Shang returned to his Isolation Barrier after talking with the Lightning Emperor and immediately started to read the books.
Reading books was something that Shang wasn't used to doing since he got all of his knowledge from other people or from his own experience.
In fact, it felt very weird to be reading a book.
Even more, Shang wasn't interested at all in the content.
Shang was interested in Concepts and how the world worked, but these books only talked about the history of how Mages comprehended Concepts and what they had learned.
Shang was essentially learning how to learn, which wasn't the most fun activity.
Nevertheless, Shang never lost his focus, even though he wasn't interested at all.
Shang read the first couple of books in barely a couple of minutes, but then, he read a book that was not as easy to comprehend.