"Tell me more." John said. Chloe had always hung around and pestered him, so John was under the illusion that she was rising the ranks of qi alongside Mark. Maybe not as fast as John himself, but definitely in the top three.
Chloe continued to babble confidently about how her awakening transformation had gone wrong and her dantian had shifted from a semi-spiritual organ closer to a normal organ, fusing with her uterus. Along with that fusing came intense lust that Chloe was barely managing to contain. Of course, that's how John interpreted it. Chloe simply described how she started to feel strange and wonderful all the time. Chloe went on to further describe, in intimate detail, how she had failed to gather qi using normal means but had noticed qi gathering while.... pleasuring herself.
John flushed hard during her description. This was the first time he had been exposed to such lewd talking, and it was difficult to keep calm. Chloe nearly pounced on him, propositioning him repeatedly to help fulfill her needs. Honestly John was moments from agreeing, but this was clearly a cultivation defect of some kind, and he didn't feel right taking advantage of her. They eventually came to an agreement, John would research her problem today at the library when he went to look into martial arts techniques. John would consider her offer more seriously after he understood the cultivation ramifications, as long as she remained here and calmed herself down.
And so I can clear my own head John thought, but he kept that to himself. That seemed to pacify Chloe for now.
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John, Benjamin, and the three others all followed John to the Sect Library building in the Outer sect. Elder Catherine had not authorized him to enter the Inner sect yet. John would visit that library later, for now it was important to deal with Chloe and research what kinds of martial arts would best suit him--even if he had to wait until he had access to the better library to actually pick a technique.
The library was a tall tower-shaped pagoda with several layers. It loomed over all the other sect buildings in the area, further enhanced by its prominent position on a hill. Many disciples were coming and going, it was practically as busy as an ant's nest.
John and the others joined the crowd with little hesitation. Despite keeping their head down, the Weird group still caught stares and whispers directed toward them from the other disciples. John tried to ignore it but the others were a lot more unsettled, they spent less time out in the sect than the others.
Eventually they made it inside the Library, at least in here people were too busy to pay them any attention. The building was just as grand inside as it was outside. The center of the room had a series of comfortable chairs and benches for disciples to read. Shelves lined most of the walls and were full of scrolls or booklets. Various shelves had labels describing what kind of content could be found in that section. The first floor entryway had no shelves but had desks with helpful-looking disciples. Many were older outer sect disciples like the man running the Contribution Hall.
"Alright everyone, no use in searching with no idea where to start, lets ask the librarians."
Everyone shuffled to a different desk. John approached a stern looking older man. From what John could tell the cultivator was stuck in late solid stage, he looked fifty so he must be in his eighties at least. He grunted acknowledgement.
"Uh... this is embarrassing." John started. "I'm looking for any information on cultivation that responds to sex primarily..."
The old cultivator frowned. "Is this some kind of joke? Dual cultivation techniques are unorthodox at best, and usually demonic. Give me your sect badge," he sounded quite upset. John was sure it was unusual but for it to be a demonic technique, he wanted to facepalm. Just his luck. John handed over his token.
The old man studied the token briefly and injected some qi inside. His angry countenance quickly changed to confusion and then fear.
"Wait just a moment, the head librarian will be here shortly."
Barely a few moments passed and John spotted a handsome Elder walking his way. He wore sect robes and had his hair in an elegant top-knot. His good looks were only spoiled by the huge bags under his eyes. When he got close enough, he gave John a very casual greeting.
"Wonderful! Just wonderful! Finally someone with an interesting scripture comes into my library!" The head librarian was quite cheerful, counter to the subdued mood in the hall.
"Greetings Elder," John saluted appropriately, no need to gather negative attention, "are you able to help me with my request?"
"Why yes John, why don't you step into my office." He reached out into the air and opened a door that suddenly materialized. The door swung open and indeed revealed a comfortable looking office with even more book shelves, a tea set, and a huge wooden desk. John stepped in.
Despite his overly cheerful demeaner, the head librarian seemed quite serious when it came to books. He was most impressed with the Butterfly Dream Scripture and was pleased that John and the others had come in. The librarian proceeded to rant for several minutes about how boring most scriptures were and that he could never find enough good reading material. John had to cough conspicuously and bring up his original intent to get the man back on track.
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John proceeded to explain, without embarrassing himself too much, the situation with Chloe and why he had come to the library to research it.
"Hmmm yes. It seems the Butterfly Dream Scripture caused a particularly strange mutation in your friend. The distinction of things is not something simple to mess with, I'm sure you understand." John was surprised the librarian knew so much about the precise nature of their cultivation hurdles, but John supposed all the Elders must have been given a brief understanding at least.
