Chapter 13: Royal Ancient Books
The next day, Nalan Ruoshui was shocked when she saw Chen Nan again, she realized that the man standing in front of her seemed to have changed. Cinnan's appearance was still as ordinary as ever, but his body exuded an indescribable aura, a faint smile, and deep eyes
"Have you recovered your power?"
"No, why do you ask?"
Nalan Ruoshui Dao: "I feel that something has happened to you, you seem to have a different kind of temperament, is it not that your power has recovered"
Chen Nan was shocked, quickly internalized his power and laughed, "How could it be."
Nalan Ruoshui regained her calm color and said, "It could be my illusion, well, let me continue acupuncture for you."
This time, the acupuncture lasted for an hour, and after Nalan Ruoshui left, Chen Nan hurriedly urged his entire body's true qi to flow within the hundred veins, but the effect was already far less than the first time.
He opened his eyes and let out a long breath, saying, "It seems that there is really no shortcut in martial arts"
From then on, Nalan Ruoshui came almost once a day, but not every time for acupuncture, sometimes striking the acupoints all over Chen Nan's body in a bid to activate the true qi in his body.
Slowly, the two gradually became acquainted, Nalan Ruoshui was no longer as cold as before, and would occasionally chat with him.
From the conversation, Chen Nan learned that although Nalan Ruoshui was a member of the Qi Shi Mansion, she seldom lived here and usually stayed at home. Her father was an official in the dynasty, and his position wasn't too low, and she herself and Chu Yue were friends from childhood, so she was able to frequent the Royal Canonization Room, and most of her medical skills were learned from there.
When he heard Nalan Ruoshui mentioning the Royal Registry, Chen Nan's eyes were glowing, he knew that there must be a lot of precious ancient books there, maybe there were records from ten thousand years ago, thinking about this, his heart was excited.
"Ms. Nalan, you can be said to be a genius, a body of brilliant medical skills is actually a large part of the self-taught, really admirable," said Nalan Ruoshui lightly.
Nalan Ruoshui faintly said: "In fact, there is nothing, as long as the willingness to work hard, anyone can do."
Chen Nan sighed: "I can't do it, I'm a mountain man, I don't even know the words, how can I learn those things in the book?
Nalan Ruoshui was surprised, "You can't read?"
"Yes, I don't know a single word, I can't even write my own name." Saying this, Chen Nan looked a bit forlorn, although it was a lie, it was partially true feelings.
"I am an orphan, abandoned in the deep mountains, a kind old hunter picked me up and adopted me. Due to the straitened circumstances of life, I did not go to the academy to read and write. When I was sixteen years old, my righteous father left me, and since then my sky has been gray.
"Besides raising me and giving me the warmth of a family, my righteous father also taught me some martial arts skills. But how strong can a sixteen year old boy be? When I hunted in the mountains, I ran away again and again from the claws of wild beasts. In winter, the snow fell to my knees, but I had no shoes to wear, so I could only wear thin clothes and shiver in the humble hut, where the cold winds were raging."
"Without warmth or food I had to beg God to stop the snow and wind, and during the long winter months I could eat only once every six or seven days, when my kind neighbors saved from their own rations and gave me food."
"In the midst of the hunger and cold, I fell ill, and once, when the neighbors had not seen me out for a long time, they broke into the humble hut left by my righteous father. At that time I had been in a coma for many days, the neighbors said that at that time my mouth kept shouting: mother mother but I knew that in this life I would not have a mother, only ever had a righteous father"
Cinnan wiped a handful of tears on his face, said: "I'm sorry Ms. Nalan, let you laugh, I was too excited, it was hard for me to stop myself for a while".
Nalan Ruoshui's eyes appeared a mist of water, softly said: "I should be the one to say sorry, it's me who reminds you of the sad past. I'm sorry, I didn't know you had such a rough past."
"It's nothing, a bitter past makes me cherish the happiness I have now even more."
Women were kind by nature, Chen Nan's 'tragic past' filled Nalan Ruoshui's heart with a sour taste, she softly said, "Do you want to learn to read and write, Mr. Chen I can teach you."
