YAO LAO

A/N: Alternate Title: TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND BOOKS

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Alchemy was one of the most difficult things Fang Yun had ever tried, in order to refine potions and elixirs, the first thing one would have to know, is exactly how to remove the impurities from each ingredient using the alchemy furnace, then, the correct order in which you would place the ingredients in the fusion chamber of the alchemy furnace. And to make things worse, almost every formula also required a fusion agent whose only purpose was to mix the ingredients together in a way that the pill wouldn't become ashes after some time inside the furnace.

He wasn't a pharmacist or anything like that, but he could guess from what he knew that the properties of each ingredient would have to be perfectly matched based on your objective in order for it to be properly created, the thing is, that some times each ingredient could be used for tens of different purposes, and each property of the ingredient that didn't serve your purposes would later be considered as impurities...

The thing is, how to deal with this problem? To follow a pill formula is something that literally anyone could do, but the joke about the "alchemists" from glory city, is that they don't have a consistent or reliable refining technique, this could explain why Nie Li, disdains every single one of them since he actually has one such method.

For the first two hours, all that he managed to do was to waste ingredients after ingredients, even though he managed to go through the most basic process, he always failed in the fusion process, although this would be expected normally because of the low rates of success, Fang Yun felt like destroying this alchemy furnace, he still couldn't be considered the most knowledgeable person in this world, but this was too much! Based on his knowledge, the alchemy furnace was worth shit without a suitable refining technique and there were no books related to such thing! Those guys alchemy is declining not because of lost pill formulas but because they were just plain stupid!

Throwing away the ingredients he lay down on the floor and looked at the ceiling, he stayed in this position for half an hour, if others were to look at him, they would think he was just lazily wasting his time, however, his mind was working on 100% for quite some time, he had been researching once again every single book he had read, he was looking for clues that could allow him to make progress... Self-learning, despite what the main characters of those novels make it look like, wasn't an easy matter. Without resources, talent, or cheat tools, it was simply way too difficult.

After almost an hour, when he was practically giving up he felt something weird, the dantian itself is like a bridge that connects both soul and body together but it's neither of them in his level of cultivation, because of that, he would usually only be sensible to changes that happen in his body or dantian, not the ethereal such as the soul, however, what he felt now was the weirdest thing he could have imagined.

Inside his mind, what was basically hazy images or unrecognizable forms, somehow took shape in the form of a great hall, Fang Yun was currently standing in the middle of it, soon a door appeared in one side of the great hall, he looked at it and hesitated for a moment, but after noticing that nothing else was happening he gritted his teeth and went towards it, behind the door, there was a huge corridor, at each side, there were magnificent walls that seemed to hold paintings of books, the vast majority of them were books that he could recognize from the Holy Orchid Institute, Alchemy Association, and Blacksmith and Inscriptionist Association.

However, close to the end of the corridor, there was a painting laying on the ground, after he approached and bent down to look at it, the painting suddenly started shining so much that he had to close his eyes. After a few seconds, the blinding light of the paint disappeared, opening his eyes he found a book lying there where the painting disappeared, looking at the cover he frowned.

[Alchemy: A guide that was written by the only supreme alchemist ever to live - Yao Lao.]

Who was this guy? He never heard of someone with this name in Tales of Demons and Gods. After touching the book, a wave of dizziness took over his body, and after a few seconds, he fainted.

...

Inside a bedroom, Fang Yun opened his eyes and touched his head, he was feeling quite the headache, one comparable to or even worse than the one he had after discovering his cheat. Looking around, all that he could guess by the decoration was that this was probably a woman's bedroom. Usually, he would start pondering about his current situation but he was too shaken by the new information on his head.

The theory inside that book was only 20% related to what he learned with the books he had before, the way alchemy was approached in that book was way different from anything he had ever heard or seen. First of All, according to Yao Lao, in order to become an alchemist, the first requirement was to have a soul with Fire/wood attribute or Fire and an attribute that leaned towards vitality to be used as a catalyst during the refinement process. The second requirement was a strong and sturdy soul, to bear the strains of refining...

After he learned this he had become discouraged to continue, however, there was something else inside the book that he thought was worth trying since it was a much more reliable way to learn to which attribute your soul leans to instead of the soul crystal method.

