The double doors of the Hall of Knowledge’s entrance parted before Yu Xiang automatically, responding to the engraved wooden badge hidden inside of his robes.
He waved at the disciple manning the library’s front desk, his nose deep into a pile of scrolls but still aware enough of his surroundings to give him a nod back in silent greeting.
Yu Xiang had at this point grown used to the way the interior of this building shifted and moved on its own like the labyrinthine gullet of a giant beast, so he picked a random direction and started walking, confident that the alien mind that held dominion over this space would set him on the right track.
Lo and behold, his faith was swiftly rewarded as the moment he changed direction at a corner between enormous bookshelves he almost smashed his face against a door.
Not an entrance set into a wall though, but a literal door in the middle of a hallway.
Yu Xiang stepped towards the solitary door, checking behind and around it, making sure that it did not physically lead anywhere, just in case. Then he boldly slammed a single palm against the wooden gateway, flinging it open and opening the way to a place that certainly was not the hallway continuing physically behind the door.
With a careless smile, the young reincarnator marched right past the portal’s threshold, whit the door slowly closing behind him as walked past it.
“Ah! My apprentice, there you are!” Came a voice from across the room.
Elder Lai stood before a table stacked with different formation building tools and materials, alongside a few other bits and ends cluttering his work space.
A warm grandfatherly smile took the centerpiece on his face, and his dark inky eyes were looking just as tired as every other time the inner disciple had seen him, weighted down by heavy bags as they were.
“Good morning master, how has your day been?” Yu Xiang, always the courteous fellow to his betters immediately started buttering the array master up, his serene smile slipping over his face like a comfortably broken in glove.
“Good good, but that’s not important now!” He said as he picked up a glass bottle resting on his desk. “Wenling has just delivered the elixir I requested from her to me, so now all that is left for you to do is to properly figure out the configuration for your array!”
The older cultivator casually referred to the Elder in charge of the Apothecary by name, waving around what must’ve been a horrendously expensive and difficult to concoct potion like it was nothing more than a common healing draught.
“As you say master, I will get right to it.” Yu answered easily, eyeing the purple liquid sloshing inside the glass vial with naked want in his eyes.
The green eyed cultivator walked towards the other side of the workshop, sitting himself at a table that he had been using over the months of his apprenticeship for his own research and experimentation, or at least the one Elder Lai did not want to chance him doing on his own, not believing him quite advanced enough yet in his studies to not mess something up at a critical time.
Yu was more than willing to bow to the array master’s vastly superior experience, something that had left the Elder mildly surprised at first. He didn’t know what the old cultivator had had to deal with from other people Yu’s age, but he was firmly of the opinion that his life was worth far more than a bit of lost pride at being called an amateur.
Sheets of parchment lay strewn all over the place in a chaotically controlled assortment, a comfortable balance where Yu Xiang always knew how to find what he needed despite the apparent mess.
A small genuine smile appeared on the young man’s face, reminded for a moment of this quirk of his and of how it had clashed, many years ago now, with his oldest companion’s more neat and orderly ways, leading to many early clashes and a somewhat rocky start to their friendship.
With a shake of his head, Yu dispelled the sudden morose mood which had draped itself over him, his master even looking away from his own projects to briefly glance to see if something was wrong with him, before he swiftly returned to messing around with some kind of floating cube, hundreds of lines of incomprehensible scripts circling around the artifact.
Man, not having his best friend around as much was really getting to him, he should probably go to the apothecary after he was done here to catch up and maybe bring some food along.
With that decision made, Yu Xiang dived headfirst into his current project.
After being taken in by Elder Lai due to his prodigious talent for arrays, born more from his overabundant amount of Intent than any real skill on his part, the older cultivator had asked him many questions about both his general knowledge and the road he'd walked so far on his path to eternity.
Safe to say, he was rendered flabbergasted once again when he'd learned that Yu Xiang had managed to refine his body with his Intent at such an early stage of the Constitutional Realm.
Apparently, it took most other cultivators until the fifth or sixth stage before they had enough freely available Intent to pull something like that off. Seeing his surprise at the notion, his master had then delivered a veritable mountain of scrolls that expanded on the topic of body refinement and the way Intent could be used to create a 'Constitution'.
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Now, a Constitution was nothing more than an enhancement applied to one's body during its periodic refinement with each advancement of stage. Something that could range from simply making a cultivator stronger and faster, to gaining an affinity towards one element or another, and to even completely transforming the way a cultivator's body worked.
A poisonous constitution was a prominent example of the latter. A Constitution which was extremely difficult to keep stable and balanced, and that more often than not ended up bringing the cultivator who'd nurtured it in their own body to an early grave, felled by their own hubris.
Yu Xiang was smart enough not to try something so needlessly dangerous for himself, but still, he couldn't help but fantasize about what kind of Constitution he would want to build up in his body.
