Chapter 132: Competition.
"You can’t copy the techniques!" The moment Lee sat at the table in the library, and took out the writing utensils, the junior elder said.
"It’s the only way I can memorize. I have something like a visual memory." Lee explained, "I’ll only draw and afterwards leave the drawings with you."
He had no clue what two thirds of the symbols written on the scrolls meant. In addition, there were quite a bit pictures of a person wielding a weapon in peculiar positions. Given how illiterate Lee was, he couldn’t remember everything in one afternoon if he didn’t draw it. But if he did, he could replicate the drawing back in his room in secret.
Of course, he didn’t intend to sell or spread it afterwards. He only wanted to learn.
"Alright!" The junior elder said after giving it a bit of thought, "But I’ll be here the whole time, so don’t try anything funny!"
It was already suspicious that the kid could pull out a pile of contribution points that any other would consider a small fortune, and it only made sense he would try to do something illegal. But despite how carefully she observed him, Lee only continued to draw for the rest of the day.
To Xiao Lian Lee’s talent came as a surprise, to not speak about the junior elder. But while the former was urged to memorize the combat techniques, the latter watched Lee in amazement.
Even though he recognized few words, Lee approached the task as if it was only to copy the scrolls. At first he went slow, as if warming up, but then his hand began to move faster and faster on its own. He even felt a strange thrill, noticing he was back to his old self.
Neither the texts, nor the drawings were complicated, and even a person without an artistic talent could copy them. Obviously, that was the way it had been done here for thousands of years.
The papers and parchments could last for at most fifty, maybe seventy years if preserved in special conditions. But in the library most of them were groped by disciples on a daily basis, especially the most popular techniques, and had to be rewritten once every few years.
When the sun set. Lee was confident he had properly memorized both combat techniques and the cultivation technique as well. Of course, for now he had no clue what they were about, but Xiao Lian would explain it to him later.