Looking at the gray-robed elder before him, Li Changâan took the opportunity to ask a question.
The elder heard him and took the puppetâthe one whose core Li Changâan had previously shatteredâout from his sleeve. "Youâre quite interested in the Puppetry Skill, arenât you?" he said.
Li Changâan didnât deny it, nodding. "Primordial Ancestor, your control over the puppets is masterful. Of course Iâm interested!"
The gray-robed elder smiled and placed the shattered puppet core on the table. He immediately began repairs, explaining as he worked, "The art of controlling puppets isnât considered high-level. In the Jianghu, itâs even called a Forbidden Skill. I can command them as if they were my own limbs only because these Iron Guard Puppets are refined from the corpses of Royal Family masters, mixed with various precious materials!"
He wasnât holding anything back from Li Changâan.
Or rather, the talent Li Changâan had displayed was enough to make him breathe a sigh of relief.
"Well? Now that youâve heard the refinement method, are you still interested in this Technique?" The elder gave him an interested look, curious to see how he would react.
Li Changâanâs eyebrow twitched when he heard the puppets were refined from corpses. Honestly, the answer was unexpected, but it made perfect sense.
After all, he found it hard to imagine refining such agile puppets from ordinary materials. Perhaps only a body that was once a Martial Arts master could move with such fluid, coherent power.
After a moment of thought, Li Changâan replied, "Techniques themselves are neither good nor evil, high nor low. Itâs people who apply those labels. As long as this Technique doesnât refine living people into puppets, I donât see anything wrong with it."
The gray-robed elder smiled, clearly quite satisfied with this answer.
He then took three separate keys from his sleeve. "These are the keys to the third through sixth floors of the Library Pavilion," he said. "The puppet refinement and control skills youâre looking for are all on the sixth floor!"
He paused, his gaze toward Li Changâan full of the fond appreciation a senior holds for a junior. After a sigh, he said softly, "Your talent is unparalleled throughout the ages, and you are also very perseverant. Given a little time, you will surely go farther on the path of the Martial Dao than any of us. In entrusting the Dayan Dynasty to you, I can finally consider myself worthy of the ancestorsâ hopes!"
Hearing this, Li Changâan bowed respectfully.
After leaving the rooftop of the Imperial Palace, Li Changâan looked at the three keys in his hand, unable to suppress a flicker of excitement.
He had only read the various martial arts tomes and Cultivation Techniques on the bottom three floors of the Library Pavilion, yet his gains were already nearly equal to everything he had obtained in his previous life.
âWhat would happen if he could read every book in the entire Library Pavilion?â
At that thought, Li Changâan didnât hesitate, heading straight for the Library Pavilion.
...
ăInside the Library Pavilion.ă
The old man seemed to have been waiting for Li Changâan. When he saw him arrive, his gaze was filled with scrutiny.
After a long silence, he finally sighed. "To think you defeated a Grandmaster Iron Guard Puppet controlled by the Primordial Ancestor himself... Honestly, sometimes I really wonder if youâre human or some kind of monster from who-knows-where."
Li Changâan rolled his eyes. "As long as I can protect the Dayan Dynasty, who cares what I am?"
The old man was stunned for a moment before smiling wryly. "Thatâs true. Whether youâre a Celestial God descended from the heavens or a Land Immortal cultivating again, as long as youâre one of the Dayan Dynasty, thatâs all that matters."
After exchanging a few more pleasantries with the old man, Li Changâan entered the Library Pavilion once more to begin his arduous training.
At the same time, a notification from the Rebirth Mark appeared in his vision.
[DING! You have successfully Defied Fate!]
[At the age of three, you successfully rewrote your fate of being poisoned to death by the Empress. You have also broken through to the Grandmaster Realm, becoming the youngest Grandmaster in history, and your prestige among the Dayan Royal Family is currently unmatched!]
[Rebirth evaluation increased. You have received an additional 10,000 Rebirth Points!]
âThis time, Defying Fate earned me ten thousand Rebirth Points at once.â He figured it was not only because he had changed his fate of dying at age three, but also because he had become the youngest Grandmaster in the history of the Dayan Dynasty.
âA nice little profit!â
For the next few years, Li Changâan practically lived in the Library Pavilion.
This time, whether someone had put in a word for him or for some other reason, he wasnât disturbed by any troublesome people at all.
For Li Changâan, having such a quiet environment to study in was pure bliss.
Li Changâan spent a full year going through the Cultivation Techniques on the first floor.
The second floor had only a third of the number of Cultivation Techniques as the first, yet Li Changâan spent no less time there.
The reason was simple:
Though numerous, most of the Cultivation Techniques Secret Manuals on the first floor were either Non-stream or Third-class Techniques. Many were worthless junk with no reference value.
Li Changâan would often discard them after a quick glance; very few actually required his time and mental energy.
While the second floor had a third fewer techniques, they were far more profound. Each one offered Li Changâan at least some small spark of inspiration.
As a result, he had to study nearly every single manual with rapt attention.