"Really" Chen Nan was overjoyed, this was what he was looking forward to, but he was more or less ashamed in his heart that he had used a lie to gain sympathy.
"Of course it's true, from now on I will help you with acupuncture in the morning and teach you to read and write in the afternoon." At this moment, Nalan Ruoshui's face was no longer the usual bland, cold face, replaced by a flowery smile.
Chen Nan did not expect that this beautiful woman with an indifferent appearance and a hidden dusty temperament would smile in such a charming manner.
Women are naturally kind and compassionate, Nalan Ruoshui was touched by Chen Nan's "unfortunate childhood", and in the next few days changed her coldness, carefully healing his body, trying to do everything possible for him to regain his strength, while carefully teaching him to read and write.
Chen Nan's heart was ashamed, and he gained more respect for this beautiful woman.
More than half a month passed, Chen Nan's "condition" had not improved, which made Nalan Ruoshui surprised, she looked through all the medical books, but still could not do anything.
During this period, Chu Yue had come a few times, each time comforting Chen Nan not to be anxious.
The little princess had also sneaked in a few times, of course every time, she would not let go of making things difficult for Chen Nan, but probably felt guilty in her heart, she did not go too far, spare me, the little devil also made Chen Nan's headache. However, seeing her sneaking around every time, Chen Nan was strange. Later, he heard Nalan Ruoshui recount the story and realized that the imp was hiding from the old witch who was researching magic.
The old hag once wanted to take the little princess as her disciple, but the little princess was unwilling to do so, and insisted on worshipping the martial arts master Zhuge Xifeng as her teacher. For this matter, the old hag was furious, almost looking for Zhuge Xifeng to fight. However, she did not give up the idea of accepting the little princess as her disciple, and every time she saw her, she always had to "explain her feelings and reason with her". The little princess was so scared that she sneaked around every time she came to the Qi Shi House.
After hearing Nalan Ruoshui's words, Chen Nan laughed maniacally, he didn't expect that this all-abominable little witch also had times when she was afraid and defeated, it was simply a strange story.
The corners of Nalan Ruoshui's mouth also revealed a faint smile, to be able to make such an indifferent woman like her reveal a smile, one could imagine that the little devil must be "infamous" in the Imperial Capital.
One day, the little princess's master Zhuge Zhanfeng suddenly returned with serious injuries, and the Imperial Capital's cultivation community was in an uproar. Cinnan was also surprised, he had seen this Grandmaster level martial arts master's unparalleled cultivation skills, and the amazing battle between Zhuge Shi Feng and the giant snake was still fresh in his mind.
Zhuge Zhanfeng had indeed seen the legendary Qilin in the Falling Wind Mountain Range, and countless cultivators were frantically flocking towards the Qilin, all wanting to tame the divine beast. Even if they know that they have no hope, they also have to go forward, want to push to kill the beast, so that they can get a scale and a half claw back to the refining medicine.
Zhuge Zhanfeng cold eyes, he knows the power of the beast, never ordinary people can deal with, a dragon failed to transform the sacred snake has already made him overstretched, not to mention the legendary beast. As he expected, the Qilin beast is not panic in the face of hundreds of people surrounded, it opened its mouth and spit out a large area of flames, the temperature of the flames is frighteningly high, the first group of people just rushed up, they were burned to ashes.
Zhuge Zhanfeng wanted to leave, but the Qilin had set its sights on him, and the Divine Beast was also able to sense those strong people in the crowd. It was deeply hostile to these intruders who had entered the ancient cave and awakened it, and with its feet on fire, it rushed towards Zhuge Zhanfeng at the first opportunity.
The battle between Zhuge Zhanfeng and the divine beast was a terrible one, and countless people who had come for the Qilin were killed, pierced through by the murderous sword qi, or burned to ashes by the raging flames, and countless people died. In the end, Zhuge Xifeng was unable to defeat the enemy and escaped with serious injuries, escaping the Falling Wind Mountain Range in the midst of great danger.
