Mei Chao Bing put away the magic box and then finally went on his way to see Sect Master Zhang after sorting through the last few defensive and offensive tools Yan Hong Min could give him for the other disciples.

When Zhang Guan Yu saw him, he raised his brows. “I’m surprised to see you. After almost having to kick you out so you’d rest, you suddenly went and holed yourself up like that. It’s a wonder you came back out.”

Mei Chao Bing could only smile wryly. This kind of greeting from the Sect Master wasn’t odd at all so he figured it would be alright to simply ignore it. Anyway, he didn’t want to give too much away. Instead, he focused on giving him a brief summary of his talk with Yan Hong Min and what they needed him to do.

Zhang Guan Yu sighed deeply. “Well, it’d be too easy if we didn’t have a hundred things to worry about at once, wouldn’t it?” He shook his head but then waved. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see to it at once. As for what you want to do …”

He rummaged through his spatial bag and finally took out a jade seal, carelessly throwing it at Mei Chao Bing. “You take this with you. It’ll give you access to all levels of the archive. Let me warn you though: the information you’re looking for won’t be neatly bundled up. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to find much in a short amount of time. That’s the work of weeks or even months.”

Mei Chao Bing nodded. To be honest, his hopes weren’t high either but if he could uncover at least one piece of information, it would be worth it. Anyway, he couldn’t help with what Yan Hong Min was doing so he might as well try something else. It wouldn’t be a loss. Still … “Thank you for the reminder. I’ll try my best but I also know I might find nothing. This evening, I will return to the border region no matter what I find or not.”

Zhang Guan Yu nodded. “You go on then. I will take care of everything else.”

Mei Chao Bing cupped his fists and then turned on his heels, walking out of the hall fast and going to the archive of the sect where all the scrolls about their history, as well as all the cultivation manuals and tomes on practice were lying.

Showing the jade seal to the Elder in charge, he directly walked to the deeper levels of the building. He didn’t have any illusions that he would find something on the levels disciples regularly visited. The younger ones were a chatty bunch. If there was even a hint somewhere in these books that their cultivation technique might enable them to have an ability like the black warrior had, they absolutely would have gone out and dissected that idea stroke by stroke.

Even though he had been in closed-door cultivation for a long time, he was sure that something like that would have been noticed by others too so by now, it should have become common knowledge and the others in the border region would have known. Since that wasn’t the case, no disciple had ever stumbled over information regarding the abilities. One explanation was that there simply wasn’t any to begin with but another was that the information was at a place that regular disciples simply couldn’t get to.

He finally entered the last room of the archive and looked at the rows of shelves, sighing to himself. He had the heart to do this task but he was also aware of how futile it seemed. One person looking through this whole room …

He shook his head at himself. No wonder the Sect Master had warned him that this might not yield results. Unless he found something at the beginning by coincidence, his chances were extremely low.

He walked past the first shelf, trying to decide where to start. He couldn’t simply pick things at random and hope for the best. No, there wasn’t enough time for that. He needed to make a good choice to maximize his chances.

The abilities of the guardians … something about that might be in the information about the last war with the demonic practitioners. But then, the Elders likely were aware of that already and the guardians would have been as well. They surely wouldn’t have let them blindly guess around if they had that kind of information so this wouldn’t be helpful.

He pursed his lips and walked further inside. The oldest documents were further in the back while the newer ones were at the front. The war had been a long time ago but compared to the age of the four great righteous sects, that was nothing.

Mei Chao Bing stopped in his tracks and stared ahead in a daze. The age of the four great righteous sects? He cursed to himself and then rushed to the end of the room where the oldest of scrolls were stored, some of them even displayed on altars that were protected by arrays so the passage of time wouldn’t reduce these testimonials of the past to dust.

He glanced at all of them but finally stopped in front of the last altar, staring at the scroll unfurled on top of it with fervor. This was the oldest document about the Teng Yong Sect the sect still possessed and seeing how much had been passed down, it was likely to be something that had to do with the one who had originally founded the sect.

If their cultivation technique was able to enhance an ability, then most likely, they had possessed one as well and created this technique specifically to aid with it. If this was the case, then there should at least be some hints in this scroll.

Mei Chao Bing clenched his hands into fists and then stepped closer, starting to read. Now, all his hope rested on these few scrolls from the very beginning.