Orin headed to the spell section, he planned to copy all the spells on the second floor. He knew that some of the spells would be useless to him, but he didn't care. He had come up with several very good justifications for copying all the spells, but he knew the truth, he liked the idea of having all the spells even if it was greedy.
There were hundreds of spell books, and after copying several spells he would glance towards the attendants to make sure he wasn't making them suspicious of him, before copying more. But the attendants were busy reading at here desks and occasionally they would answer a question from a patron. Almost three hours and the last of the spell books had been copied, but to Orin it felt like an eternity had passed.
Next, Orin began copying skill books. Movement techniques, martial arts, training manuals for weapons, skills to use with various weapons, and many more. Within these many skill books, there were complete fighting styles. Some were meant to be used against monsters, some against humans, and some were meant to be used in wars from small to large scale. Since Orin felt more comfortable being on the second floor after he was able to copy all the spell books without being questioned by the attendants, he was able to copy the skills fairly quickly.
As for the rest of the books on the second floor, Orin decided to copy them on another day. But for right now he had a plan, and if everything goes as he hopes, it will be a plan that will greatly benefit his future. After taking a deep breath, he began to head to the stairs leading to the third floor. The only person that Orin saw that paid any attention to him was another cultivator that merely glanced at him before returning to reading his book.
The third floor was crammed full of bookshelves, other than some tables in the center of the floor, it was just bookshelf after bookshelf. There were two attendants, the female attendant didn't even bother to look at Orin when he first arrived up the stairs. However, the male attendant did look at Orin, and even raised an eyebrow before returning to whatever he was doing. He also noticed that there seemed to only be three cultivators on this floor, two of them looked to be just a bit older than Orin, while the third was an old man looked to be in his seventies.
Orin found the old man's presence disturbing. Most people when they fail to get to the sixth layer by their sixteenth birthday, they quit cultivating and focus on living their lives as people and not as cultivators. But there are those that can't or won't give up cultivating like Orin's father and this old man. A lot of younger cultivators don't like being around older cultivators like this old man due to the fact they are a constant reminder of what happens if they fail. They have no hope of breaking through to the foundation establishment stage, the pill needed to breakthrough loses its effectiveness after the age of twenty-five, and the ingredients needed to make the pill are grown and mostly controlled by sects. The only other method needs an area with exceptionally dense spiritual energy, which are controlled by sects and the various empires.
After promising himself he would never become like his father or this old man, he began to look through the bookshelves for the books on alchemy. They were not hard to find, every bookshelf was labeled for easy use. The first thing he noticed about these books were their size, they were twice as tall and wide but four times as thick as all the other books he had read in the library. It felt a little awkward trying to hold the book to read the first page, but after jostling the book a bit he found the way to be able to copy it.
Orin read the introduction to book and found it very wordy, some of them were words he didn't understand. He hoped that it wouldn't keep the book from being copied, because he didn't understand the technical wording used by alchemists. It took about an hour to look at all the alchemy books, which left him wondering what to do. He could leave the library and go cultivate at home or could return to the second floor and copy as many books as he could before the library closed, or he could stay on the third floor. This floor also had spells that he could copy, but it also had books on inscription, rune making, and artifact forging. There were also a lot of other books that were well worth the effort to copy, the only downsides are that it would take a while to reach the cultivation level that this knowledge would be useable, and it would cost a small fortune to train these skills to a point where he could use them.
Orin only needed a few moments to make up his mind on what he should do, and then picked up a book on inscription and began to read the first page. After coping the first few books Orin looked towards the two attendants and noticed the male attendant was looking at him. Thee first thing that entered Orin's mind was "CRAP". Then he started to wonder if his constant looking towards the attendants drew this unwanted attention or if it was his low cultivation level. After picking up another book to copy, he tried to be sneakier when he looked towards the attendants, this time both of them were busy with their own affairs. For a moment this brought a sense of relief to Orin, but he knew he was on borrowed time to copy as many books as he could before he was going to be asked questions about why he was here.
It's not like he didn't think of an answer to give if he was asked, but he wasn't sure if it would matter. In his experience, people who have power like to use it, and the attendants have the power to banish him from the third floor and even the library for a set amount of time. In response to this new feeling of doom Orin now had, he began to try and speed up his copying of this section of books. After the last of the inscription books had been copied, he moved onto the books on rune making and then artifact refining after that. He even copied several bookshelves full of manuals of various topics like how to strengthen one's divine sense, and one on how to decrease the pain of menstrual cramps by adjusting the flow of Qi in the body. He didn't mean to copy that one, but he had already half the first page before he realized what it was, but since he started, he decided to finish it.
Looking across the room towards the section where the spells were located, he was tempted to copy them. But he decided against it, he had already got what he had come for and much more. If he could figure out how to make use of the alchemy books to increase the speed of his cultivation it would be worth it if he was banished from the library for a month or two. Since it was late in the afternoon and he still had to clean a couple of rabbits to make his dinner, he chose to leave the spells for another day and head home.