That Night

The wooden hut that Ken had found himself in the ownership of had been just that. A wooden hut. It is well made, quality materials have been utilized in its construction.

There was charm in its simple construction, the insides being nothing more than a five by five meter square space with a hatch at its corner that when opened revealed the small cellar underneath.

But the most striking aspect of the hut can be seen when one gazes directly upward, there a gigantic glass pane lays, acting as the roof of the hut, filtering in the gentle celestial light of the night sky

And then there is its only inhabitant.

Positioned squarely at the center of the humble abode lies a worn rug, and perched upon it rests Kenki. With eyes closed, he exhales a prolonged breath.

'Yep, Rinako lied to me, there is barely any difference in the concentration of Qi during the day and night' he thinks to himself, waving his arm around in the air, feeling the Qi pass through his fingertips 'Or maybe she just forgot to mention a certain very important factor about how my body works, hell if I know. Her burning the initial paper was suspicious enough' Ken grumbles, displeased at the situation that he has fallen head first into.

'I can always bail to the Twilight Blossom sect' he comforts himself before moving on to the main topic at hand.

A hand is raised. Ken grabs the paper talisman that had been stuck to his forehead for the better part of a week and with a single strong tug rips the item off.

"I'm free!" He shouts out, laughing all the while and leaping into the air. That little slip of paper had been the bane of his existence, like a roach in his house that he could not get rid of, causing endless amounts of frustration and anger to well up in his soul for days on end without a way to stop them

But…

He does not allow himself to celebrate for too long. Being granted this victory is good and all but there had after all been a reason why the talisman had been there in the first place.

Kneeling down onto the rug he takes on a meditative pose, the boy already sensing the initial symptoms of Qi poisoning encroaching. He does just as he had trained for the entire day, ever since sending Naoe off.

The mysterious organ that is his dantian churns, hardening its ethereal walls, contracting in the same way that a muscle would, its volume reducing until it is only a quarter its ordinary size. And with its compression the dizziness that had begun to affect Kenki disappears.

'There we go' a smile adorns his features.

Why does compressing the dantian reduce the amount of Qi absorbed by the body? Hell if he knows!

It just works.

Kenki had discovered the method through pure trial and error, the theory and reasoning behind it are beyond someone as blind to the ways of cultivation as himself.

Now… he could have spent the next several days just increasing the control he has over his body, to the point where the Qi of the outer world would not have been capable of even seeping through his skin, but the key word there is 'days'. It would have been like learning how to walk again, or learning how to ride a bike, or use roller skates.

It takes a while to figure everything out, and then a while more to commit the task to muscle memory.

Why do that when he has a sect to explore?

"Phew" Ken stands up, carefully storing Rinako's talisman inside a pocket hidden in the sleeve of his yukata. It will be required later as Kenki cannot keep his dantian contracted when he is asleep.

His head tilts to face the brilliant night sky. The glass is crystal clear, as if it isn't even there, the only indicator for it existing being the occasional flash from the tribulation over the Heavenly Library faintly reflecting off of its surface.

"I guess that now would be as good a time as any to go and check it out. I was banking on it being easier to walk around at night, there being no light Qi from the sun and all that, but I can work with this as well." A stretch is performed as the boy, almost teen now, works out the kinks in his body. The compressed dantian feels odd in his abdomen, as if Ken has a hard crystal ball inside him moving the organs out of the way. He's ready to drop his improvised technique at the first sign of pain

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The climb to the Heavenly Library is long, thousands of the marble-like steps must be crossed to reach the peak of the lightning struck hill, though for a cultivator like Kenki the job is beyond easy. Even before his ascension he would have been capable of running up the hill no problem, and now? It's just a breeze to get through.

An interesting feature about the top of the hill. On top of it being constantly beaten and battered by a heavenly tribulation, it is also perpetually covered in a cloud of mist, making the Heavenly Library itself impossible to see.

And when Ken finally arrives?

'It's tall' he remarks. 'Maybe nine or ten stories? Taller than it is wider' He wonders as his neck bends, head slowly rising to gaze at the top of the structure. The lightning could be clearly seen now, blinding is its light, but no sound comes out even this close to the tribulation.

There is a small stream of disciples passing by Kenki, some just entering the library, others just leaving. Not many of them, which is surprising considering what Kenki had discovered by doing some simple math.

There are approximately five-thousand of the small wooden huts acting as the abodes of the disciples, even if the majority of them were vacant that would still make for a staggering number of Verdant Sword initiates. Yet despite that there is such a small stream of people coming and going from the most vital building in the outer sect?

Nevertheless, Ken strides on confidently in a way that mirrors other disciples that he has observed. Wear what others wear, walk like others walk, act the way others do; those are the rules for not standing out and the boy has taken them to heart.

The gilded metal doors of the Heavenly Library are already opened, and at the entrance of the building sits the Heavenly Librarian.

Ken performs a bow, as he'd been taught, before entering.

