Jack and Mai Yining walked up to the reception desk of the library together.
"Can you please get me scrolls that describe sigils used in body cultivation?" Jack asked when he saw that Mai Yining didn't want anything.
Li Manning furrowed his brows as he said "We hold those kinds of scrolls on the top floor. I don't recommend trying them out while in a low cultivating grade; you might damage your body irreversibly."
Mai Yining tugged at Jack's sleeve as she asked "Did you not say that you are working on the Air Blast spell? Why ask for body cultivation sigils?"
Jack turned to look at her and answered "I already know all of the sigils used in the Air Blast spell, but I have just recently learned a body cultivation method that requires a lot of new sigils that I don't know."
Mai Yining furrowed her brows as she asked "But what about our research?"
Jack gave her a smile of reassurance as he said "Don't worry, we can do both." He turned back to Li Manning and said "Please allow us access to the top floor." as he took out two spirit stones and ten silver coins.
Li Manning studied Jack with furrowed brows for a few seconds, before sighing and taking the money. He took out a metallic stone from his robes, turned, and inserted it in an indentation in the wall. A passage that led to a flight of stairs opened up as Li Manning said "Follow me." and walked into it.
From Jack's estimation, they walked two stories up before they came to a wall on the end of the stairs. Li Manning once more inserted his key into the wall and led Jack and Mai Yining into a room as large as the main hall on the ground floor.
Once they entered, Li Manning turned towards his customers and warned them "If you damage a scroll, you will have to pay a fine of ten spirit stones."
Jack and Mai Yining both nodded with serious expressions on their face and then smiled at each other when Li Manning turned his back.
This room only had scrolls that lined the walls, without the extra few rows in front of them.
While Li Manning went to pick out the scrolls that Jack wanted, Mai Yining and Jack walked over to a table in the middle of the room and sat down.
Mai Yining sat to Jack's right and asked "So, what do you want to know?"
Jack laid his right hand down on the table and started to create the closest version of the Air Blast spell that he wanted. He stopped just before he connected the last strand of spirit energy and said "I want to make this shoot out a stream of air that's at most a finger thick, but can only get it down to two fingers." He looked up at Mai Yining's eyes and asked "Do you know a way to make that happen?"
Mai Yining stared at his eyes for a second, before she looked down and studied the spell's structure with a frown. Half a minute later, she looked back up and said with a hint of awe in her voice "You have already done most of the things that I could suggest. The only thing I can think of is to make the distances between your spirit threads uniform, along with the spirit threads themselves. That way you can increase and decrease the size of your spell at will."
Jack's brow furrowed as he asked "What would making the threads uniform do? I've already decreased the spell's size as much as it would go without collapsing."
Mai Yining smiled as she said "This." and opened her mouth wide. Spirit threads extended out of her chest, neck, and jaw and assembled into a spell structure twenty times more complex than the Air Blast in front of her mouth.
One second it would become as small as a marble, the next it would expand to the size of a beach ball.
"Hey! No spells in the library!" Li Manning's voice echoed from a corner of the large room.
Mai Yining's spell fell apart as she yelped in surprise and turned a sheepish smile towards Li Manning while saying "Apologies, Brother Li. I meant no offense."
She turned back towards Jack and saw the light of enlightenment in his eyes. With a happy smile, she said "Do you understand now? Once all of your spirit threads become uniform, you can make them as big, or as small, as you like. It might lose a bit on pure power when you cannot enlarge some of the connections, but you can just add more of them to make up for it."
Jack slowly nodded his head as he said "I think I get it." He took hold of Mai Yining's hand and said "Thank you for your help, Disciple Sister Mai. You don't know how much this means to me."
Mai Yining looked down at their hands and started to blush. Jack held her hand for a second longer and released it when he saw Li Manning coming back with the scrolls.
Li Manning's narrowed eyes studied Jack as he plopped the scrolls on the table in front of him and asked "Will that be all, Sir?"
Jack nodded his head innocently as he said "It will, thanks a lot for your help Disciple Brother Li."
Li Manning studied him for a second longer before he said "I will leave the door up here open, once you finish your studies just knock on the door near the reception desk and I will let you out." With that, he turned and left for the stairs.
Jack glanced at his leaving figure and then turned his gaze to Mai Yining. With a mischievous smirk, he asked "Want to try some spells?"
Mai Yining covered her mouth as she giggled and shook her head. A few seconds later she answered, "We better not; I do not want to make trouble for Brother Li."
Jack shrugged his shoulders as he said "Fine, let's do some studying then." He took out a few sheets of paper and some charcoal and started to explore the new scrolls.
Mai Yining felt bored by the topic of Jack's study, so she wandered the top floor and checked out a few scrolls on her own.
