William had trouble sleeping. He was currently replaying the events in his head, trying to understand why he was defeated so easily every time.

His first thoughts were about the 'whispers'. When they had assisted him he was able to at least dodge a few blows, so if he could constantly hear them then couldn't he fight back. But would that be him fighting or the 'whispers' using his body? If he defeated Harlin by listening to the 'whispers' than was the victory really his? Williams face twisted when he thought about it. He would defeat Harlin without the 'whispers' assistance. He would win with his own abilities and not because any outside influences gave him the victory. He would be careful of how much he depended on the 'whispers'.

But this didn't let him come any closer to defeating his brother. Instead he was now further away. Without help he wouldn't even be able to dodge the first attack. William realized he would first have to fix his weakness, his lack of strength. Second he would need to get a martial technique that could help him. Third he would have to get experience. That he could get from spars with other clan members.

With his mind made up William tried to go to sleep. Problem was that instead of the previous anxious mood he had been in, he was now too excited to fall asleep.

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Breakfast was done and William wanted to immediately go and get the supplementary techniques he needed to grow his power, but he was stopped by Victor.

"Don't worry about that for now, I want you too see something first."

Victor lead everyone to a secluded part of the mountain. Apparently this was important enough for the whole family to be here. William had never been in this part before. Technically they were still inside the clan grounds but there were no visible structures around the area. The snow laid undisturbed on the ground here.

William who was the most anxious because of his desire to return and acquire more techniques broke the silence. Asking Victor why they were here.

"Grandpa, why are we here? I want to visit the library."

"Relax. The techniques aren't going to run anywhere. I thought that it would be helpful for your future if you saw a heavenly tribulation. It's not everyday that you see the tribulation of someone becoming a celestial. It's a shame that we can't get any closer."

William didn't see any signs of any tribulation or anything else out of the ordinary. He looked around for a long time before he let all his thoughts go and listen to the 'whispers'.

From them he heard various words. Heaven, angry, lightning, challenge, aware. These were the main things 'said' but many other words followed.

With the boost in confidence that William got from the 'whispers' that they weren't just standing around for nothing helped him wait longer.

The tribulation started slowly. William thought he saw flashes of lights in the distant sky, but when he looked there the sky appeared no different from usual.

William saw that both of his grandfathers take out some glass bottles and drink while their eyes looked like they were staring at something in the far distance.

Then while William was focused on the glass bottles in confusion there was a bright flash of light accompanied by a sharp shrill sound which ended with the sound like someone had beat a drum, it was coming from the far distance, yet it was still so loud that it almost hurt Williams ears. But as soon as it appeared it also disappeared before he saw what it was.

He didn't have to wait long until more flashes of lights appeared followed by the same ear piercing sounds. This time he managed to see the lights true appearance. They appeared like purple lightning. First they traveled in the sky itself, silently, like snakes positioning themselves before being ready to pounce. Next, they striked faster than he could follow, they were already making contact with the ground the same moment he saw them, their appearance always came with the same sound that made him want to crawl under something and hide.

Worst of all was the feeling that appeared when he saw the lightning. It made him unconsciously hold his breath. It was like a hand was gripping his heart, trying to squeeze every drop of blood from it.

The lightning began to pick up. At first the lightning only came one at time, with a half minute pause in between each strike. But soon a second lightning followed the first without waiting. Then a third followed.

This continued until five lightnings came continually. A change happened after that. Instead of striking directly after each other they now started to strike together. William thought that the lightning strike started to look larger after the lightning show had gone on for a few minutes.

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A few more minutes went by and William was now sure that the lightning was growing stronger. Not because he could see any difference in the lightning, he could after all barely see them. But now the ground shook whenever the lightning landed. At first a little but soon enough it was like the earth itself had come alive and tried to make him fall. The ground shook like a dog trying to dry it's fur.

The only reason William was still standing was because Victor was holding his shoulder.

The sky was still without any cloud but the lightning was now raining down in the distance. William really thought that it looked like a rainstorm made out of lightning.

The lightning started to slow down after it had been going on at full force for a few seconds. The lightning show eventually stopped completely but it left behind an air of unease. It was quiet for almost a minute before lightning started to crawl across the sky again. This time all the lightning flowed to the same spot. Eventually the sky now held a purple or of lightning that became smaller and smaller until William couldn't see anything in the distant sky.

