In the end, she did not reveal a single detail, other than advising him to read up on a few earth and metal techniques in order to gain a greater understanding of his chosen element. Since she had a few things inspect in the technique library for herself, she followed him there.

‘Now, I’d gotten a little distracted last time. What was I thinking about? Oh, right, the biggest flaw in my fighting was that I was unable to maximise my body’s strength. Starting from the first point, I should pay a lot more attention to combat in the future, and always overestimate my opponents, even if there seems to be no plausible way for them to overpower me. Even the most basic techniques I had read through included some mentions of methods allowing for sudden explosions of strength, and the Meridian Explosion Art is a thing, so…’ she looked around, slightly worried that someone with that skill would decide to jump out and attack her.

‘The second matter, of me only having one proper technique, and the third, of limited future growth,  can both be remedied with combat techniques and body cultivation techniques respectively. Perhaps I will be able to achieve a similar thing to my elemental cultivation techniques and blend together all compatible body cultivation systems into a single, all-powerful skill. I highly doubt it, though. The mysterious characters have made no moves to help me learn combat arts or skills so far.’

Before she entered the technique library, she made sure to display her metal planar energy proudly, and, just as expected, it caught the eye of Yi Zhihao.

“So, you have finally broken through to- eh? Is that the third stage?”

‘Even someone two realms above me gets confused by this…’ Yi Wei sighed internally, before presenting a kind smile, “No, I am only on the second stage, Uncle Zhihao. What made you think otherwise?”

Her earnest tone was surprisingly effective, as the man immediately admitted his fault, “Ah, so that’s how it is. I suppose your intensive reading paid off, then, seeing as you’ve reached such an impressive quality of planar energy.”

“I sure hope so,” she muttered ambiguously, “Now, may I be allowed onto the second floor?”

“Certainly,” Yi Zhihao threw her a token with a small two written in the middle, “The rules up there are a little different. You may read any manual you wish, but you may only remove three books from the library at a time, and they must either be renewed or returned after one month. Oh, and… if you want a little advice from me, then don’t show off your memory too much, or else the family might come up with a few more rules just for you.”

Although she was well aware of the answer, she still asked, “Is my memory really that good?”

“If you can remember even a tenth of the books you’ve read here so far, then yes.”

“Oh… I shall keep that in mind,” Yi Wei said, and headed up the stairs to the second level, ‘All of them.’

It was much like the first floor, except the number of shelves was lesser, and the number of people was greater. While Yi Wei had been able to avoid any attention during her browsing of the basic cultivation techniques, her appearance on the second floor was already noticed by several individuals who were also browsing through the manuals on offer.

She ignored their gazes and quickly determined how this floor was organised. Instead of being split into elements, the shelves were separated by the type of technique held on them: fist, palm, sword, saber, spear, movement, body and even the occasional dual cultivation techniques were present.

The last type she ignored instantly – regardless of their effectiveness, which often varies due to a number of factors, she was not intending to practise them even if it could increase the speed of her cultivation a thousand-fold. Weapon arts and skills were also quickly removed from the list of manuals she intended to study, as they were simply too unreliable. With her planar energy, she could strengthen her body, her mind and possibly even her techniques, but it would be far less likely to apply to weapons. Thus, it would be unreasonable to rely on help from without while instead of the power within.

‘Even then, I will still have to go through all of the fist, palm, finger, movement and body skills to find the most suitable ones, or, if I am fortunate enough, to combine them into a single technique,’ Yi Wei thought, guessing the number of books she’d need to read, ‘That will be at least five hundred manuals per category, or twenty five hundred books in total… Great.’

Heading straight for the far end of one of the shelves, she glanced at a few of the names.

‘Thousand Nail Skill, Bedrock Skin Skill, Torrential Falls Skill… that last one looks interesting… “based on the essence of a waterfall, strengthens the body, increases speed and overall defence”…’ she read out from the back of the manual, ‘I suppose this technique is as good a start as any.’

Yi Wei removed that manual, alongside a few others, and went to the back of the room, where a number of benches were placed for convenience. She sat down and flipped through the manuals as quickly as she could while still absorbing the information within, and as soon as one of the manuals was finished, she returned it and replaced it with another.

Yi Yaling had just finished her daily cultivation, and, having stabilised her energy at the ninth stage of Energy Condensation, she decided to head over to the technique library to read up on a few techniques and pick out something new to practise.

