The scripture library was a large hall, 30 by 20 meters. The inside had few books, only about a thousand or so loosely placed on the shelves.

Each of these books were manuals for practicing at various stages of Xiantian, all the way up to the Gold Core stage. These secret manuals were highly sought after in the world of martial artists, but here a thousand of them were collected in one place.

The other 55 people had already found their desired secret manuals by now and were continuously reciting them.

Zhong Shan on the other hand, started to check each and everyone of them from beginning to end.

All together there were 16 manuals, including some already taken by others, that had a white finger print on the back cover; these were the best ones.

Zhong Shan spent half of the day carefully going through all of them and finally picked out two manuals.

Dayang Shengong (大陽神功, “great sun martial arts”) and Taiyin Zhenjing (太陰真經., “yin/lunar scripture”).

One was undoubtedly masculine and the other distinctly feminine. Each manual has ten levels, one could form genuine energy by the sixth level and after reaching the tenth level, one could breakthrough to the Gold Core stage.

Dayang Shengong was for himself to practice, while the Taiyin Zhenjing was for his double all the way back at the Zhong residence to practice.

The two manuals weren’t as wordy as the Hongluan Manual or Demonic Body Toning Method.

When he’s hungry, he would go back to his quarter to eat and return right away. He didn’t have his double copy the manuals, but just memorized them himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t think about it, but Zhong Shan knew the importance of reading and memorizing books. Usually the first round of going over the book was the round that one had the most inspiration.

After eight days Zhong Shan had completely memorized the contents of both manuals.

Zhong Shan’s living quarter was inside one of the valleys, the surrounding area was quite pleasant. There’s a waterfall, a deep pond underneath it, a small yard next to it, and a piece of land next to the yard. The Kaiyang School provided him with a large amount of seeds.

Zhong Shan felt it’s rather odd when he first saw all the seeds inside his house.

Self-sufficient? There’s no servants at Kaiyang School, everyone had to take care of oneself. If farming was too troublesome, one could hunt animals in the mountains or collect fruits for food. Kaiyang School occupied a mountain range, there were abundance of food sources. However, there were fierce wild animals in the mountain, one had to be careful since no one would care if one died.

It was totally safe around everyone’s living quarters because they were protected by magic formations to ward off poisonous bugs and fierce beasts.

Certainly only those in the Xiantian stage needed to eat food. When one reached the Gold Core stage, the energy from heaven and earth would replace normal food.

Zhong Shan, though he found the situation odd, still spent some time to separate all the seeds, some were vegetable seeds, some were seeds of rice.

He used several days to work on the land and divided it into a vegetable garden and a rice paddy. Having reached Xiantian helped, he finished all the farm work after a few days.

There were all kinds of tools in the house; obviously they were left behind by people who had lived there before.

Taiyin Zhenjing was a distinctly feminine exercise and came with a set of sword forms. It was now being temporarily practiced by the double. The double had just reached Xiantian not too long ago, therefore it’s just right for him to practice.

Dayang Shengong was an undeniably muscular exercise and came with set of machete forms. It worked even better if practiced around fire.

Fire? Where could he get fire? He had to go into the mountain to cut some firewood. Zhong Shan felt most odd in his current situation, he was poor as the peasant. If he’s still in his own country, he could have anything he would ever want. Now he felt poorer than the most dest.i.tute peasant.

But for the sake of reaching immortality, Zhong Shan had to bear with it.

He closed his eyes to start practicing the first level of Dayang Shengong. Dayang Shengong used the genuine energy to refine the flesh, skin, tendons, and bones. Zhong Shan sat there for half a day and by evening, he had barely crossed the threshold.

He had finished all the food he had; he went to the pond to catch some fish and cooked for himself.

He pa.s.sed the night doing breathing exercise without slacking off. The next day at daybreak, he took a machete that was in the house and some ropes to collect firewood.

Once he left the valley and its protective formation, the surrounding forest was no longer safe. Zhong Shan didn’t go in very deep, he just cut down two big trees at the edge of the forest and used the rope to drag them back.

He chopped the trees into sections outside his yard and put them into the woodshed.

Afterwards, Zhong Shan practiced the machete forms.

