Orin had a huge smile on his face as he started to walk through the first floor of the library. The last time he was here there was only two floors, but he could already see the stairs to the third floor the moment he entered the second floor. But when he entered the third floor there were no stairs to the fourth floor, or even the locked door the city library had.
It wasn't hard for Orin to find the dozen or so alchemy books, and after moving them to a table he began to read through them. It soon became clear to Orin that even though he understood almost all the words he was reading; he was having a hard time understanding what it meant. It would lots of time studying these books to fully understand alchemy, but right now he wasn't interested in studying, he only wanted to find the recipes for alchemy tea to help his cultivation. While skimming through the pages, Orin slowed down to fully read two parts. The first part described what was needed to start learning alchemy, it was a list of books that needed to be read and understood, along with a fire spell to learn, and an alchemy cauldron. It also gave hints and recommendations on how to quickly improve one's alchemy skills.
The second part he fully read was the recipe for the foundation pill. It was the one pill that separated false cultivators and true cultivators. There were only two standard ways to breakthrough to the foundation establishment realm: a place with a very thick spiritual energy and the foundation pill. Every known place with even slightly thick spiritual energy is claimed by a large clan or sect and impossible to get access too, and the ingredients for the foundation pill are almost fully controlled by the large clans and sects and empires. Any that are found in the wild are sold for massive amounts of spirit stones, and if Orin was really lucky, he might hear a rumor about the sale months later.
There were other ways to breakthrough, but almost all of them are evil, and would earn the cultivator a place on the kill list with a large bounty on their head. And while Orin was desperate to progress his cultivation, but he had no wish to have hundreds of very powerful and skilled cultivators hunting him down to kill him.
The only other way to breakthrough without a special place he couldn't access, or a pill he didn't have or the ingredients and skills to make, or wanting to be hunted down and killed, was rare natural treasures. Every dozen or so years someone finds a rare natural treasure that allows one greatly increase their cultivation, most are used as soon as they are found and those that make it to auction are sold for obscene amounts of spirit stones and usually end with large amounts of bloodshed as small-scale wars breakout for ownership of the rare treasures.
After reading about how to make a foundation pill, the last shred of hope that Orin had of breaking through without joining a sect was finally extinguished. Even thinking of his recent bout of luckiness in finding rabbits and spirit grasses, he knew that finding anything that would help him breakthrough would require a massive amount of pure luck instead of the small amount of dumb luck he had experienced. As for buying an alchemy cauldron and beginning to learn alchemy, it would have to wait till he reached the seventh layer at the bare minimum to even begin.
After a while of looking through several of the alchemy books Orin found what he was looking for. Alchemy teas recipes were in the auxiliary section along with medicines for headaches, stomach aches, and cures for several communicably spread diseases. Since they didn't require using a cauldron or any skill with fire spells, it was relegated to the auxiliary section as half alchemy.
The recipe for his level of cultivation was simple, it required five portions of four spirit grasses per gallon of tea and a spirit stone per batch made. Of the four types of spirit grasses, he had sold two of them yesterday and a third type could be found in the woods outside the northern gate. But for the fourth type of spirit grass was one he had never picked; he had only seen it for sale in shops. This meant that either this spirit grass didn't grow around the city, or it grew in the woods outside the southern gate.
The area south of the city was the territory of swarms of insects that ranged from dozens to thousands of insects. This makes the southern woods a place most of the people in the city avoid as much as possible, with only those who are sure of their strength or desperate enough taking the risk to hunt and harvest resources. Orin knew he wasn't strong enough to go, nor was he desperate enough to try his luck, especially since there were rumors that even foundation establishment rank cultivators had died in the southern woods. So, while he disliked spending spirit stones on anything he could get with a little hard work, he decided to buy the spirit grass.
Tomorrow he would spend the day hunting for the other three types of spirit grass and in a day or two he should have enough to begin brewing a batch of alchemist tea. It would take week for the tea to be complete and ready to use when he cultivates. Orin wasn't looking forward to the weeklong wait, he would spend a week waiting to see if he messed up and wasted his time, money, and crushing his hopes for the future.
Reading through the books, finding the tea recipe, and making a plan to collect the spirit grasses was the easy part of this trip to the spirit library but now the hard part was upon him. He had to wait six and a half to seven hours till he woke up before he could get to work. But after a couple of minutes of feeling anxious, those feelings faded away and were replaced with a sense of calmed focus. As soon as the feeling of calmness happened, he knew why. This spirit library seems to have the ability to calm his emotions and allow him to focus on learning.
Since he was stuck here for the time being, he decided to read the books he got on the third floor of the city library. Beginning with the alchemy books in front of him, he started at the beginning of the first book. The pill recipes started out easy to understand, but after a while there were things he didn't understand, and a few recipes after that he wasn't sure that they were still written in the common language. He had thought that the reason there weren't many alchemists in the city was because of the time and spirit stones needed to read the books enough to learn alchemy from them. It turns out that there are not many alchemists because alchemy is a highly specialized vocation.
Orin had the feeling he should have known how hard it was to learn alchemy before this, but most of what he had known of alchemy was told to him by people who had never read these books. Other than his father, everyone Orin knew had given up cultivating when they failed to get into a sect. He began to wonder what else he understood as common knowledge had been made up as it passed from one person to another over the years..