However, when she arrived onto the second floor, she came across a most peculiar sight. A girl, only a few years younger than her, was flipping through book after book at a rapid pace. This alone would not be too out of the ordinary – it isn’t unusual for some to go through dozens of skills before finding one that suits them the most, and that sort of reading naturally can’t be done slowly – except that her speed was utterly outrageous. In the time that a regular person would be able to read one paragraph, this person managed to finish half of a detailed, comprehensive technique manual.

She watched for several minutes, seeing her go through six books, before she realised that she was wasting her time and went pick out her own technique to study.

As soon as she reached for one of the manuals, however, another hand grabbed it first, and began flipping through it quickly, her eyes blurring as they rapidly read each line before scrolling over to the next.

“Ahem. Could I have that manual?” Yi Yaling asked, those few words already allowing the young woman to read a third of the book, ‘Is my question going to slow her down? I might as well have just waited for a few more minutes…’

“Hm?” the young woman raised her eyes for a moment, before returning her focus to the manual, “Give me a moment.”

She had no chance to reply before the manual in the woman’s hands returned to the shelf.

“There… Hold on, are you intending to practise body cultivation?” the girl’s eyebrow rose slightly – Yi Yaling did not look the part of a body cultivator whatsoever. She was thin, pretty and had rather large breasts; if she became a body cultivator and didn’t have something to counteract the physical changes, she would lose the first and the third feature, while the second would become a lot more contentious.

Seeing the teenager’s gaze landing on her chest, she immediately understood the misunderstanding that had occurred, “No, not at all. However, Yi Zhihao has been recommending that we study techniques that are related, or even opposite to the ones we wish to practise, in order to gain a greater understanding of both. Initially, I didn’t pay this advice much mind, but today he seemed particularly excited, and stated that someone who does this well can appear to be one stage higher than they actually are due to the purity, density and quality of their planar energy.”

Something about her explanation made the girl frown for a moment, “I see. I wouldn’t recommend that particular manual for study – it’s strictly for men.”

‘She was able to learn that from half a minute of reading?’ Yi Yaling was astonished, “What do you mean?”

“The manual follows the Yin Yang Theory and suggests that you begin practise with the centre of your yang, or your yang root. I’m sure I don’t need to explain why you’re not able to do that,” she replied, reaching for another manual, “After that, to progress, you will also have to perform dual cultivation as the yang partner, so…”

‘Why did she read it, then?’ Yi Yaling had to ponder as she replied, “T-Thank you, for that information… If I may ask, how many of the techniques here have you read already?”

“Four hundred and seventy-nine body cultivation manuals. I intend to finish the section today, and move onto palm techniques later today or tomorrow,” the young woman explained, flipping through the Bovine Stomach Skill, “… has a side effect of growing one’s breasts? I should give this to Aunt Zehao, then…”

“In that case, could you give me some advice on the Still Water Body?” Yi Yaling asked, both to test whether she has truly taken in all of the material she had read so far, and to clear up a question she had about the technique, “The technique mentions that the water energy within the body must be as calm as a reflective pool, and yet all of my combat techniques require my energy to flow swiftly, as a river or waterfall. How would I cultivate the technique?”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but are you paying attention to anything you read? The entire essence of water is changing and moving, so, naturally, when you utilise your combat techniques, you allow for a current to be created within your body, and when you need to defend, you stop it. In other words, “Water must be stagnant and fluid. In motion and in action, speed will allow for power. In defence and resistance, a still pool will survive a greater blow than any other”,” the gril recited while reading two other manuals simultaneously.

“That… that is straight from the Still Water Body manual! I can’t believe I forgot!” she realised, “Thank you! I will leave immediately! Thank you!”

Yi Wei stood in place for a moment, processing the strange encounter, before returning to her reading.

‘What a strange person. She just ran up to me, asked a question, and left… Eh, whatever, back to the Revolving Revelations Body…’

Finally, she was able to emerge a few hours later, with the combined knowledge of a thousand techniques and skills filling her head. It quickly became apparent that it was not going to be as simple as combining her planar cultivation techniques, as even the simplest of body cultivation manuals had innumerable contradicting principles and concepts that would likely tear her body apart if she even attempted to cultivate them together.

