V5C15: The Entry Trials

She left the library without incident and found a place to stay in a similarly stress-free manner. As much as she would have loved to go straight to the battle scholars, who were actually called Preservers within the district, their entry ceremony was held only once a month, at the very first day.

Hence, she needed to wait for a little while and allow the selection process for the Preservers to begin, and then she would be able to participate and hopefully discover a library to pilfer knowledge from. Fortunately for her, even if she had been someone without the patience to wait for two days – something that she had no problem with after letting twenty years go past her in the Kong Prison Realm – she did have something else to occupy herself with.

For whatever reason, not long after she had settled down in a small establishment that offered some very comfortable beds, she found herself being observed by figures that had incredibly faint spiritual perception. Against anyone else, they might have been almost invisible due to staying on the very edge of the spiritual perception of someone in the fifth realm, but she had a far greater range and also possessed mental energy that was even more difficult to spot than that of the hidden observers. It was almost trivial to pay attention to them instead, while making it seem as if she had no idea that they existed.

There were a few people that she suspected to be responsible, or, more precisely, a few groups and factions that these observers would be working for, but the most likely guess at the moment was the Ru District’s Patriarch, and his forces. Given the things she had filled the jade slip at the walls with, it would be odd if he wasn’t interested.

The Crushing Tap was a technique that she had picked up long ago, but never really employed due to the unsuitability of it in most combat encounters, as well as it applying far more pressure to the finger alone than any other technique. She had also received some memories from the Thunder Lord, fortunately excluding any explicit activities from those ones, and then happened to have the time to process it with Endless Calculation as she waited in the prison realm.

She had then accumulated even more insights on it through her use of other finger techniques, with her latest Touch the Heavens giving her a great number of ideas to apply to the Crushing Tap.

In total, she had the equivalent of a vast sea of knowledge that could be described in such a way that it would apply only to the technique that she chose to present to the jade slip at the barrier before the Ru District. The slip was only able to accept a small pond of knowledge, which was a shame given the few moments that she had needed to spend to convert enough information into the right format, but it was sufficient to go beyond what she imagined most people to be capable of. It was only natural to get attention from those that then read the slip.

Hopefully, given the great respect that seemed to be given to the libraries of the Ru District, as she had not observed a single dispute occurring near any of them, this was going to be positive attention. For now, all it meant was that she couldn’t do anything that she didn’t want others to see.

That was not very hard due to her rarely ever doing anything that she didn’t believe to be right in one way or another. Meanwhile, other matters that had nothing to do with right or wrong weren’t a pressing concern for her either, since she had no embarrassing physical need to cater to regardless of how that was to even be interpreted. She wasn’t some kind of beast that couldn’t control her base desires.

‘This cannot be said about all of my neighbours, though. I guess the south is less keen on doing it in the open, but the people will not hesitate once they enter the bedroom, even if it is not their own…’

Given that she had stayed right beneath a brothel for a very long time, this wasn’t a particular issue for her, and she instead blocked out such activities and focused on searching through the area where she was meant to go for the purpose of the Preserver Entry Ceremony. It had to be close to one of their libraries, and so there was a chance of learning something from them before the ceremony even begins, or alternatively being more prepared for any unusual challenges that they might present to her that wouldn’t be catering to her usual strengths.

Since she had a lot of time to prepare, at least relative to those that wouldn’t be able to observe the grounds with their spiritual perception as freely as she could, it would be bad for her not to not be able to put up a proper fight, so to speak. An actual fight was possible, but unlikely to be the only requirement, if there was one at all.

There wasn’t much to help her, unfortunately. No matter what she looked at, she couldn’t find a definitive answer to what any of the challenges and requirements might be, and none of the people travelling in the area had any idea what they might encounter, although she couldn’t even tell whether they even intended to participate. It was hard to detect that intent without peering deeper into their thoughts, especially when she was far away from the people and needing to face a district full of those that refined their minds and worked far harder on developing them than other districts.

