection in the sea...

Everything was part of a well laid-out plan surrounding the completion of the Net of Aether.

As the most taboo proposition among all taboo propositions, artificial musicians had always been the most unmentionable research topic. Despite the Church reiterating the ban, the Silence Governance hunting down wanted criminals all over the world, and the countless heretics who died being burned at the stake of the Religious Court of Inquiry, many still ventured down the path one after another, longing for such a result.

They included even the dark musicians. After all, hadn't they sought out the help of catastrophes at the very beginning due to being limited by their own capabilites?

At the root of it all was the inadequacy of their own talent.

Hardly anyone could guarantee a smooth and level walk down the path of becoming a musician, no matter how hard one had tried, how much effort one had put in, even if one was to rely on foreign objects.

It was because everything was already destined at birth.

Right at the moment of birth, everything was already predetermined. The talented were fated to be more powerful than the untalented, and those of blue-blood lineage were destined to surpass ordinary folk.

Other than the ones talented enough to break this rule, one could only swallowed up in the crowd of mortal beings. And how many of such people were there?

Since the ancient times, few had been capable of doing so.

What one sought at all costs, others were born with it.

Such was the most painful thing for the ones chasing down the path.

Musicians were pursuers of the Originator, but more often than not, one did not choose the Originator, it was the Originator who chose one.

The ones unable to become apprentices longed to become apprentices. The ones who had become apprentices longed to advance as musicians. After advancing as official musicians, they pursued powerful music theory. After distorting reality, they longed to create legends. After creating legends, they still must advance as scepter musicians. After the Level of Scepter, they longed to become a saint, and after becoming a saint, could one advance further to the next level and become one of the three kings?

Nine Levels of Musicians.

Painstaking efforts of countless people were buried beneath each step taken.

Precisely because of that, everyone desired powerful bloodlines so much. In order to arrive at the Originator, the musicians of the East placed their own pursuit and the music theory from their entire life in their blood. The nine families of the Dragon Bloodline passed down their legacies from generation to generation, but no one had ever been able to truly advance into the Originator... Not to mention the many attempts by the various schools in the West to obtain stronger power and better talent in the past years.

One example would be the Hauser Brothers that Ye Qingxuan had once come across in Romulus. By blending bestiality into human nature, Kaspar Hauser, the son of the beast, was created with pure bestiality. Another example would be the school of dragon stone, which cast bestiality into aether world as food to rear the Snake of the Atrium every generation... Even the school of stone heart, which Ye Qingxuan was a member of, did not hesitate to implant Sub-orignators to enhance their abilities.

Among the various research projects, some violated taboos, some cleverly tested the boundaries, some would be immediately halted if the authorities were to find out, and some were conducted behind closed doors despite pressure from the Sacred City.

In the end, talent became the shackles of musicians. The Nine Levels of Musicians did not require much design to set different levels apart, as it was already destined from birth.

The gap between geniuses and ordinary folk was far greater than the difference between black gold and soil.

It was also the reason why alchemy, which could turn stone into gold, was so popular. The earliest proposition of the classical school of alchemy, pioneered by Hermes, was to turn oneself into a higher form, just like how soil was turned into gold.

There was no musician that didn't long to be liberated from the shackles.

Ye Qingxuan once saw the hundreds and thousands of towering clock towers in the Sacred City and also personally experienced the wonderful sensation of being strengthened by clock towers. His own power surged, as if he had become integrated with the Sacred City, and he directed reached the Level of Master, bypassing many levels.

Strengthening by the clock towers.

Every clock tower on its own was enough to help a musician achieve the Level of Master in an instant. Thousands of clock towers meant thousands of masters. Multiplying the number of all the masters in the world at the moment by three times, would probably still result in a number smaller than that of the number of masters the Sacred City could create in an instant.

Its working principle was based on Concerto No. 5, which was engraved at the core of the clock towers. It was one of the tokens of authority belonging to the King of Red, the movement titled Emperor.

Once the movement was played, it was like an emperor's coronation, allowing a mortal to sit on the throne and enjoy the generous charism granted by god, as well as unparalleled glory.

If the King of Red was to play the movement himself, he could even bestow elements directly to an apprentice, so that his road to advance as a scepter musician would be smooth and unimpeded.

As for the King of Blue, Bach, once he unfolded his domain in the form of a forbidden zone, he could determine the life or death of any musician. Without even taking any action, he could reduce a musician's level just by will.

The domain that the King of Yellow could influence was even more terrifying. His authority could act directly on the sea of aether. Even if he was all the way at the other side of the world, he could control the density of aether in the various countries with his own power...

Such was one of the reasons why the Three Kings were terrifying.