Fang Xiong looked at the first page. It had the Primate Affinity title and the things inside the so-called umbrella Affinity but underneath all of this, it had another title.
"Human Form". Fang Xiong looked interestingly at this and started to read about it. Because it was about fighting and getting stronger he didn't have his usual problem of getting bored when reading so he quickly finished the entire page.
The gist that Fang Xiong got from this was that it was describing a body refining art form that would go with the 3 other Animal Forms and would make a Style; the Primate Style. Each and every one of them had their own effects of the body and would amplify a specific thing.
The Human Form was focused on increasing the stamina of the body and the strength of the respiratory system and cardiovascular system. It even had an auxiliary effect of increasing the healing speed and fatigue recovery of the person who practices it.
Fang Xiong looked a bit disappointed when he realized it wasn't a form of martial art used for fighting but was instead used to push the limits of the body in certain ways. He shrugged his shoulders in the end, thinking that a way to get powerful was just as good as learning different ways to hurt people.
Fang Xiong looked for the practice forms for this Body Art as it called itself but couldn't find any, only three words and a special way of breathing.
The three words were as such: Persevere, Everlasting and Survival. The breathing pattern that was described wasn't too far from how he naturally breathed, so he decided he would give it a go.
He walked over to the side of the courtyard and picked up the weights he used for training and put them on. Feeling the familiar crushing weight, Fang Xiong started breathing as stated by the page on the Human Form.
It was similar to how he usually breathed but it was much quicker and very similar to panting like when someone's out of breath.
As soon as he started to breathe this way, his Ki started to ripple and started to spread towards specific Ki Veins. The Ki quickly traveled and surrounded certain parts of his body but mainly centered around his heart, blood vessels and lungs.
Fang Xiong wasn't the most clever and didn't quite understand what Cardiovascular meant and he only had a small idea on what Respiratory meant, but he knew how to train stamina; Running.
So that's what he did, he started running around the courtyard.
From his previous training of running around the courtyard until he'd ran 30km each day, his stamina was incredible and something you'd never expect a 10-year-old to have. But as soon as he started running with this new breathing pattern, he felt out of breath, his heart burned and arched and his entire body felt constricted.
These mysterious effects, plus the weights made running incredibly hard.
But nonetheless, Fang Xiong persevered and continued running. He wasn't sure when but somewhere along the way he started to mentally chant the three words written next to the breathing pattern.
The three words seemed to put him into a trance which let him ignore the fatigue and push onwards.
. . .
Suddenly, Fang Xiong woke up, face down, spread like a starfish out on the dirt floor of the courtyard. His entire body arched and every breath he took felt like he wasn't swallowing air but instead inhaling sandpaper.
He rolled over and took the weighted arm guards and shirt off before looking around and finding himself back by the book with the Ki Cultivation Methods in it, so he picked it up and looked at the page he left it on.
It was still on the Human Form page but some new information had mysteriously appeared. Seeing the new information, instead of questioning it, Fang Xiong quickly read through it and absorbed the knowledge fully.
It spoke about the trance Fang Xiong had just entered. It would allow him to complete the training to his very limits but it should only be done once, for every form, a day.
Fang Xiong, feeling too tired to do anything else, simply sat there and read about the other Body Art Forms.
. . .
He'd read about all the forms and had finally recovered from his fatigue from the running earlier.
About the running earlier, he'd found he felt much more energetic after he'd fully healed from the fatigue and felt that the Human Body Art was a wonderous way of training and he couldn't help but wonder what his stamina would become after 3 years of training.
Anyway, the other forms were just as interesting as the Human Form.
The Monkey Form was focused on improving the flexibility, coordination, and balance of the body, with the three main words being; Flow, Nimble and Swift. The Gorilla Form focused purely on brute strength and endurance with the three words being; Dominate, Crush and Immovable. The last form he looked at, The Chimpanzee Form was focused around speed and strength with the three words being; Relentless, Ferocious and Rapid.
All of them gave a different feel to Fang Xiong but he felt equally excited about practicing them all soon but for now, he decided he had to rectify certain weaknesses with himself.
Grunting from annoyance, Fang Xiong headed to the Clan Library.
It was a long walk but after the workout, he had earlier it seemed like nothing to walk to the Library without any weights on whatsoever.
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While he was daydreaming about fighting and training, Fang Xiong bumped into a brick wall and was knocked out of his dreams. He jumped backward with anger on his face but when he realized it was a wall, he dropped the anger, and when he realized it was one of the Clan Library's walls, he smiled and quickly entered.
Everyone who was in the library looked at Fang Xiong in shock. they'd never seen this tall young boy outside of his courtyard before and even when they did see him he was constantly exercising and didn't seem at all like the type of person who would come to the library to read books.
But here he was, in all his muscle-headed glory.
They looked at him with pity, which they didn't know was the main factor on why he never left his courtyard, they looked at him because they knew he had unimaginably low talent in Qi Cultivation and the Patriarch wouldn't let him cultivate in Ki.
None of them felt disdain for the young boy, he was part of their clan, after all, they just felt bad for his luck in life.
Fang Xiong ignored these looks, the types of looks that pissed him off the most; he didn't need pity. Would pity make him stronger? No. Would pity help him out of his bad situation? No. So, to Fang Xiong, pity was a useless feeling in his mind.
