The Library

Shortly after the judge elder left, Li Zhu decided to leave the arena, and claim his rewards. Since he had ended up in fourth place, Li Zhu had won ten Cultivation Enhancing pills, two weeks worth of cultivating in Spirit Palace, a skill from the sect library, and a plant from Shen Zan's garden. All these rewards were great, but the last two especially intrigued Li Zhu, since he was in dire need of more skills to widen his options in combat.

Currently he could only use Shadow Lurk and Frost Touch, neither of which were skills which could be used to attack enemies. This was in part a good thing, since they were skills which did not grow less useful as his cultivation increased, making them good long term skills to have. That said, he currently had no way to damage opponents stronger than him, so he needed to focus more on the short-term, at least for now.

With this in mind, Li Zhu decided to head over to the sect library first, and choose a suitable skill. According to what the elder had stated, he could choose from any skill on the first four floors at no cost.

The sect library was on Knowledge Peak, which was one of the central peaks of the sect. The actual library was a massive building with seven floors and thousands of books, most of which contained skills. There were also history books and journals of great masters, but they were much less prominent than skills, which had been accumulated over hundreds of years.

When a disciple who met all requirements bought a skill book at a certain cost, they would be able to read and learn the skill for however long it took them. After they learned the skill, though, it needed to be returned to the library, for other disciples to learn in the future. If a disciple did not return their skill book to the library, they could not buy any more from it, which also meant each disciple could only learn one skill at a time from the library.

There were seven floors in the library in total, each containing stronger and rarer skills, and having higher requirements to enter them. For example, outer sect disciples could only buy books from the first two floors, and inner sect disciples could only buy books from the first four floors. As for the three floors after that, only elders could access them, and the seventh floor could only be entered by the Grand Elder, or whoever was the leader of the sect at any moment in time.

As Li Zhu entered the library, he felt right at home. As the crown prince, anytime he had not been training, he had been reading in the imperial library. He had read hundreds of books, each of which increased his knowledge of the Endless Sword Continent, and sometimes even beyond.

In the first floor of the library, there was a large table at the back, where an old man was sitting. The elder was absorbed in his reading, so Li Zhu simply walked past him, to the second floor. Just as he was about to reach the stairs, though, the elder's head snapped towards him, his face full of suspicion.

The elder sized up Li Zhu for a second, before returning to his reading, and saying "As you know, stay within the first four floors. There will be an elder on fourth floor, and you do not want to anger him... trust me."

'He knew who I was?' wondered Li Zhu, realizing that the judge elder had not lied when she said that elders knew exactly who the top ten disciples of the competition were. At the same time, the old man's last words intrigued him, as he wondered what kind of person an elder would fear.

Still, he walked all the way to the fourth floor, since it was the limit of where he could go in the library, and had much stronger skills than the previous floors. Li Zhu did not doubt that the sect had placed a few extremely precious books in the lower floors for disciples to accidentally come across, but he did not have the time to scroll through thousands of books, all for the possibility of finding something rare.

On the fourth floor, there were much fewer books than the previous floors, with only a few hundred displayed in the bookshelves. This was already amazing, tough, since finding so many skills was difficult, even for a large sect.

Li Zhu began browsing the books immediately, looking for an attack skill that suited his combat style. Since he used Shadow Lurk to quickly strike enemies, a skill which took a long time to use was not worth it, since it would leave him exposed. Furthermore, he currently did not want to use a sword in combat, so the skill needed to be a palm or fist technique, which were much less common than weapon skills.

"Flaming Tiger Pierce... doesn't meet any of the requirements. Three armed shot... no. Molten Yang Slash... weak!"

As he flipped through the books, Li Zhu noticed that there were many skills related to fire and swords, while all other skills were less common. This actually surprised him, since the sect was named Flaming Saber sect, so he had expected more saber skills, rather than sword ones.

With time, he did find a few palm and fist skills, "Flowing Ocean palm... each palm strike is like a tide, destroying and then receding. Each palm strike is stronger than the previous, and if this art is trained to the maximum level, your strength can be equal to the very ocean we are surrounded by!"

Most skills had descriptions at the start, but they were often exaggerations, and even the masters who had invented the skills had never reached the level they claimed was possible. Because of this, even the weakest skill would sound intimidating, when the description was read. Li Zhu, though, knew to look past the initial words, and flip through the first few pages. For Flowing Ocean Palm, as he read the next few pages, the skill was quite clearly weak, and would only be useful in certain situations.

Due to this, Li Zhu continued walking around the bookshelves, opening every book there was.

"My Memoir?" mumbled Li Zhu, after reading the title of one particular book, which had tears all over it, clearly having barely withstood the test of time. All the books he had read previously were skills, so he was quite surprised to find this book. After all, an elder had decided that this memoir was worth having on the fourth floor, which said a lot about its value.

"April 15, year 128: Today is a great day, because I have practiced by Flaming Saber skill to the fourth level, and I am now finally an inner sect disciple of the Thousand Illusions Mountain! I have not written in this journal for a few weeks due to training, but I will try to write something every day from now on." Li Zhu flipped to a random page, reading off the first paragraph.

Instantly, a shocked expression appeared on his face, as he read the date again. In the Endless Sword Continent, each year was made up of three hundred and fifty days, and divided into twelve months. That said, the current year was 1784, and year 0 was said to be when the first civilizations had formed. If the date on the memoir was accurate, it was more than a thousand years old, and was an extremely precious recording of history.

Li Zhu continued to read, engrossed in the daily life of this young man, so eager to reach the peak of the continent. Unfortunately, the memoir ended abruptly, where many pages had been ripped off by someone. In the place of the pages, there was a small note, reading, "If you are reading this, the young man in the memoir is our founder, Ts'ui Ru. Unfortunately, the final part part of the journal contained important information, and was stolen eighty years ago when our sect was attacked in the night. Still, I wish for all disciples of the Flaming Saber sect to learn the story of their founder, and hope that it may fuel a desire for greatness in them, and you."

Li Zhu was left dumbfounded, as he read the small note. The young man he had read about was actually a founder of this sect! Furthermore, Li Zhu was beginning to suspect that he was also the creator of all the treasures in the sect such as the Thousand Illusions Forest or the Kill Illusions tower, due to his affiliation with the Thousand Illusions Mountain, an ancient sect which had long disappeared, but remained in many legends.

'What could the last twenty pages have contained to be the cause of an attack by other sects?' wondered Li Zhu, but he had his suspicions.

The man in the memoir was clearly a great expert, and most figures such as him would own many treasures in their lives. Although it was just a hunch, Li Zhu suspected that the last pages contained information regarding these treasures, and the Flaming Saber sect had learned the hard way that wealth attracts jealously.

As he was absorbed i his own thoughts, Li Zhu heard a whisper in another aisle of the library, "Are you excited, Yin Shing!? All our work is about to pay off, and we finally do not have to wait any longer! The dream we so badly wanted to fulfill will finally come true, and that old man can do nothing about it!"

There was another person in the aisle, but he did not take the words well, reprimanding, "Shut it! Let's go somewhere more private if you want to talk about the inheritance."

And with that, the two voices stopped, and Li Zhu was left with a curious expression on his face.