Chapter 3839: Thousands Of Body Cultivation Manuals
Chapter 3839: Thousands Of Body Cultivation Manuals
Lin Mu’s actual bones had already reached a terrifying level of toughness. If any elder examined him closely, they would immediately realize that his skeletal structure was far beyond what the Stone Bone Tempering Art could possibly produce.
Thankfully, Lin Mu did not need to physically weaken himself.
He only needed to alter the vitality patterns around his bones.
By controlling how his vitality flowed through the marrow and surrounding tissues, Lin Mu could create an imitation of the gradual changes described within the manual. Anyone examining him would sense that his bones were slowly being tempered.
"That makes it easy," Lin Mu muttered with satisfaction.
He picked up the Hundred Breath Body Exercise next. This technique focused almost entirely upon breathing and vitality circulation. Lin Mu read through it once, and then twice before he nodded slowly.
"Though the adjustment will take some time."
He could imitate the effects of every technique he had read so far. The difficulty lay in ensuring the changes appeared natural. If Little Bull entered the library today and emerged tomorrow with the apparent results of several months of body tempering, people would certainly become suspicious.
Lin Mu needed to create gradual changes. He would have to carefully adjust his vitality every few days and allow the false cultivation progress to build over time. It was essentially another layer of acting.
Thankfully, Lin Mu had already spent months altering his appearance and practicing different personalities before infiltrating the Heavenly Stream Guardian Sect. Compared to maintaining Little Bull’s face and behavior, pretending to cultivate a basic body tempering technique seemed simple.
After reading the Mortal Mountain Tempering Scripture and the Copper Blood Foundation Method, Lin Mu had a clear idea of what he needed to do.
He closed the final book. "These should be enough."
There was only one problem.
Lin Mu looked at the manuals. "How do I take them?"
He picked up the Iron Skin Foundation Manual and began walking away from the shelf. After barely ten meters, Lin Mu felt something strange. A faint pulling force appeared around the book.
He stopped and the force disappeared. Lin Mu took another step and the pulling force returned.
"Hmm?" He examined the book carefully.
There was a formation mark hidden within the cover. Lin Mu continued walking and the force grew stronger. Eventually, it became clear that the formation would physically prevent the original manual from leaving the section.
"Of course they wouldn’t let people simply carry the originals away." Lin Mu remembered what the administrative disciples had explained about his disciple token.
Most facilities within the sect were designed to function through voice commands for disciples who could not use Qi.
’Does this work with voice commands too?’ Lin Mu wondered.
He looked at the book. "Borrow."
Nothing happened.
Lin Mu frowned. "Take book?"
Still nothing. "Give me this book."
The manual suddenly lit up and Lin Mu blinked. A small formation sigil appeared upon the cover and then space beside the book distorted. A second book appeared from thin air which Lin Mu instinctively caught it.
He stared at the new book and it looked completely different. The original manual in his hand was clearly ancient. Its pages had yellowed, the leather cover was worn, and several corners had been repaired.
The second book looked brand new. The paper was fresh, the cover was clean and even the writing appeared different. Lin Mu opened the new copy and saw that the characters were perfectly uniform.
Every letter had the exact same thickness and spacing.
"This was printed." Lin Mu immediately understood.
The library did not allow disciples to take the original manuals. Instead, it issued copies. Lin Mu looked at the ancient book in one hand and the freshly produced copy in the other.
"That makes sense." He returned the original manual to its shelf.
The pulling force vanished completely.
Xukong chuckled. "Considering the people living upon this peak, allowing them to borrow original records would be unwise."
Lin Mu imagined High Elder Shatter Peak using an ancient cultivation manual as a plate while eating. "...Very unwise."
The copies were probably cheap to produce. The sect possessed countless formation masters and artisans. Creating a formation capable of reproducing ordinary books would be trivial for an organization of this scale.
More importantly, it protected the original records. Wild Peak disciples probably damaged manuals regularly. Books could be burned during cultivation. Crushed beneath training weights. Dropped into medicinal baths. Or even eaten by beasts.
Lin Mu suspected the library had experienced every possible form of damage throughout its history.
He quickly used the same method with the remaining manuals.
"Give me this book." A copy appeared.
"Give me this one too." Another copy appeared.
Within several minutes, Lin Mu possessed fresh copies of every technique recommended by the administrative disciples. He placed them into his newly issued storage pendant. Now he had evidence.
If anyone asked what Little Bull was cultivating, he could simply show them the manuals.
His cover was becoming increasingly secure. Lin Mu could have left at that point. Instead, he looked toward the deeper sections of the library.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "I already came this far."
Xukong immediately understood. "You wish to browse."
"Just a little."
Xukong laughed knowing it was never going to be little when it came to books. Lin Mu returned to the central array and placed his hand upon the jade imprint. This time, he did not search for mortal body tempering techniques.
’Immortal realm body cultivation techniques.’
The map within his mind transformed as an enormous portion of the library lit up.
Lin Mu froze. "...That’s a lot."
Millions of records appeared containing all kinds of body cultivation manuals. Lin Mu had never seen such a collection. Even the body cultivation manuals in his own library, which had grown considerably over the years, seemed tiny in comparison.
’A hundred times larger.’
Perhaps even more.
Lin Mu felt an almost painful urge to copy everything. If he could transfer these records into jade slips and store them within his ring, his knowledge of body cultivation would increase tremendously.
Unfortunately, there was a problem: Immortal sense.