Outside of my expectations, rather than catching up with me and requesting a bit of my time, as soon as the meeting with Monica was over, none of the fellow disciples bothered me, allowing me to return back to my own room interrupted. But while my past self would lament over the lost chance to get laid once again along with all the points that I missed by not doing so, I was quite happy with the first opportunity in a while to scout the place in the open, looking for any sort of library that would help me fill the blanks in my knowledge about this place and its history, not to speak about their own understanding of the cultivation.
While the benefits I would get from catching up with their techniques wouldn"t be as great as to warrant such a huge priority I placed this matter on, if I wanted to use even a bit more of my strength that I did during the exams, I had to know what kind of effects I would be able to reproduce to mask the foreign source of my power!
In the end, my performance during the challenge would be more about how closely I could replicate the effects of the techniques that this sect came up with while maintaining the power level I would like to use. While winning the fight would never pose any problem for me considering how weak the middle tier disciples were compared to my real self, even without using my still idle points on upgrading my statistics, but doing so in a sketchy way could bring the onslaught of the highest tiered fighters right on my head, forcing me to invest those points and potentially waste my opportunity to do so only after learning everything I could from this place!
While I was thinking about all the steps that I would"ve to take in order to prepare for the challenge in just a few days, I never stopped the movement of my legs, finally reaching the first target of my silly journey with the help of several fellow disciples of the goose sect that I asked for the directions.
Contrary to my expectations, rather than being one of the inner chambers of the main mansion, the library of my master was located at the end of the long corridor, directly carved into the mountain. With close to no finis.h.i.+ng touches to the simple, stone walls, one could think that all the effort of the builders that crafted this entire place went into the mansion alone, leaving this insanely important building with nothing but a few workers tasked with finis.h.i.+ng it by themselves.
Yet my perception of this place changed as soon as I crossed the threshold of the building, faced with something that I never expected to meet in such a rundown place that its sole access point indicated it would be!
As soon as I pa.s.sed the simple, wooden doors, instead of an open area filled with shelves, I entered something akin to an airlock, with just a simple, small shed about two meters in all sizes and with most of its walls made up by windows, but what truly caught my attention, was the immensely powerful barrier that stretched from all the stone walls of the cave, through the front wall of the shed, and blocked me from advancing any further!
Even when compared to the barrier that protected the city walls, in fact, there wasn"t that much to compare at all! While the city defences could barely hold a head-on a.s.sault from my pure, unfiltered yet unupgraded strength, this barrier wouldn"t even flinch if I were to use all the power I had in order to break it!
To be honest, I wasn"t even sure if using all kinds of crafty methods along with upgrading my statistics to their current maximum would allow me to break into this place!
"Who are you?"
As I was in awe of the insane strength of the barrier stretching in front of my eyes, I completely forgot about the shed itself, missing the moment when a simple-looking, light-blue disciple unravelled himself from behind the shed, instantly taxing me with his sharp eyes.
"Ah, I"m sorry. I"m Peter, a newly admitted direct disciple of the elder Monica of the Goose Sect. I came here in hopes of finding a certain technique manual that could help me reinforce my cultivation before the intersect challenge would begin!"
With the newfound glory of this place found in nothing else but this simple yet insanely st.u.r.dy barrier, I didn"t dare to act as haughty as I thought I could just a few moments ago, back at Monica"s mansion. If the people here could manage to erect such a powerful barrier just for the sake of some low-level library, then I could only a.s.sume what was the level of power of its upper echelons, that I have so far disregarded!
"Ah, I heard quite a bit about you. Good job on your trials!"
Contrary to the expectations, rather than instantly trying to put me down just because of the huge difference in our ranks indicated by the light blue colour of his robes as compared to the pure whiteness of mine, the disciple in front of me graced me with a light smile, before reaching towards the shed with his hand and pa.s.sing a strange token through the barrier to me.
As soon as the jade-looking stone neared the wall of energy that separated the rundown tunnel from its better-looking counterpart behind the disciple"s back, I could see the energy from the barrier suddenly bending, as if it was nothing else but a magnetic force, repelled by a magnet of the same polarity!
While quite wary of the token, I still accepted it. Yet instead of crossing the barrier in an instant rather than wasting my time for nothing here, I only raised my eyes at the disciple in front of me, with a question written right on my face.
"Ah, right. It must be your first time in the grand library!"
Instantly facepalming himself, the young man in front of me shook his head before recalling the smile right back on his face.
"With this token, you will be able to move to the middle-tier of the Goose sect area, and to the general city area of the middle tier as well. For the manuals dedicated for your sect, you should head out straight through the tunnel and take third turn right, while for the general department, just follow it all the way to the end. But keep in mind, that you can"t let go of this token by any means!"
Thinking about how this barrier was way more powerful than anything I ever saw in my life, I could only imagine what would happen to someone who would found himself inside it without the protective token. Squished to the death by a random trap, locked in the airtight compartment… Just my imagination alone was enough to bring more than a dozen ways to get rid of the uncautious intruders!
"After all, you don"t want to be locked inside, forced to wait for the library elder to notice you only for the sake of leaving the place! Also, keep in mind that you can"t move any of the books away from their areas. Even this token will be unable to s.h.i.+eld you from the rebound of the barrier if you attempt to do so! And with that side, I wish you a pleasant time inside, but get going already, I was having quite a pleasant nap right now!"