BLOODLINE TEMPERING: Transforming From Worm To Dragon

Chapter 24: Book Pavilion

When it was his turn to be paid, the representative handed six Contribution Tokens to Chen Tu.

Among the group of disciples here, only three individuals received a token extra from the rest. Naturally, that includes Chen Tu. This indicated that he wasn't the only one that caught Elder Wei Xuan's attention.

It was considered quite a wake-up call to Chen Tu before he self-assumed that he had better potential than the others.

Since he got paid, there's nothing else keeping Chen Tu here. Furthermore, he intended to visit the Book Pavilion later, and he should get ready to make his way over there.

But with so many common weeds to haul over to his land, Chen Tu had no choice but to borrow a cart from the Spiritual Garden's Department and transport them in one go. That didn't take too much of Chen Tu's time to get everything done.

After arranging them carefully, Chen Tu immediately made his way to the Book Pavilion.

Sadly, he's still too late. With over ten thousand disciples in the Outer Grotto, the Book Pavilion did not worry about lacking books and visitors. Instead, the pavilion was too busy, to the point they had to restrict the time a disciple could spend inside.

One Contribution Token is equivalent to half an hour of reading time. And that wasn't the end of it. There's another charge, which is applied to each book.

All disciples would have to pay an upfront fee after choosing a book to refer to and study them. Of course, they're allowed to make a copy of the book as long it wasn't for distribution purposes. This explains why most of the disciples had pens and paper with them.

Furthermore, each disciple could only access the Book Pavilion once a week. Hence, those that come here are disciples that had been preparing their capital for quite some time before arriving.

Of course, there would still be some disciples that came here just to search for reading material to use later. After all, it was said that each floor inside the Book Pavilion had close to a hundred thousand books. One-third was related to Martial Arts, one-third to Spiritual Gathering Art, and one-third to expert records and other reading materials.

Chen Tu immediately considered if he should enter and waste this once-a-week opportunity to step inside the Book Pavilion. One must remember that he's illiterate, which would be a waste of opportunity.

Feeling conflicted, Chen Tu asked a few of them if there was a teacher around providing reading service to the juniors. And to his surprise, some disciples pointed their fingers at an elder sleeping on a tree.

To be precise, on one of the few long and spacious branches of the tree. A few iron nails were hammered into the branch, allowing it to be capable of hanging something.

Since Chen Tu hardly had a choice, he made his way over to the elder.

"Junior Chen Tu pays his respect to the elder." Chen Tu said.

This display of consideration was necessary because of the elder's seniority. Chen Tu was unsure if this elderly is really capable of helping him, but nevertheless, he had to try.

"The queue into the pavilion is over there, not here... This place is this old man's napping place, so... Go away." said the elder before he turned his back to Chen Tu.

His reply made Chen Tu suspect that he had approached the wrong person. But with only a single tree nearby and only one elderly sleeping on top of the tree, what kind of mistake could Chen Tu make?

"Junior is indeed intends to enter the pavilion, but unfortunately, he can't read. Hence, this junior approaches the elder to seek help." Chen Tu wasn't willing to give up and continued.

"Just check out the books with drawings. To learn about Martial Arts, you only need to comprehend the essence and movement. And for Spiritual Gathering Art, just ask someone to recite the mantra, and you'll be good to go."

"Not knowing how to read is not a reason." the elder continued. "My words remain. Go away." he added.

"Could this elder teach junior how to read and write?" Chen Tu persisted and continued.

"Hahaha... An old man half-step away into my coffin was actually requested to teach a brat how to read and write? What kind of animal guts you've eaten to do so?" the elder asked.

"Nothing, elder. Junior is simply being stubborn." Chen Tu quickly responded to the elder's sentence.

"Fine. Grab me a bottle of Meadow Spring, and I'll consider it." the elder said and turned his head to look at Chen Tu. This was his first time giving a sliver of attention to Chen Tu.

"Junior understood." Chen Tu nodded and quickly made his way toward the canteen. He would definitely pass the caligraphy shop, so Chen Tu purchased a few items like ink, pen, and paper.

Although there were still a few hours to dinner, the canteen was open for paying patrons. After all, not everyone here was as frugal as Chen Tu, and the cheapest paying meal could be bought using a single Contribution Token.

"Brother waiter, may I have a bottle of Meadow Spring for takeaway?" Chen Tu asked after making his way inside the canteen.

"Meadow Spring? Sure, that'll be five Contribution Tokens." the waiter responded. The Outer Grotto only sells two types of rice wine, one of which was the Meadow Spring the elder requested.

"What? Five?" the exorbitant price surprised Chen Tu. He had no idea it could be this expensive. But regardless, he could only buy it and swallow the pain.

The bottle of wine felt heavier than anything Chen Tu had come across. Not even the cart full of common weeds is as cumbersome as this bottle of wine. And the bottle merely held between five to six cups of alcohol inside.

"Elder. This is the bottle of Meadow Spring you've asked for." Chen Tu held the bottle of wine with both hands while informing the elderly. Unsure if the elder would come down from the tree, he lifted it higher than his eye level for the elder.