Star Gate

Chapter 490: Borrowing Books (I)

“Have you improved again?” Hong Yitang laughed when he saw Li Hao. The young man’s presence still emanated from his being as his cultivation session had just ended. A hint or two could be gleaned from it. Plainly, Li Hao had taken another step forward.

“I’m just laying down some foundations!” Li Hao shook his head. This was indeed all foundational work for him. The physical body, organs, and skeleton were part and parcel of growing stronger. For him and Yuan Shuo, the key lay in mind intent and aura!

Only when mind intent was strong and the aura perfect could they grow stronger! If the body wasn’t strong enough, they could supplement with a spontaneous eruption of the five summoned spirits. The body was the base—mind intent and aura were the eruption points. Without those, Li Hao would be much more mediocre even if his body was strong.

What the young man wanted most at the moment was to swiftly comprehend the wood aura. But after grasping four auras, he suddenly wasn’t in a hurry to manifest the fifth despite knowing the Weeping Willow Sword. He still reeled from how difficult the water aura had been.

“Foundations?” He Yong grumbled. “We’d love to have your foundations, too bad we can’t. With qualities like yours, I would’ve long opened my supernatural locks.”

Li Hao was curious about this maneuver as well, so they chatted about this as they walked.

“Martial uncles, I understand some of your condition in the sense that snapping your locks releases your accumulated potential and spontaneously boosts your strength. But what next? You can’t just keep yourself sealed forever, can you?”

They seemed to have reached an odd loop in their cultivation. The locks had to be broken for them to grow stronger, but that might turn them into supernaturals or cause their outright death. Even if the five organs were strong enough to support the broken locks, a very likely outcome was that they’d cross over to the supernatural domain. They wouldn’t be martial masters anymore, which would be an enormous spot of trouble.

“That’s why we’re very conflicted as we haven’t found the proper path and method yet!” He Yong sighed. “A lot of people are in the same stage. Since we don’t wish to become supernatural, Ole Hong and I have discussed some ideas.

“Firstly, mysterious power appears after the locks are broken. We might be able to avoid becoming supernatural if we shatter that power. I hear that your teacher has done so before?”

“Yes!” Li Hao thought rapidly. “There was a time in Silver City when he wanted to ascend to being supernatural, but sensed the mysterious power devouring his internal force during the attempt. He quickly detonated the power and gave up becoming supernatural.”

“We’ve considered doing this too,” He Yong continued in a conflicted tone. “But Yuan Shuo was very weak then and his internal force strong since he’d just ascended. He immediately supplemented his internal force when his lock broke, making it stronger than the lock. That’s why he could do it. We might not be able to because our locks are very strong!”

“Then does that mean my teacher... can break his locks without worry in the future?”

“That’s not it, but that he can break one of them with peace of mind—the one that he first broke. The organ that it corresponds to will not produce more mysterious power if its lock breaks.”

Li Hao nodded.

“That’s the first idea. The second is to break all five at the same time. It’s our speculation that some unusual circumstances may occur in that case. The combination of five types of mysterious power may give rise to a special energy instead of making the martial master a supernatural.

“The third idea is to continue to strengthen the locks, body, and organs... The locks represent potential. Both Ole Hong and I speculate that at a certain level, the locks may become part of the body instead of breaking. They’ll naturally release their potential then, or they may open by themselves if we reach a certain level. We won’t have to force them open like we do now!”

Li Hao nodded. The two had come to some valuable theories through their discussion.

“My teacher and I have discussed this before. He says that we need to summon our spirits and nurture our auras first, then meld the auras together. My teacher didn’t go into specifics because he only had a general concept back then. I think he was considering combining the aura with the supernatural lock and then breaking through it with the aura!

“That will propel the cultivator to the next stage in a very natural manner and undo the seal created by the supernatural lock.”

The two men listened intently to the fledgling theories from Yuan Shuo. The man had just entered Summoner of Spirit then, so many of his theories were bound to be immature. But perhaps there was something they could glean from his knowledge.

“Also, I somehow feel that with the current Summoner of Spirit, we have not reached the peak of this level even after melding five auras together,” Li Hao continued. “We have to nurture them, but I don’t feel like I’ve had a chance to do something really like that. I don’t know if I’m using the wrong method or if I don’t have the proper tools. Hence, I want to try the Mind Fruits.”