There were only two movements for the machete in Dayang Shengong. One was ‘Mountain Splitter’ (力劈天山, li pi tian shan) and the other was ‘Annihilating Slash’ (斬淨殺絕, zhan jing sha jue). But just as any type of machete form, one had to pay attention to the angles of chopping and slas.h.i.+ng. Everything had its weak point and to chop or slash, it’s not enough just using force, one had to find the weakest point and strike. It was just like chopping wood; if he could find the right grain on the tree trunk to cut into, the result would be much more effective.

Then he would continue to chop firewood. Zhong Shan quickly found the best way to practice his machete was on wood.

Zhong Shan, using the sections he cut in the morning, began his wood chopping career.

He followed the instructions of Dayang Shengong to chop and slash one after another. The tyc.o.o.n in another life had to do hard labor now.

In the beginning, he couldn’t find the right angle; then after he got the right angle, he couldn’t cut into the grain with precision. Sometimes, even if he cut into the right grain, the grain might change directions midway, he still couldn’t cut it all the way through with one strike.

Yet, Zhong Shan kept at it.

Two days later, he could better manage the angle and precision but still couldn’t cut all the way through. Zhong Shan wasn’t very happy with himself. When he was going to get more wood chunks, he discovered that he had chopped them all into little pieces.

There’s no more wood to chop.

Zhong Shan saved some firewood for cooking and took the rest outside of the yard. He dug up a large pit and made the dirt into bricks to set aside.

Then he put all the firewood around the pit.

Zhong Shan jumped into the center where there wasn’t any firewood naked. He set the firewood on fire and sat crossed legged in the middle. In the middle of the flames, Zhong Shan started to practice Dayang Shengong.

It was true that with the help of fire, it could stimulate the progress of practicing Dayang Shengong. Zhogn Shan could feel that the flames around him were constantly toning his body as he was practicing. His own genuine energy also absorbed some of the energy from the fire, which continuously enriched his body.

His body had turned bright red by the heat of the fire, but Zhong Shan felt that practicing this way, more than doubled his progress.

Seeing the benefits, Zhong Shan practiced ever more diligently until all the firewood had turned into ashes and the flame had died out.

Zhong Shan dug out the ashes in the pit and carried them to the nearby fields as fertilizer.

Chopping wood to practice his machete form, burning firewood to practice Shengong, even when resting, Zhong Shan also tried to keep his genuine energy circulating. Without any moment of relaxation, Zhong Shan practiced Dayang Shengong very, very hard.

Finally, after a month, he had reached the first level of Dayang Shengong. First level, finally the first level after a month. Zhong Shan was very excited.

At this time, he had built a large house near his yard and next to the vegetable garden. Next to the house was a big shed; with firewood piled up inside. This large house was built by Zhong Shan during this period; it was a kiln, a large kiln.

As he’s practicing, fire burned inside the kiln and Zhong Shan sat in the middle. He used the fire to refine his body and to help practice Dayang Shengong. In the meantime, it could bake bricks. Zhong Shan used the bricks to build houses for himself.

Zhong Shan reached the first level inside this kiln.

When he walked out of the kiln naked, all the hair on his body were burned but the skin hadn’t blackened, it was just somewhat reddish.

He jumped into the pond and carefully washed his body. He felt much more comfortable after the bath. After he made himself some food to eat, he would continue to practice. In addition to Dayang Shengong, Zhong Shan also continued to practice the Hongluan Manual and Demonic Body Toning Method. Although these two methods were just supporting methods, they still had their uses.

Since the way he practiced would easily wear out his clothes, most of the time he was usually stripped down to the waist.

The very next day, Zhong Shan left the valley, with his machete to chop some more wood.

At the same time, inside Kaiyang Hall, Tianxingzi, Gushuangzi, and Xuanxinzi had returned. It seemed that they had just finished discussing something, they were all quiet with their eyebrows knitted.

Tianling-er, who just heard the news of their return, hastily rushed into the Hall.

“Dad, have you got the Flying Nimbus?” Tianling-er immediately asked after she entered the hall.

“Flying Nimbus?” Tianxingzi responded in confusion and the other two were also looking at Tianling-er strangely.

Flying Nimbus? What Flying Nimbus?

“That guy, Zhong Shan, had told me everything. You don’t need to fool me anymore.” Tianling-er called out like a spoiled child.

“He had told you what?” Tianxingzi frowned and looked at Tianling-er strangely.

“The Flying Nimbus. One somersault that can travel tens of thousands miles.” Tianling-er excitedly said.

The three masters looked at each other and turned around to look at Tianling-er with their mouths wide open.