Techniques Pagoda

Bai Hu was momentarily stunned by this sudden invitation but quickly recovered and followed the man. Despite his appearance being countless times older than Bai Hu, Bai Hu had a difficult time trying to keep up.

It was as if the man glided across the floor and every step was a meter long. Soon they reached the stairs and began walking up.

"The Techniques Pagoda is separated into 7 layers, do you know why?"

Bai Hu replied no and the elder explained, "Each layer corresponds with a cultivation level. The first level," he gestured back where they came, "Contains Mortal techniques that are free for all to browse. Heck, even mortals are able to use them as it requires no qi"

"The second level contains Yellow ranked techniques and arts which can be cultivated to the Foundation Realm. A lot of people are stuck at this no- Most might not even make it out of qi refining"

They walked past the second layer, not stopping. Bai Hu could see that this level is much smaller than the first level, and only contains about half the number of books.

"The third level contains Black Ranked techniques, which is where we are headed"

They stepped foot on an even smaller floor, and to Bai Hu's dismay, it only contained around a few hundred books.

"As you can see, cultivation arts become rarer as you continue walking down this path. I've been here for many years and have already counted every single book in this pagoda"

He turned to Bai Hu, "Over 3000 Mortal Ranked, around 2000 Yellow Ranked, 700 Black Ranked, 100 Earth Ranked, 39 Sky Ranked, and 12 Spirit Ranked"

He turned around and walked away, tossing a jade slip to Bai Hu in the process.

"Our sect has not had a True Spirit Ranked technique ever. I tell this to every promising seed"

He looked at Bai Hu one last time, "When you reach the peak here, leave the sect and aim for a prominent sect located in the central continent. Only then can you continue to pursue your Dao"

He walked away without another word, slowly disappearing from view.

Bai Hu came out of his revere and checked the jade slip he was given. To his surprise, it was an empty slip which he could fill with information. Reading the few instructions on it, he took out his bronze badges and touched the jade slip with them. The badges exploded into light and disappeared, turning into a strand of odd energy and flowing into the jade slip.

According to the jade slip, when he finds a technique that interests him, he can touch it with the jade slip and it will make an exact copy of everything in the book. With this jade slip, he can copy an unlimited number of Mortal Ranked techniques and because of the 3 badges, 3 Black Ranked techniques as well.

Thankfully, the books were organized and labeled, meaning he wouldn't have to go through every single book to find one that suits his spiritual roots.

He quickly found the section containing lightning attributed arts and browsed through the 12 different books in that section. After much deliberation and elimination, he narrowed his choices down 3.

The first choice is a cultivation art called the Thunderstrike Art, capable of allowing the user to call down devastating lightning on their foes. This is a spell oriented art and the techniques it contains are mostly long range spells.

The second choice is the Thunderflame Art, which allows the user to fuse the destructive powers of lightning and fire. The techniques it contains are overbearing and powerful, and it even contains a refinement art, allowing one to refine disposable weapons called Thunderflame Beads.

And lastly, there is an art called the Yinbane Lightning Art, allowing the user's lightning to become the bane of evil spirits and yin type opponents.

Though he managed to whittle his choices down to 3, it didn't make things any easier. He discarded the Thunderstrike Art after some thought because he felt it didn't suit him despite the advantages of long range techniques.

Although the Yinbane Lightning Art is powerful and logically should be what he should pick due to its effectiveness against yin, a type of energy commonly found to be cultivated by demonic cultivators, the Thunderflame Art was more versatile and contained both lightning and fire, which he has.

In the end, he chose the Thunderflame Art. Not only was it powerful, he could skip the steps of getting a fire attributed treasure to help him cultivate because he has both lightning and fire in his spiritual root!

He copied the art and went to the wind attributed section, going through the same process of elimination. He picked an art called the Windsteel Art, a technique that combines the sharpness of metal and the swiftness of wind.

Lastly, he picked an earth and metal cultivation art called the Golden Bell Art which will bolster his defenses by a great deal. These cultivation arts have ways for people to cultivate them even if they didn't have that attribute in their root. For instance, mutated roots like lightning and wind always appear by themselves but since Bai Hu already has these attributes in his Chaotic Spiritual Root, he could skip those steps and cultivate at a much higher speed!

When he finished picking all of his cultivation arts, Bai Hu went to the first floor of the Techniques Pagoda. The elder was nowhere to be seen and he decided to through the Mortal techniques instead of going to find his master.

The difference between techniques and cultivation arts is that cultivation arts can contain techniques, refinement methods, pill recipes, etcetera, while techniques, well... they're techniques.

There are no Mortal ranked cultivation arts as cultivation arts are something used by cultivators, while Mortal techniques can be used by mortals.

The many shelves were divided into function. There were movement techniques, defensive techniques, and offensive techniques. Bai Hu was particularly drawing towards the weapon techniques section and happened to walk into the spear section.

A shine caught his eye and he turned his head to a book bound with gold leather. It seemed old and a visible layer of dust indicated that no one had touched it in a long time.

Carefully taking it off the shelf, Bai Hu held his breath and blew away all the dust on the book. When the dust blew away, it revealed the words '9 Beast Spear Art' in black ink on the slightly dirty gold cover.

He felt his own heart palpitate as he reached his other hand forward to open the book.