Giant Tree of Rapt Brooding

Thalesus, the First Scholar, embarked on his journey around Amphoreus from his coastal home city, Mileutus, at his age of majority, seeking spiritual meaning within the Mnestia faith.

Along the way, his strange experiences and new visions reshaped his thoughts on nature and the origin of the world. At the journey's end, he met the Bough of Rift and completed his philosophical methods to experience the world before the great tree. Under the giant tree, Thalesus established a courtyard and named it the Grove of Epiphany, a place for people to awaken their spirits, seek wisdom, and grasp the way.

The thoughts of CercesReason Titan became so enhanced that they became written scrolls or quietly turned into the whispering flora of the grove... The noise of the Grove was born from there. From these debates and intellectual exchanges, new schools of thought emerged.

Although differentiated from one another, the schools were interwoven — much like the overlaying branches of the giant tree... Through centuries of argument and scholarly heritage, the First Scholar's insights have evolved into the Seven Sages and seven primary schools of thought, as well as many different viewpoints.

"All knowledge of the world should become the leaves of the Grove, to shield the sun and help the giant tree flourish." Every city-state seeking wisdom from the Grove must offer equal knowledge in return. Thus, countless ideas are nourished, and countless new leaves sprout.

For centuries, should any scrolls containing knowledge be found on trade caravans passing through the Grove's narrow passage or ships arriving at the port, they would become a part of the Grove's library regardless of the scroll's nationality or language. The scholars, or rather, "bandits," transformed the Grove into Amphoreus' best school by ways of spending incomprehensible amounts of wealth on knowledge, hiring copywriters to steal knowledge, or even outright robbery of knowledge. The scholars of the Grove used questions as sacrificial vassals and thoughts as reverence, and bowed their heads at the supreme reason in this world.

Beginning with the planting of life, returning to the spirit of the wood, the Grove collects all knowledge that flows to it from the world. CercesReason Titan listened to the growing noise of the Grove, and never spoke.