Books Falling From The Sky

The old man turned back to face Yi Ren, letting out a sigh and said, "I've kept my promise to you, the 3 buildings are fully open for you to explore."

"What a little monster this world is harboring, so many concepts comprehended at the mere age of 5. No one would believe it even if news of this were to spread," muttered the old man while staring at Yi Ren.

"As you know, the building on the left with the runes floating around is the Dao Discussion Building where the sages of the past used to propagate their Daos and sermons. It houses tons of books that records everything related to Dao."

"The building in the middle is similar that it houses millions of books, but all of it is related to other miscellaneous knowledges like the art of war, art of politics, art of fishing, art of farming and etc."

"Lastly, the building on the right is a Dao Immersion Building. With enough energy supplied, it allows a person to immerse themselves in the lives of others that are recorded in the building."

All 3 buildings are a storehouse full of books and knowledges. The mere thought of having so much books and knowledges to keep him company makes Yi Ren so excited that he started shaking out of excitement.

"Is all these books going to be mine from now?!"

It takes all his willpower at the moment to stop himself from rushing into the buildings and start reading the books.

The old men smirked a little looking at his antics, "Yes, all of the books and knowledges here will be in your hands from now. This is the collection and records of all the previous inheritor."

"And it shall be your duty from now as well. To be an observer of all the worlds and universes."

Looking at the old man puzzled, Yi Ren asked, "Why do we need to record down everything we see and experience? For what purposes? Am i to be a librarian for some other lord?"

Feeling a little agitated at the thought that all his future knowledges and experiences will be shared with someone that controls his fate and life, Yi Ren starts to feel repulsed by this inheritance.

Deep down, Yi Ren has an insane thirst for knowledge ever since he started having his own thoughts. With his situation of being shunned and kicked out of his clan, separated with his family and labelled as a cripple only makes his thirst for knowledge grows more and more over time.

Slowly but surely, Yi Ren fell in love with the world inside each book, the unlimited imaginations that stems from reading, the unfettered feeling of his mind.

Seeing how Yi Ren is feeling conflicted, the old man said, "I have no idea where this inheritance came from, all the previous inheritor has also been searching for an answer, and all they got is that this space together with the buildings appear out of nowhere."

"No matter where it came from, it does not diminish the fact that all the books and the knowledges it provides are all open for you. Just keep in mind that there are a price for everything and try to make this into your advantage kiddo."

Saying that, the old man suddenly started faltering and slowly fade away.

"Hey old man, what happened?! Where are you?"

Yi Ren frantically searched for the old man everywhere but still could not find even a trace of him left.

"How do I get out of this place anyway?"

Looking around the place, all Yi Ren is able to see are the 3 buildings in the middle while at the periphery of the land, there's only pure darkness.

Thinking about leaving this place, Yi Ren find himself back in his body out of nowhere. Everything around him seems to be the same, the position of the sun remains at the same place.

"Is all that just an imagination? Feels like I've been in there for hours and yet time remains un-change out here, thats kinda weird."

Looking back into his body, focusing at the spot near his heart, Yi Ren finds himself back in the space.

"All of this is real?! I'm really not dreaming am I? So all these books and knowledges in the buildings will belong to me from now on?"

Just the thought of it filled him with excitement. The next thing he knows, he find himself back in the Dao Discussion Building.

"Now, what should I start with? I will have to put other miscellaneous knowledge at the side for now and focus on comprehending new concepts to fully grow my spirit vessel, but which concept to choose?"

"Actually, what kind of concepts are out there?"

Thinking about this, Yi Ren finds himself stumped and confused. All this while, all the concepts he comprehended comes naturally to him, without him purposely finding one to comprehend.

With this new direction, he instead finds himself confused and stumped on how or where to start.

"Hmm, what about starting with all the books in here that explain what is concept, Dao and cultivation? Maybe I'll be able to get an idea from there."

With a new direction, Yi Ren stands in front, looking at all the floating lights thinking about the kind of books he would want to read.

In the next moment, hundreds and thousands of books materialise above him and starts falling down.

Startled, Yi Ren wants to evade the falling books but there are just too many of them. Eventually, he was buried under a pile of books. Is this how his journey to the top ends?

——-

After around 10 mins, Yi Ren finally managed to crawl out of the pile of books.

"Fuuu, a little longer and I think I might just died in there. Why is there so many books about the start of cultivation and the explanation of concepts? Isn't that just the very basic of basics?"

Wiping his non-existent sweats, Yi Ren grumbled internally while looking at the mountain of books in front of him.

Simply picking up the nearest book in front of him, titled Cultivation Basics for Fools, he started flipping the pages.

In the first page, all he sees is a single line of words, "If you are reading this, you can just stop dreaming about cultivation as even a 3 years old kid knows about the knowledge in this book already."

"Dammit, what a showoff! If everyone knows about this knowledge already, why would you even write this into a book?! I cursed this author to have bad luck for 100 years!"

Yi Ren threw the book beside him while grumbling and cursing the author for making a fool out of him.

The more he thinks about it, the more aggrieved he felt.

"Hmmph, the more you're trying to stop me from reading this book, the more i want to read it. Who cares about the knowledge inside anyway? I just love reading for the sake of reading!"

Yi Ren picks up the book once more and started flipping the pages.

——-

Around 2 hours later, he finally flips to the last page and closes the book. Just a simple book explaining the basics of cultivation, and yet it takes him that long to finish reading it.

"What kind of bullshit author is this?! You call this sort of knowledge something everyone already knows?!"

"The current syllabus taught in the clan didn't even cover 10% of what was written in this book, as i understand from what big brother told me before this."

Although the author of the book looks down on the knowledge, when Yi Ren finished reading the book, it feels like a new world has open up in front of him.

The book dives deeper into the type of spirit vessels, what is spirit, how does one cultivate their spirit, how to integrate their spirit into their spirit vessel to achieve maximum compatibility and many more.

"So a spirit is not something that is bestowed upon a person by the heavens during their birth. Spirit is a culmination of the person's affinity, beliefs and imagination."

"A baby will not have their own beliefs and imaginations in the beginning, therefore the spirit that they manifest only holds their affinity to the Dao, without their beliefs and imaginations. So everyone has been cultivating wrongly all this while!"

"Does that mean, the longer you prolong the integration of your spirit and spirit vessel, the more time you have to shape your spirit into the best version of itself? What kind of spirit would I want mine to be then?"

While Yi Ren is contemplating about his spirit, he finds himself back in the real world once again. Out of nowhere, a deep seated fatigue flows out from the depth of his soul and interrupted his train of thoughts.

"Huh? Why am I out again? I did not think about leaving the space? And why am I feeling so tired?"

Yi Ren tries to access the space once more but found that his effort is in vain.

Feeling frustrated after multiple times, along with the fatigue he's feeling, he decided to stop for now and walk back home.