Divine Level Witch Doctor

In fact, it didn’t even take an hour for Zhao Yuan to finish ’scanning’ all the books in the Octagonal Tower.

The higher he went, the higher the grade of the books, and the fewer there were.

For instance, the seventh floor only housed ten books. The eighth floor had only three. And while the ninth floor held two books, one of them was the notebook Zhao Yuan had given to the Ying Family.

After he was done, Zhao Yuan did a quick tally. The Ying Family’s Octagonal Tower housed over a hundred thousand volumes, of which about three to four hundred were related to cultivation. Although most of those were about Witch Priests, there were also some books on Talisman and Artifact Creation. ’Once the Information Leaf distills the essence from all this content,’ Zhao Yuan mused, ’it’ll be enough to keep me busy for a very long time.’

The rest of the books covered a wide range of subjects, including medical texts, historical records, fictional stories, and even some essays and calligraphy—all masterpieces, sole surviving copies that had long since vanished from the world! It was a good thing Zhao Yuan wasn’t interested in them. If it had been someone else, like Lin Xue’s grandfather, he would have been driven absolutely mad with joy.

When Zhao Yuan returned to the first floor, there were still ten minutes left of the hour.

Neither Ying Ji nor Sixth Master Ying had followed him to supervise. The Library was secretly protected by an Array with excellent anti-theft capabilities. If Zhao Yuan had developed any malicious intent and tried to steal anything while browsing, the Array would have immediately alerted them.

Ying Ji was engrossed in a popular idol drama on her phone. Seeing him come downstairs, she quickly paused the video, stood up, and asked, ”Why are you down already? Your time isn’t up yet.” She glanced at the time and added, ”You still have ten minutes. Hurry up and go read some more.”

Zhao Yuan shook his head and replied, ”There’s no need. I’ve already finished reading all the books in the tower.”

”Finished?” Ying Ji pursed her lips and retorted, ”You call that reading? You were less thorough than someone skimming through them!”

Zhao Yuan let out a helpless laugh but didn’t bother to explain.

Sixth Master Ying stared at him for a long moment before finally asking, ”Are you sure you don’t want to keep reading?”

”I’m sure,” Zhao Yuan nodded. ’All the books in the Library, whether they were about cultivation or not, have been ’scanned’ into my Information Leaf. There’s no point wasting any more time here.’

”Fine, then you can go,” Sixth Master Ying said, a flicker of dissatisfaction in his eyes.

In his view, Zhao Yuan was simply ungrateful, treating the Ancestor’s goodwill like a child’s game! In a thousand years, the Ying Family’s Library had only been opened to him, an outsider. And what did he do? He came in, flipped through things randomly, and didn’t read a single book carefully.

’What was this? A refusal to cherish the opportunity? Or was he looking down on the Ying Family’s collection?’

Though thoroughly displeased, Sixth Master Ying didn’t let it show. He turned off the alarm on his phone, opened the door to the Octagonal Tower, and saw Zhao Yuan and Ying Ji out.

Once they were out of the Library, Ying Ji complained in exasperation, ”You really don’t know how to appreciate things.”

Zhao Yuan changed the subject. ”It’s about time. Let’s go check on that brother of yours. He should have finished breaking through to the Marrow Cleansing Realm by now.” Internally, he was muttering, ’If you knew I’d already ’copied’ the entire collection of over one hundred thousand books from the library, would you still be saying I don’t know how to appreciate things? You’d probably come after me with knives.’

Ying Ji was also worried about her brother, so she stopped scolding Zhao Yuan and led him briskly toward the Ancestor’s courtyard.

When they arrived, they found that the once-quiet courtyard was now crowded with people. They were gathered around the Ying Family Ancestor and Ying Zhi, discussing and marveling at something.

Ying Ji noticed at a glance that Ying Zhi’s entire disposition had undergone an earth-shattering change. She couldn’t help but exclaim, ”Ying Zhi, did you really break through to the Marrow Cleansing Realm?!”

Hearing her voice, everyone in the courtyard turned to look.

Ying Zhi was even more excited. He replied, ”Yes, Sis! I’ve broken through to the Marrow Cleansing Realm! Do you know how long I endured the agony of Marrow Cleansing?”

”How long?” Ying Ji asked hurriedly.

The ordeal of Marrow Cleansing was excruciatingly painful, but the longer one endured, the stronger their foundation would be, and the brighter their future!

”I lasted for six minutes! A full six minutes! How about that? Pretty amazing, right?” Ying Zhi boasted, his expression practically screaming, ’I’m amazing, now hurry up and praise me.’

Ying Ji nodded. ”Six minutes? Not bad, not bad at all. That means your cultivation aptitude is above average! Even though that’s over four minutes less than me, it’s still quite good among the younger generation of Cultivators. As I recall, that fatty Hao Li only managed seven or eight minutes! Ying Zhi, you truly are my little brother. You didn’t embarrass me!”

Even when praising someone else, the girl never missed a chance to praise herself.

Ying Zhi had been bursting with pride, but after hearing Ying Ji’s words, his spirits were considerably dampened. With a pained look on his face, he said helplessly, ”Sis, if you could just not show off for a second, we could still be friends!”

Ying Ji burst out laughing, clearly delighted.

Zhao Yuan, on the other hand, looked confused. ”Enduring the agony of Marrow Cleansing for six or ten minutes is considered amazing?”

”Of course!” Ying Ji stared at him in surprise. ”You don’t know? The agony of Marrow Cleansing is more than most people can bear. Enduring for one minute means you qualify to be a cultivator. Three minutes means you have average aptitude. Ten minutes is superior aptitude—it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call someone like that a genius!”

Zhao Yuan slapped a hand to his forehead. ”Oh, is that how it is? And here I was thinking my own talent wasn’t good enough. Looks like I was mistaken.”

Hearing this, Ying Ji asked curiously, ”How long did you endure the ordeal when you first entered the Marrow Cleansing Realm?”

Everyone in the courtyard stopped talking and looked at Zhao Yuan.

They were all very curious.

Zhao Yuan held up one finger.

”Ten minutes?” Ying Ji said. ”About the same as me, then.”

”No.” Zhao Yuan shook his head and corrected her. ”One hour!”

The courtyard fell silent. Everyone wore an expression of utter disbelief.

After a long moment, Ying Ji let out a dry laugh. ”Haha, you’re quite the joker.”

The Ying Family Ancestor shook his head and chuckled. ”Enduring the agony of Marrow Cleansing for a whole hour? Not even the great cultivators from past dynasties who attained the Dao and became immortals could do something like that, could they? Zhao Yuan, if you don’t want to tell us, just say so. There’s no need to try and fool us with such a lame lie.”

The other Ying Family members also looked skeptical, all of them assuming Zhao Yuan was joking.

’An hour enduring the agony of Marrow Cleansing? Could he be any more ridiculous? Did he think he had an Innate Divine Body or something?’

Zhao Yuan shook his head helplessly.

’He was clearly telling the truth, so why wouldn’t anyone believe him?’