Chapter 13: The Peak of Foundation Establishment - 13
Although their discussion itself didn't interest Zhou Fan, their topic did. Agregot wuksen. He is considered one of the greatest men who ever lived.
Since the entire 1st floor has biographies, there should be one on him. The 2nd floor mostly talked about his works or achievements. Zhou Fan, however, wanted to learn about the man himself.
It wasn't long before he found his book. It was the biggest book he had seen since he started reading in the library. Even still, it only took 30 seconds to finish.
After Zhou Fan read it, he understood more about him. The information, however, seemed limited. It was likely that there was more information on the higher floors.
It seemed Zhou Fan had to give up for now. Since he was already there, Zhou Fan read through the entire ground floor. It was about the same size as the 3rd floor. Therefore, it took around a day to finish.
There wasn't much important information in any of the books. Most of the people were already mentioned on the 3rd and 4th floors. Although it went a little more in depth, there wasn't anyone so important that Zhou Fan was interested.
With his current access, Zhou Fan only had one more floor available. The 5th floor.
Walking up to the 5th floor, Zhou Fan heard a loud noise. Not quite loud enough to cause a jump in shock, but so loud that it shouldn't be in a library.
When Zhou Fan reached the 5th floor, he immediately noticed broken glass on the floor. It seemed someone had knocked it over.
Looking up, Zhou Fan finally took in the entire 5th floor. Instead of a library, it looked more like a lab. The outside walls were covered with bookshelves, while the rest of the floor was a lab. Although he had never seen a lab himself, he knew what it was from Old Man Yangs stories. That old man turned out to be so helpful.
There was nothing advanced, but the floor and tables were covered in papers, while around 20 old men scrambled from one place to another. This place was intense!
Deciding to temporarily ignore the mess going on in the middle, Zhou Fan scanned the bookshelves on the walls. There were about 100.
Not wasting any time, Zhou Fan quickly finished up all the books. He quickly came to realize that most of them were research papers. Others seemed to fit more on the 2nd floor.
Not bothering the old men, Zhou Fan left the library. Even though they were rushing around like chickens without a head, nothing important or interesting was going on. They were just researching.
Zhou Fan had now finished all the floors he could access. Surprisingly, he still had 12 days left. For the duration of those 12 days, Zhou Fan decided to focus on cultivation. After all, there was nothing more he could do to prepare.
Although there were more floors, he didn't have enough money to access them. The next 5 floors cost 1 gold. Zhou Fan didn't even have 10 silver.
Zhou Fan quickly made it to the inn and went upstairs. Since it was already night, Zhou Fan started cultivating.
After 8 hours, the sun came up, and Zhou Fan headed downstairs for breakfast. After breakfast, Zhou Fan headed back to his room. There was nothing else left to do in the city until he got the job.
Zhou Fan spent another 12 hours cultivating before heading down for dinner. After dinner, he headed back upstairs.
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Zhou Fan repeated his actions the next day until he broke through. Even then, Zhou Fan didn't stop.
3 days later, Zhou Fan broke into the 10th level of Foundation Establishment. Zhou Fan immediately felt a big difference.
His foundation felt like it was trying to bend. Like it was trying to mold into something new.
After breaking through to the 10th level, Zhou Fans' foundation increased by 10 times. With all the other strengthenings, Zhou Fans foundation contained an unfathomable amount of power.
Zhou Fan had a feeling that if he used his entire strength, he would be able to level the entire inn and even the whole block. Of course, Zhou Fan didn't test it out.
Not only was it morally wrong, it would make him enemy number 1. Even with his current strength, Zhou Fan wasn't confident in taking on the wishan kingdoms army. If the empire got involved, his ending could be imagined.
When cultivating, Zhou Fan was both absorbing Qi and molding his foundation. The surrounding Qi acted as a nourishment that helped the foundation mold and grow.
In fact, it could hardly be described as molding the foundation. It was more accurate to say he was forcefully bending it. It was like picking up a flat rock and trying to crush it with your hands.
Even so, it felt natural. Like it was the correct thing to do. The foundation wasn't actively resisting the bending. It was just naturally so strong that it couldn't be easily bent.
Of course, there were other factors involved, but Zhou Fan found his vocabulary inadequite. In order to describe it, Zhou Fan would have to make up at least 10 new words.
This process continued for 6 days. Only then did Zhou Fan take a step out of his room. The hiring was tomorrow, after all. Even though Zhou Fan wanted to continue cultivating, he couldn't miss the job.
Before Zhou Fan came out, he felt that he was 70% done with the molding of his foundation. At this point, he could tell that it was molding into a sphere.
Although his foundation felt huge, the sphere seemed to be able to fit in the palm of his hand. Of course, the sphere, like the foundation, wasn't tangible. While it felt like it was inside him, he couldn't physically take it out. Therefore, it was hard to make an accurate judgment on its size.
Thinking about it, Zhou Fan felt terrified at the possibility that it could fit in the palm of his hand. His foundation had felt like an unending ocean by the time it reached the 10th level. If it was possible to compress it to the size of his palm, the sphere would contain an ungodly amount of power!