Fang Xiong walked up to the head librarian and stood in front of the old woman's desk.
She looked up from her book only to widen her eyes at the sight of Fang Xiong. Fang Xiong got ready to be annoyed by another gaze of pity but was surprised when the woman smiled and had a look of satisfaction on her face, "You've finally come to learn about the world you're in. You know, you should leave your courtyard more often, it isn't right for a young strapping lad like you to be cooped up all day!" her voice had a teasingly stern tone about it but Fang Xiong knew she meant well.
But despite that, he could only grunt at her before moving the conversation along, "Can you tell me where to find the basic history of the world and some other basic things like geography and cultivation?"
Disregarding his disrespect, the old woman laughed softly before pulling out a few books, "Your sister said you would ask for these, so I've already collected them. I even added a few, make sure to look at them," Fang Xiong was shocked his sister had such insight on him but still took the books and mumbled his thanks before turning around and walking to a nearby empty table.
He sat down and picked up a book titled "Basic History of the World and It's Species" before starting to read through the thick book.
It was going to take a long time to read these.
. . .
Hours had passed and he had finished two of the books he'd got and was on the third one.
The first two he'd read were obviously the History of the World and Basic Understanding of Cultivation. The one he was currently reading was a book about the basic geography of the Divine Beast World.
He was coming to the end of the book he was reading and only a bit of filler information was left at the end, so Fang Xiong closed it.
Fang Xiong sighed and rubbed his eyes for the umpteenth time in the past few hours. He'd rather be training but he knew he'd rather cover his weaknesses now than have to cover them later while he could be training.
He decided to go over the information he already had, just to refresh his brain on what he'd learned.
The world he was on was called the Divine Beast World, it had 4 continents with 4 different species populating them. Each continent had a specific dynasty ruling it. The four continents were called as such; Terra Continent, Demon Continent, Tian Continent and finally, the Beast Continent.
Fang Xiong was currently on the Tian Continent ruled by a Human Dynasty called, surprise surprise, the Tian Dynasty.
The other 3 races and the continent they ruled were as such; The Terra Continent was ruled by the Fae, the Demon Continent was ruled by the Demons (what a surprise) and the Beast Continent was ruled by the Kin.
A small rundown on the other races was quite simple. The Fae looked like slightly altered humans but with mythical beauty and incredibly affinity to any kind of Elemental Qi/Ki. The Demons also look like Humans but they usually have unusual skin tones such as red, blue or grey and they have a pair of horns sticking out of their forehead as well, they usually had good affinity for Qi in general but because of their race it was a bit different to Human Qi.
The Kin was what caused the most interest in Fang Xiong, however, as they were anthropomorphic animals and a child of both a Kin and a Human will look like a Human while still having some Animal traits fall through and be shown on its body. Fang Xiong felt his tail wrapped around his waist twitch but shook his head, casting out any weird thoughts.
His family was here with his father, sister and uncle/Master and that was final.
Anyway, the 4 continents were each different in their own ways, with the Beast Continent being half desert, half tropical rainforest, the Tian Continent being full of cities and mountainous regions, the Terra Continent being one big forest and the Demon Continent being a nearly complete desolate battleground most of the time.
Each of the species had known each other since the start, somehow. Every bit of recorded history started with a picture of the same thing; all four of the species walking out of a dark cave together before splitting off to the 4 separate continents.
Along with this, Cultivation has been with each and every one of the species since the start as well as giant Mutant Beasts roam the land and people had to defend themselves and Cultivation was the key. But no one had any idea on where it came from, nor did they have any way of finding out.
Cultivation, in general, had the same stages no matter what your species was and what you cultivated. It started in the Houtian Realm and when you reached the 10th layer of that realm you'd be able to break through to the Xiantian Realm which also had 10 layers before you reached the Revolving Core Realm. The information passed that point was incredibly vague and even the information on the Xiantian Realm and the Revolving Core Realm were incredibly vague and little in amount.
So all he learned from this book that there were a few realms in cultivation, each with 10 layers, but after that, not much is known.
Fang Xiong felt his head hurt as the only information he really wanted to know was the only information that was this sparse. He knew it was a basic book on cultivation but it still annoyed him so.
As he was banging his head of the table in annoyance, he felt a quick and excited tap on his shoulder. Turning around with a scowl on his face, Fang Xiong looked at who was tapping his shoulder.
"Hello, brother!" Fang Xiong's scowl disappeared immediately, replaced by a neutral look as his sister beamed at him.
"Mhm, Hello Sister," Fang Xiong stood up and picked the books he hadn't finish up, "Are you staying? Because I'm probably going to go home for something to eat. This reading is so boring..."
At his complaining, his sister laughed before replying, "Yes, I was going to ask you if you wanted to walk home with me," Xiao Mei smiled as they both walked out of the library, both with books in hand.
Along the way back, neither of them spoke. They just enjoyed the other's company, feeling each others presence as both of them knew that soon they wouldn't be able to.
When they got home, Xiao Mei offered to make Fang Xiong a feast to reward him for reading the books.
Fang Xiong sighed as he thought that at least something good had come out of reading those books.