In the end, she was unable to determine to find anything of use, so she slowly shifted to annoying her observers instead. Her spiritual will was faint enough to bypass the perception of others, and strong enough to nudge objects and throw them at people, meaning that she had a chance to have some fun.

“First day of observation, fifteenth hour, no exceptional actions so far,” the observer noted down in a small journal that easily fit within his breast pocket, meaning that he could hide it within whenever necessary, “Spiritual perception is unable to penetrate her clothing, but nothing suggests physical characteristics contrary to typical human features.”

He frowned, tapping the pen on the page several times and leaving another dot on the paper each time.

“She does so little, but she doesn’t even look to be cultivating… what exactly is she-”

All of a sudden, a book flew off from a shelf to his left and crashed onto the desk that he was writing on, prompting him to leap up in surprise and look around. First, he used his vision, then quickly switched to spiritual perception in the hope of detecting the energy that must have been used to cause this, but he found nothing either time, which made no sense to him at all.

Spiritual perception could move around freely – relatively speaking – and get into all kinds of places without the knowledge of others, at least when they were at a lower realm or weren’t paying attention. Planar energy, which he imagined to be necessary in this situation, couldn’t travel quite as freely through objects nor could it be completely removed so quickly that he wouldn’t find even the slightest trace of it anywhere around him. Hence, he was convinced that he had to look closer and search more, only to continue to spot no traces of energy that did not belong to him.

“What…” he began to mutter, but stopped himself when he realised that someone must have noticed his presence and would be listening to him, instead focusing his energy to shield himself.

With the strange incident alone, it was hard to say whether anyone was deliberately targeting him, or if he just happened to get in the way, and it was even more challenging to guess whether anyone wished for his death. As such, he felt that it was safer to protect himself before doing anything else.

One thing that he was sure of was that this wouldn’t be the end. No matter what it was that had actually occurred, it must have required some effort and time from the person or group responsible, if only to obscure their energy to such an extent that he, a fifth realm expert, couldn’t detect even the faintest hint of it. Something like that wouldn’t be wasted on a simple prank, and so there was naturally more to come for him, with the only real question being what it was going to be and whether it was going to pose a genuine threat, unlike the flying book.

So, he readied himself and paid attention to his surroundings, using his spiritual perception to its fullest potential within the small room.

At first, Wei Yi had wanted to throw a few more books in his direction, but the reaction convinced her that it would be best to leave him alone. Whether he realised that she had stopped after one minute or one hour, it would still worry him far more than a continued assault, which he seemed to be expecting based on his surface thoughts.

For that reason, she had quickly switched targets and bothered one of the other observers, starting out with slightly less intense movements before reaching the point of outright throwing various items around their rooms.

That approach did result in slightly more entertainment for herself than the currently panicking observer who was still under the assumption that there was more to come. He was still a source of some slight entertainment, but that was almost insignificant in comparison to the reactions of some of the others, like one stalwart-looking woman that had quickly begun screaming a little too much like a young girl first seeing a planar beast out in the wild. It brought back memories of the reactions of some from the same generation as her in the Yi District.

She noticed some of them presuming that this was the activity of a spirit or a ghost, which did make sense given the focus on the spiritual side of the world over at the south. They had both the Ling and Xin Districts close to them, so the presumption of a spirit’s involvement wasn’t as farfetched as it would have sounded over at the north.

Even then, spirits weren’t considered to exist in anything resembling the states that the otherworldly demons presume them to, nor is there much evidence of any spiritual entities existing at all. The closest would be ethereal planar beasts, but they were visible to spiritual perception and only posed a genuine threat to those in the first realm and below, as they were unable to perceive the entity and could thus be defeated without much resistance.

The soul was a strange subject for the exact reason that they didn’t truly seem to exist, even if her own experiences confirmed that something akin to the soul did exist.