Successful escape from the danger of the people but one or two, this incident in the continent caused a furor, more profound cultivators into the wind mountain range, want to unicorn taming as a mount. Especially the western continent of those dragon riders, after hearing about this matter, the interest in the qilin far outweighs the dragon, dozens of powerful dragon riders have since the countries to move towards the wind mountain range to rush.
Zhuge multiplied the wind only briefly talked about this matter, but the ferocity of it could be imagined, and that battle was definitely much more intense than the one with the giant snake.
The little princess was extremely dissatisfied with this matter, bulging her mouth, muttering: "Such a good show, I didn't even see it, what a pity, it's rare for the old man to make a fool of himself, I actually didn't see his stinking face with my own eyes, alas".
Zhuge Zhanfeng came back to explain some things, then hurriedly left, anonymous healing, if he heard the baby disciple's whining, will be angry again spit out a mouthful of blood can not.
After that, the unicorn incident in the continent boiled for more than a month, countless cultivators returned in defeat, until the unicorn since the fall of the wind mountain range disappeared, this matter only come to an end.
Since Chen Nan's Family Tradition Xuan Gong had stepped into the third heaven, he could leave at any time with ease, but at this time, he was in no hurry, and besides receiving "treatment" every day, he single-mindedly studied the continent's common script.
Time flew by, and two months had passed, and his power had not yet shown the slightest sign of "recovery". However, he had already mastered the common words of the continent very well, which made Nalan Ruoshui amazed, not expecting him to have such a talent in words.
Chen Nan went crazy with all kinds of history books, the official history and the wild history were all turned over by him.
Whenever he thought of the Divine Demon Mausoleum, his heart throbbed, he was resurrected from that ancient graveyard, he cared very much about its past and desperately wanted to know all of its secrets. Chen Nan had an unusually strong feeling that the shocking secrets that were unknown ten thousand years ago had not been annihilated in history, and would sooner or later come out one day.
He vainly attempted to find traces of the historical facts of ten thousand years ago in the history books, but he was disappointed, all kinds of historical information were limited to the great events within five thousand years, and could not be traced back to ten thousand years ago at all.
Nalan Ruoshui was surprised that he was so interested in history and couldn't help but ask, ''Why is Mr. Chen so interested in history, there are so many poems and dictionaries in the Qi Shi Residence, why haven't I seen you read them before?
Chen Nan smiled awkwardly and said, ''Although this poetry and fugue has a far-reaching meaning and cultivates one's sentiments, I still feel that history is more immersive and makes one feel a tremor in one's heart. In the past, I was illiterate, I never read any books, I never knew that the continent had such a magnificent past, the rise and fall of a mighty empire, the prosperity and decline of an outstanding nation over the past 5,000 years of storms and rains, over the past 5,000 years of brilliant splendor that makes people feel emotional and shocking".
Nalan Ruoshui's eyes flashed with a strange look and smiled, ''Mr. Chen has a lot of feelings, it seems that the harvest is not small''
Chen Nan was ashamed, he did not expect a burst of nonsense from him, but actually said something that seemed to have gained a lot of emotion.
"You've been literate for only two months, and you're already able to read through continental history, it's really admirable" Nalan Ruoshui praised with a smile on her face.
Chen Nan saw that Nalan Ruoshui was in a good mood at this time, he said what he had already planned in his heart: "Miss Nalan, I have read all the history books in the Qi Shi House, can you let me go to the Imperial Palace's canonical book room with you to have a look".
Nalan Ruoshui looked at him with surprise and said: "Are you really that interested in history? The Imperial Palace's canonization room is very tightly guarded, I was able to go in because I am a good friend with Princess Yue, I am afraid that it will be difficult to bring another person with me. However, one can try, if I can get Princess Yu to accompany me, things might be better.''
The mention of the imp gave Cinnan a headache, and he hastily shook his head, "No need, I'd rather read poetry and rhetoric in the Qi Shi Mansion."
"It's fine, I'll go to Princess Yu tomorrow."
"No no I'm adamant that I won't read any more, reading so much history gives me a headache."
"Oh" Nalan Ruohong level when not cold as ice and frost, but also seldom show a smile, at the moment like a flowery smile is particularly moving, as if the rippling spring water, let a person's heart ripples in strands.
