When Nalser arrived back at the Starry Island entrance, he blinked to his previous position. The bookshelf and various scattered books were left at the entrance of the Island. When he appeared back at the reading place, he saw the puppet already cleaning it up. He told the puppet to stop and bring the bookshelf from the entrance here as well.

When the puppet got the order, it immediately left to carry it out. Seeing the departing puppet, Nalser just let out a sigh, “I wonder what it is called. Just saying puppet, puppet all the time to catch his attention is going to be annoying.” He pondered up on it for a second and then decided to ask for its name sometime.

Shifting gears, he focused on the book in his hand. It was the book on cultivation he read first. The reason he was so in a hurry to get this book was, because this books and the one from the library had major differences in them. As he was skimming through the book. The puppet came back as well. It informed Nalser of completing it’s duty and told him the location of the bookshelf as well. Nalser just nodded and then remembered to ask, “Hey, what is your name? What did the previous master call you?”

The wooden puppet answered in heartbeat, “The previous master called me: Wooden bloke, Housemaid, Cleaner, Good for nothing-” Nalser just interrupted it with a sigh, “Okey, I get it, you did not have a name. From now on you will be Librarian. It isn’t something original or something great but it will be your name from now on.” The puppets head twitched again and said, “Name confirmed. From now on, this one will be called Librarian.” Seeing the name being accepted that easily left Nalser baffled. Even though it was just a name, he expected there to be some sort of a complication.

He just shrugged his shoulders and asked the Librarian for a few pieces of paper and something to write with. The librarian accepted the order and came back with a blank ancient book and a pencil. Nalser looked at the pencil for a second and asked with a shocked expression, “This is a lead pencil. Where did you get it?” Lead pencils were a common thing in his own world but here, it seemed everything were back in the middle ages. To find a lead pencil here was something weird. The puppet answered in a heart beat again, “This is the Nethercoal Pencil. It is an artifact the previous Master created when he got fed up with buying ink all the time. This pencil will always stay sharpened and all that is written with it will never fade away unless, the parchment it is used to write on is destroyed.”

Hearing that Nalser nodded his head. This thing was something very useful. Just as he was about to dismiss the puppet, it said, “This artifact has been used to write 9 834 652 books. They are all in pristine condition as if they had been written only moments ago.” Nalser looked at the pencil in his hand with a hint of terror. He had thought the part about it never needing to be sharpened was a hoax. But to write nine million books with it, this thing sure was scary. He shook his head for a second and then dismissed Librarian.

He laid out everything in front of him on a desk. Right in front of him was the book in which he would write. On the left the book on ancient cultivation, on the right the book on modern cultivation. A glint of determination flashed in his eyes as he started working.

***

In an arena like room, sat over a hundred women ranging from their 20-s to 70-s. In the middle of the room, was a small podium on which an old lady was talking. “To be able to enter the formations without disturbing them at all. Also to exit, with only a small energy wave like that, showed that the person was someone who had extraordinary strength. The Ancestor also said, that if she were to fight with that person, she would most likely die within 5 rounds. She also said that that young man was most likely a part of some Ancient Clan, a power we can not afford to provoke. All the Elders present. Let me ask you this, what are we going to do in the wake of this calamity?” As the old lady in the middle of the podium asked the question, her gaze travelled across the room.

She was one of the three Grand Elders and had done various mertilious deeds for the school. She had spent nearly all her life here, there was no way in Hell, she would want to see the school face a calamity during her time. The stone room was engulfed in silence. No one dared to open their mouths but everyone had the same thought running through their head.

“This was done by two people, just imprison them and when the ancient clan comes knocking, we will hand them over with our deepest apologies.” One of the older Elders finally opened her mouth. This was a bold thing to say because even though one of the people involved was a mere disciple, the other was a Grand Elder. A Grand Elder’s authority was only second to the Ancestor. Even if all the Elders wanted to get rid of a Grand Elder, unless the Ancestor said so, they could not. This was exactly the case with the Grand Elder in question.

Although, she hadn’t broken the rules of the school, she still bended them to suit herself. The current situation was the same. Usually, the partner has to level up with the disciple. They form a pair that entrust their lives to each other, this pairing was what the school was famous for. The pair complemented each other, they covered each others weaknesses. However, that Grand Elder had personally killed her partner when she entered Core formation. According to the rules of the school, she would still stay a part of it, if she so wished but the incident it self, had brought on a lot of dismay to the others. She didn’t care about her partner and this was also the same for her disciple.