‘It is a very confusing field, and so the majority of the techniques used by the Xin and Ling Districts are actually focused at targeting the mind and the atmosphere rather than directly targeting the spirit… Hold on, some of the techniques from the libraries are actually rather similar to the Invader’s Roar thing that I had found…’ she distracted herself from that needless activity and instead mentally brought up the many books that she had found regarding mental techniques and put the Invader’s Roar amidst all of them, ‘I don’t have to get the original, but I might be able to make something myself…’

There was too much absent from the technique that she had incidentally obtained over at the Lan District, so it was almost impossible for her to reconstruct it as it was, but the insights on the soul and mind contained within the tomes from the libraries were good enough to create something.

She still had some time at the moment of this realisation, so she got straight to work and tried to throw together something really basic that she would be able to experiment with and verify her suspicions. Her understanding of the Invader’s Roar gave her the impression that the technique did involve an element of a genuine roar, so she made use of the Lion’s Roar techniques in order to patch up the method and work only on the elements that were of value.

In a few hours, her mind couldn’t complete something entirely new to her, but as she left the place that she was staying in and proceeded towards an area that was proceeded to by a number of people, she had prepared a few ideas ready for experimentation. Some of them would be highly effective if they managed to work out, but others were only going to be used if she was not given any other choice, or if she managed to get into a very specific situation where their risk was reduced by some outside factor. Even then, the only ideas that had a chance of functioning accounted for around one percent of all that she had come up with.

Simply put, there was a lot that could be done with the few principles of the Invader’s Roar that she could obtain from the manual, but the vast majority would need far more work.

Now that there were some confirmed participants in the upcoming selection process all around her, she shifted her attention to scanning the minds of the people in order to gather up everything that she could prior to the ceremony. Unlike her previous attempt, the results were a little more helpful to her and, well, she did actually get results out of it.

The first thing that she learned was that the process would have a total of four steps, although she couldn’t determine what that would be. Her understanding was that the four trials would focus on the aspects of comprehension, application, deduction and extrapolation, which could be simple enough to work with, but might pose a few challenges to her. For instance, comprehension might test one’s existing knowledge, or the understanding of new information, both being to her advantage, but the naming might be somewhat misleading and test something entirely different.

It was also possible that it would require something from her that she was bad at, which was admittedly unlikely given the sheer number of abilities and skills that she had accumulated over the years, but even things she was good at had the potential of challenging her. For instance, a test of learning could be rated according to one’s speed, overall quality of understanding, both, or even by some other metric. Depending on that, she might be found wanting.

Of course, the first challenge was likely to be easy regardless of how it was carried out, so she was more worried about the other elements.

Application was obviously going to relate to the usage of knowledge, possibly from the first stage, and this was where she might encounter some more trouble. There was far more room for the tests to not be in her favour. While nearly every technique could be used by her with very little effort, she was not compatible with every one, and not all techniques were ones that she wished to use.

Deduction could be an easy part of the trial for her, as she did have her Endless Calculation and Fault Perception, so if she needed to work something out from a finite amount of information, then she would be set for an easy victory. In fact, she expected that there would be nobody that could compete with her in that regard, as her mental capacity combined with the sheer calculative abilities that she possessed via the combination of the Ascendant’s Library and the two techniques that she had developed within it.

Extrapolation also had a similar chance of being her specialty. So long as she was asked to improve or develop a technique along the lines of something that she had already considered, she would be able to do so quickly enough. If she needed to work with something entirely new, that would be a little more difficult, but she was still confident. However, if this required something entirely different, she might struggle.

‘I guess that I shouldn’t spend so much time theorising about this kind of thing, given that all that it will lead me to doing is agitating myself. Let’s see how things go here,’ she finished her unnecessary contemplation and look around as she arrived.

Other than her, there were more people that did not originate from the south than she had expected, making up almost half of the fifty or so people that had gathered at an open space before a large structure with a front that was reminiscent of the shape of the Bottomless Archive. The rest of the structure fit within a space given by the two buildings around it, so it was unable to maintain the shape all around itself. It looked like it might be a library, but she saw none of the standard symbols for a library that were often used in the district, nor were there any regular visitors.

