A few minutes later…
Kale left the guild with Layla.
"We only got 60 CP for that much, sigh…" Layla said.
"They were all mortal lifeforms and their grade was just common, you can't expect much for them, I will take 40, you showed me the way, butchered them, and brought them here so 20 should be enough right?" Kale said. Hunting them was the toughest task so he believed giving her extra too much might be mistaken as a bad intention.
Layla nodded in agreement, and Kale transferred the points. He said "I will be going to take the cultivation technique so you can go back now,"
Layla raised her eyebrow, she looked at him for a while, then turned and started walking away.
'Was I really mistaken?' Kale thought while looking at her fading back.
Suddenly, Layla turned back and sprinted towards him.
"Hey, I forgot one thing, give me your number," Layla said while panting because of sprinting just now.
'Finally,' Kale thought but on the outside, he gave her a questioning look.
"What are you thinking? I can tell you are pretty much adept at forests so I thought we can sometimes go there together, it's better than going alone and we are classmates, isn't it better to work together? It will be much easier to contact you if I have your number," Layla said, she didn't hide anything and directly put forth her intention.
This made Kale slightly relieved, it would be more troublesome if she had tried to use some lame excuse to make use of him.
'She is not much help right now, but once she learns the spells of a beast tamer she will become a one-person team, I can take on several people alone but it's a problem when doing the same thing with beasts especially when my plan is going to delay my breakthrough after hitting the first bottleneck, compared to others. She will be of great help when exploring inner regions of forests where I alone cannot guarantee my survival,' Kale thought.
Kale took out his phone and opened his contacts, clicked on add-new-contact to add Layla's number.
Layla extended her head peeked at his phone's screen while telling him her number. After he saved it, she said "Why do your contact list only have your dad's and your big sis's number in it? Don't you have any friends? It doesn't even have your mom's number,"
"Oh, about that I don't have mom," Kale said casually.
The second she heard his words, Layla regretted asking, she said "I'm sorry I didn't mean it,"
Kale looked at her, then said "You misunderstood, my father hasn't got married yet,"
"…" Layla opened her mouth but failed to speak.
Kale realized, he again said something wrong, he was about to speak when Layla stopped him, "No, I understand, you don't need to explain,"
Layla said while stepping back then turned around and fled into the distance, Kale looked at her fleeing like that, he realized she has seriously misunderstood his words but he had no intention of going and explaining anything.
He had already got what he came for, next he headed to the Grand Library.
The Grand Library was divided into five floors, from which two were underground and three above the surface.
All the main cultivation techniques that were accessible to all the students in the academy were present on these two underground floors.
Unlike spells or battle skills, cultivation techniques didn't have a grading system. There were complex cultivation techniques, simple ones, mysterious ones that are made by world-renown big shots but none of them had a grading system, there was a reason for that, which was compatibility.
Someone who has managed to cultivate even a little above the mortal stage can sense and absorb origin energy without any technique but its absorption efficiency would be too low, it will be just like one man is fighting with an assault rifle while the other is a barehanded child.
That's why people started to make cultivation techniques.
If a simple, common, and straightforward cultivation technique has higher compatibility with the user compared to a complex, rare, and mysterious one then the former will be several times more beneficial to the user than the latter.
Moreover, many techniques had strict requirements to be used and some can only be used if the user meets some prerequisite conditions.
After doing the entry at the reception, Kale walked downstairs and arrived at the underground floor, he entered the section where main cultivation techniques were present.
Just as the name says, the place was like a library. Books were arranged neatly on shelves, there was pin-drop silence in the surrounding.
Several books were separately showcased on small cuboidal tables, enclosed into inside a glass frame. They were the special cultivation techniques that are very rare to find and have different ways to cultivate.
Kale first ignored the books on shelves and randomly took out a book from a case near him and flipped it, the paper stuck on the back cover of the contained description of the technique. The book couldn't be opened because of the small metallic lock on its edges.
He looked through the description and placed it on the shelf again. After checking the description, the name of the technique was ‹Falling Moon Embrace Art›, it can both purify and increase the absorption of original energy by several times compared to a normal one but it can only show its true value if two requirements are met, the first was that the user should be a female and the other was that she cultivates under the moon.
Kale then looked at the books in the other glass case, he didn't focus on the books on shelves first because he knew that the main reason other than special requirements, students couldn't learn these techniques was because of their complexity but his mind was not the same as them, he had the life experience from his previous lives.