'Sigils like strengthening have a different shape for body cultivation sigils? Do they have a different function then, too?' Jack thought as he saw a new sigil that meant strengthening as well, but this one worked on bodies, and not on other sigils.
'So all of the sigils that repeat themselves so much in the Chaotic Hawk Assault technique serve as a way to make the muscles, joints, and bones able to stand the strain when it's used. Sigils like tough, flexible, and recovery take up 70% of the whole technique. What heights can the exerted power reach when so much is focused on just enduring it?' Jack wondered as he took down notes on all of the new sigils that he found.
He took out a clean page for notes and speculated 'Can I use some of these on other parts of the body to make a…'
"Disciple Brother Song, where do you come from?" a question tore Jack away from his ruminations and back to the real world.
He looked up at Mai Yining that stood on the other side of the large room and asked "What?"
Mai Yining started walking towards their table as she talked "I was wondering, since you know so much about this faraway place you must come from there, but you speak our language and do not look any different than the people from around here." She stopped in front of the table and repeated her question "Where do you come from?"
Jack hid the shine in his eyes by looking back down at his notes and saying "That's a long and tragic story. I don't think I should say it here."
Mai Yining let out a little of her whininess out as she begged "Come on, Disciple Brother Song. That just makes me more curious."
Jack let out a long sigh, looked up in Mai Yining's hopeful eyes, and said "Fine, but you have to do something for me."
Mai Yining took a step back as she gave Jack an uncertain look and asked "W-what?"
Jack gave her a reassuring smile as he said "You told me that your mother knows these parts well." He leaned forward a little and continued "Does she perhaps have a map of the local area?"
Mai Yining looked a little disappointed as she thought about it a while before she said "I think she does, most of the Elders have their own."
Jacks smile widened as he said "Then let's make a deal. I tell you my story, and you bring me your mother's map to study tomorrow."
Mai Yining deliberated on it for a few seconds, before finally agreeing with "Alright, but only for one day."
Jack's smile widened for a moment before it disappeared as his face turned solemn. He told Mai Yining the same sad story he told everyone else in the Sect that asked him about it.
Once he finished he saw that Mai Yining's eyes turned watery as she tried to turn to the side and wipe them.
On the outside, Jack looked like he needed a moment to collect his thoughts, but on the inside, he wondered 'What if I told her my real story? Reality is sometimes sadder than fiction. Would she care? Would any of them care, really?'
A second later he shook such distracting thoughts away and focused back on the scrolls. The rest of the stay on the top floor of the library went by in an awkward mood, and when Jack announced that he finished his research Mai Yining had a look of relief on her face.
Li Manning let them out of the hidden path once they knocked, and Jack paid for their stay with a heavy heart. On the other hand, Li Manning had an excited look on his face because he didn't earn so much often.
When Jack escorted Mai Yining back to the foot of the Blooming Life Mountain she looked like she wanted to tell him something, but in the end, couldn't find the courage to. Jack reminded her once more to bring the map with her tomorrow and left to pick up the food for his men.
Later, when he brought the corpse cart to Elder Yu's estate, a voice appeared in his ear out of nothing and said "Tanda, come see me at once."
Jack's heart clenched as he sensed a slight agitation in the voice of his teacher. He left the cart in a corner of the manor's courtyard and jogged to the Elder's study. Once he reached it the door opened and Elder Yu stepped out of it.
Instead of the anger he expected to see on the Elder's face, he only saw slight anxiety.
Elder Yu started walking forward, so Jack got out of his way and followed in his wake.
"I have to leave on a short trip. You will be in charge of everything while I am gone. Most of the estate is sealed off, but I have left the areas that you need to access open. Continue with your work as usual and expect my return in fifteen days." The Elder said as he marched to the middle of the courtyard.
Jack had a confused look in his eyes, but he still bowed and acknowledged the orders. 'Elder Yu never mentioned when he went and when he returned before. Did he just let Du Angliang know about it?' Jack wondered as he looked at the Elder.
With a pull on his waist pouch Elder Yu took out a puppet that looked like a scaled horse with a lizard's head. He tapped his feet on the ground and jumped up on the three-meter tall puppet. He looked down at Jack, debated something with himself for a few seconds, and in the end said "Do not go up the mountain tomorrow, Tanda. Stay in Tranquil Lake Town the whole day."
Before Jack could even pretend that he understood his order, the Elder made a sound and the spirit puppet shot out into the sky without looking back.
Jack watched it disappear into the horizon with a frown on his face. A dozen seconds later he sighed and went back to his work.
Later that night he warned his friends to be careful in the next few days and went to his clearing to practice.
The next morning, just as he drove the corps cart up to the meeting point and everybody got ready to go down to the town, a booming voice rang out in the ears of every person that lived in the Endless Cycle Sect.
"Bai Shetai, come out and face justice!" it roared.