The texts that she had read to recognise this place described this as the equivalent of a temple to the Preservers, a place where they could gather but would not stay in for a very long time unless necessary.

For that reason, the time she had spent on observing the district hadn’t been able to find any obvious members of the Preservers, although the books regarding their processes did confirm exactly what they were meant to wear and look like. None of them had a specific uniform, but that didn’t stop them from primarily wearing heavy plate armour, with long fur capes, large shoulder pads that were often filled with inscriptions to support the wearer. They would have at least one heavy tome on their belt, with that likely being used in combat for the application of certain techniques and methods that benefitted from the book’s structure and contents.

As their physical melee weapon, which was something that almost everyone needed due to a number of foes and environments resisting pure planar techniques to a significant degree, like the automatons of the Ju District, the Preservers made use of large war hammers. They were made of a hard steel and embellished with a gold alloy, primarily for decoration over any practical purpose. With the shaft and hammer head combined, these hammers were nearly as tall as the ones wielding them.

This figure was quite an interesting one, as it generally contrasted with the typical notion of a scholar that was held over at the north, but it didn’t quite work with her own combat style. She preferred greater mobility and protecting herself with her own means, so that did discourage her from attempting to comprehend and integrate too many parts of their methodology right now.

She’d still learn everything she could, as abandoning knowledge would be incredibly foolish, but just as she would usually store away information from books to be browsed at a later time, she would do the same with those types of methods.

Usually, the Preservers were difficult to find in the Ru District, at least in her experience, so she noticed them very quickly the moment that she noticed them approaching. There was a total of seven tall figures in similar plate armour, with deviations in style and material but perfectly matching stances and overall purpose. If one had no clue about the existence of the Preservers and saw them walking around separately, they would still be fully aware of the connection between them, even if only instinctually.

Most of the crowd that had gathered was aware of their identities, and those that weren’t parted anyway once they saw that the others were walking away from their path.

They did not speak until they reached the door of the archive structure, with the man at the front heading up the steps while the rest took position around the sides, slamming down their war hammers on the ground before them. Due to the hammer’s height, they were able to rest their hands on the top of the weapon’s shaft and keep them at the level of their chest, their fingers interlinked.

‘Come to think of it, this kind of equipment could look decent enough too, so I might need to consider equipping a few people at Paragon with this sort of armour. It is imposing and far more defensive than some of the similar outfits in the north, so it could be greatly effective in certain regards and for certain people,’ she thought while she watched the Preserver that stood at the front, who, in turn, observed the people that gathered, her included. His expression didn’t reveal any of his thoughts, but his mind did leak out the uncertainty that he felt.

Presumably, he had been expecting a certain standard of people to arrive, and from the first glance, some might not have fit the standard, whereas others had the chance to exceed it. Wei Yi had to agree with his assessment, as the fifty that gathered were rather varied in quality and ability.

Some were from the Ru District, judging by their cultivation methods and appearances, whereas others were from further north, with one of the women clearly coming from the extreme north and wearing a far thicker fur coat than any of the others at the scene. She did not seem to have adapted to the cold well, but she still held onto a book and looked as confident as she could manage while she was likely to be unable to feel her nose and fingers.

He kept looking at them for a little while, then took the war hammer that was strapped to his back and slammed it down like the rest of the Preservers, clearing his throat at the same time.

“You have presumably gathered here for the purpose of becoming an honorary member of the Preservers of the Ru District. If you have come here for another purpose, you should leave before you become involved in the matter,” he instructed, his voice calm and quiet, yet far-reaching as it managed to easily get to those at the very back of the gathering with perfect clarity.

None of the people in the area moved, for anyone that had previously been here for another purpose left when they saw their gathering and then the approaching preservers. Still, it was an opportunity for anyone thinking that they would be unable to compete with the rest to depart quietly and easily.

