28. The Library
“I’ll take you somewhere fun.”
That was the most exciting thing Gong Yiling had said to Qiu Shui and Xinyao after lunch.
And what was this fun place?
Qiu Shui imagined a scenic spot, while Xinyao pictured a bustling market.
As for what it actually was…
“Ta-da!”
When Gong Yiling pointed at the massive white stone building, Qiu Shui and Xinyao were stunned.
“This is…?”
“A library, no wait, a library pavilion!” Miss Gong said, hands on her hips. “Bathing in the ocean of knowledge, isn’t that fun!?”
“Ah… oh…” They tried to hide their disappointment, but their lack of interest was palpable.
Seriously, Master… what’s so fun about a library?
“Come on, show some excitement.”
Her words didn’t elicit much of a response. She rolled her eyes and suddenly had an idea.
“Ahem…” Gong Yiling cleared her throat. “I brought you here to choose some spiritual or martial techniques for yourselves.”
“If you can last half an hour against me in our next sparring session, I’ll grant you any one wish.”
“Huh!?”
Their eyes immediately lit up.
If it was that, then they weren’t sleepy at all.
Before Gong Yiling could say another word, Lu Xinyao grabbed Qiu Shui’s hand and rushed into the library.
“So impatient.”
Gong Yiling, having offered herself as a prize, chuckled helplessly. “Wait for me! Do you even know what you’re looking for?” she called out, chasing after them.
But just before entering, she thought she saw someone resembling Lei Che slip through a side door.
“That’s…?”
When she looked again, there was no door, let alone a person.
—Was it… her imagination?
She muttered to herself, then shook her head and entered the library.
The Qian Yue Academy’s library was located between the North and West Courtyards, containing tens of thousands of books contributed by over a hundred Daoist sects.
These books covered spiritual arts, martial skills, non-cultivation related experiences, and some less rare inner cultivation techniques.
Of course, most of these were publicly available versions.
Although the sects claimed to be mutually beneficial, true altruism was rare.
There were higher-level versions in the library, but they required completing numerous alliance quests and accumulating enough academy points to access.
And these rare versions were often incomplete, with the remaining parts depending on the sect’s willingness to share.
After entering, Gong Yiling first took the two girls to their respective sections.
“Qiu Shui, you don’t need to learn any more spiritual arts of the same type as your cultivation technique. It’s better to learn a few offensive ones for self-defense.”
Qiu Shui’s strengths were her control and healing abilities, but she struggled to secure victory because her attacks were weak.
As long as the opponent was on guard, her attacks could barely break through their defenses, as seen in her fight against the First Prince.
In a life-or-death battle, a healer who could only heal wasn’t a good healer. A true healer should be able to instantly kill you while looking weak and harmless.
Finally, she chose a book called Heavenly Wind’s Echo, an A-rank wind-type spiritual art according to the system.
Although Qiu Shui’s wind attribute talent wasn’t high, that was in relation to her inner cultivation.
Since she could learn wind spiritual arts, she could unleash powerful attacks by following the instructions in the book.
As for Lu Xinyao…
Using demonic spiritual arts was inconvenient for now. Fortunately, her talent was special, allowing her to perfectly utilize all fire-type spiritual arts and the phoenix’s special abilities. Gong Yiling’s assessment of her was sharp and to the point.
“Xinyao, your offensive power is incredible, as proven by Shangguan Lingyue needing her shield to resist your attacks.”
“But your spiritual energy consumption is high, and you lack an inner cultivation technique to replenish it in battle. So, I’ve chosen this for you.”
Starlight Floating Life
According to the description, this spiritual art could recycle the surrounding fire spiritual energy, converting it into true essence to launch another powerful attack.
Lu Xinyao: “Okay!”
With this spiritual art, combined with the special martial skill she had accidentally developed, a combination of spiritual energy and physical strength…
She could probably beat Shangguan Qingyun into a pulp.
“There are practice rooms in the library. If you have any insights, you can try them out there. I’ll check your progress before four in the afternoon.”
“Alright.”
After the two girls went to a nearby table to study their new techniques, Gong Yiling didn’t remain idle.
Currently, she had two fighting styles: normal demonic martial arts, and a reverse-engineering approach.
The first was unusable in most situations, and the second, although allowing her to use any martial art, required her to learn dozens of different weapons and thousands of techniques.
—Her cultivation was already difficult enough. Without fortuitous encounters, she couldn’t improve. Learning so many things was impossible, even for a time management master.
The best solution was to master a single martial art, one that was rarely countered and could incorporate the essence of the Heavenly Saint Technique of the Myriad Paths.
Well…
This sounded like an absurd combination. Could such a martial art, one that fused all paths, even exist?
—Actually, it did.
The martial art was called Thousand Transformations.
This wasn’t some unknown technique. In fact, many cultivators knew about it.
It was created by a martial arts genius who spent his life summarizing the common principles of all martial arts, then integrated them, becoming a martial arts saint.
But although many revered it as a classic, few recommended it.
There was even a saying: Convince someone to practice Thousand Transformations, and you’ll be struck by lightning.
Why? Because everyone who practiced it became the person who said that.
