Chapter 3 The Library

Arriving at his residence Mo Xiaowen entered before tiredly falling onto his bed. Unfortunately for him it was too early to sleep and in another hour he'd have to go to the canteen to receive his lunch for the day.

In the mean time he began to ponder on his path of cultivation. He had never thought much of it before today. Mo Xiaowen, like the other disciples, used to simply train day in and day out according to the training regimen and had never put further thought into his cultivation or training.

This was due to a number of reasons, but mainly because until one reached the 5th Stage in Body Tempering they were greatly restricted in where they could go. In fact Mo Xiaowen could only go to the training grounds, canteen, library and once a month to the registration office.

Other than those areas if he was caught anywhere else he'd receive a punishment which could be anything from latrine duty, to horse stance from sun rise to sunset, or even servant duty for a week. Because of this Mo Xiaowen's options were quite limited.

'Well I've already trained enough for today and there's no point in going to the canteen... should I really go to the library?' He pondered while laying atop his bed.

It was barely noon, and there was no way he could train again today so he wasn't left with much options. Normally other disciples would socialise around now, and while Mo Xiaowen wasn't antisocial he felt that it was better if he could be somewhat productive instead.

So for the next hour Mo Xiaowen laid on his bed and recovered his injuries before making his way to the canteen and eating his lunch. 'Why is it always fish soup.' He sighed inwardly before digging into the food.

The Demonic Cliff Sect was very close to the sea and because of this a very very common food item was fish. This wasn't all that bad, until one ate it every single day. Even Mo Xiaowen who would have sworn up and down for his love for fish, got sick and tired of it after a year.

Once he finished his meal Mo Xiaowen handed in his bowl before heading to the library. It was located in quite a secluded spot in the Sect, with only a single path leading to it. The library itself was an old decrepit building surrounded by trees.

Seeing any disciples there was a rarity after all who expected teenage cultivators to actively read miscellaneous books? On the other hand the Martial Hall was quite lively in comparison.

"CREAK!"

Entering the library Mo Xiaowen immediately smelt a strong odor. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but it wasn't unpleasant either, if he had to describe it he'd simply call it an old smell.

Looking around he wasn't all that impressed, apart from the old librarian to the side, the library had around 5 bookshelves, each with about 20 books inside. This was extremely small in his opinion, the Demonic Cliff Sect had almost 1000 years of history yet this was all the books it had? He had seen more at his local book shop before.

'Then again where I lived it seemed like everyone was a bookworm.' Mo Xiaowen thought before heading towards the librarian.

"Hmm? You do know this is the library right?" The librarian questioned his eyes half open with a tinge of surprise.

"Yes." Mo Xiaowen replied a bit annoyed deep down. What did the librarian think he got lost?

"All right then. You can read what you want just don't damage the library, if you need help with anything I'll be right here." He explained before his eyes closed completely. While on the surface the librarian seemed calm deep down he was actually quite delighted.

Naturally this was of no concern to Mo Xiaowen. Heading towards the first bookshelf Mo Xiaowen began flitting through the books. After about 2 minutes he couldn't help but frown.

"Raruro: The Blonde Haired Fox Cultivator"

"Larry Totter and the Emperor's Jade"

"I once again Reincarnated as the God King"

'.....This is a joke right?' He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Weren't these a bunch of children's books? Why were they in the Demonic Cliff Sect's library, was he dreaming?

Taking a step back he then realised he had walked towards the only bookshelf with the sign "Fictional" on it. Seeing this Mo Xiaowen wasn't sure if he should blame himself for having eyes but failing to see or the sheer stupidity of a Sect containing fictional books.

Calming down, he then made his way to the other bookshelf containing "Cultivation Advise". At first he was quite excited, maybe he could find something that would aid him in his advancement. Even a 10% increase in cultivation speed could compound into a great improvement along with his hard work.

Alas today was not Mo Xiaowen's day. The first book he found, "Body Tempering: My Battles" was exactly 10 pages long. One might think each page would correspond with his stage of Body Tempering, and they'd be correct, but his "battles" weren't exactly battles.

"Body Tempering Stage 1:

On the 5th day of the 5th Month I entered the 1st Stage, and thus had my first battle. It was a tuna dumpling, and unfortunately, the tuna dumpling won. That day my ass exploded like a volcano."

Reading this Mo Xiaowen had half a mind to tear up the book right there, but soon held himself back before putting the book down. But soon came to a harrowing conclusion.

'There's only 20 books here, and apart from this bookshelf and the Fictional shelf, there's a Local Geography shelf, Local History shelf, and Foreign Geography/History.... doesn't this mean that these 20 books are all I have to work with.'

With this thought Mo Xiaowen now understood why the library was so decrepit. While the other 3 shelves weren't useless, they weren't exactly exciting or helpful when cultivating. Not to mention Mo Xiaowen was already well versed in these topics. And if "Body Tempering: My Battles" was anything to go off of, they weren't of good quality either.

'What am I gonna do? I can't sleep since oversleeping isn't good, and I can't train either since once again overtraining isn't good... I guess beggars can't be choosers.' He sighed before picking up "Body Tempering: My Battles" once again.

Hopefully it would at least help his future "battles", at least he now knew tuna dumplings would pummel him.