After overcoming the shock of the sudden kiss, Heifeng Jiansui went straight to the Divine Scripture Library. The librarian had been evidently expecting the arrival of the young prince, as he showed him the positions of the forging manuals. “Young master, feel free to read, refer to and borrow the books from these shelves. You are not allowed to touch the other books on these shelves, unless you are using your privilege of borrowing a single book from the Divine Library.”

Like this, he spent day and night reading and memorizing the forging manuals from the Divine Library. He did not even return to his room at night, instead sitting in a private room to keep reading. This schedule of reading books and manuals carried on for a week, at which point the librarian was quite sure that he had memorized the entirety of the forging manuals. Of course, Heifeng Jiansui wasn’t quite done with the library yet…

“”Requesting permission to read this ‘Heavenly Adamant Body Refining Scripture’ under the blanket permission to read all refining manuals granted to me…”

“Young master, this is a body refining manual! This certainly doesn’t fall under the permission granted to you!”

“Can’t you see the Adamant in the title?! This is a rare metal and near impossible to forge without godflames! This manual seems to have a technique to do this near-impossible task! It is certainly important for my forging!” After some haggling, the librarian allowed the young prince to read the book.

An hour later…

“Young master, you certainly cannot read this ‘Godfire Sword Art’! It is completely unrelated to the forging arts!”

“You dolt, have you never heard of godflame being a powerful forging flame? With the ability to summon it with a mere sword technique, which blacksmith wouldn’t be tempted?!”

Like this, creating various reasons, Heifeng Jiansui read through nearly every manual in the divine library. After the first week, the librarian gave up and did not ask for any reasons, numbly surrendering the books. Like this, three entire months passed as he greedily swallowed the manuals in the library.

All this time, forget about forging, he hadn’t even returned to his room once! Night and day were spent in the library, reading books and accumulating knowledge. Some rumors arose in the castle that the prince had given up on the duties. Of course, these whispers were ignored by Heifeng Jiansui as he focused on increasing his knowledge base.

Without any discrimination, he read through every single manual in the library. Apart from the Nine Supreme Scriptures which the librarian never allowed him to glance at, no matter the excuses, he read through every single manual.

His understanding of the current era a million years after his death had multiplied by a huge margin. He now knew that there were countless lesser worlds, 3000 Great Worlds and 9 Supreme Worlds in the current Nineorigin Chaosworld. The greatest power that stretched across the entirety of the Chaosworld was the Nineyuan Heavenly Gate. It held various high-level powers like the Five Sacred Beast Sect and the Ten Thousand Swords Paradise which controlled over a hundred Great Worlds. Under them were mid-rank powers like his own Black Phoenix Empire, which controlled the entirety of the Black Phoenix Great World. Even under them were low-rank powers like a Five Heaven Sect which controlled 10 or so lesser worlds and was subordinate to the Black Phoenix Empire!

This way, it could be said that the Nineyuan Sect unified the chaosworld! There was certainly lesser strife and anarchy in this era.

His understanding of the contemporary martial arts and cultivation techniques evolved as well. The techniques in Black Phoenix library were mainly focused on bloodlines and battle spirit. The difficulty of cultivation had increased and the difficulty of keeping up a stable foundation had multiplied as well!

As for sword cultivation, the subject he specialized in, his understanding increased the most. The sword arts of this new era focused on body control and finesse instead of raw power. While this increased the difficulty of mastering sword arts, it increased his enthusiasm as a sword cultivator as well!

Finally, his understanding of his Black Phoenix bloodline increased as well. The techniques in the Divine Library, while not as in-depth as the Black Phoenix Divine Codex, were quite powerful as well. After reading them, his understanding of the Black Phoenix’s divine and innate abilities increased.

Heifeng Jiansui sighed for a moment. Today, would be his last day in the library. Walking up to the librarian, he said, “Master librarian, I would like to thank you for your help in these three months. Today is my final day here. I would like to use my privilege as the prince to take a single book with me.”

Hearing this, the librarian took Heifeng Jiansui to a secret room. In this room, there was only a single shelf. It had total nine books.

“Take a look at them and choose your manual. You can only read the first three pages. If you turn a single page more, I’ll assume that you have chosen that book.”

Seeing the manuals, Heifeng Jiansui was surprised to find that his Quintessence Sword Codex was among them. Of course, he didn’t want that book.

Picking up the ‘Black Phoenix Undying Cycle’ manual, he read the first three pages before putting that book aside. After that, he read through the first three pages of every other book on the shelf before taking the ‘Black Phoenix Undying Cycle’ with him.

“Hehe, he didn’t notice my spiritual sense pierce through the 9 manuals and copy them. That ‘Thousand Books, One Heart’ spirit sense cultivation technique only required reading thousands of manuals to cultivate it and I cultivated it to Great Completion by reading every book in the library! While it isn’t that special of a technique, it is certainly more useful in certain special circumstances!” In these three months, this ‘Thousand Books, One Heart’ technique had proven exceptionally useful to him. In this great library, cultivating this technique had twice the efficiency at half the costs. Taking in to consideration Heifeng Jiansui’s innate talent, it wasn’t a surprise for him to master it quickly!

+++

After three months, Heifeng Jiansui returned to his new room. After his arrival, he spotted a notice written by his mother and a black token. “Due to the duty assigned to you, the Emperor has offered you entry into the top-grade refining rooms. Use this token to access the room.” Following his mother’s advice, he picked up all his belongings and entered the top-grade refining room!