"You're not wrong..." I said lowly as I looked down at the city. The air was clean despite the industrial setting, and everything was compact and neat. It was the first city that resembled anything found on Earth. There were even concrete roads.

  I noticed that despite the different biomes, Pneuma City seemed to attract higher life forms, even the unsavory ones who called Morium home.

  I am thrilled that you could tell, Viraa spoke. In the beginning, Old Pneuma City symbolized high status for high life forms to live, which helped give pneumarian a prestigious image. Once the city expanded and relocated, the visage moved along with it. This is why non-threatening species that are highly regarded, such as smythians or faridians, typically move to Pneuma City when they migrate to Cindar. Several mid-lifeforms as well.

  "Does that mean the klevonian's native nation only welcomes the less fortunate?" I asked aloud.

  Forgeton welcomes anyone not tied to pneumarians. But yes, generally, mid- to lower-level lifeforms such as aquans, nuuclanites, mutehmars, and others tend to migrate to Forgeton, where they are more welcome.

  "More importantly, let's locate that library," Avarice said, motivated as he read the brochure. "Praetia, the city of the Sphinx District. The entire city is inside a state-sized mechanical dome with controllable atmospheres, including day/night cycles. Incredible! This afternoon's sky is reflecting the actual sky outside. They could easily make it night or winter if they chose," he said, impressed.

  "The place we're looking for is the Crest House. It's a large semi-spherical building called Plexus. Inside it is the largest library on the planet, holding historical and universal books and knowledge of the world."

  "Yeah, I see it." I'd enhanced my vision to scan the far horizon, locating the Crest House. I lifted off the roof and began to fly as they followed. "This place is something else...there's a junkyard of incomplete and dead tech lying around in a quartered-off area. Guess the members of the crest never got to finish everything they were developing before leaving.

  "Hm, that's more of Trevor's expertise, but it certainly sounds intriguing. I wonder what technology they were developing," Avarice pondered aloud.

  "There's also a park for the sphinx to live. Most of them remind me of owls, but there are more cat-like ones too," I remarked.

  They're brilliant creatures, you know? In fact, the sacred gift inherited among the Sphinx Crest is called Erudition. It dramatically increases the Crest Head's intellect. Given that the crest is typically brighter than the others naturally, the Crest Head was often revered as the wisest on the planet, possessing an unrivaled intellect. They even managed to create a place such as this and develop useful technology that has spread throughout the entire quadrant.

  "Technology that the Goblin Crest has brilliantly set itself to manage and profit from," Avarice remarked with a slight hint of pride for a guy who didn't want anything to do with them.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  When we arrived at the Crest House, we each took in the sights of such a place existing. It stood like a tower, but at its top was a semi-spherical dome that protected the various floors within. Up close, the building was much larger than I anticipated.

  Inside were hundreds of floors. Some were even below ground level. When we stepped into an elevator, most floors were numbered, but some had designated labels, such as the laboratory floor, the research floor, and so on. The elevator was see-through, so we could see each floor as we passed it, but no one could see us.

  We stopped on the software floor, where we spotted a wide variety of unfamiliar tech lying around, spilling out of various rooms. There, an automaton encouraged us to buy crystal wristbands manufactured with cindarian technology. The wristbands were inactive until we initialized them with our energy codex; then, they became invisible, but we could bring up a screen whenever we chose. They were kind of like holo-bracelets back home.

  [The wristbands are connected through the network interface called Plexus. It was named after this building to spread the Sphinx's brand to other worlds. Plexus serves us all as a digital platform for a wide range of uses. Our wristbands are among the topmost traded products across the quadrant.]

  "Hey, isn't this what that klevonian used to contact Seth at the border of the Dragon District?" I mentioned while fiddling with the new device. "I think we can call people with these, too."

  "I guess having a direct telepathic link to someone is viewed as informal here. Only those close or necessary do it," Za'Fia pointed out.

  "It also likely gives them a way to reach out to other worlds," Avarice added. "We know some of the crests deal with importing and exporting for Pneuma City. They'd need a way to communicate long distances."

  "Hadn't thought about that until now," Za'Fia admitted. "Guess these'll be useful once you start fitting into your role as Crest Head."

  "Right," I groaned, thinking about having to deal with domestic and interplanetary politics.

  "Thanks for reminding me," I mumbled while heading back to the elevator.

  We continued exploring a few more floors of the extensive building until we finally reached the research floor, where the library was. The library had to have been at least three times as large as the archive room at the Royal Palace. Similarly, there were books, digital records, and artifacts everywhere, but none seemed as dangerous, and there was no Transcript of Cintracies. There was, however, a digital artifact of something called the Cindarian History Monument.

  Apparently, the original was first built in Old Pneuma City before they relocated, rebuilt, and expanded the city here. The newer, modern version was more extensive after specific details had been revealed over time.

  Reading through the start of it, we saw some of the stuff Rabae had told us about the time of the Ancient Beasts, eras officially referred to as the Era Before and the Era of Awakening. Eventually, while reading through the Era of the Cindarian Empire – a relatively short period when all 21 Primeval Pneumarians lived – the part mentioning the Dark War caught me and Avarice's eye.

  The Dark War happened in the cindarian year1M-500T. It was a grueling war initiated by the 21 Primeval Pneumarians' assault on an unsuspecting civilization. They traveled to a solar system that was then known as the Tri System and attacked its inhabitants, the trisapiens, managing to destroy several worlds before the trisapiens could retaliate. Apparently, the trisapiens had gone around destroying other inhabited planets, spreading fear. Seeing them as a threat, the Primeval Pneumarians chose to wipe them out, but due to their superior numbers, the Primeval Pneumarians needed the element of surprise. After the initial shock of the assault, the trisapiens rallied and fought against the Primeval Pneumarian in a war of 21 VS millions. Ultimately, everyone died except Apollos, who would eventually become the First Ryfi Theos and the second-ever Celestial.