That's right, many maesters once wielded extraordinary powers. Back then, the Valyrian steel links on a maester's chain truly lived up to their name.
Hmm, the Valyrian steel link was custom-made in Valyria—fifty segments in total, weighing three pounds altogether—rewarded to a maester after thirty years of service to the Council of Mages.
Due to their limited number, these links were reclaimed by the Citadel after a maester's death.
In the past two thousand years, nearly a thousand maesters have worn the Valyrian steel link. Excluding those who came after the Dance of the Dragons, ninety-five percent of these maesters were true sorcerers, with over a hundred of them being Grand Sorcerers.
The notes on the bookshelf were left behind by those Grand Sorcerers.
There wasn't much specific research on fire magic itself; the notes mostly elaborated on the essence of magic, including the relationship between dragons and the magical tides—something they had discovered long ago.
In one of the notebooks, Dany saw the term "Real World" for the first time.
It was written by a historian named "Flame Demon" Hades, whose experiences resembled those of "Longlegs" Lomas—he had traveled to nearly every corner of the world.
"Flame Demon Hades" was the nickname he earned during a magical duel with a witch in Asshai.
When the witch was about to sacrifice a slave girl to a shadow demon, Hades used a fire-control spell to direct the flames away from the child. The fire instead surged backward and burned the witch to death.
As he emerged from the fire carrying the girl, the onlooking barbarians knelt in awe, crying out "Fire Demon!"—and so the name "Flame Demon Hades" spread far and wide.
Clearly, Hades took great pride in that event. He made quite a name for himself in Asshai and recorded the entire experience in his notebook, seemingly for future generations to admire.
Alright, back to the point.
Though Hades made a name for himself with fire magic and often wore that pride on his sleeve, he had witnessed too many tragedies caused by supernatural powers. As a result, he began to question whether human civilization truly needed magic.
Valyria enslaved the world through magic, destroying countless nations and peoples. Asshai imported vast numbers of slaves each year—most of whom were sacrificed to demons by evil sorcerers. Moreover, after sorcerers used magic, long-lasting energy radiation would linger, inflicting curse-like harm upon ordinary people.
Hades lived during the era of Valyria's Freehold, so he naturally didn't know about the future abnormalities in the Lands of the Long Summer. But he had visited the Rhoyne River, specifically the middle stretches where the Valyrians had clashed with the Rhoynar—a region now known as the Sorrows.
The Sorrows are perpetually shrouded in gray mist and inhabited by many stone men infected with greyscale.
Hades believed greyscale originated from magical radiation in the Sorrows.
At the time, Valyria was the most powerful nation in the world. Even though Hades had witnessed the downsides of magic abuse, he couldn't deny the advanced nature of magical civilization.
So he simply posed a question: What kind of world could humans build if they relied solely on their own wisdom, without the illusion of magic or the fickle whims of gods?
And thus, the concept of the "Real World" was born.
Through a rough reading of Hades' magical notes, Dany discovered that after Valyria perished in the Cataclysm, the idea of the "Real World" started gaining traction and was increasingly embraced by maesters.
"Valyria had reached the pinnacle of magical civilization. Its destruction marked the failure of that civilization. Perhaps, in a Real World, humanity has a brighter future."
—This was the conclusion drawn in a secret council of maesters 250 years ago, after "Cruel" Maegor rode Balerion to burn down the Starry Sept—the main seat of the Faith of the Seven in Oldtown at the time.
Of course, in some of the notes, what Dany saw was more about the maesters' jealousy of the Valyrians' innate magical talent, and their bitterness over being unable to master Valyria's advanced arcane arts.
Simply put, about 5% of the maesters genuinely cared about Westeros' future, while the rest had merely given up on the supernatural after failing to master it.
In any case, the highly action-driven maesters launched a centuries-long plan to "restore the world to its original state."
Hmm, the "Dragon Extinction Plan" was only one part of it—they aimed to create a world without magic and gods.
The extinction of dragons marked the beginning of humanity's Age of Waning Magic. It didn't affect the gods (well, it did, but neither Dany nor the maesters of the time knew that). Magic disappeared, but the gods and their priests remained.
The final magical notebook belonged to a maester named Kandy, who lived 120 years ago. Just before his death, he excitedly wrote:
"The magic within me is fading—hahaha! Our generation has finally accomplished an unprecedented feat: we've brought the magical tides to a complete halt! May those who come after us press on and put an end to the age of gods!"
"Uh… The maesters of the Citadel really dared to dream and act. Dragons were just the appetizer—they're actually targeting the gods too?!"
Dany grew curious about how the Citadel planned to deal with gods, so she began searching for books related to the "Real World." But just then, a click-clack sound echoed from above her head.
—Someone was opening the door!
In the next moment, she extinguished the flame floating before her brow, and like a ghost, slipped through several rows of bookshelves, hiding herself in the deepest corner.
Creak, creak... The newcomer hadn't brought an oil lamp. After closing the heavy iron door, they walked lightly on the wooden steps. In the silence, Dany could even hear the faint sound of fingers brushing along the wall—the person, like she had done before, was searching for a torch embedded in the wall.
Click!—a few sparks flickered. Dany realized the person was striking a firestone.
But after a dozen strikes, the torch still wouldn't light.
"What's going on?"
