The Next Day.
After sunrise, Ethan went straight to class like yesterday and, unlike what he expected, he didn't encounter any trouble.
He spent the next three hours listening to the instructor.
This time, it was another instructor, her name was Instructor Mayu, who taught them about the soul.
It wasn't anything new to Ethan; he already knew everything she talked about and even more.
After all, he was someone who had researched various things; he was like a supernatural researcher of sorts.
He had witnessed, created, and experienced countless things that these cultivators could only ever dream of.
Anyway, Instructor Mayu did a great job teaching the new sect members about the souls of cultivators.
The soul is a very abstract yet extremely complicated concept, one of the three things that make up a being: the physical body, spirituality, and the soul.
To put it simply, the soul is like computer storage.
It is capable of storing an unlimited amount of data, such as memories, experiences, abilities, constitutions, bloodlines, and so on.
But a soul cannot just store those things on its own. That is where the physical body comes in.
If the soul is compared to computer storage, then the physical body is like the computer processor. The physical body records everything and stores it in the soul.
The bigger and stronger the soul, the more it can store, and the more the cultivator, mage, or any type of awakener can grow.
It might sound simple, but it isn't. Unlike the physical body, the soul cannot be trained or forced to grow stronger.
The soul can only grow with time and experience.
There is simply no other way unless one resorts to dangerous and unconventional methods that could cause serious problems.
And even if someone found a way to grow their soul's strength, it would never come without an extremely high price.
Ethan had met a lot of people who did dark things to increase the strength of their souls because they wanted to expand their potential.
But in the end, all of them died in very painful ways, many of them sent to hell by Ethan himself.
The soul is also the most important part of a being.
Even after the physical body dies, the soul lives on, carrying all the experiences it possessed when alive.
If the soul is able to survive the cycle of samsara, once it reincarnates, it can access the things it stored from its previous life.
Of course, this happens very rarely, maybe one in a couple of billion cases.
As for spirituality, you could compare it to the motherboard of a computer, the thing responsible for connecting the physical body with the soul.
It makes it possible for the physical body to access everything stored in the soul, such as inherited bloodlines, bloodline abilities, inherited talents, potential, and so on.
Unlike the soul and the physical body, spirituality does not grow. Instead, it expands in correspondence with the growth of the soul and body.
Still, there are many people, despite being born of awakeners and consuming resources and herbs, who find themselves without a valid spirituality, making them unable to become awakeners.
By the way, "awakener" is a common term used to refer to people who have the ability to pursue any path of cultivation, such as becoming Qi cultivators, mages, aura masters, and so on.
This might also explain why some of them failed the entrance exam: their spirituality wasn't developed yet, or it was simply invalid.
Ethan himself had been born with invalid spirituality in one of his lives, making him unable to become an awakener.
But after about thirty years, his spirituality naturally became valid.
By then, however, it was too late to pursue that path, so he decided to become a scholar instead.
It was, somehow, disappointingly fun.
Soon the class ended, and just like yesterday, the elder gave thirty minutes for sect members to ask questions and clarify their doubts.
Once the class was over, Ethan expected the subordinates of the external forces to bother him again, but they didn't.
It made him wonder if they had healed their brain rot.
Ethan wasn't going to start his final day of training until sundown, so he was basically free.
Since he already had more than enough gold to last him a couple of weeks, he wasn't planning on earning more either.
"Let's go read some books then…" Ethan muttered as he headed to the central library.
Each of the departments had its own library, mostly filled with books related to their specific teachings.
For example, the Alchemy and Research Departments had a wide range of books and research materials related to alchemy and past members' research records, which could only be accessed by department members.
There was also a common library, which contained all sorts of books, located in the central palace.
"I have to say, it's a huge library. Of course, it's not nearly as good as my Dancing Library." Ethan snorted before going in.
"If you want to use the materials of the library, you have to follow the rules," the receptionist said, pointing at a board beside him.
-----
[Failure to follow the rules will result in a complete ban from ever entering the library and a fine of up to 2,500 gold.]
-Conflicts and battles are prohibited.
-Library materials are prohibited from being taken out of the building.
-Library materials are prohibited from being copied in any form.
-Readers should maintain silence and not disturb others. Failure to do so will result in a 100-gold fine and a one-week ban.
-For every hour spent on the 1st floor, readers must pay 1 gold. For the 2nd floor, 10 gold per hour.
-Access to the 3rd and 4th floors requires special permission from sect elders.
-----
Ethan was only there to learn basic things about this world, so he paid 3 gold to reserve three hours of access to the 1st floor.
Just as he entered the library, he could feel many eyes on him.
A lot of people had begun to pay attention to his existence.
Some of them were outright hostile, but they didn't act on their impulses since they were in a battle-prohibited area.
Ethan ignored them like ants and grabbed a book from one of the dozens of shelves after glancing through the titles.
The book he chose was about the geology of the world of Shinmya, the world he was currently in.
"Are we really going to leave that bastard just like that after he humiliated Conrad and the others?" one of the men asked as he watched their target, Ethan, enter the library.
"Yes, for now at least," another man replied. "Marcus has received a more important message from the kingdom, so we're going to turn our attention toward that instead."
"The Light?" the first man asked with a sigh.
"Yes," the second man replied with a nod.
"I heard the people of the Kingdom of Sakura are also looking for that thing," the third man said.
"Do we even know what exactly that thing is?" the first man asked.
"I don't know. Marcus and his brother are taking care of it. We're awaiting orders," the second man replied.
"But what about that bastard? I seriously want to teach him a lesson for what he did," the first man said with a furious tone.
"Calm down, now is not the time." The second man shook his head.
"Tomorrow, after the end of the third test, the sect members will be able to choose their cultivation methods. After that, it's going to turn into a frenzy as fights become a regular thing. That's when we'll mess with him. It's just one day, let him have his fun until then." The man glared at the library where Ethan was.