Looking at the gray-robed elder before him, Li Chang’an took the opportunity to ask a question.
The elder heard him and took the puppet—the one whose core Li Chang’an had previously shattered—out from his sleeve. "You’re quite interested in the Puppetry Skill, aren’t you?" he said.
Li Chang’an didn’t deny it, nodding. "Primordial Ancestor, your control over the puppets is masterful. Of course I’m 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 isn’t considered high-level. In the Jianghu, it’s 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 wasn’t holding anything back from Li Chang’an.
Or rather, the talent Li Chang’an had displayed was enough to make him breathe a sigh of relief.
"Well? Now that you’ve 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 Chang’an’s 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 Chang’an replied, "Techniques themselves are neither good nor evil, high nor low. It’s people who apply those labels. As long as this Technique doesn’t refine living people into puppets, I don’t 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 you’re looking for are all on the sixth floor!"
He paused, his gaze toward Li Chang’an 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 ancestors’ hopes!"
Hearing this, Li Chang’an bowed respectfully.
After leaving the rooftop of the Imperial Palace, Li Chang’an 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.
’What would happen if he could read every book in the entire Library Pavilion?’
At that thought, Li Chang’an didn’t hesitate, heading straight for the Library Pavilion.
...
「Inside the Library Pavilion.」
The old man seemed to have been waiting for Li Chang’an. 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 you’re human or some kind of monster from who-knows-where."
Li Chang’an 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. "That’s true. Whether you’re a Celestial God descended from the heavens or a Land Immortal cultivating again, as long as you’re one of the Dayan Dynasty, that’s all that matters."
After exchanging a few more pleasantries with the old man, Li Chang’an 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!]
’This time, Defying Fate earned me ten thousand Rebirth Points at once.’ 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.
’A nice little profit!’
For the next few years, Li Chang’an practically lived in the Library Pavilion.
This time, whether someone had put in a word for him or for some other reason, he wasn’t disturbed by any troublesome people at all.
For Li Chang’an, having such a quiet environment to study in was pure bliss.
Li Chang’an 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 Chang’an 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 Chang’an 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 Chang’an 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 followed—the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth—the number of techniques on each level dropped sharply. However, Li Chang’an’s reading speed didn’t 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 world’s current First-class Techniques. Though there were less than half as many as on the second floor, it took Li Chang’an 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 weren’t the Library Pavilion within the Dayan Dynasty’s Imperial Palace, these twenty-one techniques alone would incite a mad scramble among countless Jianghu Sects in the outside world.
Li Chang’an 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 Rivers—vast and all-encompassing.
Even with his Heaven-defying Comprehension, it seemed they would require a considerable amount of his time and effort.
Yet Li Chang’an didn’t 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 Chang’an 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 Chang’an 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 Chang’an 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 Chang’an, who had voraciously absorbed such a massive number of techniques, it also meant he was a ’jack of all trades, master of none.’
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 Chang’an was no exception.
Although he possessed the ultimate cheat of Heaven-defying Comprehension, he wasn’t omniscient and omnipotent like a god. He, too, had to find his own path.
He hadn’t faced this problem before simply because the number of techniques and manuals he had comprehended hadn’t 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 Dynasty’s Royal Library Pavilion, the problem had become pressing.
If Li Chang’an couldn’t 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.
’Sigh, sometimes having too much comprehension is its own kind of prison!’
On the fifth floor of the Library Pavilion, after finishing the last Grandmaster Secret Manual, Li Chang’an 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 world’s eyes burn red with envy. ’Just listen to yourself. Are you even speaking like a human being right now?’
But for Li Chang’an, this was a very real problem that he needed to start solving immediately.
...