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3.41% Learning To Live As A Cultivator / Chapter 11: Chapter Eleven - I go and visit the Library

Chapter 11: Chapter Eleven - I go and visit the Library

His bullies did not appear the following day, when they said they would. He spent the day carving, but his crude talisman's were more often than not shaped into silhouettes of animals or emblems before the scrolling symbol was cut into the wood. In between creations, he would pause to glance into the woods in the direction he was expecting them to come from. He even walked towards that place, but he collapsed failing to realise how exhausted he was, he assumed from the stress of nervous anticipation.

He waited for another day, relying on his fruit and tuber supplies for sustenance, watering the rapidly growing plants and tying charms to trees and his belt. But the boys did not appear.

He relaxed his guard on the third day, taking a quick bath in the lake, washing his outer robes, fishing and foraging before returning home to practice cultivating, less he forget how. Still no one came to steal his treasured pills. As they seemed to have forgotten about him, he decided to forget about them as well. He decided that he would visit the library and perhaps trade the pills for fresh herbs.

The library was higher up on the mountain than his small hut and it took well over an hour for him to walk through the numerous trees to the place it was located. For whatever reason, the architects of the library had built the tower on a hidden plateau attached on the mountains side no more than half mile across and quarter long. The drop was several stories deep, the tips of softwood trees peaked a little over the cliff face and apart from the sky and the tower itself were all that could be seen from the path. Clearly students could not descend safely this drop, so a bridge was built from the forested mountain path to the midsection of the library.

Inside, the library had levels reaching skyward and levels descending, but the only level a student like Leon could reach was this middle one and one above. The middle level contained basic, general knowledge books. Fortunately, there consisted the books Leon was looking for; history, geography and culture. The most basic of pill and potion recipes were on the next floor, in a room accessible to the students of the alchemy school. The library was open to all students, but only a few books, such as the most basic cultivation books and the books on the entry level were available for all students to read.

On arrival, Leon had been greeted by an older student, whose robes indicated they were from the inner school of the Scholars department. He didn't recognise Leon and didn't seem to care enough to know him, simply recited the library's rules and let him pass. Leon strolled around the library to get him bearings. There had been no floor plan in the diary's, Leon could only assume that Leo did not visit here often enough to bother making one. That boy had seemed rather obsessed with herbs, pills and potions once he had been enrolled into the alchemy section of the school to exclusion of almost everything else.

Leon found a place he could jot notes and was flabbergasted when he found that all he could write with was ink and brush. Leon was from an era that wrote in biro and used an alphabet. Though he could read this world's words (he assumed thanks to Leo), they were something like Chinese or Japanese kanji and he had never practiced this type of calligraphy in his two lives! However, he was blessed with steady hands, thanks to years of carving, so he very, very slowly drew upon parchment, the lay of the library before grabbing a very thick book on general history and reading it... also very slowly.

This world was known as Xulaphrey and it was made up of two land masses and two large oceans which separated them. The land masses were simply named West Xulaphrey and East Xulaphrey, which naturally had Leon wondering how they had concluded which was in the east and which was in the west? He shrugged, dismissing the question in his mind. The Academy was located in the Sky-Reaching Mountains in the northeast of East Xulaphrey.

Xulaphrey was considered a middle realm world. Leon did not understand what this meant, but jotted it down, carefully, as it seemed important, before he became completely immersed in reading the history of the world. It was a pretty bloody history.

The strong ruled and suppressed the weak, the weak were mere cannon fodder in battles, mercilessly killed simply as they were in the way when supreme powers fought. Leon shuddered. He truly understood now why his bullies ran roughshod over him. With no backing and no real talents, he had no one that would support him or protect him when things got difficult. He had only himself to rely on and by all accounts, he was weak. The school gave a chance that could not be found in this world in general, a chance for those without to become strong and survive the cruelties of the world. If Leo had not managed to secure a place here, then he, Leon, would have one fate; to be crushed along with the rest of the weak commoners.


Chapter 12: Chapter Twelve - I finally get to eat a lot of food!

Leon read in the library for a few hours, before the gurgling in his stomach insisted he found sustenance. Returning home seemed to great a distance, so he decided to check out the Food Hall that the outer students of the alchemy sect used. He ignored the odd glances of the other students, his mind still dealing with the information he had read in the book. He was wondering what he needed to do to survive in this world. While he was a student, he had some protection from the school, even if he had lost the comfort of it thanks to Caprian blocking his way with silver. But he wouldn't be a student forever and would have to make his way in the real world at some point. His was a logical mind, even if it was slow at times, so he could only conclude that he should learn everything he could while here and figure the rest out later.

With that sorted in his mind, he entered the Food Hall and was surprised to find that he was mostly ignored. Not that this bothered him, though he found it weird that the older student serving the food nearly jumped out of his skin when he stepped in front of him. With several bowls of rice and side dishes, Leon sat in a corner and slowly ate, using a spoon he had carved himself (cutlery was not provided) until he was bursting. The food was not particularly interesting, the seasoning was bland, but as this was the first time in nearly two weeks that he had access to a lot of food to sate his hunger, he took full advantage. He couldn't even regret his greed despite wobbling over to the Herb Hall with a slightly rounded stomach.

The Herb Hall was not like the Food Hall, the latter was in fact three attached buildings around a courtyard, the middle building being the kitchens and students could eat in either of the winged buildings or in the courtyard. The Herb Hall was one building that stood in front of large walled gardens. Those gardens were not for show, but grew a wealth of common and quick growing herbs. Also, unlike other places, this one was ran by an adult, one of the teachers rather than senior students. However, he was rarely at the hall, being expected to provide lectures in parts of the inner and outer schools.

Teacher Sagi was a brisk, older man, with a gruff attitude, but what he did not know about herbs could be written on a postage stamp. He looked over Leon with a sharp eye before glaring down at the few pills in his possession.

"This is unlike you, Leo," the man stated. This was true. While Leon did not know how many herbs that Leo last collected, he knew that the pills he had made could not have possibly reflected Leo's success rate, even though he was handing over every single pill.

"There were p-p-pr… circumstances," Leon stuttered. He still struggled to form clear words, even when not frightened by his bullies.

The old man stared at the skunk stripes in Leon's hair. "Cultivation deviation?" He muttered aloud, before grabbing Leon's wrist and checking his pulse points. Leon didn't understand what this was about, so said nothing and just held still. Eventually, Teacher Sagi let go. "And you were close to breaking through to the Secondary stage," he grunted. "Well, there's been no serious damage. Just be more careful next time."

Leon nodded his assent and took the offered herbs in exchange for his few pills. There were a lot of herbs and they looked fresh and healthy. He was really looking forward to using them. He smiled, perhaps he had inherited some of Leo's enthusiasm for this type of thing.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Ebonsolaris Ebonsolaris

I have been super lazy when it came to creating levels for the cultivators, partly because I hate keep looking back trying to figure out which level is higher than which etc! To annoying!

So I have kept it pretty basic, though there will probably be in between stages later, they too will probably be simple in name.

Basically, the lowest cultivation level is Primary, the next is Secondary, the next is Tertiary etc you catch my drift, right he he

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