So after sitting in the lotus position and doing a few hand signs, he felt the energy inside him circulating through his head and dantian, after that, above his hand, a mass of white energy appeared out of nowhere, after that came a mass of lightning energy, this time in the common blue color, he thought that things would end here but to his surprise, it didn't, just after that, a mass of hot orange energy appeared, meaning he also had fire attributed soul... Seeing this he was about to smile but another mass of energy appeared, it was a weird purplish mist that resembles the clouds.

Seeing this he didn't know what expression to do, he simply had no knowledge of such thing, it was like seeing an alien in front of you... Since he didn't have any way to understand the purple cloud he decided to forget about it for the time being.

Right now he was truly happy, according to the book, the holy attribute was one of the attributes that could substitute wood. After that, he decided to test a foundational training that was depicted in the book, according to it, if one had a soul with fire attribute, he would be able to cast what he called soul fire, in order to do it, one would need to have formed his dantian and using his Yuan Qi, connect with both the fire and the vitality related attribute in his soul to create a mass of energy in his hands.

In the beginning, he only failed miserably, it was not an easy thing to do. But after a few minutes of practice, he successfully created soul fire... Looking at the beautiful ball of white flames floating above his hand he couldn't help but smile. This was the first time he felt that he accomplished something major after being reborn.

Going for the next step, he removed a piece of windflower from his interspatial ring and using what Yao Lao called [Soul Force], he made the flower float and enter the flames. After that came the most difficult part, he had to precisely control every aspect of the flame in order to make sure that every single part of it had the correct temperature, he had to make sure the flames wouldn't burn the ingredients, nor would fail to extract the toxins and impurities inside it! Basically what he had to do was melt the flower into a liquid substance.

And the moment he tried to control the flames... it burned the flower. Sighing he took another one from his interspatial ring, right now he only had 9 remaining flowers, but there was no need to feel sad, after all, he already made much more progress than he could ever have asked for!

This process continued for more than an hour, and as expected he always failed, but that doesn't mean he didn't have any progress, the last two flowers he almost managed to liquefy them.

Shaking his head with a smile, he lay down in the bed once more and closed his eyes. 'Perhaps I'll truly be capable of creating my own legend in this world...'

A few minutes later the same woman he met in the Auction House entered the bedroom, this time, however, she was wearing more simple and less revealing clothes. Noticing that someone entered the room, he opened his eyes and looked at her in surprise, at that moment his face turned red and he froze, he was wondering if this woman took his first time when he was asleep...

"Oh, Young Brother is finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." Said Ralof of Riverwood, a true Nord, and a Stormcloak!

A/N: Sorry, just kidding.

"Oh, Young Brother is finally awake. We thought you wouldn't wake up anymore! When the counter officer arrived to take you out of the room, you were lying on the ground with blood leaking through your eyes and ears. Care to explain what happened?" The woman looked at him with curious eyes.

Hearing her words, he shuddered, 'What the...? You are saying that one book did that to me? What the heck!?'

Seeing his face paling and his body trembling, she thought that he was getting worse and approached a little worried. Seeing the woman touching his forehead and truly checking if he was fine, made him breathe a sigh of relief, she was way different from the first time he met her. Her current clothes gave her a more refined and warm look, she felt more like a beautiful woman in her prime that was simply living her life, instead of a tigress hunting for a partner like the last time.

"Are you feeling well, young brother? Does it hurt anywhere? Just how did you end up like that?"

Seeing her concerned face he sighed and thought some excuse on the spot.

"I-uhh... I was trying to refine an elixir I discovered in an ancient formula, however, I didn't expect that the ingredient would generate poisonous gas, it was my fault..."

Hearing his explanation she nodded and suddenly started smiling. "I didn't know that Young Brother was so interested in Alchemy! Usually, people around your age would be trying to court girls or waste time doing useless things."

Fang Yun laughed embarrassed and replied.

"I'm quite interested in alchemy, after reading so many books about it I felt like trying, it was irresponsible from me..."

"Don't worry, too much." She smiled. "Judging by your clothes and belongings, you are probably a commoner, right? I know how difficult it is for people like you to learn alchemy, it's not like you can afford a master to teach you..."

Hearing this Fang Yun nodded. Because he didn't know what else to say, they stayed there for some time looking at each other awkwardly...

"Uh... Big sister, can I ask you something?"

"Go on." She nodded.

"Why was big sister... you know... acting like that before in the auction house?"

Hearing this she was startled but suddenly started laughing.

