33 The Book
Shura had stopped cultivating for a few months now. Every day had been peaceful and relaxing. This was an experience that Shura had never experienced before. He began to experience other facets of life besides cultivation, fighting, and killing. He had also made a few acquaintances in this new city. None of them were stereotypical cultivating characters whose fame spread far and wide and were all-powerful beings. They were quite normal by cultivator's standard.
Every day was serene and blissful without anything happening or Shura having to do anything. But even though everything was that good, he started to feel bored. If there was no boredom and everything was serene and blissful, would anyone do anything?
Although Shura was slightly bored, it wasn't anything serious. Compared to the soul-crushing and despair-filled mental state of cultivation rejection he was in earlier, this was nothing at all.
His understanding of boredom had been superficial before. He had thought that something was boring because it was boring, that is, something was boring if it wasn't interesting by itself.
But now that he had all the time in the world without anything to do, his understanding of boredom had increased greatly. One didn't become bored because what one was doing or not doing was uninteresting, it was because there was something better that one wanted to do but could not.
In this case, it wasn't that cultivation was better than doing nothing, but that he didn't know anything else other than cultivating, so his mind naturally gravitated towards it because he didn't do anything.
People cultivated themselves to become more powerful, yet they couldn't even control their own feelings. What use was cultivation then?
Shura talked to his new acquaintances to get ideas about what to do. One of his new acquaintances told him to find something to do, the more he enjoyed it, the better.
Asking people what to do with boredom was the silliest thing Shura had done in his life.
Shura didn't know what he enjoyed doing because he had never enjoyed doing anything at all. That advice was hard for him to put into practice.
One day he saw a bookstore when he was on his daily walk. A book store was a very strange sight. He had never seen a book store before. This wasn't an environment where people read books after all. Shura decided to take a look on a whim.
There were many books with many colorful and beautiful illustrations. As he walked around looking at book titles and illustrations, one book caught his eye.
This book had no illustration and it looked quite old. The cover was slightly torn. In the front in bold letters was written: "How to relax in the hectic life of cultivation."
Whether it was fiction or nonfiction, the title was quite catching.
This book immediately piqued Shura's interest. He immediately bought it. Although Shura was currently quite poor, he could buy it, It was cheap.
…
An hour later two people dressed in expensive and stylish clothes entered the bookstore. They looked too good for the bookstore.
The two men walked around the bookstore calmly looking. They then split up and then regrouped. They didn't find what they were looking for. They walked around the entire store. They looked everywhere and still couldn't find what they were looking for. They searched every nook and cranny of the shop, they even went through the adult section of the store and looked through each book in painstaking detail, one by one. But they still couldn't find what they were looking for.
"Are you sure it's this store?" one of the men said. His eyes were hurting from the things he had seen.
"How can I not be sure it's this store? This is the only book store in the city. The information can't be wrong. It is here. It has to be here!" the other man replied.
The two men continued to look, but they still couldn't find what they were looking for. The information they had received came from a source beyond credible. If that group of people said it was here, it wouldn't be anywhere else in a million years. The two men didn't doubt the authenticity of the information at all, yet they still couldn't find it no matter how hard they looked.
Was the book not among these shelves? Was it buried on the ground, or hidden in the ceiling? Or maybe it was on the body of the storekeeper.
Had the enemy already arrived before them? Had they already taken 'it'?
Finally, in exasperation, they went and asked the storekeeper at the counter.
"Did someone buy an old book recently?" one of the men asked.
The old storekeeper furrowed his brows in deep thought for some time before replying to the question.
"Ah, yes! The previous customer just bought it. This was a few hours ago." The old storekeeper replied.
"Let's go!" the two men shouted at the same time and left the store in haste.
…
Shura began to read "How to Relax in the Hectic Life of Cultivation" as soon as he got home.
He really needed to relax. He also needed to later bring that relaxation into cultivating so it doesn't become something stressful. He had no intention of repeating the previous tragedy. He had already taken time off from cultivation. The time was precious and irreplaceable.
If an action wasn't stressful, then he could do it a lot, and if he could it a lot, it could become enjoyable, and if it could become enjoyable, he wouldn't want to ever stop and he would make great leaps of progress.
Shura attentively read it letter by letter, words by words, sentences by sentences. He became so engrossed with it that he forgot about his surroundings and everything. He was so into it that he was only focused on reading.
The book wasn't lengthy, so before long he had already finished reading it. The main point of it was very simple: relax, don't be tense. Rather than thinking about relaxing, one should feel it with their whole being. This relaxation will make every action and reaction more focused, more energetic, and more productive.
It wasn't a bad book at all.
Just as he finished reading he noticed that he was surrounded by strangers. Surrounded in his own home no less! They had come this close to him without being noticed. Had he spent all his time pursuing greater strength in vain? Or was it becuase he was so engrossed in reading?
"What do you fellows want?" Shura asked.
"We want the book you're holding…" one of the men said. "…and your life."
'Is it like this everywhere?' Shura asked himself. He had long become familiar with fighting on one street and a life-and-death struggle on the next.
All Shura did was go out and got a book to read. And now a bunch of strangers broke into his house wanting his new book and his life.
"I can give you the book, but are you sure you also want my life?" Shura asked again.
The reply didn't come in the form of spoken words, but action. The men were approaching in threatening fashion and holding on to their weapons tightly, ready to deliver the killing strike at any moment.
Shura's sword appeared from his spatial ring. "Well, I also know this language."
Even though Shura hadn't been cultivating for a few months, his strength of Two Star was still present. He was sure that his Two Star strength could content with Three Star or Four Star cultivators, so he wasn't worried.
"Let's go outside, I don't want to clean up the mess later," Shura said.
Before the intruders could even reply he had already walked past them and was outside the house.
The night's sky was cloudy, the moonlight did not shine on the city. But even without the moonlight of the many moons, the light from the buildings in the city was enough to illuminate everything around the city.
The part of the city Shura lived in was remote and wasn't quite as lit up as the heart of the city which never slept.
The intruders walked out one at a time from his house and assumed their earlier position surrounding him. Shura did not bother to count how many of them there were. They were either going to die or he was going to die. That was all that mattered right now.
"I haven't fought and killed for a long time," Shura murmured.
Shura unsheathed his sword. His sword left his sheath and flew through the air. Shura's expectation was not fulfilled. Rather than going through flesh and spilling blood all over the ground in one clean stroke, his sword met resistance and stopped.
Two swords collided in front of Shura's home. Many more swords and spears and knives all headed toward him while his sword that was held with two hands was blocked by another sword.