The next lightning was not visible to William as he had to close his eyes from the eye piercing light that appeared. The next thing William knew was the feeling like he had gone deaf and the feeling like the ground beneath him had disappeared.

William recovered enough to hear Victor say something to Blaz.

"....enough to become a divine celestial. But we will have to see. Let's let him recuperate alone for now."

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William was still a bit shaken when he was brought to the library by Victor.

William barely noticed Victor handing a library attendant a paper before they walked to a empty room on the second floor.

William had fully recovered a bit before he heard a knock on the door. Victor opened it and took the wooden board with a handle on each side that the attendant was carrying. On the board itself was four different stacks of books. Each stack was holding five books each.

Victor placed the stacks in front of William who was sitting in the only chair in the room.

"These books are different body enhancement techniques, Qi enhancement techniques, martial techniques and movement techniques. There are five of each type. You will get to pick one technique of each type, but remember you will have to train in them all to minor accomplishment before you try to enter the next realm and you will have to reach perfect mastery of all of them before you can cultivate past the second minor realm of the second major realm."

After saying that Victor just stood back. William realized that Victor really wasn't going to give any other instructions so he simply started to read the different books.

William had now split them up into interesting and boring. The martial and Qi enhancement techniques were boring and the body enhancement and movement techniques were interesting.

This wasn't his own bias or anything. This was simply because the boring techniques were simply different variations of the same base technique. All the Qi enhancement techniques were nameless, they would enhance his normal Qi but had no other abilities, the only difference being the patterns he would need to make while training in them. He didn't even know why he got a choice in the matter, any one of them would be as good as the other at least as far as he noticed. He tried to see if the 'whispers' could notice anything special about them but either the 'whispers' didn't notice anything or they just didn't care to tell him. Seeing how there wasn't any point in it he simply took one of them.

The martial techniques were barely any better. They were all the first volume of the sword technique developed by his grandfather, the only difference being one being slightly faster, another making it slightly easier to channel Qi into his sword, a third allowing for slightly stronger blows. They all continued like that, a single slight boost in one part compared to the others. So he choose the one which made Qi easier to channel into his sword. With the boost in Qi channeling he would have an easier time replicating the boost the others gave.

The interesting were interesting purely based on them being different compared to the others. This of course didn't make them all good, while they all gave an equal enhancement to his body their other abilities differed.

The most basic body enhancement technique simply boosted the basic power of his body but had no other abilities, this made it the worst of the bunch in Williams mind. Of course, it being so simple made it the easiest to master, but William had already rushed his cultivation which resulted in his embarrassing lack of power. Now he wanted to take his time. The one he ultimately choose was one that would give the cultivator minor regenerating capabilities when perfected. This worked well with his boosted vitality from his forest nature alignment.

The movement techniques was the most different. One being for long distance, two for mid distances and the last two for close distances. He ultimately choose to pick one of the techniques meant for close distances since he had been told that if he could master a moment technique and a combat technique than the user could use both at the same time. Now he simply had to choose one of the two techniques, since they were both good.

He choose the movement technique that focused on pure speed in the end. It was the more complex and Qi taxing of the two but as long as he increased his Qi reserve he would be good. Something he had already planned to do.

William was a little tired mentally after this. First he hadn't gotten a good nights sleep, secondly he had been watching Heavenly tribulation lightning strike his father, the inability to see his father was also quite mentally exhausting since he didn't know if his father got hurt or not. And now he had been reading and trying to choose his future techniques making him very tired, he was planning to go to sleep after eating dinner. That way he would be refreshed when he got his techniques and started training them tomorrow.

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When William saw his father completely fine waiting at the dinner table he ran to Sigmund and gave him a hug. He was to tired to really care about looking like an adult.

During the dinner his grandfather, Blaz gave a gift to his father and mother. Something about a vacation trip somewhere. There was also talk about Victor and Harlin taking a trip. William thought he saw Aaric pat Harlins shoulder with sympathy when that was brought up. Aaric was also going to go to some school for a few years. William was to tired to process everything but he thought that too many people were going on trips nowadays.

When William finally got to his bed he tiredly crawled into it before falling asleep within seconds. He would need to be well rested for the future.