As soon as the first light came through the window and entered the bedroom a young boy opened his green eyes and jumped away from the gentle warm embrace of the bed sheets Into the cold morning air.

He immediately moved towards a table were he had laid out the days clothes on, normally he would not have bothered to prepare for the next day in such a manner but today was special. He had been waiting for this day a long time and nothing would stand in his way today, today was the start of his cultivation journey.

After dressing in a dark blue shirt and some lighter blue trousers, he was now ready for the next part of the day. He had prepared a schedule for the day and he would follow it to get to the library as soon as possible, every second counted.

He left his room and moved towards the dinner room as quickly as his small legs could take him there. When he started to approach the double doors he slowed down and looked down on himself to ensure that nothing was wrong with his clothes.

After seeing that everything was perfect he pushed opened the door with as much force as he could exert, which was not a lot but still good enough to make the door swing open. Normally a servant would handle this but he had started the day before they were done preparing.

Inside the large room sat a single old man at the head of the table, his grandfather, Victor. When he noticed William enter the room he smiled gently for a second before it transformed into a mischievous one. As he spoke you could almost hear the laughter that was on the verge of bursting out.

"Good morning William, did you have a pleasant night?"

"Yes grandfather, my sleep was pleasant. How was yours?"

Hearing the response from William his smile turned into an outright grin.

"That's nice to hear. Mine was great, I slept like s baby. My only concern was that you wouldn't be able to fall asleep and we wouldn't want you to be sleepy while choosing your cultivation technique."

Hearing him talking about choosing his cultivation technique William got even more excited. He almost ran to the table and jumped into his seat. This was when he realized something. He was alone with his grandfather, there were currently not even servants in the room. This was the first time he had arrived so early. Normally the servant would come wake him up and guide him in accordance with the time that the breakfast would be served and so he would arrive just before the dishes were brought out.

Victor seeing this laughed a little before he started to tease him.

"It's seems that breakfast is not ready quite yet so you will have to wait. But don't worry it should be ready in around half an hour."

Hearing this William almost shook from the despair. What had gone wrong with his perfect plan? He would get dressed, eat his breakfast before being guided towards the library by his grandfather then he would choose a cultivation technique and start practicing immediately. He hadn't anticipated arriving before the food was even done, such a mistake.

Seeing William react like a heartbroken maiden Victor could no longer keep himself from laughing out loud.

Upon hearing his grandfather laugh from his misery he gave him a death stare before shouting.

"It's not funny grandpa! I've been waiting forever for this!"

Victor could seemingly not decide between teasing his cute grandson some more and placating him, so he simply choose to mix them.

"Then there should be no problem with you waiting for an hour or two more, but don't worry we'll go to the library as soon as everyone is done eating."

This seem to have a positive effect on William as he calmed down a little, or rather his excitement upon hearing that they would soon go drowned out any other feeling he had at the moment.

Soon the dinner room door was opened by a servant dressed in completely dark blue clothes.

In came a golden haired women with green eyes, even without knowing who she was one could instantly realize she was related to William as their hair and eyes were almost identical even their faces had similar soft features.

When she saw that not only was Victor there but William was also sitting obediently on his chair with an restless expression. For a moment surprise was visible on her face but this quickly turned into a amused expression.

"Good morning grandfather, and good morning William. I hope you didn't stay up the whole night."

"Good morning Amelia."

"Good morning mom. I did not stay up the whole night, I went to bed early and got a good night sleep."

As he spoke William puffed up his chest and raised his chin after telling them about how he went to bed early. Of course he would go to bed early so that the night would go by faster, he was very proud of himself for coming up with that idea.

Amelia only laughed a little before going to he seat to the left of the head of the table. There was no real structure of where they would sit when it was only their family eating but they still had some seating arrangement if only to make the younger generation used to it.

Soon more people walked into the chamber.

A black haired young man soon walked into the room. He was dressed up in a fancy dark blue silk shirt. The young man also got some amusement from seeing his youngest brother being this early and waiting for everyone else.

He also said said his greetings before sitting next to Amelia, his mother.

Soon after that the door opened and in came two bickering young men. The slightly taller and older of the two had dark blonde hair and blue eyes, he was dressed in a white shirt and black pants. The other one had flowing blonde-green hair and bright green eyes.

They stopped their argument to greet everyone before sitting down at the table next to each other. And between Aaric and William.

Normally this would be a strange sight, with everyone sitting on the left side and the right side being completely empty.

As if they where waiting for this moment when everyone was siting down the doors behind Victor was opened and the breakfast was brought out.

His two eldest brother ate quickly before excusing themselves to go and help out their father. William also ate as fast as he could but he couldn't eat faster than his older brothers who were almost adults, but seeing them leave only encouraged him to eat faster. Sadly for him he still had to wait for his grandfather complete his meal before they could leave so he spent the majority of the later parts staring at Victor.

After being done he almost dragged Victor away before he was stopped by his remaining brother who had only watched so far.

"Grandpa, William wait a moment. You don't mind me following you right? I was planning on looking for some martial arts techniques."

Victor responded before William could say no and run away.

"Alright Adalgar. But don't take to much time eating up."

Hearing this William just gave his older brother a death stare.

After a few more excruciating minutes of waiting they where soon on their way to the library after saying their goodbyes to Amelia who had other business.

William soon saw the side entrance to the library that they where taking to avoid having to go outside in the cold. While Victor could ignore the cold of the approaching winter he and Adal could not and would have to dress up in winter clothes so it was easier to take the internal path to the library.

Opening the door he was immediately surrounded by bookshelves. But his was just the floor filled with mundane books and not what he wanted.

As they approached a staircase he could feel his heartbeat beating faster and faster, so far in his life he had been stopped from going up to the second floor by the hidden guards and barriers but today nothing stopped him as he took the first step upwards.

Behind him Victor and Adalgar only smiled while watching him.

After entering the second floor Adalgar split up with them as he was going to the area filled with martial arts and they were going to the cultivation section.

William was eagerly looking at every book they were passing and trying to read every title, unfortunately not every book was written in a language he could understand. In fact most titles were illegible to him.

As they approached the area holding all the different cultivation techniques that the clan had gathered he was gently guided to a smaller part of the section with only two medium-sized bookshelves in it, worse was that they were not even filled completely with books but both were instead only 60% filled.

This was when Victor spoke and disturbed his focused mind and beating heart.

"These are the techniques suited for nature and forest aligned cultivation. You are free to choose between them."

This was like a lightning bolt that hit his mind. He had heard and understood that he had the nature and forest alignment but before today he had not truly understood just how this restricted him from all the other lovely books.

The nature alignment wasn't the most common element to have to but it also wasn't particularly rare, but it was one of the nicer elements because while it wasn't particularly strong it did greatly strengthen the vitality of the wielder and helped them live longer compared to cultivators of the same realm. It was also forgiving when a user made a mistake with it, the most common result from a cultivation deviation simply being some minor internal injured that the user could heal with their boosted vitality. This led to many high level cultivators with this alignment experimenting with it and creating more cultivation technique, this all led to there being a high amount of cultivation techniques with this alignment compared to other alignments.

William knew all of this so he had expected there to be a full section of different techniques, he thought that at minimum there would be five different bookshelves filled with books, which was why seeing these two half filled bookshelves was truly despair inducing for his young mind.