Book Collector

After collecting everything from the small houses around, he went to the first bigger building he saw when he entered the Ancestral Site of the Shi Xue Clan. It was much bigger, and it looked like a tower.

The height of that tower wasn't reaching the ceiling of this cave, but it wasn't also too far. This wasn't any tower but rather a pagoda; it had seven floors, from what Lucien could see.

He went to the front door, and with one push, he opened them. Inside, the space wasn't big, but as it was a tower, he knew that there were many floors. With one glance, Lucien could tell that this was the library.

There were many books lined on these shelves. Many more compared with Libary in Aeon House.

From what Lucien knew, the Shi Xue Clan was stronger than Aeon House; this was mainly because of the fact that they lacked any kind of neighbor here in China. Compared to that, Aeon House shared the territory and thus even resources with Tepes House a long time ago.

This was the first level of this pagoda. Lucien went through the shelves and looked at the book there; all of them were about history, geography, and other things.

Common knowledge, maybe several years old, but he still stored them inside his Cross Crest.

Then he proceeded to the second floor, which was a little bit smaller than the first floor. Many pagodas tended to have smaller floors as they were higher. Again he went through all books, many of which were still useless; he still stored them in the Cross Crest.

Some were on the third floor.

When he was going to the fourth floor, he encountered a little problem. Doors were closed, and he couldn't open them even with the use of force. When he inspected the patterns on the doors, he noticed that something was required to open them and that something was blood.

More precisely, the blood of the Noble Ghoul, then he congealed kagune dagger and cut his hand, and dropped a few drops of blood onto the door, and they opened.

On the fourth floor, there were books mainly about crafting various times, such as katanas, swords, and other weapons that could kill ghouls. Also, there were books about processing kagune and kakuhou and creating weapons from them; he was delighted with these books as he stored them in the Cross Crest.

The fifth floor was the same as the fourth floor.

Doors required some of his blood to open, and he entered the fifth floor with great haste. As the floors were getting smaller and smaller, this was significantly smaller compared to the first floor.

There were only a few bookshelves here.

This floor had books about the usage of hidden weapons; even though Lucien himself wasn't the type to use hidden weapons, they would find their use.

The Sixth floor had only five bookshelves totally, and all of these books were about martial arts, acupuncture points, meridians, and sword arts.

He was very eager to go through all those books about sword art right now, but sadly it wasn't the right time now.

And finally the last, the seventh floor.

It was empty; nothing was there besides one thick book that Lucien couldn't even open.

The book itself had an aura of profoundness and wisdom. Besides the book, there was one more thing there; it was the seal with the words 'Shi Xue'.

Lucien was shocked to see it because he knew what it represented.

It was key.

Key where the most precious thing of two clans was located.

Their Royal Blood Pond.

Lucien didn't know much about Royal Blood Pond, only one thing, it was found during ancient times in the form of blood crystals.

Exactly two crystals were found.

One of the crystals was kept by the Shi Xue Clan, and another one was kept by the Aeon House. The crystal itself was generating blood, and that blood could be used to boost the bloodline of Ghoul King. It was usually fed to the babies when they were born to make their bloodline stronger and gain resistance against their natural weakness.

Legend told one could evolve into Ghoul King if he had luck.

"When the seal is here, that means even their Sacred Blood Pond must also be here. Hmm, even if the Washuu Clan found this, without the blood of Noble Ghoul, they can't open it even with the key."

Lucien stated in a low voice as he stored both the book and seal of the Shi Xue away.

Then he exited the pagoda and continued searching through houses. He found some armory, but there weren't many useful things besides a few katanas and spears that numbered around a hundred or so.

Apparently, all weapons were used during the war and destroyed.

After walking for some time, he finally knew that he was nearing his target. This was because there were several agents of Vasuki guarding the road and preparing to attack Lucien the moment they saw him.

He only smiled at this and congealed two kagune spears.

Controlled through telekinesis, he killed them all in one hit.

All of them were pierced without any kind of resistance.

After storing their bodies and looking in the distance, he finally found his target. Giant walls were around the entire place, towering into height, made from well-sculpted stone and with several guarding towers. The bad thing about that was that many people were standing at the walls and before the gate.

As Lucien observed the area, there were too many people there.

Just on the walls and at the gate, he could count more than one hundred people, whose majority were from Vasuki and some were members of the Washuu Clan.

'Final battle of this expedition is coming. Hmm, maybe I should you that swords and spears obtained from armory as a long-distance attack to reduce numbers.'

Thought Lucien, as he was planning how to attack.