Chen Nan was lost in thought for a while, Nalan Ruoshui's next words interrupted his reverie.
"Don't worry, I will never go to find Princess Yu, that is, if I want to find also go to find Her Highness Princess Yue, Princess Yu is notoriously difficult to deal with, I do not want to find trouble for myself."
Chen Nan laughed dryly and said, "I didn't realize that Her Highness the Little Princess was notorious, I thought I was the only one who had a headache with her."
At night, Chen Nan lay on his bed and recalled his experiences over the past two months, everything was like a drama, he had actually become a hermit wizard of Chu. His biggest gain in these two months was that he had learned the common script of the continent here, and he had completely integrated with this society.
On the following day, Nalan Ruoshui, with a hint of a smile on her face, said to Chen Nan, "Princess Yue has already greeted the administrators of the canonization room, so you can come with me after I give you acupuncture later."
Chen Nan was overjoyed, and after the acupuncture was finished, he followed Nalan Ruoshui out of the Qi Shi Mansion. A dozen warriors escorted around a luxurious carriage, Nalan Ruoshui greeted him and got on the car together, Chen Nan was flattered, smelling the intoxicating fragrance along the way, and soon arrived at the Imperial City.
Palace forbidden land, civil officials get off the sedan chair, military officials get off the horse, in addition to the royal family, no one can enjoy special treatment.
Inside the palace, the halls and buildings were spectacularly majestic with their high and low heights. Chen Nan followed Nalan Ruoshui as he turned left and right within the palace and arrived outside a grand hall.
The person in charge here was a Hanlin scholar around forty years old, and since Chu Yue had informed him beforehand, he did not say much.
The hall was filled with a mountain of canonical books, but they were staggered, row by row, column by column, and neatly stacked.
Chen Nan skipped poetry, astrology and divination, and medicine in the ocean-like library and came straight to the door of the library labeled History. Looking at the collection of nearly ten thousand books inside, he was dizzy for a moment, how long would it take him to finish reading so many books, this was too much.
He patiently searched through the sea of books, he only read the first page of each book, and if the content was the history of the last 5,000 years, he was always 'sent home'.
In the following days, Cinnan and Nalan Ruoshui traveled back and forth between the Qi Shi Mansion and the Royal Canonization Room every day, as he tediously looked through the history books every day.
One day, Cinnan casually pulled out a book from the bookshelf, flipping through it to see that it was in modern day font, he didn't even think about it and put it back towards its original place. However, the four words 'Cultivation Equivalent Levels' on the cover caught his attention, and he withdrew his hand midway through the book.
He opened the book and tried to skim through it, but before long, he was captivated. This was a book about the division of cultivators' strength classes, although cultivators, magicians, oriental martial artists and western martial artists each had their own division standards, in order to compare their strengths, from low to high, they were all divided into five classes. However, the lowest rankers mentioned on it are also the masters among the masters, and those who are able to go up the ranks are those with strong strength, and the general masters are not within the scope of this book's division at all.
Through the book's introduction, he had a certain understanding of the strength of the present continent's highly advanced cultivators.
Cultivators are the most mysterious, due to the fact that they seldom make a move, the division of their strength by the outside world is quite controversial, and they only simply divide their cultivation realm into: Foundation Establishment, Qi Nurturing, Hua Condensation, JieDan, YuanYing. However, the book notes, there may be a higher realm above this, the legend of its highest realm through the realm of the Immortal Way, only that no one has seen this kind of people out of it.
Magician according to strength can be divided into: quasi-magician, middle-ranked magician, high-ranked magician, magician, magician.
Oriental martial artists can be divided by their cultivation realm into: refining essence and transforming qi, the realm of the innate, sword qi out of the body, refining qi and transforming god, and god condensing qi. In addition, it is mentioned in the book, there have been people beyond these five realms, all the world's power is unimaginable, a few can be said to be through the gods.