And so, he spent another full year on the second floor.
On the floors that followedâthe third, fourth, fifth, and sixthâthe number of techniques on each level dropped sharply. However, Li Changâanâs reading speed didnât increase. Instead, he became even more engrossed, pouring vast amounts of time into these levels as if his efforts were being swallowed by the sea.
The third floor of the Library Pavilion housed all of the worldâs current First-class Techniques. Though there were less than half as many as on the second floor, it took Li Changâan a full year and a half to absorb them all.
As for the fourth floor, it contained exclusively super first-class techniques of the current era.
A quick scan revealed there were only twenty-one of them in total.
But these twenty-one techniques were not to be underestimated. A single complete, super first-class technique could allow a Martial Artist to cultivate all the way to the Innate Realm.
As such, a single one could give rise to a Jianghu First-class Influence.
Twenty-one techniques were equivalent to twenty-one Jianghu first-class powers.
If this werenât the Library Pavilion within the Dayan Dynastyâs Imperial Palace, these twenty-one techniques alone would incite a mad scramble among countless Jianghu Sects in the outside world.
Li Changâan spent another year and a half on these twenty-one techniques.
Only then had he fully absorbed them.
The caliber of the techniques on the fifth floor went without saying. In the vast chamber, there were only five manuals, all of them closely guarded secrets of the Grandmaster Realm.
In the Jianghu, any power with a Grandmaster presiding over it was considered a leader among first-class influences. Those with several Grandmasters were the famed twelve Super-class Sects.
In other words, if placed in the outside world, each of these five Grandmaster Realm techniques could very well give rise to a new Super-class Sect.
Cultivation techniques of the Grandmaster Realm were like the Sea of All Riversâvast and all-encompassing.
Even with his Heaven-defying Comprehension, it seemed they would require a considerable amount of his time and effort.
Yet Li Changâan didnât find the process tedious in the slightest.
On the contrary, he felt as if he had plunged into a vast ocean of knowledge, where every single moment was intoxicating.
[With your Heaven-defying Comprehension, you have observed a First-class Martial Arts Body Technique in the Library Pavilion and reached an epiphany, comprehending the Super First-class Body Technique: "Wind-Riding Cloud-Controlling Skill"!]
[With your Heaven-defying Comprehension, you have observed a Martial Arts Technique in the Library Pavilion and reached an epiphany, comprehending the Grandmaster Attack Secret Skill: "Wood Green Dragon Sword Qi"!]
[With your Heaven-defying Comprehension, you have observed a Martial Arts Technique in the Library Pavilion and reached an epiphany, comprehending the Energy Essence Method: "Star Refining Method"!]
...
Time flew by, and five years passed in the blink of an eye.
Li Changâan was now eight years old, and he had finally understood and assimilated most of the techniques from the first to the fifth floors of the Imperial Palace Library.
However, once the number of Cultivation Techniques, Secret Manuals, and Techniques he had comprehended reached a staggering level, Li Changâan started to get a headache.
For some time afterward, he found himself pondering how to create his own Dao.
His "cheat," Heaven-defying Comprehension, gave Li Changâan an almost fraudulent level of cultivation efficiency. He truly could understand any Secret Manual with a single glance and grasp the essentials of its cultivation in an instant.
While this was incredible, everything has its pros and cons.
For someone like Li Changâan, who had voraciously absorbed such a massive number of techniques, it also meant he was a âjack of all trades, master of none.â
In truth, the world has never lacked stunningly brilliant geniuses. From birth, they possess terrifying talent in certain areas, leaving countless ordinary people to gaze after them in the dust.
But no matter how brilliant they are, no one is omniscient and omnipotent.
The geniuses who truly achieve greatness in their respective fields tend to be those who dedicate themselves to a single path, seeking to innovate and push it to the absolute peak of what is possible.
Li Changâan was no exception.
Although he possessed the ultimate cheat of Heaven-defying Comprehension, he wasnât omniscient and omnipotent like a god. He, too, had to find his own path.
He hadnât faced this problem before simply because the number of techniques and manuals he had comprehended hadnât yet reached the limits of what his mind and body could handle.
But now, after voraciously absorbing and digesting the entire collection of the Dayan Dynastyâs Royal Library Pavilion, the problem had become pressing.
If Li Changâan couldnât forge his own Dao from the tangled web of knowledge...
...then no matter how many more techniques or secret manuals he learned, they would not become his strength. On the contrary, they might even backfire, leaving him in the awkward position of seemingly knowing everything, but truly understanding nothing.
âSigh, sometimes having too much comprehension is its own kind of prison!â
On the fifth floor of the Library Pavilion, after finishing the last Grandmaster Secret Manual, Li Changâan rubbed his slightly throbbing forehead, unsure whether he should feel miserable or blessed.
If word of this "problem" got out, it would probably make every Martial Artist in the worldâs eyes burn red with envy. âJust listen to yourself. Are you even speaking like a human being right now?â
But for Li Changâan, this was a very real problem that he needed to start solving immediately.
...