For the next month, whenever his sect duties allowed, Jiang found himself drawn to the Tower of Records like a moth to flame. His daily routine took on a new rhythm.

Rise before dawn, the nightly meditation sessions making him feel energized, despite the back breaking work for a preteen.

Upon waking up, he would swiftly complete his assigned tasks with efficiency, in the expense of his protesting body, then slip away to the tower during whatever precious free moments he could scavenge.

The wooden tablets became his silent teachers. Each one contained not just characters and images, but something more—a form of stored knowledge that responded to his Qi. When he channeled energy into them, the information flowed directly into his mind, bypassing the normal struggles of memorization. It was as if the tablets had been designed for this very purpose—to rapidly impart language to those who couldn't read.

Perhaps it was the same thing with the classic jade tablets. Cheng thought. another one of his random thoughts. Was he supposed to know what that even meant?

The process wasn't entirely effortless though. Each session left him mentally drained, his head throbbing as if his brain itself was being reshaped to accommodate the new knowledge. But the results were undeniable.

What might have taken years of traditional study, he was absorbing in weeks.

The first week, he mastered basic nouns and simple verbs. By the second week, he could recognize most common characters and even string together simple sentences when read from a book. During the third week, he graduated from the basic tablets to more advanced ones, learning complex phrases and specialized vocabulary related to cultivation.

By the end of the month, Jiang could read most of the introductory texts on the small shelf, without any problems, Something that spoke volumes to his intelect, as despite spending lots of times working on the sect tasks, leaving him with less than two to three hours a day, he still managed to grasp the written language of this place.

It was truly interesting how these tablets worked. It wasn't like he was memorizing something. It was like the knowledge was uploaded in his brain. Whatever that meant. Seriously. It was begining to really weird him out now. Just when he had mostly gotten over his new circumstances, of feeling like this was his second life or something, that it felt him more moments to think these thoughts.

God. it hurt to think sometimes, especially when he felt like he barely understood half his own thoughts.

"The Foundations of Qi." he read from a thin volume, his finger tracing the characters with growing confidence. The words that had once been incomprehensible symbols now spoke to him, revealing their secrets.

Yet his rapid progress with reading came at a cost. His cultivation, while not stagnant, advanced far more slowly than he had hoped. Each night, he would sit in the lotus position, drawing in the motes of Qi that drifted through his cabin, guiding them into his dantian. But recently, he had begun to encounter a problem.

"It's like trying to pour water into a full cup." he muttered to himself one night, frustrated after another cultivation session. His dantian, once an empty void eager to be filled, now felt... resistant. The Qi he gathered would struggle to enter, and it felt somewhat uncomfortable.

The realization had been growing in him for days, but tonight he finally accepted it: he needed a proper cultivation method. His instinctive approach had carried him this far, but no further.

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Sure, his brain could spill all sorts of thoughts. from telling him to just will it to do so, to compressing it, to finding a heavenly encounter. As if he could just magically do them. God, this was infuriating. like he was not in control of his own mind.

The next morning, having finished his assigned work earlier than usual, Jiang returned to the Tower of Records with renewed purpose. This time, he bypassed the language tablets and headed deeper into the stacks, searching for cultivation manuals.

He found them on the far wall—scrolls and books detailing various techniques and methods. Even now, with his newly acquired reading ability, many were beyond his comprehension, filled with esoteric terms and concepts he had yet to learn. But a few seemed intended for beginners.

No. Not for beginners. these must be trash, if outer sect members could enter here. He had heard that outer sect members were sometimes kicked out, even at his cultivation level. Most likely, these were just books about cultivation that were accessible to everyone, be it a common thug, or merchant.

One slim volume caught his eye though, as unlike most books here, it was rather small. It was worn, its corners frayed from countless hands that had held it before his. When he opened it, the pages crackled, releasing the scent of age and dust.

Jiang Cheng settled at a reading table, losing himself in the text. Hours passed without his notice as he absorbed the fundamentals of cultivation. The book described techniques for expanding one's dantian, methods for refining crude Qi into purer forms, and all around better ways of focusing on one's Qi, like exercises.

One in particular, got his interest way more, as it made the practitioner, try to stick a leaf on their body, and hold it there, splitting one's attention to doing other tasks, and the leaf.

It was kinda weird how this one made him think of ninjas for some reasons. what was a ninja anyways?

He clapped his face, focusing. His random thoughts could wait. he had more reading to do.

The introduction to Qi cultivation, as it was called, was basic. clearly intended for the lowest level of Qi Condensation cultivators. But to Jiang, it was more than that.

"So that's why." he whispered, finding a passage that explained exactly the problem he had encountered. Without proper circulation, Qi would eventually stagnate, unable to compact further without refinement. His instinctive approach had been inefficient, wasting much of the energy he gathered, as it just sat in his dantian, expanding it like a overinflated balloon. Again. something he felt he should know what it was, but had no memories of.

It was satisfying though, when he read that you were supposed to compress you Qi, making it denser. Purer. it lined up with his scattered thoughts, making him wonder how he even know that might be the answer.

It was late evening when he finally left the tower, the book's contents memorized, its prescribed techniques clear in his mind. As he walked back to his cabin, he couldn't help but reflect on his unusual journey thus far.

Nearly three years ago, he had just woken up in his little cabin. He was just another struggling outer disciple, performing menial tasks, hoping for more and more gathering pills. Now, he had not only reached Qi Condensation, but had taught himself to read and discovered the path forward for his cultivation.

The absurdity of it all nearly made him laugh. What other outer disciple had ever learned to read through magical tablets in a single month? What other child from a farming background could now read cultivation manuals meant for sect disciples?

And most importantly. Was something special within him? there had to be. After all, he didn't think anyone else had these weird thoughts. Sometimes, he almost felt like he was two. Not one.

And yet, he sensed that this was merely the beginning. The path ahead would only grow more challenging. For all his progress, he remained an outer disciple, limited in resources and opportunities. The inner sect, with its true masters and advanced techniques, remained as distant as the stars.

He had heard that for a outer sect disciple, advancing to the Foundation establishment, was the only way to get in the inner sect. That, and becoming a alchemist, something even more difficult arguably.

As he reached his cabin, Cheng, resolved to put his new knowledge to use immediately. He settled into the lotus position, closed his eyes, and began the first circulation pattern described in the book.

Immediately, he felt the difference. Rather than simply drawing Qi in and letting it pool, he now guided it with purpose, Cycling it through his full dantian.

He could feel his Qi slowly circulate in it, rotating more and more. that was the easy part. Then. He tried compressing it. No luck there. It didn't even budge. Seems like Foundation establishment was a long ways more than he thought.