The librarian continued, "Most sex acts in cultivation are referred to as Dual Cultivation. It's only used in a few scenarios. The orthodox usage is strictly between Dao partners. Unorthodoxically, cultivators can engage with it predatorily, often stealing cultivation from their victims, but keeping them alive or otherwise addicted. Most demonic is the usage of living furnaces, or the complete draining of specific victims with a particular spiritual root or physique.
"It sounds like your friend will need some very specific guidance, otherwise her cultivation could run out of control easily and take over her body. These books are quite restricted for obvious reasons. I will make you a copy with only the most critical information on how to avoid the demonic and other unpleasantries when engaging in it with her."
John blushed at the suggestion that he would be her partner specifically. The librarian was just as happy to babble along though, so he didn't take it to heart.
"Now, is there anything else I can help you with, John?"
"How did you know my name?" That was his first question.
"I suppose most Elders know who you and the others in your compound are? I knew you were the first to breakthrough with the Butterfly Dream Scripture. Quite proud of that one, I helped organize the scripture myself, you know."
"Huh... Well I wanted to look into some claw techniques. Most of my attacks right now are based on claws. More importantly I want to learn a martial arts technique with low qi demands so I can properly defend myself."
The head librarian introduced him to a staggering number of techniques. The Rainy Cloud Sect specialized in water techniques primarily, but they still had extensive samples of other techniques. It helped that at the Outer Sect Library level, nothing was so powerful as to be restricted directly. Surely there were clans that focused on claw techniques, but until John was much stronger there wasn't much difference. He just needed the basics to get started.
Claw techniques alone came in varying styles of aggression, defense, overall power, sharpness, and many other factors. John wanted to find something that he could apply to his free-floating qi claws, but nothing piqued his interest. Maybe once he got to the inner sect that would change. John still needed a martial arts system to protect himself until he had sufficient qi reserves. John wasn't interested in fist of sword techniques. Claws he would be working on in the future but he wanted to get a broader experience for now and focus on something else. Besides sword and fist, spear was the most popular.
The Head Librarian tried showing him some more esoteric weapons, but John wasn't interested until a technique revolving around a two pronged spear. It differed from regular spear work, as it mostly relied on quick and deadly jabbing with zero ability in slashing or swiping. The prongs on the two headed spear reminded John of fangs, it was fittingly called the Lethal Bite Spear technique. It focused on speed and targeting weak points to dispatch enemies quickly. Best of all, it was extremely light on qi demands!
John spent the rest of the afternoon reading the script. He was allowed to leave the library with it, but he felt it was a waste not to ask questions of the Head Librarian while he had the chance. John and him debated the various details of the Lethal Bite Spear, and even discussed at length the content of the Butterfly Dream Scripture and its consequences for cultivation. John was quite pleased. This was the first Elder he had met that had brought his guard down to such a degree. It was just hard to imagine the bookish man to be much of a schemer.
John also realized that he would need to find a spear Master to teach him, if he wanted to make any real progress with spears. John would need the same for claws, but he was more sure about sticking with claws. For now he could practice the strengthening katas before learning how to use a spear in combat more directly.
Lastly, John asked about Foundation Establishment, and even received a few books on the topic. The primary purpose of Foundation Establishment is to prepare the body for a Golden Core. This was the simple explanation that John already knew. The biggest issue advancing to Golden Core was the heavenly tribulation. The body would get struck by lightning repeatedly during the advancement, and strengthening the body was necessary to survive. There were other benefits of course, heightened strength, better performance within the Golden Core stage physically, wounds healed faster, and more.
The process of advancing through Foundation Establishment is quite different from Qi Condensation. In Qi Condensation, the cultivator is primarily tasked with gathering up enough ambient qi to achieve qualitative changes in the type of qi they are holding in their dantian. After reaching the peak stage, there is a minor bottleneck in enlightenment. After passing this roadblock, a cultivator is able to layer peak qi into their body and slowly transmute their skin, muscles, bones, and organs, to a higher level. Primarily by replacing the mundane matter with Qi-infused material. There were different variations on this process but it boiled down to suffusing huge amounts of qi into these parts of the body over time.
John kept up his study and occasional chatting until it was late in the day. Elder Head Librarian passed John the Dual Cultivation scripture at this point, and kindly showed him the door. John found the others had already left, probably hours ago. He hoped they were successful in their search as John was. John would need to deliver another small lecture about the fundamentals of Foundation Establishment tomorrow. John was already getting ideas on how he was going to accomplish his version, but surely every Weird cultivator would take a slightly different path.
Eventually, John could no longer justify staying, and returned home to face Chloe.