We gathered in our classroom the day after the competition, and Instructor Sun greeted us with a stony expression.
“You won, but don’t let it go to your head. That was one of the weakest classes. None of them had combat blessings, and a couple of you still only barely managed to win. In the future, don’t expect things to be so easy.”
He reached into a storage bag and threw a pill and token to each of us.
“Take the pill and clean up your cultivation. Tonight, you need to start working on building your true foundation. If you don’t have a decent cultivation technique, go to the library and find one. If you do, get a martial technique. I expect you all to be back here at the beginning of next week prepared for class. You need to be Martial Disciple 2. No more, no less.”
Taking this as a dismissal, we all bowed and turned to leave, but the instructor spoke up once more, halting us in our tracks.
“And just so we’re clear, if you get a martial technique, make sure it can be used with the part of your body you fortify. Don’t cultivate your arms after buying a leg technique.”
This time he didn’t wait for us and instead turned and left the room before we could respond.
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The academy library was a place I had been interested in visiting ever since Instructor Sun gave me my first token for a free technique. However, going there without knowing what to expect might have resulted in the loss of my only opportunity to plunder every technique possible, so I had delayed my visit. I wanted to understand what would happen when I went before I did so. Barring that, I wanted to at least learn how to gain extra tokens first.
With the reward from the martial arts competition in hand, I had more freedom to act.
My classmates and I arrived at the library as a group and entered to see a large reception area with an elderly man standing behind a counter.
“Yes?”
Zhuge Yan took the lead in responding. “We’re here to select techniques.”
The librarian gestured to the counter without speaking further.
I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted, but the others weren’t so clueless. They each stepped up and placed their token on the counter. I followed suit just a beat behind.
The librarian nodded. “What kind of techniques do you want?”
Shi YuLong was the first to speak. “A martial technique for earth qi, as strong as I can get.”
The librarian acknowledged his choice and turned to the others. Chai JiaQi wanted a leg-based water martial art, and Lin LiTing wanted a metal qi cultivation technique.
Zhuge Yan had been struggling with his choice, but when he finally decided, his voice was firm. “I want a cultivation technique for dark qi.”
I sensed that the librarian was surprised for the first time, but he didn’t show any outward signs of disagreement. He just turned to me.
“Can these tokens be exchanged for higher-level techniques?”
“No, these are Rank 1 tokens.”
That helped me make my decision. I already had a good earth cultivation technique, so I wasn’t hurting for another one. I was presenting myself as an earth cultivator in this life, and I wanted to continue down that path for now. In any case, I didn’t worry too much about making the ‘correct’ decision because it didn’t seem like it would be very difficult to access the library again in the future. If I couldn’t get another token in this life, I would just wait for the next.
“An earth-based martial art.”
The librarian nodded once more. “Follow.”
He took us down a long corridor with several doors on either side. We walked until reaching the third door on the left.
“Martial water techniques,” the librarian said, gesturing to the door. “You have ten minutes to make your selection.”
He opened the door and ushered Chai JiaQi inside.
The next door we stopped at was for Lin LiTing who was also given 10 minutes.
Shi YuLong and I were sent in the third door the librarian stopped at. Inside, over a dozen shelves were filled with hundreds of rolled-up bamboo scrolls. Nothing had a label, and it was unclear which techniques did what.
I knew what I needed to do, but especially with Shi YuLong accompanying me, I had to play the part of a typical Disciple. I walked forward, picked up a random scroll, and read the first slip.
“Yellow-Ranked Heavy Staff technique.” I sighed in a show of despair. “How are we supposed to find anything suitable when nothing is labeled?”
YuLong grinned widely. “Fate.”
He walked forward and began picking up random scrolls, reading the first line before putting them aside and choosing something else.
I followed his method, but when I was picking my ‘random scroll,’ I brushed my hand across all the techniques around it, depositing copies of them into my mental library. If we were being observed, I didn’t want to be seen simply running around the room touching everything in sight.
I estimated that eight of our ten minutes had elapsed when I finished my plundering. That only left me two minutes to choose the technique I would have to use over the next few months.
In my random searching, I hadn’t found anything particularly valuable. All of the scrolls I had glanced at were only Yellow-Rank techniques. It was possible that there was simply nothing better in the room, but I didn’t believe that.
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Of course, if there was anything good in this room, it would already be stored in my mental library, but that didn’t help me much at the moment. If I wanted to use the technique openly, I would have to take the scroll out of the room with me, and to do that, I would both have to spend time cataloging the techniques and then match them up with the physical scrolls.
I didn’t have time for that.
Not trusting myself to YuLong’s ‘fate,’ I believed there had to be a way to determine the good techniques from the bad. I could have asked the System for assistance, but that felt unnecessary. There had to be another way.
As I was looking at the countless scrolls, trying to see anything that differentiated one from another, something clicked in my head, and I had an idea. There was something special about cultivation knowledge. I couldn’t store high-Rank manuals in my library, and I could barely force myself to read knowledge that was too advanced. When I tried to memorize parts of Emperor Li’s books, I couldn’t understand a single word.
Extending this idea to technique scrolls, I turned on qi vision and started looking around the room. At first, nothing popped out at me, but I knew there had to be some kind of energy or… something in these scrolls. These scrolls had to contain something beyond just ink and bamboo. I wasn’t sure what I did, but I felt a piece of my mind twist, and all the scrolls around the room began to glow with a faint light.