According to the strength of the western martial artists can be divided into: Swordsmith, Sword Master, Sword Kui, Sword Saint, Sword God. In addition, there is a special kind of practitioners in the western martial arts practitioners dragon knight, strong martial arts practitioners and powerful dragons combined together, has a strong and horrible destructive power, according to the strength can be divided into: Earth Dragon Knight, Flying Dragon Knight, sub-dragon Knight, Dragon Knight, Holy Dragon Knight.
Different kinds of cultivators are divided into five classes, so their strength is comparable, generally speaking, the strength of the same class is similar. However, cultivators and magicians clearly had an advantage over martial artists, and when their opponents were weaker than them and lower than their rank, they could utilize their specialties to directly manipulate the Yuan Qi of heaven and earth to deliver a wide range of strikes, and carry out indiscriminate attacks on multiple opponents.
If the division of strength into equal ranks was carried out as described in the book, most of the people among the martial artists were blocked from the door of the rank masters. Although martial skills could be practiced by everyone, the vast majority of people were not able to cultivate them to a high level, and only a small number of people were able to be ranked as rank masters.
Although cultivators and magicians had higher requirements for their physique, resulting in a small number of these people, most of these people were ranked as rank masters, and it was clear that there was a strong correlation between a cultivator's physique and his or her future accomplishments. Overall, the four types of cultivators had similar numbers of rank experts.
Chen Nan closed the book and let out a long breath, finally figuring out the current power rank of cultivators in this world. However, he believed that the highest realm of cultivators was never more than the fifth order, as far as he knew, back then, his father, Chen Zhan's cultivation had far surpassed the fifth order of the Eastern martial artists' cultivation realm of Divine Concentration and Qi Solidification.
He objectively estimated his own strength rank, his family's Xuan Gong has stepped into the third heaven, just able to catalyze the sword qi outside the body, barely able to be counted as a third-order cultivator, in the continent, is already a real expert.
The book that he had found unintentionally made Chen Nan feel that he had benefited greatly.
In the next few days, he met a strange old man in the bookstore.
The old man was unusually old, his eyes were cloudy and lifeless, his teeth had long since fallen out, his wrinkled skin was like a crumpled ball of paper, and there were dozens of hairs sparsely on the top of his bald head.
Chen Nan was shocked when he first saw the old man, and thought that someone had died and swindled out of the coffin. Out of politeness, he smiled and saluted the old man every time he saw him, but never spoke.
On this day, Chen Nan was boringly flipping through history books when an old voice suddenly sounded behind him, "Young man, so fond of history."
Chen Nan almost jumped up in fright, the strange old man came like a ghost, noiselessly coming less than a foot behind him, he secretly blamed himself for being too involved in reading the book.
"Ah yes, rather like it, but it seems like there aren't any ancient books here, the earliest dates back to just five thousand years ago."
"Oh, you like reading ancient books are you able to read the writing on them?"
"Well, I have some attainments in ancient writing, and I can read almost any ancient book." He raised the book in his hand and said, "Look, this is the writing from four thousand years ago, although it is more complicated than the current writing, it is still recognizable." Chen Nan did not lie, he was indeed more sensitive to words, in addition, the current continent's common script evolved from the ancient script of the original Immortal Fantasy Continent, it would not be difficult for him to identify these words that were in the middle of the excessive period when he compared the two compartments.
Chen Nan had an illusion, as if he saw a flash of green light from the old man's cloudy eyes.
The old man asked: "Why do you like reading ancient books?"
Chen Nan said: ''I am more interested in the myths and legends of the ancient times, and I want to learn a thing or two from the ancient books.''
The old man hemmed and hawed and Cinnan felt morose as he listened.
"Young man if you are really able to read ancient books, let me lead you into another bookstore, that's where the real ancient documents are, far older than the books here."
Chen Nan was overjoyed, at the same time he began to speculate about the old man's identity, he could already tell that the old man was by no means an ordinary person, otherwise it would never be possible for him to casually lead him into another book vault.
Passing through the front hall, the two of them walked towards the back hall, which was extraordinarily quiet, pushing open the heavy door, rows and rows of bookshelves were presented in front of Cinnan's eyes, which were filled with ancient monumental books.
