The Hall of Hidden Scriptures

When Aren entered his house, he subconsciously wrinkled his nose in mild disgust. There was dust all over the place, it had not been inhabited for years, Aren sighed as he entered the building, thinking that he should get to cleaning it as soon as possible. Although he had long since accepted that he could not expect the outside world to be as clean as he wanted, he was adamant that his own abode should be clean and wholesome, much like himself

He recalled how people at his home had often called him a germaphobe and sighed again, 'what a pity that no one seems to appreciate how important it is to be clean.' Aren thought as he began looking around for a broom.

He found one and spent a productive afternoon thoroughly cleaning his little hut until it was in a state which he found bearable. Then he sat on the bed and began to read the little book he had found on a table while cleaning simply labelled 'The Eternal Summit sect'.

After reading a couple of pages he put down the book and stared out of the window beside his bed, eyes glittering. The first few pages were an introduction to cultivation, explaining answers to commonly asked questions and giving instructions on how to get a suitable technique from the sect. It said that all one had to do was go to the Scripture Hall, and request to see the elder there and they would help you to choose a suitable technique.

Aren was tempted to go immediately to the Scripture Hall but after much consideration, he restrained himself, he would go tomorrow morning, given that it was already becoming quite late, and would spend the rest of the day familiarising himself with the rest of the sect rules.

Having decided this, Aren spent a peaceful evening looking through the rest of the book. After he finished it, he set it down on the table where he had found it and looked out of the window again, he was glad that he'd decided to read the whole book instead of rushing off to get a technique straight away.

Had he done so, he would probably have ended up in a bit of trouble. He smiled ruefully to himself and picked up a wooden medallion that had been attached to the back of the book, this was his identity medallion, the book explained, and would be used to prove his identity wherever he went and would also be used to keep track of his merit points.

He chuckled slightly when he thought of what would have happened if he had rushed into the Scripture Hall without his identity medallion, he might have been accused of being an intruder and dealt with accordingly. He shivered slightly when he thought this, he didn't know what they did to intruders but it probably wasn't anything good.

There was a map drawn on the last page of the book, showing where most sect facilities were located. Aren spent a long time memorising the general locations of the places he thought that he would need to know.

He then sat on his bed, eating some food and thinking about how incredible it was to be in the sect. Coming from an unimportant side branch of the famous, and sometimes infamous, Lisen clan, he could not expect to have access to a great number of resources in the clan.

This was the reason that he had decided to leave the clan and try to make his way in the outside world, he decided that to give himself the best chance of reaching the ultimate height, he would join a sect. It was his great-uncle Sigmund, the head of the branch Aren belonged to, who had suggested the Eternal Summit sect to him and had arranged for him to get to the sect, which was many hundreds of kilometres away from his home.

He thought about how profoundly grateful he was to his great-uncle and he thought about his other family members, his mother, his father and his little sister. His little sister was much more talented than he was and had been taken to the main branch of the Lisen clan a couple of years ago, he wondered how she was doing. They had heard from her once or twice but mostly she stayed cooped up in cultivation, unable to correspond with them.

His thoughts wandered as the night deepened and he slowly drifted off into sleep. The next morning he awoke early, practically quaking with excitement. He rolled off his bed and wolfed down a quick breakfast before rushing out of the door, hastily stuffing his identity medallion into a pocket on his way.

He reached the Scripture Hall a while later, quite out of breath, he had had to run up many steps to reach the building and he wasn't feeling the best. He waited outside for a while until his breathing calmed and thought that the sooner he could get his hands on a treasure to help him move around the better it would be, he wasn't unfit but the distance between places in the sect was simply too vast to run everywhere.

There were many disciples bustling around the entrance to the Hall, some leaving, some entering. Every so often, a disciple would fly down on a treasure and land on the small paved square where Aren had stopped to rest, they would then stride towards the Hall their eyes prideful and heads held high. Whenever this happened Aren would eye their treasures with envy, how he wished he could own something like that.

After he got his breath back, he entered the Hall and saw a long desk with people sitting behind it, Aren walked over to one of them and they looked up at him,

"Yes?"

Aren thought that they sounded rather impatient, but then again, with the volume of people going into and out of the building, they were bound to be feeling slightly harassed.

"I'm a new disciple here to choose a technique." He said.

The person behind the desk looked at him for a moment and then pointed towards one of the doors that led out of the room they were currently in, "Elder Cloudform is in there, he's responsible for new disciples."

Aren said his thanks made his way in the direction that he had been directed. He passed through the doorway and entered a corridor that led down to another door, in stark contrast to the busy area on the other side of the door, this place was deserted.

