Please give the novel a rating or a review on NovelUpdates
———-

Chapter 32: Magic-Martial Vault

Lost in thought, Ashura strolled down the academy road that led to the library.

He had just revealed his magic secret to Instructor Yuan Da, namely that he could meditate like a bottomless pit and continually absorb magical elements.

Instructor Yuan Da was so shocked that he fell speechless on the spot, then he brightened like a child who had received a new toy, as though he had found a fresh research topic.

After asking Ashura to demonstrate his meditation process and release some lightning-element magic, Instructor Yuan Da asked a few questions, took notes, and solemnly promised to give Ashura an answer as soon as possible.

Ashura did not know whether telling a instructor he had just met his innermost secret was the right thing to do.

He was no longer a naïve boy.

He knew that if Instructor Yuan Da betrayed him, endless trouble would come for him, and some maniac might even kidnap him for research.

Yet he felt an instinctive closeness toward the short, homely man.

Taking the man’s actions into account, Ashura decided, just as he had said, to give both the instructor and himself a chance.

He chose to gamble.

Once he figured it out, Ashura stopped hesitating and hurried to the library that had just been opened to freshmen, a venerable archive normally accessible only to students who had passed the academy’s three-month assessment.

The Saint Gobban Library lay east of the academy’s famed War Tree, a wondrous giant said to be several thousand years old and rumored to possess sentience.

At the base of the War Tree four hollows opened in the trunk: to the east, the library that housed an ocean of books, and to the north, the Armory Hall where the academy stored and sold weapons and gear.

To the west stood the Herb Hall, where the academy bought herbs and sold cultivation pills, while the south held the Magic-Martial Hall that stored and sold magic skills and martial techniques.

The liveliest spot was the eastern library, first because all its books were free for anyone to read, though none could be taken outside.

The ground floor covered everything from continental history and everyday encyclopedias to beast guides and introductions to weapons and pills.

A magic gate on the second floor allowed entry only to students or instructors of Magic Scholar or Magic Warrior rank and above; anyone weaker would be bounced out.

Most of the materials there were biographies of historical powerhouses or their cultivation notes, and rumor said it even held maps of the King’s Continent’s deadly forbidden zones and the journals of adventurers who had braved them.

Second, a mission wall stood in the square at the eastern gate where the academy and the students alike could post tasks, each offering a reward for completion.

It was a prime place for students to earn credits, and every day many gathered there to pick jobs suited to them.

Most of those present were upperclassmen, who earned credits by finishing missions and then spent them in the other three halls to buy what they needed.

Naturally, the shaded square to the east was also where students set up stalls to sell or trade items.

Hundreds of people came to hawk their wares every afternoon until nightfall, making the eastern square extraordinarily bustling.

Ashura looked around with curiosity at everything, especially enjoying a stroll through the stall area.

The upperclassmen sold all sorts of oddities: weapons and equipment, martial-technique pills, and even beast pets.

One male student set out an old tree root and claimed it was a millennium-old vine that would skyrocket one’s rank if eaten.

Another displayed a beast egg, insisting it would hatch into an earth drake, a grade-7 beast ready to obey your every command.

Yet another offered a tattered magic book, claiming it contained an ancient forbidden spell for fated buyers; their common trick was to push hard whenever they spotted freshmen, and the final price never exceeded 300 credits.

Ashura could guess what these upperclassmen were up to, but business here depended on one’s own skill; if you found a bargain it was your ability, and if you were duped you had only yourself to blame.

He lingered a long time at the stall of a voluptuous grand Magician who had deliberately undone several buttons of her magic robe; she was selling ‘genuine, previously worn undergarments’ with absolute honesty.

From time to time male students would come over, grab a small piece of lingerie, pay their credits in haste, and hurry away.

Ashura stood there gawking without even asking the price until the annoyed senior buttoned up the two open clasps, at which point he reluctantly wiped the drool from his mouth and left.

Someone might wonder why Ashura was still such a lecher when he was always hanging out with three campus belles, but he had a clear sense of himself; from their every gesture it was obvious those three beauties were daughters of extraordinary families.

As the third son of a minor kingdom’s general, he was hardly a match for them; a little flirting was fine, but harboring real designs on them was unrealistic.

Therefore Ashura never even thought along those lines, or rather, thinking about it now was pointless.

Besides, those three young ladies had never undone their collars to give him a peek.

The lad had nevertheless reached the age of waking up with a spear at dawn.

When Ashura squeezed through the crowd to the library entrance, he saw a male instructor with a senior-instructor badge seated there, reminding newcomers not to damage or remove any of the books inside.

His eagle-sharp gaze swept over every student passing by.

After listening to the admonition, Ashura stepped through the hollow entrance; as the light dimmed and brightened he stared in amazement at the space before him.

In a word, ‘big’; in three words, ‘extremely, incredibly big’.

Hundreds of students inside were reading at various shelves, each with a book in hand.

There had to be a spatial barrier inside the hollow; otherwise a simple tree cavity could never contain so vast a hall.

Ashura wandered about the library, casually looking for biographies.

He wanted to see whether any historical powerhouse shared his circumstances, but after several hours he still had not finished searching the entire ground floor.

Ashura shook his head; there were few personal biographies on the first floor, most being historical records, so the ones he needed were probably upstairs, and once again he felt an urgent desire to grow stronger.

Still, the sheer number of books dazzled him, and since childhood he had preferred his grandfather’s miscellaneous volumes to cultivation manuals.

His favorites were books on the customs and special products of the continent’s many regions.

That filled Ashura with curiosity about the land, and he hoped to wander every corner of it one day.

Reluctantly, Ashura left the library, deciding to make time in the future to read more miscellany; just as he planned to return to his dorm, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He turned his head toward the Magic-Martial Vault to the south.

He had a little over 1 000 academy points on hand and wanted to see whether the vault held any martial techniques suited to him, especially after witnessing the brilliant techniques of the academy’s prodigies.

He felt that relying solely on his family’s inherited Thunderclap Fist made it hard to stand out in the Warrior School.

The two young women who sparred with him already knew all eight strikes of the Thunderclap Fist by heart; aside from the double-impact release he had yet to show them, they could guess how to block each move the moment he lifted his hand.

That made his training sessions increasingly difficult.

Therefore Ashura intended to check the Magic-Martial Vault, secretly planning to rely on his exceptional memory to memorize the techniques and then practice them at leisure.

When he reached the vault, a middle-aged instructor still stood guard at the entrance, yet this instructor said nothing, as though there were no rules to announce.

Ashura stepped through the hollow into the vault, where a fork awaited: the left passage bore a carved staff symbolizing magic, while the right passage showed a sword and shield.

Ashura headed straight into the right-hand Martial Techniques archive.

When Ashura discovered that the vault held more than 800 blue-grade martial-technique manuals on par with his family’s treasured Thunderclap Fist, he was utterly stunned…

———-
Support the Translation! 🌐✨

Your donations not only show appreciation but also keep the translator motivated! Every contribution helps continue bringing you more of what you love. Thank you for being a part of this journey! 💖

https://www.ko-fi.com/maxoofie