Summoner of Spirit was a level that focused on nurturing the aura, but Li Hao had noted with the exception of the newly born aura, it was very difficult to continuously enhance one. For example, melding three together enabled him to kill peak Solar and possibly match initial Nova, but if this continued, the strongest he would be able to kill with three auras was initial Nova. That would remain the same even if he improved his body to the most he could. This was due to the auras not being strong themselves.

The auras were strong only if they were newly born—that was wrong!

His teacher must’ve noticed something similar, which was why he hadn’t combined his auras yet. Once he did, that would be their limit and peak. He would have to break through in another manner then.

“To strengthen mind intent and the aura...” Hong Yitang pondered. “These are more arcane concepts as they can’t be easily strengthened like the body can be through pills, treasures, and mysterious power stones. For martial masters, one way to strengthen the aura is through more fighting, tempering, and reflection!

“The stronger the heart is, the greater the aura! This is a process of nurturing the aura, the kind of invincibility that the ancients worked on. You didn’t sense a difference before because it’s been too soon since you set foot into this level.

“I don’t know if the five organs can nurture the auras to stronger versions of themselves. You’ll have to ask your teacher about that as we all gradually did it on our own, walking a different path from you.”

Li Hao thought for a bit and nodded. That was true. Everyone’s path was different and he didn’t understand too much about this either. He would have to wait and see if his teacher found anything new or thought of a different way.

As for himself, he’d come to a deep realization that he knew too little of the world and understood too little of martial dao. Some ancient tomes came to mind—he needed to quickly convert them to practical knowledge. Not only that, but he suddenly changed direction and headed elsewhere.

The others blinked. Where was the young man going?

“Li Hao, that’s the wrong way...”

“Nope!” Li Hao laughed. “There’s a place in Battle Heaven that we’ve yet to visit all this time, a very important place! The library! Apparently the city has a massive library with countless books inside. While they don’t speak of specific methods, there will be ones regarding martial theory.

“Although the ancient civilization has a different system from ours, a lot of modern people practice their secret arts. Since they can find some success, that means there must be similarities between the two. I’d like to borrow some of their basic theory books. If teacher was on this expedition, he would’ve visited a long time ago.”

The others exchanged glances without saying anything. It was normal that none of them had gone because they couldn’t read any of the content inside. They just hadn’t thought that Li Hao would pick this moment to borrow books. ...were there still books there?

Who knew?

......

Moments later, they arrived at a large building that wasn’t too tall—only six floors. It was called a building because it occupied a large plot of land. It was close to the city lord manor, but felt much bigger than it. The characters of Battle Heaven Library were written on it.

Not only that, but there were guards at the door—not Black Armors, but Green Armors. Li Hao had never seen them before. A new type of soldier?

He saw the words “Security” etched on their chest when he took a closer look. Ah, I see. They’re from Director General Wang’s division! Li Hao recalled that internal security was usually managed by security guards. So there was another troop of Green Armors running around?

Clang! The guards at the door saluted when Li Hao approached. Their salute differed from military salutes. Instead of pounding their chest, they pointed at their heads. Li Hao didn’t know how many courtesies existed in the ancient civilization. At the very least, none of these were present in the modern day Inspectorate and army.

The guards ignored Li Hao after their salute. They were mute—whether out of inability or lack of desire to speak, no one knew.

......

The first floor was a cavernous lobby upon entering. Some darkened screens were scattered around them; one abruptly brightened. Perhaps the structure sensed the arrival of visitors or a powerhouse in the city had granted him some authorization.

Li Hao swiftly walked up to the active kiosk.

“A Guide to Borrowing Books” was written on the screen. The young man poked it curiously, bringing up small pages that spoke of “martial dao, technology, civilian livelihood, education, novels, arts and culture, science, storytelling...”.

Another row of text flashed: Identity confirmed. Leader of the Twelfth Troop of the Ninth Division in the Reserve Defenders of the Battle Heaven Army. Officer level personnel can read any book below the fifth floor for free. Three books may be borrowed to be returned at...