When the bath was finished, I walked out and got dressed myself, much to the maid's continued disappointment. Following that, I was escorted to the dining room once more, this time by Silica. Once, I was sitting at the table, and everyone there was staring at me. I was confused for a while as to why that was the case until Lou Xia's mother spoke.
"Good morning, dear. Are you ok? Last night, you fell unconscious at the dining table, and we thought that something had happened." She said with some concern showing on her face.
"Huh? Oh, that? I had just stayed up too late doing some research and tired myself out." I responded, trying to downplay the incident. Nevertheless, she still asked again.
"Are you sure you're fine? I have never heard of anyone falling asleep at the dining table because they were too focused on research."
"Yes, I am certain, and I am guessing that the reason why that happened was because my brain took too much energy from my body with the amount of work that I did. So as long as I don't go too far and eat more regularly, I will be fine." I both reassured and explained. The food was placed before us not long after that, and the customs were followed. When all of us were finished, Lou Xia looked up to me to ask.
"So, where would you like to go today?" The expression on her face was one of asking me to answer as fast as possible.
"Well, um, sorry to impose, but I was hoping that we could stay here for the day as I still have a few books to go through. So would you mind if we did that?" I asked with a small amount of embarrassment, coloring my cheeks from the request. Mr. Xia's face changed at this, and he was about to say something when Lou Xia beat him to the chase and spoke instead.
"Sure, that would be fine. I am not sure what my parents have to say about that, but they shouldn't mind as they did give this house and all of the staff that belongs to it over to me. Even if it does not seem like that anymore, as they apparently no longer listen to my orders because they were given orders by someone who is not even their master anymore." When she said this, I could see both of her parents wince slightly at the accusation. All the servants in the room had their faces colored with embarrassment as well.
"Well, dear, this has always been our family's ancestral mansion. They were just listening to orders from the head of the family, and we didn't inform them of the change either, so they must have thought that your father was still there, master. So don't be so hard on them." Mrs. Xia explained as her cheeks gradually gained more of a red tint.
"Well, if they had listened to me from the start, then I Would have been able to explain the entire situation two days ago instead of Cynthea using force to keep me quiet and making me follow her to meet you while I could not explain anything." Lou Xia retorted, causing everyone else face to fall at the reminder of what happened.
"By the way, how long would I be able to stay here?" I asked, trying to divert the conversation before everyone dwelled on it for too long. However, it seemed that I was not very subtle if the nod given by both Cynthea and Mrs. Xia was anything to go by.
"I am guessing that you would at least like to stay until you get your research done, as it would take a while just to travel from your designated residence in the sect to the library without a flying tool. So you may stay as long as you like." Lou Xia responded with a smile.
"If that is the case, would you mind if I change a small portion of the garden in the back? It would just take up a small area. That's all." I asked, probably explaining that last part a bit too hastily. This question had apparently caught everyone off guard as they appeared to be contemplating what I said, though Lou Xia did not take as long to answer. I was fairly certain that it was because she had seen what I had done and could do before.
"As long as the changes are made under my supervision and I know what they are beforehand." This answer seemed to shock her parents out of it as they looked at her with some level of disbelief on their faces.
"Since you are now free today we will be having a talk about this after we are finished here." Mr. Xia said with a firm look appearing on his face.
"Alright then. Anyways, how would you feel about later today after noon?" I asked once more, looking at Lou Xia for an answer.
"Sure, that would be great." She said with a smile on her face again.
After this, I stood up and said my goodbyes before swiftly leaving to return to my room. Back in a familiar environment, I started to brainstorm about what I was thinking of earlier.
The reason why I asked for permission to change something in the garden was because I wanted to place a shrine to Elinaria there. Only one problem remained, and that was whether or not there was a tech for it in the tech tree. If there was not one, I could use my custom tech point to ask for one. Opening the tech window, I start searching up and down, looking all over for one and not finding it.
This meant that I had to use my custom tech point to ask for one. Finally, using that point, I started to set some parameters for what I wanted the shrine to be. The first parameter was that it could constantly be upgraded through the system interface instead of constantly having to build a new, better version. The second parameter was that the first stage of the shrine only needed basic resources such as stone and wood. The third was that the shrine would change appearance based on the goddess's base appearance, which she is perceived as. The last parameter was that there needed to be some architectural structure blueprints that came along with it unlocked at each different tech stage.
{Costom tech request received: Crafting the tech: Estimated time 1 Da#@$%$#$%}
{Costom tech complete}
I was concerned for a moment when the system glitched before a flood of knowledge entered my head, causing me to stumble and almost fall. Silica had seen me stumble and was instantly by my side, catching me to prevent my fall as the information flooding my head stopped. It took a while to convince her that I was fine. When she was placated, I checked the requirements for what I wanted to build, only to see that I barely had the material needed. Thankfully, I did not need all of these materials because I had an entire mountain's worth if I needed more. So, I set the shrine to be built along with some other things.
Once that was done, I walked over to where all the books were left and started to do some more research. So far, I was fairly certain I got the core parts of it down and just needed all the secondary parts to complete the basics of a technique. Some of these include the use of specific elements or attuning oneself to specific concepts, though I have not encountered any other things besides this. I was almost certain this was because the most powerful technique that I have gone through so far is an earth-ranked technique. Below Human-ranked, I have even noticed that the techniques start missing some of the core components necessary for the body-tempering technique to function.
Picking up the next book, I see that it is a heaven-ranked technique. Excitedly, I open the first page and am greeted by a wall of errors and incorrect information. Shocked, I begin to mark the errors and move on to the next page, only to get even more shocked at how there are even more errors on the next page. Going through the full book, I find that I have the most errors out of all the techniques yet. Just fixing all of them would change the technique so much that it might as well not be the same technique anymore.
However, the right parts made it a heaven-ranked technique. It contained a completely new core part that I had not seen before, as well as a few secondary and even tertiary parts that I had not seen either. Taking note of these, I grabbed the next book, only to find it was the last in the stack.
Opening it, I was both surprised and elated, as I saw that it was an Immortal-ranked technique.