Alhaitham did not show the expected excitement and desire for the tempting offer Miyashiro threw out. His expression was only slightly surprised, then he looked at Miyashiro with full caution.
Alhaitham replied indifferently, "sage? If I wanted to pursue that, the current Haravatat sage, Khajeh, should have stepped down long ago. He's lucky, though, that I'm someone who's too lazy to have too much ambition.
Being a sage means I'd have too much contact with those fools in the Akademiya. My time shouldn't be wasted on them."
When Miyashiro heard Alhaitham's rather boastful statement, he was speechless. He had to admit that Alhaitham was an extremely rational person. He had capability, strength, money, and an academic background, yet he lacked ambition. This was an extremely rare type of person in Teyvat.
Even with the promise of the future Grand Sage position in the Akademiya as a benefit, he wouldn't fall for it.
Such a person would not be easily fooled by grand promises made by others, even if that promise eventually came to him, readily available. He would still choose to give it up because it wasn't what he wanted.
He doesn't blindly believe in power and heroism, only does what he wants and is interested in, denies a vast sense of justice and responsibility, yet approves of extreme individualistic logic of action. Alhaitham is such a person.
And there is a methodology to deal with such a person: target what he currently wants to know!
And god-canned knowledge is the problem he currently wants to clarify. Although this doesn't mean he will act for the benefit of individual strangers, if this action can ultimately point him in the direction of the answer, then he won't even need to be coerced or enticed; he will eagerly go himself.
Alhaitham looked at Miyashiro opposite him. In fact, his state of mind at this moment was not as calm as he appeared.
The highest leader of Inazuma suddenly asking if he wanted to become a sage or Grand Sage already indicated many problems.
Coupled with the strange actions shown by the Inazuma Delegation in diplomatic negotiations during this period, Alhaitham vaguely realized that the Inazuma Delegation's trip seemed to have a deeper purpose.
A bold idea emerged in Alhaitham's mind: The current high-ranking officials of the Akademiya were not friendly towards establishing diplomatic relations with Inazuma. To solve this once and for all, this Inazuma Regent actually intended to completely reshuffle the Akademiya's high-ranking officials!
Miyashiro ignored Alhaitham's scrutinizing gaze and said, "As the Scribe of Sumeru, responsible for archiving and backing up all important information, you must have noticed, haven't you, that your Akademiya's high-ranking officials seem to be carrying out a secret plan?"
Alhaitham said noncommittally, "I have indeed noticed something, but as the governing body of Sumeru, it's not uncommon for the sages and Grand Sage, as the highest authorities of the Akademiya, to have some undisclosed secret research.
Regent, as the highest leader of Inazuma, I presume you also conduct some top-secret research in private, don't you?"
Miyashiro: "That is natural. However, I hear that Sumeru seems to have some regulations called the 'Six Root Sins.' If ordinary scholars violate a prohibition, a matra will enforce the law and punish them. But if a sage violates the prohibition, who will be responsible for the punishment?"
When Alhaitham heard the term "Six Root Sins," a hint of solemnity appeared on his poker face.
Within the scholarly city of Sumeru, there exists such a rule, or even an ironclad law: Truth is not born to serve anyone; those who cannot control their thirst for knowledge will one day be destroyed by it.
To prevent scholars from being destroyed by knowledge, the sages at the time, based on this ironclad law, gradually derived Sumeru's later Six Root Sins.
They believed that all sins in this world arose from these Six Root Sins.
First: Matters of human evolution!
Second: Matters of rashly discussing life and death!
Third: Matters of exploring beyond the universe!
Fourth: Matters of exhaustively studying the origins of language!
Fifth: Matters of revering gods without offering devotion!
Sixth: Matters of speaking lightly of mysteries without fear in one's heart!
Based on these six sins, the sages formulated decrees and reformed old and new internal rules, while the matra enforced the law according to these decrees. Under the supervision of the matra, scholars obediently followed the decrees.
Thus, everything within the Akademiya performed its duties according to the law, with clear wisdom and prosperity in all matters.
But now, did the Regent mean that what the high-ranking officials of the Akademiya were doing had already touched upon these Six Root Sins?
Alhaitham subconsciously wanted to refute, but he quickly looked at the god-canned knowledge in his hand and immediately felt unable to argue.
Extracting god-canned knowledge from the brains of scholars who went mad after contact with divine consciousness—such an absurd thing looked like a violation of the fifth and sixth prohibitions.
If his 'good friend,' General Mahamatra Cyno, knew about this, his single-mindedness might lead him to directly storm Azar's office and apprehend him.
Before this, when Alhaitham served as Scribe, he had rejected the research applications of several scholars because they had crossed the Akademiya's bottom line.
If ordinary students wanted to conduct research that violated the Six Root Sins without the Akademiya's support, they could only secretly purchase experimental equipment at their own expense and deal with various inspections from the matra.
However, if the ones violating the prohibitions were precisely the sages or even the Grand Sage of the Akademiya themselves, then the Akademiya's review mechanism would be like a dead letter to them.
Ordinary matra would not be so bold as to confront a sage or Grand Sage face-to-face. The only ones who could formally judge a Grand Sage, besides the never-before-seen Lesser Lord Kusanali, would be Cyno, the General Mahamatra.
But even if Cyno wanted to arrest the Grand Sage, he would need sufficient evidence, preferably in a way that caught them red-handed. Otherwise, mere unsubstantiated guesses and unclear evidence would not be enough to bring the Grand Sage to justice, and he might even suffer persecution from the Akademiya as a result.
It is precisely because of this that the higher a person's status and position, the greater the social harm caused by their violation of the Six Sins.
As a Haravatat scholar who mastered more than twenty languages and had access to the Akademiya's vast academic resources, Alhaitham had a far greater understanding of the truth behind the fall of the Scarlet King's civilization than ordinary Sumeru scholars, though he lacked concrete evidence to corroborate his views.
In his opinion, the truth behind the rapid decline of the immensely powerful Scarlet King's civilization was perhaps due to the Scarlet King touching upon the Root Sins, which led to the tragic downfall of his divine kingdom. And it was Greater Lord Rukkhadevata and the Akademiya sages, who witnessed this crisis, who then established the Six Root Sins prohibitions, which have been in use ever since.
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