As Aiden followed Nilger out of the room, the Professor fell into deep thought.

“Excuse me if I’m speaking out of line professor, but was he truly that brilliant for you to have personally attempted to enrol him.”, Sophie said after a few minutes of silence.

Balmer shook his head with a smile, “You know we don’t lack talents here in Trimshire, Sophie. Its a known fact that cultivating from the base up till foundation 3-dan intermediate stage in two years is something that most of our good students can do without any trouble.”

Sophie nodded her head. It was indeed not uncommon to hear of people reaching that stage in 2 years, and some geniuses are even faster, reaching the 3rd-dan consummation or 4th-dan primary stages.

“The only thing that normally stands out about him is that he is too young to have started cultivating. If what we know is all true, he has been cultivating since he was 10.”

“True, professor.”, replied Sophie.

After pausing for a while, the professor spoke, “Have you ever heard of bloodline resonance?”

“Yes of course.” Sophie replied confidently, “Isn’t it the phenomenon where a person experiences subservience towards another person with a purer bloodline if they are from the same lineag……… wait, sir….”, her calm expression turned to shock, “You don’t mean to say…….!!”

Balmer chuckled with his eyes closed. “Yes.”

“Things are about to get interesting in the Academy. Make sure that no one else knows of this unless I say otherwise.”, Saying this, the professor walked back into his room., “Ah, another failed experiment damn it! I have to clean it all up again.”

Sophie became lost in her thoughts, “If he’s truly the child from that family…..”, she shuddered at the notion.

Walking around the academy grounds with Nilger introducing the various structures, Aiden and he arrived outside the library.

“And this, ”, Nilger said, “is the Trimshire Library. This might sound like an exaggeration, but this library houses some of the finest books you can find in the country. You can find books on anything ranging from seals, alchemy, formations, martial skills, battle skills, cultivation manuals, mana skill books and more. Other than higher ranking spells that are to be used by foundation 7th dan experts, students are generally allowed to read everything else. The only restriction put on them is by their occupational ranks.”

“Occupational ranks?”, Aiden asked.

“Oh you are quite young so you might not have heard of occupational ranks”, Nilger chuckled, “Occupational ranks refer to the rank assigned to you by your respective occupation indicating your mastery in that specific occupation. All occupations have ranks F to A, with F indicating the lowest level of mastery and A representing the highest level of mastery possible.”

“Oh………”, Aiden was about to ask something to Nilger but Denzel understood what he was about to ask and answered it instead, “They restrict lower ranks from reading higher rank books because that can lead to undesirable problems in their learning.

Reading things you cannot understand or don’t have the power to use is detrimental to your own development. It can confuse and mislead you.”

As Nilger was about to move ahead, Denzel told Aiden, “Enter the library, I want to see if there are things I can remember and recognise.”

“Um Nilger”, Aiden stopped him, “Can I take a look inside the library?”

Nilger thought a bit, ‘It should be fine to let him in. How much can he learn in a short time anyway?’

“Just give me a second, I’ll ask the professor for permission.”, Nilger said and walked away, returning after a few minutes. “You have permission. He said you can look around inside the library as much as you want.”

“Please convey my thanks to the Professor.”, he said.

As he reached the entrance, a guard blocked him. Nilger clarified to the guard that Professor Balmer had given permission, to which the guard grumpily gave way.

Once inside, Aiden took a good look. Long and tall bookshelves that touched the ceiling, were all filled with books. Each shelf was labelled neatly at the top, ‘Alchemy - I’, ‘Martial skills - II’, ‘Formations - I’; all sorts of books were available.

“You need martial skills. Look for them. While your cultivation has indeed increased, your battle skills remain unpolished.”, Denzel spoke.

“What are Martial skills?”, Aiden asked.

“Martial skills are short but unique techniques that help you utilise your mana the most efficiently to execute a move. They are important to improve your sloppy fighting style. Once you read a book on one, you’ll understand.”

“Hey, my fighting skills are good. I haven’t been defeated yet right?”, Aiden retorted.

Denzel sighed, “You’ve been fighting opponents by relying on your superior cultivation. Your actual battle skills are absolute horseshit.”

“But…..”, Aiden tried to come up with something to say but he knew Denzel was speaking the truth. There was no logical argument he could make at that point. Thus he let the matter rest and looked around for any shelf that was named Martial Skills.

Finally arriving at a martial-skills shelf, he browsed through the book titles as Denzel carefully observed them. After exhausting the entire shelf of books, he asked Denzel, “Um anything catch your eye yet?”

“None. They are good ones which I know of, but none of them is good enough to meet my standards. Look for others.”

A few students who were reading books looked at him sceptically.

Because the bookshelf he had just gone through had some of the best books on martial skills in the library. His act of keeping them back as if none of them caught his interest, was highly disrespectful to the Academy and the students who practised the skills.

After finally looking through 5 similar bookshelves, Denzel finally said “Stop! That one!”

Aiden looked at the skill. The cover page read ‘Shadow Blade’

“Humph”, a voice came from behind Aiden.

Aiden looked back to see an older boy, probably 15 to 17 years old, looking at him with scorn in his eyes.

“After rejecting all the best books in the entire library, you pick up the trashiest book of all. I thought you were a genius considering you are so young and still in the library, but it seems you are just an idiot.”

Aiden gave an embarrassed laugh while internally asking Denzel, “Hey is this really the best one out of all the books we have browsed?” Meanwhile, the teenager who had mocked him had walked away after giving a light scoff.

“Oh, of course not. It’s the trashiest indeed”, Denzel said.

Aiden : “..........”

“Then why did you tell me to pick this?”

“Because this is just a trashy martial skill that was actually derived from a battle skill I just remembered. The skill it is based on is called ‘The Shadowed Descent of the Palm’. And that skill should be absolutely perfect for you at your level. In fact, I can confidently say that its better than any skill you can find here.”

“Hey, but what’s the difference between Martial skills and Batlle skills.”, Aiden asked curiously, taking a seat nearby. There were many seats scattered across the library for students to sit and read if they happened to be inspired by something in a book suddenly. 

“While a martial skill is just a single move, a battle skill is an entire style of fighting with multiple transformations. A martial skill gives you a single type of movement or attack to execute. But a battle skill teaches you a method of fighting that can adapt and change throughout the battle according to the necessity.”

As Aiden sat with his eyes closed in a meditative pose, Denzel explained the entire Battle skill and the various intricacies and transformations associated with it.

Martial skills and Battle skills, both were divided into 4 general categories: palm skills, fist skills, leg skills, and weapon skills. In every skill, a person’s mastery and familiarity with the skill could be divided into 4 stages: minor mastery, major accomplishment, internalisation, and consummation.

The Shadowed Descent of the Palm was a Battle skill that emphasised speed and flexibility. Its essence lay in how one could imbue certain muscles with mana to get a tremendous burst of speed and how the blade of the palm could be used diversely in the flow of battle.

While it would have taken a normal cultivator almost a month or so to learn and understand the skill, Aiden was able to do the same in about an hour because of how Denzel explained the very core of the skill and imparted concentrated knowledge to him. To call Denzel a fantastic teacher would be an understatement.

Meanwhile, hidden behind a corner, observing Aiden’s silent posture, was Nilger.

‘Just what is he doing? The professor told me to watch over him and report if he does anything wrong but………..would this even be considered wrong.’