Chapter 17 - A Teacher?

One option could be attempting to secure a teaching position within the school.

Sure, he was still quite young and inexperienced, and his power wasn't very impressive. However, this wasn't the most crucial aspect for a teacher.

Especially if he was simply guiding the new freshmen disciples of the sect, he didn't really need to be exceptionally powerful to steer them in the right direction.

The most valued aspect of a teacher was knowledge. Simply attaining a high cultivation level wasn't sufficient. That's because, for many cultivators, while they may succeed in increasing their strength, this success doesn't stem from a deep understanding of the nuances of the cultivation process.

Most cultivators simply adhere to the stipulations and rules laid out by their predecessors and teachers, never truly grasping the real essence and significance of their actions.

You could reach a very high power level simply by mindlessly cultivating and accumulating power, without truly comprehending what you're doing and how it affects your body.

This is not to diminish the accomplishments of these powerful individuals. This approach comes with its own set of difficulties and hardships that must be overcome. Any cultivator able to reach a high level of power is someone who has dedicated untold amounts of time, resources, and mental fortitude to achieve their goals.

However, it is not raw power that defines the quality of a teacher.

A teacher had to be able to guide multiple disciples, each with their own strengths and individualities. Different students required different approaches. Trying to impose the same general method on every student would do more harm than good.

After all, if all you needed was a standardized plan to groom students into powerful masters, what was the point of teachers existing? You would just give every disciple the same book to follow and be done with it.

No human is created equal, and as such, there's no such thing as the perfect method to achieve success. The job of a teacher is to perfectly ascertain the individual circumstances of every student and be knowledgeable enough to, based on their particularities, guide them in the direction that would most benefit them.

Vast knowledge, wisdom in employing said knowledge based on who he's teaching, and a keen eye for people are essential qualities for a teacher.

And so, if Arthur managed to show talent in these three points, as well as welcome to come and teach at any sect. Being too competent would come with its own set of problems, but he would deal with those when the time came.

For the teacher checklist mentioned earlier, Arthur was confident in two of the points. The wisdom in employing knowledge and a keen eye for people are something he doesn't have to worry about. His ability to discern the aura around him if he focused enough would give him all the information he would ever need.

In fact, said ability seemed tailor-made for someone to recruit and groom geniuses to the best of their abilities. The prospect of raising a new generation of heroes. Being the person whom they knelt before and sought knowledge from.

It might not make him powerful right now, but if he were able to groom the next generation of world leaders, he would, by all intents and purposes, have the world at the palm of his hand.

This might sound like the plot of some bad B-list movie, but it was true.

It was the massive potential of that ability that made him consider the path of a Teacher.

His main problem was, he didn't have much insight regarding this matter. Lao had been a cultivation zombie, only following the guidelines set by his father and never thinking too much about it. Due to this, his understanding of the cultivation path was quite shallow, definitely not enough to become a teacher.

He pondered for a moment.

"Yes, there's still that."

An idea flashed through his mind.

Quickly, he turned around and headed back into his cave. While his face remained completely devoid of any emotion, the quickness of his steps portrayed the slight excitement he was feeling at the moment.

Once inside the cave, he found a comfortable spot and sat down cross-legged on the floor.

He took a deep breath and focused.

A moment later, the world around him twisted and turned.

When he opened his eyes, the cave was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was greeted by the crackling sounds of a fireplace, empty shelves all around him, and a sweet aroma in the air.

He was back in the library.

By this point, he felt quite familiar with the process of entering and leaving that space.

He got up and moved towards the big table in the middle of the room.

On top of it, three neatly positioned books could be seen.

The three books detailed the three cultivation paths available. One focusing on the mind, another on the body, and a third on one's Qi.

Perhaps they would have some information that would help him fill the gaps in his knowledge regarding the process of cultivation. They were just books, so he wasn't expecting them to instantly make him a wise sage on the matters of the three paths.

However, this was still a good start.

The books themselves were quite dense too, so they definitely felt like they would be perfect as introductory reads, without cutting any corners, providing deep insights into many things. The voice of the library itself had vouched for their usefulness, and while he didn't fully trust that voice, it was still enough to raise his expectations.

And so, now that he had some time to spare, he decided to return to the library and check them out. Simultaneously, he would also try to use the reading and comprehension enhancement the library was supposed to facilitate. He wanted to verify how effective they really were and how they worked exactly.

With this, he would be killing two birds with one stone.

He sat down in the desk chair.

He pushed aside the books detailing the body and soul cultivation paths and laid the one focused on Qi cultivation in front of him. He had decided to start with this one. It was not only the one he needed the most if he wanted to become a teacher, as basically every single sect followed the Qi path, but also because, since he was already a Qi cultivator himself, he would be able to see if there was anything suspicious about the book.

Yes, once again, he was still cautious about the library.

If those books were written with false information with the objective of harming him, he would be able to detect it more easily if the subject he was reading about was something he was already familiar with. If he were to read the body and soul cultivation books first, even if they were filled with lies and malicious information, he would have no way to tell.

At least with the Qi book, even considering that he was not the most knowledgeable person on the matter, if it had some egregiously false information written in it, he would be able to tell. In case it didn't, while this did not mean the other two books would not have lies written in them, it would at least help him gain a little more confidence in their contents.

Unfortunately for him, someone with no power or knowledge, that was as far as he could go to make sure he was safe. It was still a gamble in the end, but at least he did his best to keep his chances of failure as low as possible.

With this in mind, he grabbed the glasses that were right by his side on the table. They were black, and their design looked very similar to the glasses worn by the protagonist of a famous series of books in his previous world. Who would have thought that, just like that protagonist, he would now be the one to explore a world of magic and mystery.

Placing them on his face, he felt no change. The glasses themselves didn't seem to do anything in particular either. His vision was working exactly the same as before, even as he viewed things through the lenses of the glasses.

Feeling a little dubious, Arthur grabbed the book and placed it right in front of him.

Just as he was about to open it, he remembered something.

In a swift movement, he took the sand hourglass he had set on the table before and turned it around. The sand started falling grain by grain.

With this done, he turned to the book once again.

He opened its cover.

And as he did, an instantaneous reaction occurred.