Imperial Academy only took young children who haven't started cultivating as students because according to the research, the best age for a person to start cultivation was from 13 to 18, it was the reason even people from the royal family hasn't started cultivating before entering the academy.
Of course, it was the only reason on the surface, Kale was already used to these types of aristocratic techniques so he saw the real intention of the Queen in a single glance, it was to cultivate loyalty. Children at this age are not mature when they see other people giving good things to them, they started to believe that this person is a good one, the academy gives too many things to them so it would be rare if they didn't become attached to it.
Soon Kale put down the second book too, the book contained the ‹Gluttony's Stomach Transformation Technique›, with this, the user can cultivate by eating the beast cores, but once the user learns this technique their hunger will be amplified several times.
'This technique looks good at first sight but when I think about it, it's not that good, only beast above Mortal-Rank have cores moreover eating, digesting then refining the chaotic energy inside those cores takes a lot of time, without using cores, this technique is at the bottom, academy won't allow one to choose techniques again and if I failed upcoming tests given by the academy I will be expelled,' Kale thought then placed back the book in the glass case.
If one wants to change their technique then it won't be easy for them to do that especially when the academy won't let them into this floor after they had chosen their technique once. When Kale entered the floor he was given 10 hours time limit to choose his technique even if he goes out without choosing the technique he couldn't come back in.
Kale then speeds up his searching and also looked through the description of the books on the shelves that caught his attention.
'Origin Whirlpool Sealing Art? Too many restrictions…'
'Azure Lotus Blooming Sutra... This is good but I don't have a flower shop and time to cultivate those flowers for cultivation,'
'Seething Sword Dao Heart? Not interested,'
He started searching for the technique that can meet his requirement, during this time he also noticed some empty glass case and guessed that the books inside those were taken by the people that solved the academy's word game earlier and chose their techniques before others. If the academy wanted then they could have refilled the empty spaces with the copies of the original books but they didn't, because they wanted to show… The early bird catches the worm.
After looking through all the special books in the glass cases, he went to another floor, but he was still somewhat disappointed.
Even after looking through almost all the books, Kale didn't find the one that met his requirement, he was already at the other end of the floor.
Most of the books here were in the dust, they were the ones that didn't like by many and got placed on the backside, there was only one glass case for a special type of book.
After few seconds of looking, Kale understood why the books on shelves here were treated this way, most of them only focused on one expect while also resulting in some minor side effects, no one would like to face any kind of side effect when they didn't even reach Enlightened Mortal level.
He then read the description of the book inside the glass case, the description slightly surprised him.
The technique was called «Star Constellation Body Lock», the technique didn't have any extra specialty except that the user could store extra 100% extra original energy in their body when fully mastered but it was only for original energy and not the transformed mana, Battle Qi or Psychonic Energy in Origin Chasm.
This alone would catch many people's attention but the technique had a serious problem, once someone starts cultivating it they cannot stop in the middle or switch to another technique until they had reached its completion. The only other way to leave it in the middle was to destroy your cultivation and start from the beginning.
Kale looked at the technique with interest, he liked the gain from the technique as for the consequences of failure, he had stopped worrying about such type of things when he lived on the edge for years, if someone told that they going to die after ten years then no matter how many things they have it cannot make them truly happy, Kale was such a person, precisely because of this his mentality was somewhat different than others.
He loved his life but didn't fear death. He only feared losing his life.
'This technique doesn't have any high requirement except being complex, being able to store extra origin energy means I could refine it faster and recover earlier then my opponent if I am in a battle, it suits my style,' Kale thought, then without any hesitation, he picked up the book and headed back to the reception.
An old woman wearing glasses was sitting at the reception counter.
When Kale placed the book with his ID card on the table, her eyebrows twitched, she looked at the book then at him, she said "That's a tough choice you made there, be careful when cultivating this one, and don't be hasty, during my time here till this day there were only two students who chose this and both of them were expelled for failing the tests within a year,"
The old woman said this but she didn't sit idle, she took his ID card, filled in the records, and removed the lock on the book. Kale had already made his choice, even if he regrets it she cannot let him go inside again, so she only warned him to be careful out of goodwill.
Kale nodded and headed back to his room.
On the way, he looked at the 115 CP in his account and thought about going it to the arena to earn easy points but he was more curious about the main cultivation technique so he decided to go and learn it first, as for earning points there was still one day before the session formally begins.
When Kale arrived outside his room's door he stopped.
'Someone is inside?' He thought while looking at the door holder, before heading out he purposely sprinkled some powder on it and now it was clean, meaning that someone touched it.