A couple of cursory glances are sent his way by the disciples already inside. Some of the young cultivators are seated on the many tables scattered throughout, some are midway through retrieving a scroll. The collective gazes send a wave of pressure that Kenki manages to ignore all too easily. And with that, the pressure is suddenly gone, everyone returning to the task they'd been performing not too long ago.

'Was this some sort of test?' A big question mark floats above his head 'You don't just unintentionally send out pressure. Your intent needs to be infused into the gaze.' Ken deliberates for a moment before shrugging his shoulders.

'I have Rinako's protection so it should not be too much of a problem if something bad comes out of it. She would not wish for her brand new personal disciple to get suppressed would she? Still, caution should be exercised.'

Being well aware that there is an enchantment that would bounce those without the proper credentials off, Ken moves away from the staircase leading to the upper floors.

The library is quite beautiful, the odd eastern and western mesh of styles remaining even in the cultivation world. It had always been an interesting nugget of curiosity for the transmigrator, how those two completely different cultures from Earth had been mixed in this world. Present everywhere, be it in the way that individuals think, the way buildings are constructed or the way that the very language works.

Ken swiftly locates the section aptly titled 'cultivation methods', his goal already in mind.

"True…. True… trueeee..?" He mumbles under his breath, scanning the rows upon rows of shelves.

'Ah there it is, True Sun Refinement' a cultivation method for those with a light and fire affinity, the sun being widely recognised as the bastion of both elements. It had been Rinako's orders, to seek the scroll out at his earliest convenience and absorb its teachings.

'Heavy' he thinks, a frown on his face. 'What the hell is this made of? I feel like I'm holding a solid lead bar and not some rolled up piece of paper' it is picked up nevertheless. Glancing around, Ken finds a vacant table, sitting himself down and unfurling the unnaturally heavy scroll.

'True Sun Refinement - Fire and Light cultivation method.' The first line of text reads, confirming that Ken has the correct scroll in his hands.

'The True Sun Refinement method is best performed at noon, when the sun is at its strongest and the light Qi it radiates is at its peak…'

'Damn, going straight in raw with no lube? Where are the introductions?' Ken thinks to himself 'well, not like I'm complaining, but I was at least expecting for the name of this method's creator to be mentioned' the temporary surprise out of the way he focuses back on reading.

'Of course, when the method should be performed depends entirely on the region one lives in. The rays of the sun are not created equal, some regions are naturally bathed in more light than others. One may need to cultivate only at dawn or dusk if in a desert, at noon if it's the midst of winter. Light is the easiest Qi to cultivate for initiates in the first step owing to the fact that most of the time it requires no resource investment. Just standing outside during the day is enough.'

'Fire Qi is also easy to obtain during the early stages. As its name would suggest, the Qi can be produced just by starting a fire. For this specific method it is suggested that the user stocks up on great amounts of candles and firewood. Just a single log set ablaze will provide enough Qi for an Initiate in the first step. Candles can be used to increase the amount of Qi by incremental amounts, thus granting greater control over the environment.'

'Control of the environment is essential. For this method of cultivation to work equal parts fire and light Qi must be present…

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For an hour the only thing Ken does is read. The scroll isn't large, despite what its mass would suggest. Quite the opposite, to Ken's senses it only has six or seven pages worth of content, he'd gone over every single word written down in just ten minutes.

And then he rereads it, committing the words to memory. Then he goes over it a third and a fourth time. And at the fifth time, he tried to recite everything from memory.

It's not perfect, he did not commit the text to memory word for word, but the general idea of what is inside the scroll stays with him.

Having a good memory is essential since one cannot take any of the books or scrolls in the library outside.

'I might need to do some shopping. I'm especially curious about how these 'beast treasures' work, getting one would be fantastic.'

Beast treasures. Although the book hadn't described them in great detail, it had implied that they are capable of generating elemental Qi simply by existing, at no cost. The particular beast treasures the scroll mentioned had been the skin of an Ember Lizard and the horn of a Solar Rhinoceros.

'Again, it hadn't gone in depth, only just mentioning that 'at the higher steps of the initiate realm' the beast treasures will become mandatory. Simply because the intensity of Qi won't be there, neither the sun's rays nor a simple fire will be enough to progress. And also, an Ember Lizard, I feel like I've heard about that beast before…'

"Brother." A girl's voice snaps Kenki from his train of thought. His focus shifts from the scroll, redirected to the person who had been standing at the edge of his peripheral vision.

A teenager, a couple of years older than him, stands before him. Open palm and a fist touching each other in the gesture of greeting.

'Nice clothes' he couldn't help but notice. The clothes bore the typical black hue worn by inner disciples, but a subtle gray floral pattern adorned the fabric. That, and the design of the attire was a little bit different to the one Ken is used to seeing on Naoe or Hana.

"Sister." He replies with a smile, mirroring her gesture by also touching a balled up fist and an open palm

"Mind if I sit here?"

"Not at all" Kenki replies as goes back to reading the True Sun Refinement scroll.

"…"

'Hold on'

Something was definitely out of place.