Since stepping into the first step of the ancient book library, Cinnan felt a subtle hint of strange fluctuations, fluctuations such as a trickle of fine streams, like a light breeze, if there is something, it is elusive.
"Fainting death is not the ancient books here have become a spirit, how can there be such a fluctuation," now Chen Nan body ban all eliminated, the spiritual sense of the restoration of the outside world, far more sensitive than ordinary people.
The old man seemed to be unaware of the appearance, said: "Look, here are all the ancient books, most of them are valuable books, if you can read, here is undoubtedly a treasure."
"Treasure," Chen Nan was a bit puzzled.
The old man said, "Among these books are many writings on martial arts, magic, medicine, poison arts, etc., and many of them are lost masterpieces. The Royal Family sent specialists to organize and compile these ancient books, but they could only translate a small portion of them. I just don't know how deep your attainments in ancient texts are, if they are better than those Hanlin Academy bachelors"
Tatsuo Nan didn't wait for him to finish before he dove into the pile of books.
For several days in a row, he wandered amongst the ancient history, which surprised Nalan Ruoshui, who opened her mouth wide in astonishment when she inadvertently learned that Chen Nan was able to read ancient books. When Chen Nan gave her a medical text compiled from the ancient books, Nalan Ruoshui screamed shrilly in excitement, "Oh my god, the Medical Sage's handwritten notes, I'm not dreaming, am I." She happily hugged Chen Nan at once.
Feeling that soft body, Chen Nan was intoxicated for a while, he backhanded Nalan Ruoshui, but the delicate body quickly left him, and a light laugh was transmitted in the distance.
Since then, whenever Chen Nan saw Nalan Ruoshui's smile, he couldn't help but feel a surge of heartbeat.
"Today is not to find another medical book to organize and give it to her, maybe"
"Kid, what kind of nymphomania is this, look at your unproductive appearance, it really makes my old man ashamed to be a man with you." The old poisonous monster's arm is peeled on the courtyard wall, revealing his head and striking at the right time.
"Dead old man you are spying on me again, really perverted and disgusting. Be careful I'll buy a firecracker, light it up and throw it into your yard." As they became more and more familiar, Chen Nan and the old Poison Monster gradually joked around, to the point where they met and sarcasm was exchanged. However, all along, he didn't dare to banter with the old witch, who switched between his east and back yards, causing him to be scared.
"You dare you if you light a firecracker, I'll let you break your intestines in seven steps, break your soul in ten steps, lose your shape and flesh in thirteen steps, and turn your bones invisible in fifteen steps."
"Shit, you perverted dead old man." A chill ran down Chen Nan's spine as he quickly walked towards the outside of the Qi Shi Mansion. Today, Nalan Ruoshui did not provide him with acupuncture, saying that she would treat him after carefully studying the Medical Sage's Handbook.
The old man had already arrived long after Chen Nan arrived at the ancient book library.
"Not bad young man, it seems that you really do have some attainments in ancient scripts and can really read those ancient books, today my old man is going to trouble you a bit."
"Oh, old man please say, if I can help, I will definitely help."
The old man took out an ancient book with yellowish color from his bosom, put it on the table, took over the pen and paper and started copying it with a brush and a dot, in a short while, the whole piece of paper was copied all over the place.
"Here, can you help me translate the contents of this paper?"
Chen Nan took it and took a look, those words and sentences didn't make sense at all, and said, "Old man, these sentences don't make sense, you didn't copy them wrong."
The old man said, "Just translate it, don't care if it doesn't make sense, you can translate three articles for me every day, right?"
Can you translate three for me every day?" "Yes, no problem." Chen Nan said in his heart: "This old man is really suspicious, actually split the sentences and let me translate, damn, even to be so secretive, what kind of book is this".
The little bit of goodwill he previously had towards the old man was gone, knowing that this eccentric old man was hitting on him right from the start, and his fundamental purpose was to have him translate this book.
The writing on the paper, according to Tatsunami's estimation should be in a script from six or seven thousand years ago. There were only a few dozens of words, but they contained words like 'god' and 'corpse' and other words that made Chen Nan sensitive, which made him even more curious about that book.
