Chương 57: Death After Reading, I

Old Qin had made the book repository sound massive. Jin Qilong had made it sound small. Wu Hao had expected little more than a small shed where books were tossed haphazardly, stacked into forgotten bunches. That was not what the book repository actually was. It was a fairly grand building, emanating an intimidating aura, its outer appearance combining the elegant architecture of a rich clan's compound with the thick walls and defensability of a fortress.

Its triangular roof peaked in a thin spike as sharp as any of the sabers wielded here, held up by thick pillars; a signboard hung up over the entrance, proclaiming its identity in letters so bold that they might as well have been cut into the wood with a saber. Wu Hao couldn't read them all that well. His eyesight had been annoyingly hazy since he'd returned, which would fade when he got his hands on some qi again. That was how it had worked the last time, after all, he thought.

By Wu Hao's estimate, there had to be at least five floors to the building, counting the windows. A short roof jutted out from each other level, at which point the building narrowed. Most of the windows were small enough that most martial artists wouldn't be able to jump through - which probably was the exact reason for their size - but a few were larger, probably a concession to style or to give the inhabitants light without having to resort to flames inside.

Men with sabers, clad in the same armor as those near the gates, stood guard at the doors. They wore masks that covered their faces, but from their silver hair Wu Hao could make a fair guess at their ages. Older than most of the guards, that was for sure, and Wu Hao presumed guarding the repository was probably the equivalent of a retirement post, where the old cultivators were sent. But that only made them more dangerous, not less.

Older martial artists were as wily as any younger martial artist, had had a lifetime to pick up all sorts of tricks, and the fact that both men at the entrance seemed nearly entirely without scars meant that they must have been very skilled or very fortunate. Or, worse: both. That impression was helped by the fact that both of them were a pair of second-grade martial artists, though they were at the very bottom of the pack as far as the feeling of their qi went, to his senses.

Them being so strong was good, and them being so strong was bad. They looked competent enough that he'd have significant difficulty escaping, but they looked scary enough that they might simply kill him without asking questions. He'd have to hope for that, hope that they actually would kill him: any conversation with Lady Jin after being caught would not simply be figurative torture, he imagined. He'd kill himself before it came to that. Nothing good left to be achieved in those lives, should they come to pass.

"Are you coming?" Jin Qilong asked, pausing at the entrance. The guards ignored him.

"Yes, Young Master," Wu Hao muttered, broken from his contemplation. He'd have to see what the inside looked like, but for now he'd have to bet that the arrays would do what Jin Qilong had told him they'd do and just straight up kill him. As he approached the large doors, though, their eyes shifted to him. With the shing of a saber leaving its sheathe, Wu Hao was suddenly barred from entry.

"He's with me," Jin Qilong said, more casual than Wu Hao'd heard him before.

"He can come in."

"Name?" one of the guards asked. His eyes focused through the mask at Wu Hao.

"Wu Hao," he said, and made a small, effortless push against the saber.

"Let me in. It's as the Young Master said."

"Comport yourself honorably as a guest of the Jin clan," the guard warned. The saber was withdrawn smoothly, and the guard returned to his resting posture with only a soft rasp of leather as his saber returned to its sheathe. A faint sense of smug amusement radiated through his qi, though, and Wu Hao presumed that was because he relished the chance to bully a newcomer. He walked through, not even bothering to react. As they entered the library, Wu Hao's eyes went wide at the sheer amount of shelves.

There had to be a dozen just on the first level, and though they weren't all filled out and they seemed to thin out the higher one went, it was still more books together in one place than Wu Hao had ever seen in his entire life by a hundredfold. An old man approached, saw the Young Master, and bowed. He didn't have that far to go: his back had already been stooped, and that wasn't the only sign of his age.

Eyeglasses stood perched precipitiously on the edge of his long, pinched nose, his long beard hung over his chin and neck like a silver scarf.

"Librarian Zhu," Jin Qilong greeted, accepting the man's bow uncomfortably.

"Please rise. Your back's bad enough, isn't it?" Wu Hao knew better than to think this man was some frail bookworm, though. The old man's core was solid, and he was a match for the guards outside. However he may have looked, he wasn't yet at the end of his rope. Late second-grade, maybe first-grade, he wasn't entirely sure, but he could feel the librarian's strength, and it filled his mind with not one but two scents: one the smell of musty books, the other the smell of dried blood.

This place was just stuffed to the gills with second-grade martial artists, Wu Hao thought bitterly. The thought made it all the more urgent that he reach third-grade himself again, because otherwise he wouldn't stand a chance if even a librarian decided to act against him.

"Welcome back, young master," the librarian said.

"A pleasure to see you, as always."

"You too," Jin Qilong said, though he sounded distracted.

"Where's the cultivation manuals?"

"That way, young master." Librarian Zhu pointed, finger waving slightly in the air as he motioned towards one particular shelf.

"Of course, there are more arts placed higher in the tower, but you do not have license to access those just yet." Jin Qilong nodded.

"It'll do. How many have you got?" Librarian Zhu stroked his beard in thought.

"Five," he finally pronounced.

"We have five manuals appropriate for cultivating to the third-grade." If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Which would you recommend?"

"For you, young master? You have the clan's Self-Forging Art, do you not? If it's inspiration you seek, you'll be best off investigating something of a similar origin. I recommend the Vast Clouds Manual."

