Azar felt a bit relieved.
The concept of creating a god wasn't a sudden idea.
More accurately, this idea was born among the contemporary Six Sages when Lesser Lord Kusanali was imprisoned.
Looking at his old friends, Azar pondered for a moment and chose not to hide anything.
"Five hundred years ago, when our predecessors brought back Lesser Lord Kusanali from the ruins, they found our God of Wisdom to be weak and unable to connect with Irminsul. Deeply disappointed, they decided to imprison Lesser Lord Kusanali."
"If the weakness of the god was a foregone conclusion, the only thing we could do was to keep her mysterious."
"To be fair, we haven't done well in these past five hundred years."
Azar sighed.
The sages below lowered their eyes.
According to the logic that Greater Lord Rukkhadevata died in battle and created Lesser Lord Kusanali in her final moments, Lesser Lord Kusanali was newly born at that time.
A newly born god didn't deserve high expectations, let alone turning hostile because Nahida didn't meet those expectations.
That was wrong no matter how you looked at it, but the deed was done, and nothing could change that.
"Now it's too late to say anything. Once they acted, we had no choice."
He gritted his teeth.
The betrayal from five hundred years ago left the succeeding sages with no options.
"After doing such a thing, everyone knows the first thing to do if any of us were to come into power would be to settle scores."
"Not only would individuals be targeted, but even the group of Six Sages wouldn't be spared."
So they had to continue down this dark path.
Giving power back to the God of Wisdom means risking her retaliation for past offenses.
Even doing a good deed has such dire consequences; it's better to keep her confined in the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
"In the early years, Teyvat overglorified the archons. From our perspective, with records from past sages, we know that archons, though born divine, also need time to grow."
"But our predecessors didn't know this. They only saw that the God of Wisdom didn't exhibit the expected divine wisdom and power, so they..."
Thus, they betrayed her without hesitation.
They couldn't wait, not even a little.
If you can't immediately show the power a god should have, we'll subdue you without hesitation, not treating you as a god at all.
"Hmph."
This part of history is disgraceful, no matter how you describe it, so it's best not to dwell on it.
Azar had one thing right.
At this point, it's too late for regrets, and there's no chance for redemption.
Unless they risk their lives, releasing Nahida with the hope that she would be magnanimous and overlook her five hundred years of imprisonment.
Otherwise, freeing her would mean preparing for the end.
Moreover, such retaliation wouldn't stop at just the six of them.
Even if only the six of them were killed for retribution, none of the sages could accept it. Retaliation usually extended to families.
They couldn't risk their lives without considering their families.
"For five hundred years, the sages have kept Lesser Lord Kusanali out of sight, rarely celebrating this God of Wisdom."
"Those with keen minds might have guessed the issue, but it wasn't important to them, so they pretended not to see it."
Azar felt a headache.
[Being sloppy has consequences.]
Since Nahida would never be released from the Sanctuary of Surasthana, they simply stopped holding her celebrations.
Even if someone in the community applied for one, the Akademiya never approved it.
This behavior itself was a stance.
Others didn't mention it because the existence of the God of Wisdom didn't significantly affect their lives.
If it doesn't matter, it's not worth opposing the Akademiya for the God of Wisdom.
"Of course, there's a problem. I've never heard of any nation completely stopping celebrations for their archon, except Sumeru."
The gods might not like extravagance, but they can refuse. You can't stop doing it altogether.
"I heard the Zubayr Theater had an application to celebrate Lesser Lord Kusanali?"
"Besides these people, does anyone else in Sumeru care about our God of Wisdom?"
These words carried some resentment, but Azar didn't care.
He was certain that if not for the immediate threat from the Fatui, no one would seriously reflect on this matter.
People often reflect not because they believe they were wrong but because they are about to face consequences for their actions.
Azar understood his colleagues well.
If they were so indignant, they had been in power for years but never stood up for Lesser Lord Kusanali.
No remedial measures had been taken, so this moment of reflection seemed meaningless.
"God creation... though this project has been part of our predecessors' research, if I remember correctly, we haven't made much progress to this day?"
A sage frowned, "Even if we increase resources now, it might not yield any results."
Since Nahida's weakness was exposed, the plan to usurp divine power has been on the agenda.
But plans are plans; they are far from being practically usable.
"Even if we see no hope, we can't remain stagnant."
Azar spoke seriously, "The threat of force isn't just for our generation of Six Sages. The lack of a god will always bring trouble. If not us, other scholars will bear this responsibility."
"Do you want to leave the hope of solving this problem to the future or continue this work now?"
He stood up and pushed forward a series of documents.
In Sumeru's scholarly society, many research directions had started to overlap as they developed.
Without significant breakthroughs, the topics scholars could discuss wouldn't increase.
Many academic papers were written just to pass assessments, lacking actual value.
But some academic papers deviated from scholarly research, purely exploring the unknown.
Curiosity isn't bad, but unrestrained curiosity and reckless actions are grave mistakes.
The Akademiya summarized the Six Cardinal Sins to judge whether certain academic research was viable.
Although, in reality, the sages themselves didn't follow these bans, they required other scholars to adhere to them.
For a long time, they rejected many studies that violated these taboos.
But now, these studies needed to be put back on the agenda.
(End of Chapter)