My time was almost up, so I quickly darted around the room, looking for anything glowing with a brighter light. I thought that maybe there was a hidden cache of knowledge here, maybe something in a secret alcove available only to the skilled or lucky, but no such luck. The brightest scroll was near the center of a shelf in clear view. I picked it up and examined it with my analysis ability.
Earth-Rank Martial Art, Mountain Crushing Fist, Requirements: Martial Disciple 2 to Martial Disciple Peak, Earth Qi
To unleash the technique’s full power, I would need to be a Peak Disciple, but I could begin practicing it as a Disciple 2. That seemed to fit Instructor Sun’s requirements.
I looked at YuLong and saw that he had only found a Profound-Rank scroll. My eyes darted around the room, and I rushed over to grab the only other Earth-Rank technique I could find. I wasn’t sure of its properties, but I tossed it to the boy.
“Try that one. It should be better than what you have.”
He didn’t even look at it. He just placed the technique he had been holding down and decided to follow my advice. Maybe accepting things you’re given like this is what he considers ‘fate,’ or maybe he just wasn’t happy with anything he found himself and wanted someone else to blame for his bad luck.
We left the room at the same time as everyone else and found the librarian waiting for us.
I had one more token to use. From an outsider’s perspective, logically, I should have looked for an earth qi cultivation technique or grabbed another martial earth technique, but I didn’t need either of these. I wanted to grab the cultivation techniques for one of the other elements, especially the secondary ones, but it would be hard to explain such a choice if I was questioned about it.
I handed the librarian my second token. “I’m interested in multi-element cultivation techniques.”
The librarian narrowed his eyes slightly but took the token and gestured to the door closest to the reception area.
“You have ten minutes.”
I hurried inside. This room only held a little over a dozen books instead of the hundreds of scrolls that were in the martial vault. I acted the same as I had before, brushing my hand across everything while choosing scrolls to read at random.
Of all the scrolls here, the most versatile were the five Peak-Earth triple-element techniques for each of the constructive combinations in the five-element cycle, such as wood to fire to earth or earth to metal to water. For the secondary elements, there were only dual-element techniques available for the opposing elements, dark with light and lightning with wind.
After searching with the altered qi vision—energy vision?—I didn’t find anything special. Nearly every technique here was Peak-Earth, and choosing a technique was simply a matter of which combination one wanted to use.
Walking this path could be interesting in the future, but it wasn’t my plan for this life, so I left the room without taking a scroll, showing that I had decided not to cultivate any of them. This made the librarian scowl.
“You won’t be getting your token back.”
I dipped my head in acknowledgment.
The librarian took us to another room where a large formation was set up next to several blank sheets of paper. One by one, we handed him our chosen scrolls, and the information was copied from the bamboo slips onto the paper.
“These copies will only last for one month. You are not allowed to duplicate them or transmit the knowledge to anyone else in any way. If the Academy learns you have done so, you will be punished severely.”
He looked at Zhuge Yan. “Not even your family will be able to reduce the punishment for such an act. Is that understood?”
The librarian looked at each of us, getting our agreement.
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I spent the rest of the week slowly cultivating my Peak-Earth earth qi technique. While the multi-element techniques were interesting, mastery of a single element was what I was looking for in this life. It didn’t take me long to push it to Disciple 2, so I spent the rest of my time before the next class practicing the Mountain Crushing Fist.
The technique as a whole was interesting. It used earth qi to bind my feet to the ground, allowing me to exert significant force without needing to worry about recoil pushing me away. This could be dangerous though. If I were to hit an unbreakable object, my fist might shatter instead of bouncing off. The risks of using a powerful technique were real, but as long as I was careful, it would allow me to attack with devastating strength.
I also began to consider if I could use the same principles defensively. Why not bind myself to the ground to help absorb attacks? I quickly flipped through my mental library, looking at the techniques I had just copied, and I found a Profound-Rank technique called the Mountain’s Repose which did exactly what I was thinking about.
I didn’t want to use any of the stolen techniques openly, but using the Mountain Crushing Fist in inventive ways should be expected, right?
I began consulting my library to help me think of other ways to use ‘the Mountain Crushing Fist’ to my advantage in the future.
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The next week, our classes resumed with lessons on integrating our techniques into our fighting.
Instead of using the ones we had just gotten from the library, Instructor Sun had us start by using one of two basic Yellow-Ranked techniques called Punch and Kick.
Punch was a technique for taking qi from the arm and applying it to a punch. The way we were fighting before, qi was only being used to strengthen our bodies. Through this technique, the qi in a punch would cause damage separate from the physical blow. Even a soft punch could carry enough qi to cripple a mortal.
The two techniques were extremely simple, but learning to properly integrate the qi movements instinctively was still a challenge. Master Tan forced me to concentrate on learning to use Punch properly and wouldn’t allow me to even practice the Mountain Crushing Fist until several weeks later.
Our schedule of training resumed its normal rhythm of combat in the morning, professions in the afternoon, and cultivation in the evening. Every few months, we would be matched against another class for a martial arts competition. We won most, but when classes were focused around martial blessings, usually only YuLong and JiaQi were able to secure a victory.
Whenever we succeeded in these competitions, we received another library token. I plundered the earth qi cultivation and formation specialist rooms, but I wasn’t willing to show my hand by going into rooms for the other elements. Instead, I used the extra tokens to build out the martial techniques I could openly display. However, I did hold a couple of tokens back in reserve, just in case.
I added a movement technique that would help me travel faster and stealthier on bare earth as well as leg attacks and defensive arts.
In this manner, three more years passed. At twenty years old, we were all Peak Disciples. Our classes would soon come to an end, and we would have to figure out what we would do next.