Rick and Daniel finally arrived at a two-story building with "Li Clan Library" engraved over the door. There was an elder standing guard in front of the library to ensure that all the rules were followed. When the duo walked up to the door, the elder, although a bit surprised to find out that the 5 year-old Daniel wanted to start cultivating, gave a curt nod and stated that only one technique can be borrowed at a time and must be returned within a week. The duo then walked into the library that had two floors and the center was filled with shelves. Each floor was only about 50 square meters, so there weren't that many cultivation or martial techniques. The martial techniques were kept on the second floor while the cultivation techniques were on the first floor. The higher-grade techniques were kept in the back in a special room on each floor.
Usually there were only a select few people who could enter the special rooms, but because Rick was valued highly by the clan and Daniel was starting cultivation three years earlier than most people, he was able to enter the room. The catch was that he could only spend at most 20 minutes in the room and could not remove any of the techniques from the room.
Daniel took his first step into the cultivation world by going to the first shelf on the first floor and reading through the books that had information about cultivation and the world around him. There were a few basic texts on alchemy, formations, the continent that they were on, the type of demon beast that were around the town they lived in, as well as information on the kingdom they lived in. Some of these texts may seem very valuable, especially the alchemy and formation texts, but the information provided only gave a brief description on what alchemy and formations were, as well as some of the more famous masters in the kingdom and neighboring kingdoms.
After spending two hours getting a grasp of the basic knowledge of the world around him, Daniel went to the shelves that contained the techniques. The first few techniques that Daniel read were basic mortal grade one level techniques. Meaning that these techniques were of the lowest grade and only completed the body refining realm. Therefore, once the peak of the body refining realm was reached, a new technique that covered the Qi gathering realm was needed. The ranks of techniques are as follows:
Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and Peak of mortal, spirit, earth, fairy, and heaven grade.
Daniel then spent 13 more hours reading through Basic through Intermediate Mortal and Spirit grade techniques that were only one- and two-level techniques. Daniel then went to the special room to read the techniques that were specially guarded, where an elder was sitting in front of the room to watch the time and make sure nothing left the room. Once he walked in the room, Daniel was slightly surprised to find that there were at most 20 techniques in the room. There, there were five Advanced Mortal-grade one-level techniques, with three Peak Mortal-grade one-level techniques, three Advanced Mortal-grade two-level techniques, one Peak Mortal-grade two-level technique, two Basic Mortal-grade three-level techniques, two Advanced Spirit-grade two-level techniques, one Peak Spirit-grade two-level technique, one Advanced Spirit-grade three-level technique, and miraculously there was one Peak Spirit-grade four-level technique and even a Basic Earth-grade three-level technique. The last two techniques there had their grades faded and were hidden behind some secret doors to ensure only the higher ups could look at them. If it wasn't for Daniel snooping around a bit to make sure he left no stone unturned, he would've never found those techniques.
Twenty minutes may seem like too short a time to accomplish not only finding but also reading these techniques. Luckily, he has a photographic memory, therefore he only needed to quickly skim these techniques and not try to comprehend them right away, not that it will be much of a challenge. He also put his OCD and knowledge of sneaking around to good use to ensure that nobody finds out about him reading the two techniques that were supposed to be hidden.
After spending about 16 hours in the library, Daniel finally decided to go home. To make sure that no one thought anything is fishing, he decided to grab a random technique from the first few shelves on the first floor before leaving.
"So, did you find a technique that suits you?" Daniel's mother, Stella, asked.
"Eh… kind of. I guess out of the limited techniques the clan has, it'll work for the time being."
"Just make sure you train hard, okay."
"Yes, mom. Mom, Dad, can we go into town tomorrow and look for a library or bookstore? I want to gather more information around here to know what kind of demonic beasts and such live here. Maybe learning some more basic information about alchemy and/or formations too could help."
"Eh? Uh, sure. Are you sure you want to go to a bookstore tomorrow in town? The library here has some of that information as well." Stella said. Ever since Daniel was a baby, he always acted strangely. He never cried, and always seemed curious about everything around him. As soon as he could speak, he would question about every detail about the world around him and how the clan and other things function. His parents started to think he was a weird child no matter how much they loved him. Little do they know that Daniel acting as a baby when he was an 80-year-old, old man in his past life was the most embarrassing and stressful thing he has ever done.
"Yes, mom. I already read those books here, but there was hardly any useful information."
"Okay, dear. We can go in the morning, make sure you sleep well tonight."
The family then went to bed after eating dinner since it was already late in the night. Daniel laid in bed reviewing all the information he had read through the cultivation techniques. He learned the main difference in the grades of the cultivation techniques were that they used different meridians for the spirit energy to travel through their body's to the cultivator's dantian, and the technique used to absorb the spirit energy into their bodies quicker. Each technique also seems to be based off of different demonic beasts. The higher the grade, the stronger the demonic beasts that the techniques are based on, are. Therefore, Daniel's main objective at the library tomorrow is to read more about the demonic beasts in the world, legendary or otherwise, and meridian structure in the human body. Finding techniques on alchemy or formations, recipes, or just basic information is a minor objective.