All his thoughts halted ,however, when he heard his stomach growl intensely. Zhou Fan quickly ran downstairs to eat some food.
Chapter 14: The Hiring - 14
After eating, Zhou Fan headed upstairs to take a long rest in preparation for the hiring tomorrow.
When the sunlight fell on him through the window, Zhou Fan woke up. He headed down to have breakfast before leaving the inn.
It wasn't long before Zhou Fan reached the library. Going inside, he walked up to an attendant and asked where he should go.
"Go up to the 5th floor and find a seat. The hiring process will begin in 2 hours."
"Thank you."
When Zhou Fan made it to the 5th floor, it was nearly empty. Contrary to the last time he was here, there were no scientists. Instead, there were 4 people sitting in chairs lined up on the floor. Of the four, 3 were old men, and the other was a middle-aged man.
When he walked in, the four of them glanced at him at the same time. When they saw his appearance, they were surprised.
Although he had begun to look older, Zhou Fan still didn't seem a day over 15. In fact, he only started looking like this after reaching the 10th stage of foundation establishment.
He could literally feel himself aging while he was compressing his foundation. At first, Zhou Fan was terrified. However, he felt no threat to him. Instead, it felt as though the Qi was helping him. After pondering for a while, Zhou Fan had come to the conclusion that his 10-year-old body was holding him back.
He estimated that by the time he finished compressing his foundation, his appearance would change to that of an 18-year-old.
Bringing himself away from his thoughts, Zhou Fan noticed that the 4 men didn't pay any more attention to him. Although a 15-year-old registering for an elite job was weird, it wasn't the first time it had happened. Of course, the four men had no way to tell that he was only 10.
Zhou Fan walked to a seat in the front row and sat down. Since he had two hours to wait, Zhou Fan closed his eyes and started cultivating.
Thinking about it, this was the first time Zhou Fan had ever cultivated in front of anyone. After a while, Zhou Fan opened his eyes to see if anyone was showing a reaction.
Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, Zhou Fan turned back around and continued to cultivate.
Even after cultivating for two hours, Zhou Fan didn't feel any noticeable difference. Maybe it was 3% more complete at most.
A loud bell suddenly brought everyone to attention. Standing on the table was three old men. They all had grey hair and long beards.
"Attention candidates! The hiring will now begin."
After saying that, 5 attendants came up with a stack of papers. They started handing them out to everyone along with a pencil.
"You will have an hour to finish this test. As long as you get half right, you will move on to the next round of testing."
Although Zhou Fan felt that 50% was rather low, he didn't waste any time before starting the test.
The test had 100 questions, and all of them were open-ended. Zhou Fan quickly sped through the test until the 78th question when he finally saw something he didn't know. Clearly, it wasn't information that was accesible on the first through the fifth floor.
Zhou Fan wrote some random nonsense on the off chance he was right and continued on. Besides the 85th, 91st, and the 99th question, Zhou Fan knew the rest of the answers.
Although he had finished in 5 minutes, Zhou Fan waited until 50 minutes had gone by before handing in his test. Even then, he was the first to do so.
The head examiner nodded his head while taking the test from Zhou Fans hands.
"I hope you turned it in early because you're finished and not because you gave up."
Nodding back at the man, Zhou Fan headed back to his seat and waited until the remaining time was up. The examiners collected the test and said that they would be done grading them in 3 hours.
Since he had time, Zhou Fan left the library and found a random stall. He bought a good smelling bun and ate it before he went back to the library. Even with his lunch break, he still had to wait 2 hours before the examiners came back.
Of the 25 people taking the test, only 5 passed. Zhou Fan, two of the three old men he saw earlier, the middle-aged man he saw, and a woman that looked around 35.
"Follow me," beckoned the head examiner before leading us upstairs.
On the way, he mentioned that the highest score was a 96. Although he didn't say it, it was naturally Zhou Fans.
After a few staircases, they arrived at the 8th floor.
The 8th floor looked just like the 5th floor. The only difference was that the lab was bigger and seemed more advanced.
Instead of an empty lab, Zhou Fan and the others were greeted with the sight of three people on a higher surface. It was like a judges booth.
The lady in the middle glanced at them before saying instructions.
"Each of us will take turns asking each of you questions. Our questions will only consist of information on the 1st - 5th floors. If you answer incorrectly, you will be removed. We will continue asking questions until there are only two of you left. Any questions?"
No one said anything. They then sat in one of the 5 chairs before them.
"All right. You in chair number one, this is your question. What is the name of the founder of the wishan kingdom?"
"Ling Yangchen"
"Correct"
The lady continued like that until she got to chair number 4. Chair number 4 was Zhou Fans chair.
"What is the name of the author of the book - The Rising Emperor -?"
"Jang Hong"
"Correct"
Zhou Fan and the rest continued in this fashion for 5 more rounds before the first person was kicked out.
" Who is the author of - The Black Chairiot-"
"Wang Yuan?" The middle-aged man said unconfidently.
"Incorrect"
The man was then escorted out by the head examiner.
When the man failed, the others started getting nervous. Zhou Fan, on the other hand, wasn't. Since the questions were based on the first 5 floors, Zhou Fan had absolute confidence that he would win.
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