‘Ideally, I would find a way to combine the most opposing techniques in such a way that their negative or neutral effects, like expanding or condensing muscles, are negated, and the positive effects, like strengthening the body, are doubled,’ she decided, idly transforming her planar energy into the water element, ‘However, even with the healing effect of my water planar energy, combined with the reinforcement of my body by the mysterious characters, I don’t think I will be able to survive the damage that the techniques would do to my body.’

As she was walking past an elderly man, he brushed past her with his spiritual will and suddenly stopped.

“Excuse me, young lady, are you in the third stage of Energy Condensation, by any chance?” he asked, his hand half stretched out as if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to place it on her shoulder, “and you’re a member of the Yi family, right?”

His voice was shaky and anxious, and his posture and aura were similar. It was extremely strange to see such behaviour from someone who had to be at the Emergent Anchor realm, especially when it was directed at someone at the second stage of Energy Condensation.

“I am Yi Wei, of the Yi family, but I am only on the second stage, I’m afraid,” she explained, but that only seemed to make the man more excited and nervous.

“Only second? That’s amazing! Please, won’t you study array arrangement under me? I can give you elixirs, herbs, pills, artefacts, whatever you want, just say yes, please!”

‘Really? Typically, it is the students that have to beg masters of the various arts to be taught by them,’ Yi Wei noted, looking up and down over the strange elderly man, ‘however, he is wearing the robes of a master, and has three formation stars pinned to them, so unless he managed to kill a formation master and steal his clothes – which would be difficult, considering how difficult it can be to counter the many secret formation arrays they typically place onto their items – he must be a realm formation master.’

“… Is that not enough? Should I give you even more? I can create free arrays for you, or-”

“Just calm down for a second. Why are you so insistent on me becoming your disciple?”

“Huh? Oh, right. I am sorry! Please don’t let this mistake prevent you from studying under me!” he tried to prostrate himself before her, but she managed to keep him on his feet, “I am Master Yi Yi, a three-star formation master. As a practitioner of the arts within the Yi family, I have the obligation to train at least one student from the family every five years, and the deadline for picking the next student was approaching.

“However, I refused to accept any disciples the family recommended to me! They were all ignorant, childish, foolish and prideful, and they wouldn’t have grasped the intricacies of formation arrangement no matter how long I taught them, not to mention the fact that their planar energy was all shallow and impure, clearly fuelled by unclean elixirs that artificially inflate their growth. None could sense something as simple as the direction of the flow of energy!”

When Yi Yi ranted, his very aura changed. The pleading tone disappeared, and planar energy seemed to gather around him, giving him a very powerful vibe.

“I can tell that you are different when it comes to your cultivation. Your dantian is full of pure water energy, so even if you are utterly useless at everything else, you will be a far better disciple than the others,” he paused for a breath when his disposition suddenly changed back, “Ah… Please don’t go!”

‘He doesn’t have two souls inside his body, does he?’ Yi Wei questioned, remarking at how different his voice was, “I’m not going anywhere, so you can calm down. I also don’t have any issues with becoming your disciple-”

“Excellent!” he cried out but calmed himself when he saw that she had not finished speaking, “… Sorry. Please continue.”

“… However, I may not be able to spend every day, nor even the entirety of the day, on studying with you,” she continued, “I am already studying another art, and I am also very busy with my project of reading through the entirety of the technique library, so I will spend half of every day there until I am finished.”

“Ah, that’s no problem, no problem! Before we continue, though, would you like to step inside? My residence is a short walk away from here, and I will be able to provide you with a basic introductory manual on arrays.”

She agreed, so he led her to his home. However, midway there, she stopped.

‘Arrays… Perhaps… they could be utilised within my body cultivation technique, to balance out the effects and prevent damage to the body!’ she theorised, and the creative spark within her was lit.

Oculus

OLD: Still considering what to include in my next book, so I've added a poll. I'm curious to see what my readers are interested in, and I need something to help me pick out one of my ideas. There are more words in my idea document than in the first volume of Path of the Ascendant, and the first volume isn't exactly short.

Edit: I have decided on my next project, which will be a bit of practise before Book 2 of this and whatever other stories I end up writing. As such, any suggestions you provide here may be used as ideas for my next project, 『I Was Called A Demon』, but only as ideas for techniques, archetypes and so on.