Chapter 7: Hidden Knowledge
------Dolphy------
I led the ponies to the Shimmering Hope library and proceeded to show them our town’s vast collection of knowledge. I had no hand in building it, but as I’m now in charge of the entire town, I’m proud to say that I’m tasked with protecting such important volumes.
------Ponies------
Twilight was quite impressed by the size of the library. Dolphy said it had seven floors, and Twilight could see that it was over one hundred meters (or “blocks”, as the Crafters termed it) wide. The structure towered over them, with quartz pillars decorating the front.
“Right this way, everyone!” Dolphy said as he opened the front doors and motioned the ponies inside. “I’m sure we have books on subjects that should interest most of you, if not all of you. There’s some knowledge in here that not even I know about, but I’m happy to share all of the knowledge in here with you. The children just aren’t ready for some of it yet.”
Twilight gasped the loudest out of all six ponies. There must have been over one hundred thousand books in this library!
They amassed this much knowledge in seven years? Twilight marveled. This world gets more amazing by the minute!
“Since I’m going to need you to help keep the children educated while I’m out rescuing my wife and friends,” the Crafter said after the initial shock had worn off, “I’ll need at least one of you to study the subjects I had planned to teach the children during that time. Of course, I’ll have to figure out where they were taken to first, and that’ll take some time, so for now, you can read about whatever you want.”
The ponies quickly separated, leaving Dolphy alone with Twilight.
“Um… Dolphy?” Twilight began.
“What’s up?” the dragon-like asked.
“Where are your books on magic?”
“Magic?” The Crafter scratched his head with a blocky hand as he thought for a moment.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said, lowering his hand, “they’re on the fourth floor on the South side. The entire section is devoted to them. It’s one of our largest, but I’d forgotten since it’s been a while since I last looked through them.”
“Thanks!” Twilight replied, and then she started walking up a staircase while Dolphy replied: “You’re welcome! I’ll be back at Town Hall with the children, if you need anything.”
With that, the blue dragon-like exited the library and left the ponies to their own devices.
Twilight climbed the stairs all the way to the fourth floor, then made her way to the South side of the floor. Dolphy was right. There were shelves upon shelves of books on various subjects of magic: The Experience Theory, Redstone Made Simple, Magic Essence and Farming… The shelves were crammed full of books on magic, but none of them were what Twilight was looking for.
However, once Twilight reached a third aisle of shelves, the very first book she saw stood out to her: Experience and Enchanting: A Detailed Analysis of Experience and its Role in Magic. This had to be what she was looking for. She used her magic to levitate the book down from the shelf, opened it, and began to read:
Most animate living things contain a kind of energy commonly referred to as “experience”, or “xp”. Some other things can produce it, such as mining for ores and smelting or cooking certain items, but animals and monsters are usually the best source for this energy.
When the energy manifests itself in physical form, it takes the shape of small, yellow-green “orbs”, which can be absorbed by Crafters to increase their own internal supply of xp, which they can then tap into for certain actions.
This energy is very potent, so attempts have been made to channel it without the need for stationary devices, but every attempt has ended in failure (note: see Chapter Twelve for more details on these attempts).
Twilight’s eyes widened at the mention of such attempts, so she quickly flipped through the book to Chapter Twelve, near the end of the book:
The first attempt to channel xp without need for an external conduit was made by the human Crafter Jason, in the year of 32 CY (Crafter Year). The experiment was based around the theory that because Testificate priests are able to enchant items without the need for an enchanting table or anvil, Crafters might be able to use such magic as well, due to Crafters and Testificates being similar in nature. The results were far from satisfactory, and all Jason managed to do was emit a small amount of energy that was far too weak to enchant anything.
The experiment may have been a failure, but the results, though weak, compelled other Crafters to attempt the same.
The next noteworthy attempt was made by the orc Crafter Marlblood in 134 CY. After consuming a bottle of sacred ambrosia and attempting the exact same experiment as Jason from the year 32, the resulting energy output was incredible, but impossible to control. The facility was utterly destroyed in the resulting explosion, but Marlblood somehow managed to survive.
Later facilities were made out of obsidian to prevent such destruction from happening again, but no matter what combination of chemicals were consumed, the result was either unworthy of note, or incredibly destructive.
However, in the year of 1452 CY, a group of experts in many different fields started working together on Project HB: an attempt to produce a Crafter with abilities on par with those of the Creator, Notch.
Despite extreme controversy, they made steady progress. Sadly, the details of the project and its results are restricted information due to details surrounding the fall of Crafter society being closely guarded by the Testificate government.
The book went on to mention all sorts of theories and information on the subjects of enchanting, but Twilight was still very intrigued by the information she’d just read. Apparently, Dolphy and his fellow Crafters weren’t the first of their kind in this world after all, but the Crafters who existed before them all disappeared.
Twilight closed the book and returned it to the shelf it was on and continued reading the titles of the books.
As she neared the end of the aisle, another book caught her eye: The Disaster of Project HB. She removed the book from the shelf and looked at the cover. In addition to the title, there was additional text stamped onto the cover: “CONFISCATED FOR PUBLISHING CLASSIFIED INFORMATION”.
Now this would be an interesting read!
Twilight opened the book and started reading.
We, the people of Sandy Flats, have decided to make known the events surrounding the Crafter magical facility that used to be in our vicinity. We have collected the journals of the various scientists and have compiled them in this book. Please remember that some of the journal entries are mostly opinion, and shouldn’t be treated as fact. Any recounting of events, however, is mostly true and accurate.
Twilight continued reading.
My fellow researchers and I have managed to isolate the chemical compounds in sacred ambrosia that result in being able to channel xp for using magic without requiring a medium. However, the resulting release of power is still uncontrollable, so we require more research before we can begin tests.
Twilight skimmed the next few pages due to them mainly being uninformative recounts of day-to-day life at the facility.
Right after those pages, the entries began to be interesting again.
It has been three years since we began studying xp and ambrosia, and we have finally managed to create a compound that may allow control. We will test the compound on Test Subject HB000 tomorrow morning.
We tested the compound on Subject HB000, but there hasn’t been much success. The magical energies are still far too difficult for the subject to control, so we had to use a complex procedure to reverse the process. We will attempt to recreate the compound starting this evening.
Twilight skimmed through several more pages, due to the experiments basically being the same again and again.
On page 93, she found more interesting entries.
Test Subject HB382 has shown great promise in trial runs in use of the newly acquired ability to use magic without even needing to absorb xp first! This is a marvel of science and magic we never expected! We have designated the Test Subject: “Herobrine”. We will resume tests tomorrow.
Herobrine has proven too dangerous. Though he has complete control of his abilities, he has lost almost all moral inhibitions and must be disposed of. We are currently hiding in the basement of the facility and have sent a message asking Craftopolis for help. We only hope that the military can defeat him. We’ve decided to abandon the project. All we can do now is wait and hope.
The entries ended with that account. The rest of the book described the destruction of the entire Crafter civilization by the aforementioned “Herobrine”.
Twilight closed the book and stared at it. This “Herobrine” had destroyed an entire civilization by himself! This was more important than learning how magic worked for Crafters.
She had to tell Dolphy.