He walked the length of the corridor and entered the room at the other end. Its walls were covered in paintings and other pieces of art, masterful works of calligraphy hung beside impossibly lifelike paintings and small sculptures were dotted about on the furniture. In the centre of the room was an old man in azure robes who was sitting, eyes closed in front of an artist's easel, a canvas was placed on the easel and a brush in the man's hands danced over it while low sounds of thunder emanated from the point of contact.

Aren stood in the doorway transfixed by the sight. He remained that way until the old man finished and, seeing Aren in the doorway, walked over to him and gently tapped his forehead. Aren jumped when he suddenly found the elderly man standing in front of him, all he could remember was watching the man paint and then he had suddenly found himself in a world of vivid colours from which he could not escape.

"It is more dangerous than rude to intrude without permission upon an elder." The old man said gently. Aren looked at him sheepishly, he had been in too much of a rush to get a cultivation technique to pay proper thought to what he was doing.

"What are you here for?" The old man asked as he went and sat down again behind the easel.

Aren clasped his hands and bowed to the elderly man, "Senior, I've been sent to find Elder Cloudform to get a cultivation technique."

"I am Elder Cloudform," said the old man laying down the brush which he had just picked up again, "Are you a new disciple? I thought that all of them would have come yesterday. Well no matter, show me your identity medallion."

Aren handed it over and Elder Cloudform examined it, before handing it back, "What was the result of your spiritual base assessment?"

Aren told him and the Elder began to stroke his beard, "Hmm, do you have any ideas or preferences about what kind techniques you want?" Aren shook his head, "Well you can cultivate any you wish, but you would have the most success with a wood element technique. Since you are allowed to take out two techniques when you first enter the sect, I would also recommend a water element technique which would further boost the speed of cultivating a wood technique."

"I will take senior's advice to heart," Aren said and clasped his hands to Elder Cloudform again.

"Well then, I will let you take your pick. Wait a moment while I activate the entrance to the Hall of Hidden Scriptures..." He began to draw again on the canvas.

Aren stood, looking curiously at Elder Cloudform as he painted. He did not see how painting could unlock the entrance to the 'Hall of Hidden Scriptures', but then again, he didn't know what the Hall of Hidden Scriptures was, so he decided to stop puzzling over it and wait patiently.

A minute later, Elder Cloudform lifted his brush away from the paper and beckoned Aren to come forward. Aren came and stood next to Elder Cloudform, who directed him to look at the canvas. Aren, still feeling puzzled, looked at the canvas and saw an extremely lifelike pair of ornate wooden doors, they were adorned with many beasts from legend, like the almighty dragon and proud qilin.

Aren soon lost himself in the painting of the doors, examining the exquisite detail with which they were drawn. Suddenly the mighty doors opened and Aren was sucked in through them by some great force and he found himself, suddenly and inexplicably, in a massive library.

Aren turned on the spot and saw the same doors he had been examining a moment ago closed tight behind him. He whirled about again and saw rows upon rows of shelves, each holding numerous books, some large and some small. The room was illuminated by little glowing balls of light which floated up near the ceiling, Aren could not determine whether they were a type of flame or the result of some kind of magical item or technique.

"Is this the Hall of Hidden Scriptures?" Aren mumbled as he gazed around. He walked up to the nearest shelf and picked up a book from it, the book was labelled, 'Yang Fire Circulation Technique' and had a red coloured cover. Aren replaced it and walked over to a different shelf where he picked up another book, this one was called 'Apheta's Ocean Serenity Manual' and had a blue cover.

Aren replaced this book as well but he had now partially grasped how the books were arranged, each shelf hosted techniques of a specific element and the colour of the cover indicated what element the book's technique related to. He then eagerly began to browse through different shelves, picking up any technique that looked interesting without paying much attention to their element.

He looked around for maybe an hour before realising that he should probably start looking for the techniques that he would cultivate. After another long while, he stood in front of the ornate wooden doors, two books clasped in his hands. He had found a wood attribute technique called the 'World Tree Methodology' which he thought was a slightly feeble name compared with some of the others that he had seen but it was by far the best wood technique that he had come across.

The other book was called the 'Sutra of the Open Mind' and allowed one to develop a formidable spiritual sense, this technique was also one of the few he had seen that had no assigned element. He had decided that he would not pick up any dedicated combat techniques for now because one, he did not have the slightest clue what weapon would be best for him, and two, he thought that it would be best to build a strong foundation before investing in any techniques.

He didn't want to get a technique and then not be able to use it because his foundation was not at the right level, and besides, the two cultivation methods he had chosen had a few techniques in them that could be used as one's cultivation increased.

With these books both clasped firmly in his hand, he quelled the final doubts that were still circling around inside his head and pushed open the wooden doors that led out of the Hall of Hidden Scriptures.