"Eh? Could it be that young brother wants me to continue?" She approached him with a lustful smile on her face.

Noticing how the boy was slowly backing away as she approached and how his face was getting redder and redder, she laughed once again and stopped with this facade.

"I just thought that you were cute and wanted to tease you a little."

Seeing her innocent face as she smiled, he couldn't help but gasp at her words. 'What the hell? She was just playing around? Actually... now that I think about it, it makes sense.'

Sighing he smiled.

"I see, well, I should go now, thanks for taking care of me Big Sister."

She nodded with a smile on her face, but her next words made him even more surprised.

"My name is Yang Xin, seeing that you are interested in alchemy if you happen to have any question just look for me... Oh, I forgot to ask your name."

"Ah, my name is Fang Yun, it's nice to meet you!" He bowed slightly, making Yang Xin giggle a little

After bidding his farewell, he left her house that was inside the alchemy association and went to Holy Orchid Institute, since he had got the translating materials from the auction house, he was confident that he could now learn the texts from the other eras that were stored in the second section of the library. He didn't try before because he already knew that his cheating tool would only translate things based on what he knew, if there was a new word, it would remain like that until he learned its translation.

So after entering the second section of the library, he looked to the various shelves and sighed, he would have a lot of work to do...

For the next 5 days all he did, besides eating, taking showers, practicing alchemy and cultivating was touch book after book... in fact, this was so tiring that he started walking with his hands and touching the books with his feet, he was trying various way to use his cheat, he discovered that this ability of his could work with any part of his body and that there was also a way to use it more efficiently, but for some reason, if he did it that way he would faint and only wake up after an hour or so, which was when he touched the shelf instead of the books on it, that way he would absorb the knowledge of the books on it.

Another way to use his cheat was to touch piles of book, it would work in the same way as if he was touching a shelf. Other than that, he could basically read 100% of every book he touched thanks to the translating materials from the auction house. He learned the languages of every era, basically six different languages. Although this was only valid for the 200 hundred thousand books that Holy Orchid Institute had from the other eras... It was no surprise that not even 10% of them were translated, who would waste so much time translating such things? In fact, he felt like praising the archeologist from Glory City, back in his previous life, humanity had lost almost all knowledge from the previous eras, they didn't even know how things such as the pyramids and other things were built.

He could only guess that the people of this world had more interest in preserving history.

Stretching his body, he looked outside and seeing that it was almost 9 am, he sighed and went to the class. Currently, Fang Yun cultivation already was halfway till 2-star Bronze Rank, however, if there was one thing he didn't notice was that his soul was currently way more powerful than even those who were in the legend rank and different as well! Yao Laos alchemy method also worked as a soul cultivation method, and his soul was originally way more powerful for unknown reasons, which was also the only reason of why he managed to summon soul fire being in the Bronze Rank, if you used common sense, he should only be capable of doing it if he was in the Silver Rank. This was also the reason for him being capable of leaking out intent.

The moment he entered the classroom, he noticed Xiao Ning'er, Nie Li, Lu Piao, and Du Ze eating together at the back of the class, but it wasn't only him that noticed something, while the others were distracted looking with envy towards Nie Li, his eyes that were once going between Ye Ziyun and Xiao Ning'er, locked in Fang Yun's figure, his eyes and mouth opened to the limit as he looked at him as if he was a ghost.

The majority of the people in this realm and the others wouldn't be capable of doing it, but who was Nie Li? He spent countless years inside the Temporal Demon Spirit Book, most of the things he learned there wasn't from this realm, and of all things he learned there, he was now seeing something that he never expected he would one day be able to see!

It was a sort of powerful aura which doesn't belong to this world, an aura similar and yet different from the one in the Temporal Demon Spirit Book, the closest thing he saw related to this before was the aura around the Sage Emperor, and although Fang Yun's aura was way weaker than that of the sage emperor, his was much purer and way more refined!

At that moment Nie Li couldn't help but change his view of Fang Yun, because, at this moment, he is more of a threat than anything else! In his mind, if the Temporal Demon Spirit Book wasn't with him but still allowed him to reincarnate, there was a possibility of the sage emperor had taken it away and used it somehow to create or nurture this guy in front of him, but even if it wasn't that, he still had to be careful, he couldn't make the same mistakes he did prior to reincarnating if there were any threats to him he would remove them exactly like he would remove the sacred family from this world!