The dragon and phoenix fate twins

Chapter 5 The first step

Zan Cui arrived at her shabby abode without incident, either something was going on or she was lucky not to meet anyone from the Cui family. There also weren't any servants who stopped working only to bully her today either. Having no one attacking her verbally or physically when she is outside her room is very unusual. But she doesn't care to find out. If someone is visiting or they go out to do something important that requires all the 89 peapole of the clan to go to she doesn't care. Besides they have never cared to tell her something unless they are bragging to her.  She has been numb to it all for years, yet they still try to get a reaction from her.

Now entering the jade pendant and picking her 2 cultivation manuals is the more pressing issue, after all, she can't do anything without the power to do so. So she entered once again and walked directly towards the self with the manuals. Before she picks anyone of them up she slowly reads through all the titles. Titles like Holy Water Steps, Boulder Straightening Technic, and Hurricane Cutting Fist. While their names sound quite bizarre most powerful techniques have such names as it has become a tradition to name it in such ways. It has been so for millennia and no one knows why or how it became like this. But it is one of the world's oldest traditions that has remained unchanged among the majority. Analysing the manuals more closely she noticed that all the manuals were sorted by difficulty and rarity. How more difficult the method is the more formidable it will be once mastered.  The rarer it is there is lesser peapole who know how to counter it exists. It is also well known that the rarer the manual is it is highly likely that it contains a very formidable cultivation method. The masters who created them only want their most highly skilled disciples to learn it or pass it on to someone worthy of it. As such they are hidden away waiting for someone formidable to obtain it. The opposite can also be true, a manual that is deemed useless won't be passed on to others and those become very rare, but in this place, there is no way that manuals like those are here. 

But that does not mean that Zan will choose the most difficult manual to master as it may not be suitable for her. This is an important and difficult task when you are allowed to choose from so many of them so she starts to systematically remove some of them. First, she removes all of the weakest methods. So she removed all the 6th-grade and 5th-grade manuals. So she instantly removed about 30 manuals. So all that is left are 4th to 1- grade manuals. She then removes any technics that need a special element attribute. While these techniques are powerful and are the most numerous they are very popular and give the cultivated a good foundation when they truly need to learn elemental attacks as more complex attacks need attributes. So choosing an elemental technique to learn in the beginning makes it so that you don't need to find a new technique manual once you become stronger. After all most cultivators are specialists as they become stronger faster.  So most cultivators have a maximum of 3 different cultivation manuals under their belt as it is harder to master too many. So they usually only choose 1 and leave the other for when they find a really powerful cultivation manual if they find one worthy of them.

But she doesn't need to discover new manuals as she already has many of their legendary manuals to choose from. So she doesn't have to worry about that. Another reason she chose to disclude them now, in the beginning, is that attribute techniques are too flashy and that is something she doesn't need at this point in time. Also, none attribute techniques are more general, and while there is a misconception that they are weak techniques although they are very powerful they are harder to master, and with so few mastering them most think that they are not powerful and not worthwhile. So only a few know their true value. In the past, she was not able to check her attributes so she doesn't know what she actually has, but she was able to find a non-attribute manual and by studying it she learned this truth. So while she can choose 2 manuals today she will only choose one for now and she wants to choose something she is more familiar with and not test her luck with an attribute technique when she does not know which one she can learn. So now all that is left are 7 manuals. 2 first grade, 1 second grade, and the rest are 4th grade manuals. The 4-grade manuals are The Mist Sword Technic, blazing Void Fist, Gray Stealth Technic, and Empty Soul Arts. The 2-grade manuals are called, Shadow Claw and Leaping Wolf Arts. Then there is the most powerful and rarest technique, which is simply called Eclipse. Such a simple name is highly unusual and she can't tell what it is about but being a 1 grade manual it must be very powerful.

But for some reason, she is drawn to it, not because she knows that it is powerful but it is like it is singing to her. But she doesn't hear anything, it is all in her mind. It's a song with no lyrics. It is an intoxicating yet unsettling hum. It is like it is telling her that she is meant to choose it. She has heard many stories and legends about cultivation techniques and cultivators having a destined fate. They will synchronize with each other and the cultivator will be able to defeat opponents with a higher level than they have. She never believed it was true because that requires the manual to have some sentients and it is well known that only legendary spiritual weapons and artifacts can develop a spirit. Cultivation manuals can't. But she knows that this is what is happening and that this is the cultivation manual that she should choose. So she focuses on the song she is hearing to find a clue about how to unlock it. As Estial said these cultivation manuals choose their master and only by doing something to unlock it will she be able to learn it. These are based on the instructions of the creator of these techniques has set in place in order to find suitable cultivators for their technique. They don't want just anybody to learn them as most would have mediocre performances and those sully their name. 

It took her a while to make sense of the humming song in her head but the more she focused the clearer it became. The humming started to form words then sentences and then she finally knew what she needed to do. Zan Cui bit her finger to draw blood and let it drip on the manual. The manual that was originally black then turned red like the blood moon with a black circle in the middle, resembling an eclipse. She knew that it was a sign that she had unlocked the right to learn the manual's secrets. She opens it and starts to read the sentences written on the black pages in gold. It turns out that this technique method is about controlling space and void. It is utilizing the pure essence of qi and manipulating things around it. Like making things heavier or lighter. Making the user faster and slowing things down. Use void-based attacks. It even said that if you have mastered all the things in the manual you can even freeze time for  5 minutes. Reading this Zan Cui knows that this is a very overpowered technique but also very dangerous and hard to master. It requires a lot of hard work that at its mildest she will go through pain and if she is unlucky it can kill her. But she is not afraid, what can be more painful than what she has gone through? Had she not already died and been reborn again? She is not afraid of pain and death, but she is afraid of repeating everything that happened in the passed. This technique is tailor-made for her and she will not give up. She can only move forward and work herself to the bone so that no one can step on her and the only 2 people in her life that she can consider family. This technique is easier to use in the dark and they will not notice a thing. This is what she wants and it is a good thing. But at the same time, this technique is so powerful that she needs to hide it in case someone wants to kill her for it. But there is no turning back.

So she continues to read the first step in the manual. The first step is called Moon essence. It is the most basic technique in the manual as expected. It explains how to use the qi around her and make it move to her will. Normally cultivators can only absorb the qi into their body to expand their own qi pool and they can only use their own qi. But with this technique, she still needs to absorb the qi into her body to level up and become more powerful. She does not need to use her own qi for her attacks but the qi around her. However, how much of it she can use depends on her understanding of the technique and which cultivation level she is in. But it gives her a huge advantage over cultivators at the same level as her. She can actually defeat someone a level higher than her own. So even if she did not resonate with the manual as she did the result would be the same if she managed to learn it. She swishes to the next page and sees that all the words are blurry so she can not read it. This means that she can only read the next part once she mastered the part before it. So she read through the Moon essence technique again to make sure that she did not misread it and she confirmed that she did not. As this is the beginner level she doesn't need to go through trials of hardships that could lead to her death and it is also painless. Moon essence is basically the normal qi absorption for all cultivators but with a twist. She needs to absorb the qi into her dantian but at the same time control the movement of qi so that she can absorb herself. This is a lot harder and requires a lot more patience and focus. Zan Cui has no time to lose so she sits in a lotus position and starts to enter a meditative cultivation.