Noticing his evident interest, Elder Lai immediately proved his worth as a mentor.
The olden cultivator had placed a hand on his shoulder, smiling down at him with nothing but pride for his past accomplishments and determination to do whatever it would take to have his talents bear fruit. "If you wish to create a Constitution for yourself, then all you have to do is ask, and I will do my utmost as your master to aid you however I can!"
Yu was unashamed to admit that he had almost shed a tear by such a declaration of support. He'd almost forgotten what having a supportive semi-parental figure at hand felt like over the years.
His master fed him even more scrolls on the matter, bringing him many recorded methods to create particular Constitutions passed down by previous disciples of the sect and even sharing his own experience with the practice, which proved to be illuminating for the young cultivator.
Even with all that he'd read from the various records of the sect, Yu had underestimated just how truly all encompassing a Constitution could be. How any skill both mundane and spiritual could help a cultivator forge their body into a vessel more attuned to one's goals.
Elder Lai, only known as Lai Bolin at the time of his youth, had used his knowledge of arrays and formations to carve all of his knowledge of his chosen art on his body, brandishing the flame of his intent like a brush that he used to paint a masterful series of script upon the projection of his body created by his mind, deep into the throes of enlightenment brought about by his advancement.
Now, Yu Xiang sought to do much the same, if in a slightly different manner.
While his master had chained together all the formations that he knew into an unbroken shroud that spun around his body, the young reincarnator simply lacked the experience and knowledge to do the same. And besides, he had already inadvertently started to lay a foundation for himself.
He had bathed his body in fire, burning away the weakness out of his flesh, and purging the impurities that lay deep within his form.
But how could he twist that first step into something that better fitted him? It was his starting point, after all, the basis which the rest of his constitution would spring from.
For days he ruminated over his issue, agonizing over his dilemma -even with the much appreciated help and support of his master.
Until a certain suggestion of the old cultivator resonated with him.
"My dear apprentice, if all of this new knowledge doesn't help solve your dilemma, then why not look back upon your past experiences for an answer?" He'd looked straight at him with wise eyes tempered with age. "You have come far for one so young, so clearly you must've done something right, and should be able to gain inspiration from your previous steps." He'd nodded then, assured of his own words, preening like a peacock in self assured satisfaction.
After that suggestion, it only took Yu Xiang a few more hours to find a solution, but once he had his eureka moment he almost slapped himself for missing something so obvious.
It had been so long ago from his perspective. The selection exam for inner disciples.
He and Lin Fen had encountered a puzzle then, easily solved by his brilliant, if not vertically gifted, companion. A puzzle that was solved with knowledge of the five elements and their interactions.
After a quick search of the library's many shelves and a brainstorming session fueled by overexcitement and his master's continuous attention, Yu Xiang had come up with a draft for his future rounds of body refinement.
Fire. Earth. Metal. Water. Wood.
He'd started with fire, so earth was next.
With a guided study helped along by Elder Lai, the green eyed cultivator found as many arrays that dealt with the earth as he could, extracting the sections dealing with the element itself and then slotting them into his project as needed.
What he ended up creating was a nonsensical string of symbols and scripts. An array with no real purpose, and that even when injected with spiritual energy produced no effect of value- but when translated into his own personal script, and read like the series of words it was, became a list.
A list of qualities and descriptors, that defined what the Earth was to him.
After months of cultivation, he finally reached the time to put his theoretical work into practice, which he did with gusto as he advanced to the third stage of the Constitutional Realm. Then he did it again on the fourth stage, this time with Metal.
The gains were only marginal, but master Lai assured him that that was normal and that his work would truly shine only once he advanced into the next Realm.
But something else bothered him.
For all of his current accomplishments, his first step was now too simple for him, a brittle foundation that could not compare to the complexity of his new plans.
Which is when Elder Lai came in once again to lend a hand.
That vial of purple liquid? That precious draught was called the Elixir of Retraction, a miraculous creation that could let someone in his Realm repeat a previous round of body refinement to change it.
And his master had just gone and got it for him, no questions asked, nothing expected from him but to keep learning and advancing...
Goddamn Yu! Keep it together, don't you dare cry!
Safe to say, Yu Xiang had been more motivated than ever to finish his 'poem' to Fire, which at this point only needed a few touch ups.
A couple of hours after the start of his work, he rose from his seat, checked and re-checked his finished project just to be sure, then went to his master, who simply handed him the vial with one of his grandfatherly smiles.
"Keep making me proud." He'd said.
Yu Xiang downed the entire contents of the vial in a single gulp, readying himself for what was to come.
He had no intention of letting his master down. Not with all the support that he had shown him.
Elder Lai had done him much good, and if he could repay even a fraction of it by making strides in his cultivation, then he sure as hell was going to go above and beyond.