Art Copying
'Yeah, that would be perfect,' Xuefeng accepted with a sigh of relief.
'Okay, let me use your Qi, and I'll start copying,' Ling said, and he felt something moving his Spirit Qi to and from the manual. He didn't resist, allowing her to work.
'It's not that bad to be a Fate Fragment Holder...' Xuefeng thought, changing his initial opinion. Even if it was associated with danger, it came with many benefits too.
'Okay, I'm done with this one. If you find anything else you want, just tell me,' Ling informed after five minutes of waiting. 'But I can modify only one Spirit Art at a time. It will take some time if we gather a lot.'
Xuefeng then grabbed the next manual, which was just beside the Shadow Clone manual. It was called "Rank 4 Elemental Clone."
Seeing the similar title, he got intrigued. He repeated the same action, and this manual also absorbed one-tenth of his Spirit Qi.
'Thank god we are absorbing Spirit Essence this whole time, or we would be out of Spirit Qi after just a few manuals,' Xuefeng thought, increasing Ling's value in his mind once more.
This time, the vision showed the same shadow man, who was creating clones out of elements in nature. He used his Spirit Qi to turn Earth into his clone. The vision restarted, and this time he used water to create another clone. The shadow also created a clone out of thin air and fire in the next two visions.
'Wow, this clone art is also very cool,' he complimented excitedly. Unfortunately, he already copied the Shadow Clone Art, so he decided to put it back on the shelf.
'Wait, don't put it back,' Ling called out suddenly.
'Why? We already have one of these,' he replied in confusion.
'I might be able to compile these manuals and create one that is close to perfection,' Ling voiced her idea.
'Is that even possible? Let's try it,' Xuefeng agreed excitedly.
Ling started copying the Elemental Clone manual while suggesting, 'Check if there are any more Spirit Arts about cloning.'
Xuefeng kept the open manual while scanning the surrounding shelves and soon found three more manuals with the word "clone" in their titles. Thanks to the manuals being organized by genre, he didn't have trouble collecting all of them.
They spent under thirty minutes copying the clone manuals before moving to the next section. The Movement Spirit Arts genre had as many as eight manuals, but they were much shorter than the clone arts. It only took Ling twenty minutes to copy all of them.
The others in the room were shocked when they saw him picking up manuals one by one and putting them back after a moment. He didn't sit down to read any manual for more than five minutes.
Since one had to use their Spirit Qi to open and read the manuals, Xuefeng's behavior was beyond suspicious. It was already hard to view a few manuals in one session, but he had already looked through thirteen of them. He even started with the most difficult sections, cloning and movement arts.
While checking them out, he had probably lost around seventy percent of his Qi already, to the point even Wuying started to worry about him.
She thought he would be compatible with most of the Spirit Arts, but he only looked through them and put them back. She wasn't worried about his Spirit Qi, as she already knew he could recover it fast.
"Aren't any of these suited for you?" she asked as she approached him.
"They are all good for me. I just don't want to waste time so I'm memorizing all the manuals so I can study them later on. I will be moving to the next section now," he replied joyfully.
"What?" Wuying blinked a few times, wondering if she heard him wrong. "Since when are you this smart?"
"If you don't believe me then just pick up any manual and test me," Xuefeng challenged while checking other sections.
"Really?" Wuying picked up a Movement Manual titled "Rank 4 Phoenix Rush."
After opening it, she asked suspiciously, "Can you tell me what is written on the 6th page?"
Xuefeng smiled cheekily and began reciting all the content with Ling's help. All the Spirit Kings in the room paused their studying as they turned to him in shock.
"You have surprised me so many times that I'm not even shocked anymore," Wuying commented, her face turned back to normal. She felt that he was escaping from her with each step he took.
'I need to work harder...' she thought secretly, her gaze complicated.
The next sections Xuefeng saw were Saber Arts, Spear Arts, and various other weapons. He directly skipped to Fist and Sword Spirit Arts.
There were about five Fist Spirit Arts and nine for the sword. As swords were the most popular weapon, they had the most Spirit Arts.
When he was finally finished copying, another half an hour had already passed. He had also used all of his Spirit Qi, his regeneration unable to keep up with the consumption.
"Wuying, shall we check out the 5th floor?" Xuefeng called out as Wuying was also done reading her manual. Although he didn't have any Qi left, he was curious about what he could find on the secret floor.
"Sure, let's go," Wuying nodded, causing others to sigh in envy.
They passed through a special barrier at the entrance that scanned their tokens and stepped inside a small room, where only one person was inside. An old man was reading a manual while rocking on a chair, his gray beard swaying back and forth. He seemed quite surprised that someone appeared, knowing not many possessed the qualifications to enter the 5th floor.
"Hello, Elder, we are just here to take a look. Don't mind us," Xuefeng said politely, noticing the old man's frown. He didn't know him, but he deduced he was an elder.
Wuying panicked a little after seeing the old man and hurriedly bowed her head, "Senior, we are sorry to disturb you. If you want us to leave, we will comply."
The old man gazed at her and smiled after recognizing her. "Oh, it's you Wuying. No need to leave, you can take your time."
"Thank you, Senior. The man with me is the Clan Leader's son, Liu Xuefeng. I'm sorry for his casual tone. He doesn't know your identity," she apologized on Xuefeng's behalf.
"Oh, so it's Little Bei's son. It's okay. I heard that he awakened Black Talent with the help of a Six Petals Lotus Flower. Do you mind if I check your dantian? I wanted to visit you earlier, but I was too engrossed with this manual," he asked Xuefeng kindly.
"Uhm..." Xuefeng was quite stunned and didn't know what to say. 'Who is he if not an elder? Ling, can we trust him?' he asked Ling just to be sure.
Unfortunately, the answer never came. Ling was as quiet as a mouse for the first time.