Upon a certain seat, sat an old woman who seemed as ancient as time itself. She slowly, opened her eyes and said, “Azure Flame Elder will from this moment onward not be counted as a Grand Elder. For bringing a calamity to the school, she will be imprisoned in the Nascent Soul Solitary Courtyard until the matter is over. As for her disciple, she is to be stripped of all her qualification of a Conclave Disciple and be demoted to be a Servant Disciple. Her qualifications for advancement in ranking will be tripled.” As the old woman spoke out, everyone looked on in disbelief. The old woman was the Ancestor of their Spirit Partner School. It was a well known fact that she doted upon the Azure Flame Elder because her talent was very good. There were even rumours that she trained her to pass on her title as Ancestor to her. With the Ancestor saying the final verdict, this matter had ended.

While the school Elders had been thinking on what to do, Nalser kept on drawing parallels between the Ancient Cultivation and Modern Cultivation. By now, he had read through both books and also written out the equivalent stages. Rubbing the bridge between his eyes, he let out a sigh, “Seems like the Ancient Path is truly stronger than the Modern one but at the same time has stricter requirements alongside various tribulations. If we were to say that the Ancient Path is a fight against Heavens, then the Modern Path is coexistence with the Heavens.”

He looked at his notes for a second and continued murmuring, “The Modern Path is more simplified but it also produces “weaker” Immortals. The Ancient Path is divided into three Major Stages: 13 Qi Gathering stages, 4 Foundation Establishment stages and 3 Nascent Soul stages. The Modern Path however has 4 Major stages: 9 Qi Gathering stages, Palace Establishment, Core Formation and Nascent Soul. Expect for the 9 Qi Gathering stages there are no minor stages for the Modern path.” As he summarized his findings, he couldn’t help but feel that the Modern Path was weaker.

Although it was faster to train in, it did not produce the same kind of strong Cultivators as the Ancient Path. The differences between the Modern Path stages and Ancient Path were: 1 st Qi Gathering stages. In the Ancient Path there would be 13 stages, with the first 9 for building the body to be a suitable vessel for housing the Qi. The 4 last stages were for accumulating the Qi to break into the Foundation Establishment stage. The Modern Path however, had only 9 stages for Qi Gathering and they all had the purpose of accumulating Qi to break into the Palace Establishment stage.

The differences between Qi Gathering stages weren’t too big, in the later stages of the Ancient Path it would be more evident. However the real differences would become as clear as day duringa the next stage. The Ancient Path named this stage Foundation Establishment. It was split into 4 different parts: Qi Springs, Qi Sea, Qi Palace and Qi Core. You create Qi Kindlings to excavate your Qi springs. When you reach the maximum, you transform the Springs into a Qi Sea. Then you slowly solidify the Qi Sea and use it as building blocks to construct the Qi Palace in which you will birth the Qi Core. The Qi Sea stage was more like a purifying stage. You purify the Qi so that you can turn it into building blocks for the Qi Palace.

The Modern Path however, skipped the part of Qi Springs, and Qi Sea and you just use your Qi to build a Qi Palace. This meant that the Foundation of the Palace was completely reliant on the cultivation method. The lower levelled technique you had, the more rundown the Qi palace would be. The Ancient Path relied more on hard work while the Modern Path relied more on cultivation techniques and resources. The Core Formation stage was the same as the Ancient Path’s. You reach peak stage when the Core used to birth the Nascent Soul turns from transparent and ethereal into a solid Core.

Usually the core would take the colour of the element that the user was most familiar with. Lets say you have the best affinity with the fire element and use only fire based martial arts, then your Core won’t turn blue and into a Water Core. As for the Nascent Soul stage, it seemed really half-baked to Nalser. The Ancient Path had three stages for the Nascent soul. Birth, Infusion and Maturing. While the Modern Path only had the Birthing part. The Ancient Paths all three Minor stages had early, mid and late stage. The Modern Path on the other hand only had an early, mid and late stage. After the Nascent Soul stage comes the Tribulation.

This is where the two paths go in directly different ways. The Modern Path had the Celestial Tribulation, while the Ancient Path had Empyrean Tribulation. The known Celestial stages were: Immortal, Prince/Princess, King/Queen, Emperor/Empress. The known Empyrean stages were the same but the two paths focused on different things after the Tribulation. The Modern Path focused on purifying the Qi and trying to improve their bodies while the Ancient Path focused more on comprehending the world mysteries, The Daos. The more Nalser read on the differences the more he felt that the Modern Path was like a joke. It was no wonder that the Modern Path book said that only 1 in 1 million Nascent Soul experts would be able to pass the Tribulation.

Nalser just sighed and said, “Well, seems like the Modern Path is over reliant on resources, while the Ancient path focuses more on the individual. The Ancient Path builds a solid foundation for the tribulation while the modern path just seeks for a longer life.”