Invitational Disciple Exam VII: Hall Of the Codex

"Thank you for your patience," he began, "there are currently 376 examinees remaining, which means more than half the starting participants have reached the second to last stage. You are doing fairly well. Now, we shall give your bodies a chance to recover from the strain of the previous tests, and strain your minds instead.

We are currently located in the Pagoda of the Codex in the 10,000 Scrolls Library sect. The book all of you wrote your names in is the Codex itself. Other than the names of everyone to take this test, it contains every Earth Rank technique in the possession of the sect. The moment you wrote your name on the page, the Codex analyzed you, and sent the Earth Rank technique it judged as the most suitable for you to the inscription inside the study room in this building of the same number as your line. From the moment you enter, you will have 7 days to study and comprehend the technique to the best of your ability. The Codex is also empowered to measure your progress in understanding the technique. In order to pass this stage, in 7 days you must achieve a rating of 20% or higher."

Bet I'll need a lot more than 20% to be accepted by the Library.

"All of you here who pass the entire entrance exam will receive a scroll of the technique the Codex assigns to you as a gift to welcome you to the alliance between our sects. And should any of you gain acceptance to our illustrious Library…even as an Outer Disciple, this Codex Pagoda and potentially any of the techniques within the Codex will be at your disposal—with contribution, of course."

Elder Shin waited for the excited chatter to die down, which took a while. I didn't blame them, I was excited to get my hands on a "real" technique for just 7 days, though I wasn't generally a chatterer.

"The study rooms are up the stairs at the rear of this level, the Codex Hall, 100 rooms per floor. I expect all of you to find your study room within 1 hour. If you find that you require food or drink at any point during the 7 days, there is a small gong you may ring and a servant will attend to your needs. If you abuse this privilege, or the servants themselves, we will know. So don't even think of trying it or failing the exam will be the least of your worries."

 For the first time, I joined the crush of the initial rush of people to get to the study rooms, and enthusiastically at that. Once I'd gone up three flights of stairs, it took me less than a minute to find the door marked 254. The interior was fairly small, and sparse to be free of distractions, but I saw the small gong sitting in a corner near the door, and an incense burner that released incense that made it easier to keep my mind clear than usual. At the front of the room, there was a soft mat for sitting on just in front of the promised stone inscription. Heart pounding, I read the name of the technique at the inscription's top: Spirit Arrow.

The inscription worked more like a jade slip with data on it, rather than a scroll such as the one for the Mortal Rank "Absorb Qi." As I looked over it, information would enter my mind, and it would be up to me to sort it out and understand it, a bit at a time. Even with my tripled Comprehension stat, it wasn't easy. Absorb Qi wasn't just a Mortal Rank technique, it was the easiest such technique to learn. If that technique had been a grade-school math book, this was a series of instructional videos on trigonometry, viewed in random order.

Still, bit by bit I began to understand what I was being shown. In fact, it fascinated me. I had to stop for a short while when the parched feeling in my throat became too much to ignore. I rang the gong, and within a few minutes a slim figure in pale robes brought a pot of tea. "Before you leave, I'm not sure if you would know, but how do I know when my time is up?"

"The technique will vanish from the inscription when the time is up," she said, "and if you want to check time remaining, the candles that illuminate the inscription are marked by the day."

"Oh—thank you."

"Will you require food as well?"

"Perhaps something small. I've never been the best at keeping track of my needs that way until I'm famished, so…"

"Right away."

I wasn't used to hot drinks, so drinking the tea was strange to me, though it felt like my body would be fine without more to drink for a while. I was just finishing up when she brought a plate on which was half a dozen bean buns. I ate two of them and saved the others for later, turning back to the inscription. Looking at the candles, they definitely seemed much shorter than before, and I could see four colored bands on each of them. "Wha—I've been at this for three days already?! Oh, I haven't nearly gotten enough."

I drank in the contents of the inscription, my thirst for knowledge far outstripping my physical thirst. I began to grasp some things I was hung up on before—things like why it was important to shape the spiritual energy into an arrow rather than just forming it into a more simple projectile. For the curious, it had to do with how externalizing your internal spiritual energy worked in the first place—if you did it right, you could make it so your familiarity with an object acted as a sort of metaphysical anchor that made it so you didn't have to keep continuously pouring Qi into the arrow once it was fully formed. With that realization, contemplating one of my own arrows in between looking at the inscription actually helped my progress with understanding the technique further.

I'd gotten far enough to start actually trying to form the Spirit Arrow—I'd draw my bow and get a line of solid light that didn't actually fire where the arrow ought to appear—when the candles burned down. When I left the room, all around me others also were, including Shokoya a few minutes after me. We went down to the main Codex Pagoda together. 

"So, how do you think you did Shok?"

"Pretty well. After all, I do have a talent for Comprehension too even if it's not the same grade as yours. I just hope it's good enough for the Library."

"Me too."

In the main hall, several elders from the other sects had joined the two of the Library. They basically herded everyone, repeating the instruction to proceed through the portal, that if we passed the final test we'd be able to see our result in the review and placement after. For those who'd failed this round, of course, the portal would take them back to the sects they came from like the previous ones.

Through the portal was a much plainer room, dominated by a raised square stage that I figured was a fighting arena. Don't tell me we'll be pitted against each other? Elder Shin arrived within minutes, and I could feel the whole room holding its breath in anticipation of what he would say next.