"Not for me," Jin Qilong said, cheeks coloring with embarassment.

"I've read that one, anyway. I'm asking for him."

"I see," Librarian Zhu said. His bushy eyebrows turned towards Wu Hao.

"And what do you cultivate, young man?"

"Nothing yet," Wu Hao admitted. Should he mention the Limitless Pulse Art? Best not, he thought. If Librarian Zhu recognized it, he had no idea what might happen.

"Hmm," Librarian Zhu muttered.

"Young man. Do you have a leaning towards one particular stream?" Wu Hao's brows furrowed.

"What's a stream?" Librarian Zhu chuckled.

"Daoism, for instance, such as the Mount Hua Sect practices. Buddhism as with the Emei Sect or the Shaolin, Confucianism as with the Zhongnan Sect. Mohism. Legalism - though I think not, and we don't have much of anything on the topic, in any case. Any of the hundred schools has at least one art to its name, so perchance..."

"I don't know," Wu Hao admitted. Was the Limitless Pulse Art any of those? He genuinely didn't have any idea.

"Librarian Zhu, could you inspect him, maybe?" Jin Qilong asked.

"See if he's got any particular leaning?"

"If the young master so desires," Librarian Zhu said, and extended a hand to beckon Wu Hao closer.

"Come here, young man."

"Hold on," Wu Hao said quickly.

"Inspecting?"

"A simple process," Librarian Zhu said, stroking his beard.

"I only need run my qi through your channels, and so I can make a general estimate of your level of talent and if you have a particular affinity."

"No thanks," Wu Hao said.

"No?" Librarian Zhu asked.

"No." This time he said it with more feeling. He didn't want anyone rooting around in his channels. If they were able to discover even a trace of the blessing that brought him back - no. Absolutely not. The thought occurred to him that no one he'd met yet had had any idea, but was that a reason to start taking risks?

"Well, well," Librarian Zhu said, more to himself than to Wu Hao. At least he didn't seem offended by the rejection.

"You are a curious young man. That said, there is a pleasure in discovering at your own pace, rather than a path you are told to follow, I suppose."

"Yeah," Wu Hao said quickly.

"That's it." Librarian Zhu didn't seem convinced that was the actual reason, but with a small smile he let it go.

"Do as you will. Should you not find anything, I am always at the young master's discretion..." He bowed again, as deeply as his back would seem to allow, but Wu Hao knew better. He wouldn't be surprised if the old man would be able to do a flip in mid-air without even thinking about it; if this was all he gave, then that was just how far his vague respect for Jin Qilong's station went, otherwise he'd dispense with the pretense. Wu Hao didn't mind.

He was Jin Qilong's servant now, much as the thought filled him with anger, and he certainly didn't respect the young master either. As Librarian Zhu shuffled off, back behind the shelves that he'd appeared from, an awkward silence hung in the air.

"Why not?" Jin Qilong blurted.

"I've had it done. Most babies from a martial arts family get inspected from the moment they're born." Wu Hao grimaced.

"No thanks."

"But -""Young master," Wu Hao said.

"Leave it, please."

"Don't call me the young master," Jin Qilong whined.

"You let Librarian Zhu do so without comment, though." Jin Qilong looked from side to side, then whispered, "Only because I'm not sure he remembers my actual name. C'mon, let's go." Wu Hao grinned, then let the grin fall from his face and reminded himself he didn't actually like Jin Qilong. He shouldn't need the reminder, but... Well, he shouldn't need the reminder. Face blank as it should be, he followed, to where the old librarian had pointed them.

The inside of the library was a maze of wooden shelves, some more filled than others, but the path to the cultivation manuals was fairly clear, if dusty enough to make it clear that this wasn't a path often tread. That made sense. Anyone already in the clan should have an art already, and Wu Hao had no clue if an art was easy to switch out if already applied. He hoped so, because if you cultivated the wrong art for you and were unable to go back, you'd probably wasted significant parts of your life. Well.

For him that wasn't a completely solid obstacle, but still. Lost in thought, Wu Hao walked past a shelf filled with sword arts of the earthly grade, brushed past a far more populated shelf that took up two separate levels with manuals for saber arts, and ignored the spear arts. Those, he reminded himself, were probably for later. Wu Hao walked up to the shelf. It wasn't filled to the brim by any means, but books had been set out with their front covers to face Wu Hao, so that he could read their titles.

There were, as Librarian Zhu had said, a total of five arts on display. They hadn't been ranked in any order that Wu Hao could see, except perhaps in how long they'd been available. The oldest, a thin book named the Heaven and Earth Wheel Art, had clearly sat undisturbed since it had been first been placed there, and the others didn't seem any more popular. Next to that were the White Horse Codex, the Excellent Thought Sutra, the Vast Clouds Manual, and finally the Guide to True Peace.

He took each of them down from the shelf, whipped them up and down to rid them of the worst of the dust that had accumulated on their surfaces, and carried the bunch over to a nearby table where Jin Qilong was already sitting. He seemed excited, for whatever reason. Wu Hao wished he could skip the entire step of having to study and just have the knowledge downloaded into his brain again, but he'd yet to find a death that could cause him to gain cultivation knowledge directly.

"Let's get started," the young master urged.

"Let's see if there's something for you." Wu Hao resisted a sigh, but reprimanded himself. He'd died before. He could handle a few books.