It was an unfamiliar male voice.
The whale oil on the cloth at the top of that torch has all been burned up by me, Dany thought with a silent scoff. Of course it won't light.
Perhaps realizing the torch was ruined, the man continued feeling his way down. Before long, the sound of firestone striking rang out again.
Whoosh—crackle crackle! This time, after only two strikes, the torch blazed to life.
Under the flickering firelight, Dany saw a terrifying face—Petyr!
It was Petyr who descended the wooden ladder slowly, holding a torch.
The pale-faced young man wasn't frightening in appearance, but his presence here in the book cellar carried a terrifying implication.
"Faceless—Man—!"
Dany's expression was complex. By now, she was completely certain: the poor, struggling apprentice had met a tragic end. His face had been flayed off, his body tossed into the Mead River, his identity and girlfriend stolen. Miserable, miserable, miserable!
"No wonder there was always something off-putting about him," Dany muttered, watching 'Petyr' retrieve a glass oil lamp from a small cabinet beneath the wooden table. After lighting it and extinguishing the torch, he began weaving between the shelves.
Eventually, he arrived at the shelf labeled "Dragons." When he found a book under the "Legendary Creatures — Dragons — Dragon Eggs" section titled 72 Techniques for Hatching Dragon Eggs, the previously emotionless 'Petyr' nearly lit up with joy.
He didn't read through it in detail—just glanced at the preface before stuffing it into his grey robe. Then he reached for another book, and finally, under the "Dragon Riding" section, he found several ancient Valyrian parchment scrolls. He strapped them securely to his calf before reluctantly returning to the round table.
Judging by the way he kept glancing back, he looked like he wished he could empty the entire book cellar.
Dany was deeply annoyed: They have dragons and gods, so why not space rings?
She wanted to clean out the place too!
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Just as she was about to dash upstairs to tell the hall guard that Petyr was a thief, a sudden thought flashed through her mind like lightning.
After 'Petyr' put the torch back, shut the iron door, and left, she ran to the round table, crouched down, and lit the still-warm oil lamp. Then she rummaged through the nearby cabinet for a quill and ink.
Next, she went to the "Dragons" shelf and found a book titled The Targaryen Dragon-Hatching Chronicles.
"Heh heh heh, Petyr, oh Petyr… something tells me one theft won't be enough for you, huh?"
Grinning, Dany leaned over the desk and added a passage on one of the book's blank pages.
After that, she returned to the second floor to inform the old knight that Petyr was a Faceless Man. Then she headed back to the cellar and resumed her search for books related to the "real world."
Because her spirit body was very close to Ser Barristan—the "coordinate"—it lasted a full five hours before her sorcery was completely drained.
Still, that was long enough for her to uncover the Citadel's "Artificial Age of Magic's End" project.
And honestly…
She was disappointed.
The maesters were strong only in their own backyard. Against the simple-minded, naïve Targaryen royals, they had formidable tricks—giant dragons turned to ash with a casual plan, leaving no trace of their involvement.
But when it came to gods, they were completely helpless—leaving everything to fate, with no plan at all.
Or perhaps it was that the older generation of maesters had both deep knowledge and real supernatural power. They might not have fully grasped the absolute truth of the world, but at least they had a thorough understanding of their own goal: magic and divinity.
—It was precisely because of their grasp of dragons and the tides of magic that they managed to usher in the Age of Magic's End.
But after that era began, the elder scholars all perished, and the new generation of maesters couldn't wield magic at all—because the dragons had died, and it was the Age of Magic's End.
They barely understood the arcane, and many even doubted magic's very existence.
If they didn't even grasp the basics of mysticism, how could they ever formulate a plan to deal with beings of ultimate power—the gods?
The idea of developing a "civilization of ordinary men" was quite commendable. From a neutral standpoint, Dany even felt a certain admiration for the Citadel.
And they weren't as useless as she once believed.
The Citadel had indeed existed for thousands of years, but for most of that time, they had been trying to emulate the advanced Valyrian magical civilization.
Only in the past few centuries, after realizing that magic wasn't something just anyone could master—and that it required extraordinary talent—did they begin to feel hopeless.
The final blow came with the Cataclysm, when Valyria destroyed itself. The path of magical civilization seemed to reach a dead end.
Thus, the Citadel started changing its development strategy, preparing to end the magical era once and for all and pour all its effort into… well, awkwardly, even though they always shouted about building a "magicless, godless real world," they didn't actually have a concrete plan for what that "real world" would be.
In other words, they were hellbent on destroying the magical era, but had absolutely no blueprint for a scientific civilization.
If gods, the Long Night, and White Walkers didn't exist, Dany suspected the Citadel would've spent another thousand or two thousand years wandering aimlessly before going through their own "Renaissance" and finally introducing the idea of "science."
Just like the Western world on Earth did.
Unfortunately, the faith of R'hllor was already creeping into Westeros. The Long Night was coming. The White Walkers had already crossed the Wall.
When the Night King arrived, even the maesters themselves would likely cry out, "Seven Gods, please be real!"
And if the Seven didn't answer, they might very well start shouting, "My Lord R'hllor!"
Or even "Long live Queen Dany! Long live, long live, ten thousand years!"
Ah… the scholars of this world—so pitiful, yet so detestable.
(End of chapter)
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