“Hm. There are ten open spaces this time. In order to pass, you will need to clear four tests. So long as you perform at an above-average level in all of them, or perform extremely well in one, you will be eligible to pass. If there are ten or fewer successful candidates, that will be the end of it,” he said, “Otherwise, there will be some other challenge for the worst candidates. The Preservers require only the best, even if you will be part of our organisation in name only. Those that do choose to proceed and join properly will need to be exceptional, so display your best so long as you do have that intention. Does everyone understand this?”

Everybody responded in their own quiet way, judging by the behaviour of the figure before them that a loud response might not be suitable. From his silent nod, this did seem to be the right choice.

After a moment, the man nodded to one of the men standing at the side of the steps and stepped over to the side to allow him to proceed into the structure, while he remained and continued staring upon the individuals seeking to join his faction. His expression and gaze remained as neutral as it could be, but his eyes did linger on certain people in the crowd after a minute or two passed, with Wei Yi being one of them.

She didn’t hesitate to look back at him, which didn’t deter his gaze, but it did change it ever so slightly.

As the person he had sent into the building was beginning to return, he spoke again, “Some of you will be aware, others may not be, but there are four challenges. The first is to check your comprehension. You will receive a manual from the archive, and you will present everything you can about it as quickly as you can, after thirty minutes of reading time. History, practising methods, mistakes and more are valid, including the mention of those of us that are practising the technique. If you can demonstrate something about it, or guide one of us to do so, that is also acceptable. Your performance will be judged according to our standard, not in comparison to the others, so if all of you were incompetent, this would not affect our rating of your ability.”

He finished speaking just as the man emerged out of the building, bringing with him a large pile of books that almost reached the top of his head but barely gave him enough sight to look where he was going. This was despite their number, and due to their thinness. It looked like they had selected technique manuals that were relatively brief, and she happened to have already read quite a few of them, not that it stopped her from doing it again. Whichever technique she was going to be allowed to use in this test, she was going to be certain to succeed.

“Which one of you will begin with this manual?” the man asked, picking up one of the manuals.

There were a few that begun to look around to ponder who would be brave enough to take up the task, and others did consider doing it themselves, but none were prepared for Wei Yi to step right up to the front – employing some Law-based movement trickery for the purpose of bypassing the majority of the crowd. She went right up to the figure and held out her hand.

There was hardly any need to question what it was that she wanted, so he gave her the manual and prepared to reach out for another one, but she stopped him.

“I have already comprehended the entirety of the Thunderous Crash technique, so I’d like to get it out of the way before anyone else tries to act too quickly. The manual in your hand is a decent version, but it has a number of flaws regarding the circulation of energy through the meridians, particularly in the arm, near the elbow, wrist, and slightly below the shoulder, resulting in a great loss of energy efficiency and being the primary contributor to its fame of being excessively costly in terms of energy,” she introduced, conjuring the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow thrice to point out the exact locations on her own arm, “When utilised with the Stone Giant’s Fist, it can allow for a tripled output of power with only a small rise in energy usage. I’d get that man to demonstrate, but he has cultivated neither of these techniques beyond the Minor Achievement Stage, so he wouldn’t be able to do so.”

She quickly listed a few more factors to prove her own understanding, providing the rarer and more obscure facts that she could so that it would be clear that she had obtained the deeper knowledge of the technique, not the shallow information that would come from merely reading the manual.

Hence, she got to witness the man’s expression finally change in a visible way, gaining a certain degree of surprise that seemed unimaginable considering his previous passive stare. He didn’t voice his surprise at first, but when she rattled off a few too many things, the conclusions looked to have formed within his mind, leading to him raising a hand to stop her.

“First, this has to be confirmed. Have you previously studied this technique?”

“No.”

“Then, was this the Book Devouring method?”

“Is that a method for absorbing the knowledge from books? Can’t say I’ve actually heard of any like it, so no, that is not the cause. Rather, I have a powerful spiritual perception, and a lot of practise.”

“Hm. You pass this with a perfect grade. Now, step aside and let the others participate.”

The Ascendant did so, while thinking that this might not be as difficult as she had imagined.