These nine cores were constantly moving and it gave me a chill. Why was my spirit core replaced with these? I wanted to know. I came out of the state of mind and went straight home, if there was something I needed to know I would find it within those scrolls that Li Jing had brought me.
When I got home I met Li Jing tidying up my room and she had already put two scrolls aside, ready to take them back. "Li Jing, why are you cleaning my room?"
My question seemed to have surprised 'cos she had a really puzzled expression on her face.
"What do you mean Young master? I always clean your room" Lo Jing said.
I noticed that she was more free with me now that we were alone unlike when there were people present the previous day. I started wondering if something was going on between them before, there holes in the memories so I couldn't confirm. I felt sorry for her knowing that Wang Wei was dead and I was just a stranger in his body. "Young master is everything okay? You seem lost in thought"
Her words jolted me out of my thoughts and I looked at her with an assuring smile. "I'm fine, don't worry" Again it was with the puzzled face. I had no idea what was going on this time.
"What's wrong with you? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Li Jing put her hand on my forehead as if she wanted to check my temperature. She put her hand on my neck too and moved back.
"Young master are you okay?"
"Why wouldn't I be okay?"
"You just smiled at me"
Her words surprised me. Was this Wang Wei bastard not the type of person who smiled? Even if that was true I had to stop her from perceiving me as a different person so I spoke:
"Is there something wrong with me smiling?" I asked. She became quiet immediately. "Is something wrong?"
"Not at all young master"
She was acting cute and starting to make me nervous so I just decided to make her leave using studying as an excuse. She insisted on cleaning my room first but I told her it was fine. She still insisted and made me feel like I had no choice but to comply so there we were. She cleaned my room while I studied, secretly stealing looks. She was plenty pretty and gave me butterflies in my stomach. Oh no, what was I thinking, could these have been how Wang Wei felt? If it wasn't then I was about to bring myself some issues.
"Li Jing I am going to see my sister now, I'll be back in a short while" I told her.
"Young master wait, you haven't had your breakfast" Li Jing said "You also did not eat this morning before you went to see the patriarchs" I felt like she was just trying to stop me from going so I gave her a simple answer.
"Don't worry about me. You go and eat, I won't be long" While I passed my answer I went out the door and disappeared from her sight. When I was out her cheeks turned bright red as she looked at the door.
"Young master...has changed"
It was nice getting away from all that pressure but now I couldn't go back immediately, or she would likely find it weird. I thought of where I could go to read scrolls concerning the nine cores I saw and I was left with only one option, to go to one of the community libraries.
I could go see Wang Miao later but now I really needed to know what was happening to me. If anyone recognized me and saw the useless son of the Heaven Stream family suddenly reading on cultivation it would definitely draw attention so I went to a shop to get a coat. Luckily, no one there recognized me or it would have been really uncomfortable.
When I got to the library I went to the shelf that had scrolls and books concerning the spirit core and the basics of cultivation. I took a book since I was more familiar with books than scrolls. I searched out what could have made me possess nine spirit cores instead of one. If only Wang Wei had tried a little harder and paid some more attention to cultivation things would be easier for me right now. I flipped through the pages really fast and finally found what I was looking for. Split cores.
'Seeing more than one spirit core within the state of mind indicates that the spirit energy dwells within more than one elemental plane and grants use of more than one element. The elements usable of all the nine elements is indicated by color of the cores'
This was fantastic for me; I was so happy that I nearly screamed and blew my cover but I put myself under control. I already knew the colors of each element from my late-night studying and since I had nine cores in me I did not need to check which elements I could use; I could use all the elements.
This was so insane that I couldn't wait to tell Li Jing. Wait, why was I thinking about telling her when I was supposed to keep it a secret and train myself more. If I wanted her to truly be happy for me. I was just going to see Wang Miao a bit and go somewhere I could train after leaving this library. I had just two weeks so there was no time to lose.
Nine spirit cores, if anyone heard that they would have thought I was crazy, especially coming from, me, the failure of the Heaven Stream family. Either way I had to stop worrying about other people and focus on my main objective. I returned the scroll to the desk at the front and left the library. It was time to change everyone's view of Wang Wei.