Sombreal

Since Ian's decision to focus on his studies and Loli's positive response, his exhaustive days began. How difficult it must be to learn a language in a different world without cultural foundations? On Earth, with some effort, a non-native could learn Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, or English relatively easily (years of dedication usually resulting in someone with a strange accent :) ) due to living on the same planet and having similar cultural foundations, such as Christianity, the capitalist system, heritage, etc.

Loli showed up every two days to teach and drop off some assignments and exercises for Ian. On Earth he had extreme difficulty with focus and will, but because of the Blessing of the Soul Constitution, he somehow became more serious and reliable, and besides, had absolutely nothing else to do. One week he understood the basic phonemes, first month the knowledge of a two year old baby, after a year he acquired abilities of a basic student on Earth, already in a year and a half, fluent and with acceptable knowledge in the language, both written and spoken, without an accent. A genius if placed on his previous world, where Ian was terrible at languages, all thanks to the Blessing of Infinite Learning.

During this period, besides learning the language, he also gathered a lot of information from the maiden about that place and its circumstances. To start with, Loli's name was Etri Two Towers, where the surname represented her clan. They were in Sombreal, the promised land of various races. According to historical records, fifteen thousand years ago, a great war occurred between two factions, and the victors gained the right to live in this blessed space.

In the past, there was a constant need to search for resources and fight over them. But in Sombreal, every corner of the continent had the same quantity, renewal rate, and abundance of energy crystals, minerals, vegetables, and almost everything. The continent was limited and surrounded by unbreakable crystals and rocks. The stars in the sky that illuminated the landscape were some examples of these crystals with superior energy qualities but difficult to extract.

There were seven intelligent races in Sombreal, each with their own dominion according to the population and needs. There had been no records of racial conflicts in the last ten thousand years, as there was still a vast amount of unoccupied land, and the continent was huge. With resources distributed evenly, there was peace. Etri was a Heli, a humanoid species with goat horns, relatively small and delicate features. However, one couldn't judge a book by its cover— Heli specialized in body refinement and constituted the best heavy infantry of the Dark Alliance.

On that continent some special superhuman skills were practiced, which in this book we will call Techniques of the Dao to differentiate them from other methods that certainly existed in the Infinite World. Contrary to traditional Chinese novels, cultivation was not about running energy through the meridians while sitting and meditating, but rather about training, fighting, working out, suffering artificial pressure to refine the body, etc. We are talking about real cultivation and extremely difficult, but the results were worth it. Body strength, intellectual capacity, soul power, speed and other characteristics could be raised to abnormal levels, as well as a massive increase in life expectancy.

The technology of that place also followed the path of the Dao, with mechanisms, matrices, alchemy, blacksmithing, and other cultivation methods. Martial arts governed the entire civilization, from the base to the top.

About the hidden basement that he discovered and caused some astonishment in Etri, it seemed to be the inheritance of the Great Sage, the original resident of the palace. However, after the latter died, his possessions were divided among his disciples and the rest scavenged by the Dark Alliance. However, even with several experts, there was never any sign of the sage's legacy.

It seemed that that secret room had been brought to light by Ian. Loli didn't pursue the subject much since there were a significant number of similar cases in history. Those characters who reached the top of some Dao were all proud and exotic. Standards cannot describe them.

To his disappointment, Ian soon discovered that the thirty chests did not contain any means of offensive cultivation. In fact, with the exception of two, none of the remaining chests represented a Dao, but rather knowledge such as history, mathematics, and others. And according to the indexes, each of the storages, if fully assimilated, represented the formation of a Grand Master in a field, almost a Grand Master— a capable scholar with deep knowledge in certain subjects.

The two martial arts legacies present were that of Grandmaster Librarian and Grandmaster of Body Balance. The former being possessed of auxiliary techniques that would make any scholar drool, such as sight-reading, just looking once and all characters in the known field of vision would be automatically translated into the mind, memory techniques, and others. Body balance had something to do with techniques and skills to control the body with greater precision, in other words, high motor coordination. Clearly Daos facilitated the understanding and application of the other 28 inheritances.

Ian was upset that he didn't obtain anything that could shake the heavens and move the earth, but a glass of water in the desert is better than a pool outside of it. He chose to cultivate the librarian's abilities first, starting with the basic manual, and then he would move on to the other available art. If he truly acquired the reading ability of the Grand Master Librarian, he wouldn't mind eventually becoming a super Grand Master in 28 professions.