It was better to keep everyone in the dark about the monster. Although Lin Jin wasn’t afraid of trouble, there was no need to proactively invite any as well.
He didn’t even tell Zhao Ying and the others about the fox demon.
After lunch, Lin Jin headed straight for the Friar Association.
There were a little over ten days until the Friar Association’s disciple’s tournament. Lin Jin had to prepare himself. After all, he had to win first place in order to secure the dragon blood pill for himself.
A dragon blood pill was the key in Xiao Huo’s perfect evolution criteria. Lin Jin had to get it somehow.
As he hadn’t affiliated himself with a mentor, Lin Jin couldn’t seek lessons from anyone. But there were many self-studying disciples in the Friar Association. From magic to cultivation, everything was self-taught, and if they needed reference materials, they could borrow some at the ‘Spirit Library’ with their disciple’s token.
Upon arrival, Lin Jin headed straight for the Spirit Library.
Among the Friar Association’s facilities, the Spirit Library was the most popular. Some cultivation enthusiasts practically lived here, immersing themselves in the sea of books.
An elderly man was sitting at the entrance of the Spirit Library, and below his butt was a large tortoise.
The large tortoise class was also a common choice of pet beasts for members of the friar association, just like Zu Can’s sapphire turtle.
But this one here was clearly tougher than the sapphire turtle. Even without the museum, Lin Jin could vaguely tell that this tortoise was a Rank 3 beast.
Sure enough, the Friar Association had many hidden experts.
The desk before this old man was piled with books. He must be the librarian here.
Lin Jin went over to the old man, bowed, and flashed his disciple’s token.
“Are you new here?”
Lin Jin nodded.
It was easy to tell. As Lin Jin hadn’t taken the blood contract realm assessment, there were no cloud patterns embroidered on his robes, making him stand out from the disciples around him.
Other disciples had at least one cloud pattern on their robes. Some even had two, and three was a rare sight.
Lu Yunhe had four cloud patterns and Yang Jie was the same. As for the old man here, after taking a glance, Lin Jin saw six cloud patterns on his robes.
A prominent figure!
“Head on to the first room in the west wing where all the basic blood contract cultivation materials are. Start studying and cultivating from there. Among the books, you have to at least finish reading ‘Blood Contract Foundation’, ‘Elementary Beast Knowledge’, and ‘Thirty-six Blood Contract Cultivation FAQs’. Then, choose a corresponding blood contract cultivation method that suits your attributes. You can find them in the west wing’s second room. There are many cultivation techniques for different attributes, some are easy, some are difficult. Choose one that suits you best and you can start cultivating. Perhaps in about two to three months, five or six maybe, you can reach the first realm of your blood contract,” the old man elaborated without looking up.
This must be a special introduction reserved for ‘newcomers’ as the other disciples who had cloud patterns simply walked through the desk after flashing their disciple tokens. They didn’t need to receive a briefing from the old man.
Lin Jin thanked him. Although Lin Jin didn’t know the old man’s name, he was at least kind enough to offer some help.
Upon entering the Spirit Library, Lin Jin found it to be incredibly spacious. After roughly surveying the place, he noticed that the library was divided into east and west wings with each side housing more than ten rooms. This place was filled with the fragrance of books.
Lin Jin knew a little bit about blood contract cultivation from his predecessor. Because as a beast appraiser, even if he wasn’t specialized in the field, some basic knowledge was required.
An example would be how to help someone form blood pacts with pet beasts.
This was the basic stuff.
After forming a blood pact, the level and realm could be increased and that was where specialized cultivation studies came in.
Ancient immortals cultivated various divine arts, drawing spirit energy from both heaven and earth, allowing themselves to transcend to the highest Dao. Now that the path to immortality was lost, humans focused on cultivating their blood pact realms and their pet beasts’ ranks.
Lin Jin entered the first room in the west wing.
There were several open-top bookshelves acting as partitions. Each bookshelf was filled with books.
Many disciples, either standing or sitting, were in the midst of studying.
As Lin Jin walked in, some never looked up, some cast him a glance and ignored him, while some were slightly stunned to see him.
“Look, it’s Lin Jin!”
“Which Lin Jin?”
“The one that got into a conflict with Senior Yang Jie just because of a woman.”
“Oh, so that’s him.”
Hushed gossip ensued.
Lin Jin turned a deaf ear to these folks.
First, he examined the contents of the bookshelves and then found the books he was looking for, the ones the old man had mentioned. The basic set was, ‘Blood Contract Foundation’, ‘Elementary Beast Knowledge’, and ‘Thirty-six Blood Contract Cultivation FAQ’.
But after skimming through them, Lin Jin didn’t think they made much sense.
He knew most of the contents and while these books could be deemed classics, to Lin Jin, they were overly cumbersome.
He remembered coming across a method to improve this blood pact on Xiao Huo’s stone tablet in the Museum of Deadly Beasts.
Immersing himself into the museum, Lin Jin invoked Xiao Huo’s description tablet and began reading through it.
Sure enough, there were several methods to improve his blood pact presented by the museum. After skimming through a few, Lin Jin found them to be more profound and informative than what these books here could offer.
The books here all focused on the basics, for example, one could absorb spirit energy from spirit energy stones to increase the realm level of their blood contract, which would, in turn, raise the user’s spirit energy volume.
Among the enhancement methods shown in the museum, this was merely one of the many methods to achieve advancement. And it was one of the less efficient ones.
The museum gave him at least ten methods to enhance his blood pact. Among them included, ‘visualization’, ‘spirit seizing’, ‘vein strengthening’, ‘energy formation’, ‘inner alchemy’, and so on…
After reading through it, Lin Jin could tell that there were merits to each method, and most of them were hidden techniques that couldn’t be found anywhere.
Having compared them all, Lin Jin found the most suitable method for himself to be the ‘vein strengthening’ method. But in terms of efficiency, the ‘spirit seizing’ method was hands down the best.
‘Let’s try the spirit seizing method first. If it doesn’t work out, I can still change to another one!’ Lin Jin simply picked one. Because if he had to be honest, all the methods offered had real advantages in various aspects.
At least they were much better than the ones found in this Spirit Library.
In addition to that, it’s not like he wasn’t allowed to switch to other cultivation methods after trying out one.
At this thought, Lin Jin found himself a spot, randomly opened a book, and sat down, cross-legged. He pretended to be studying but was in fact, he was cultivating the ‘spirit seizing’ technique.
Frankly speaking, this spirit seizing technique was quite wicked.
A blunt explanation would be requiring the user to perform an inhale-exhale technique to draw in spirit energy from his environment. It was like having one person gather all the fish in an entire sea while everyone else was left with nothing.
However, cultivation among the disciples here was already a competition, to begin with, so there wasn’t a need to be considerate of others, right?
If he was modest, his opponent wouldn’t hesitate when it came to taking him down.
Meanwhile, Lin Jin still had one enormous advantage over everyone else.
Being able to use the pulse-seeking technique.
By supplementing his cultivation with acupuncture, Lin Jin could increase the effectiveness of ingesting spirit energy.
Half an hour later, Lin Jin had mastered the breathing technique. Thus, he began experimenting.
He took a deep breath.
The already sparse spirit energy around him started stirring, moving towards Lin Jin.
Exhale.
It was the act of expelling grime, cleansing the user’s organs of any impurities.