65 A Nasty Little Joke of Epic Proportions 9 (1/2)

The instant her feet touched the smooth and warm surface of the sky-blue crystal floor, the girl released a groan of comfort. Not even bothering to watch the scattered shards of the eternal plains dissipate into light, An Fei plopped her body onto the ground, lazily stretching her body in pure bliss.

The warmth emitted by the crystal that comforted both the body and soul, could not, and would not be traded for another regardless of the tempting offer.

Allowing an enormous yawn to ripple across her countenance, An Fei slowly gathered herself into a standing position. Her gaze inadvertently landed onto the crystalline throne, and the tattered black book resting on the right armrest of the throne.

Regardless of where she disappeared from the mysterious realm of sky-blue crystal, she and the book would always reappear in the throne room.

Though slightly confused and curious, An Fei strode towards the throne, her fingers reaching out to grab ahold of the book.

”Just… what could you be?” she wondered as she stroked the leather cover with her thumbs.

Not long after, the girl sat herself down onto the throne and adjusted herself into a comfortable position, opening the book to read from the first page once again. The throne room of crystal gradually returned to a state of natural tranquility, the only sounds being a young girl's light breathing, and the soft rustling of pages.

-

”Absorb the atmosphere's essence into the mortal body, refining the physical manifestation into an elevated status,” the girl softly read, her vision illuminated by a gentle, golden glow emanating from the nearby crystals surrounding her body.

The pages on the book illustrated a detailed diagram of a human's body, depicting each organ, meridian, and acupuncture point with an accompanying page number that provided further detail.

Of how much information would be provided, the girl was unsure, but it was obvious that compared to its previous appearance, the contents of the book had expanded by an unimaginable degree.

From a collection of loosely defined concepts and terms, the information displayed was much more detailed and organized, bringing forth a huge sigh of relief.

”Confine and assimilate the atmosphere's essence with the soul, performing an inseparable fusion to attune the soul with the natural currents and phenomena. This practice, though highly adopted by mortals, is considered taboo for all fixated existence. For in exchange of unbound and indeterminate strength, the practitioner offers up the freedom of the soul, to be permanently deprived of traversing the Bridge of Helplessness.”

”When obtaining an unjustified gift from nature, one must offer an equivalent exchange, oftentimes unbalanced towards the practitioner. The ability of mortal souls to experiencing cleansing at the Bridge of Helplessness is critical not only to the practitioner, but the standing authority managing the individual precincts.”

…precincts?

A standing authority?

An Fei frowned as she rapidly flipped through the book's pages from beginning to end, yet little to no information other than the title was displayed before her eyes. Irritated and bitter that she was being withheld what seemed to be significant information, the girl released a sigh of resentment before lifting her gaze to glance at the throne hall below her feet.

She shouldn't complain, for the book had provided an equal compensation to her grievances at the beginning.

”Treatments of unbalanced enhancement of meridians within the mortal body. Observe the technique at the fifteenth Archive and the at the eighth Archive.”

”Treatments of malignant symptoms and general injuries non-fatal or critical. Observe , eighth Archive.”

”Analysis of spiritual herbs and medicines. Observe , , and , twelfth Archive.”

Not only did the book provide detailed diagrams and descriptions on the location, functions, and major weaknesses and limits of each major meridian channels, organs, and the meridians and acupuncture points within the human body, several sentences at the last marked page spanned a list of general subjects of interest, from martial arts to growing spiritual plants and observing the changes in the sky and earth.

Additionally, each topic was accompanied by a register of which book or tome to reference for further review.

Simply put, in An Fei's perspective, the book had transformed from a pile of utter rubbish and nonsense to a serviceable source of information. Though there were still major discrepancies and oddities in the information presented on the snow-white pages, its functionality had magnified by several times over.

For example, the final sentence at the end of the page obtained An Fei's interest and anticipation and refused to relinquish its grasp.