Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 134 A fateful encounter

When the bell rang to hand in the papers, Lü Wenyuan was the first to rush out, not even intending to wait until the end of the paper-handling period!
"Junior brother?"

With a puzzled look, Asagao casually handed the test paper to Zhou Qian and hurriedly chased after him.

As soon as he stepped outside, he saw Lü Wenyuan standing at the door with a strange expression, staring intently at the crowd of people coming and going.

Asagao was completely baffled: "Junior brother, you..."

"Senior sister, I didn't answer the question."

"what!?"

Lu Wenyuan said, "I suddenly feel that I should go and see the Chang'an Library."

Asagao wanted to ask, "Aren't you afraid of Senior Sister Jiao?", but seeing Lu Wenyuan's unusually serious expression, she swallowed her words and replied perfunctorily, "I heard you have more than a thousand books in your collection, which is quite a lot, but it's still a bit lacking compared to our Taiyi Ziwei Sect. What's there to see?"

“Let’s look at the books inside, and also at the people inside. I’ve heard that anyone can read the books inside… Senior Sister, do you think it’s possible that there are mortals with residual spiritual roots who have actually learned cultivation on their own?”

When Asagao heard this question, she also fell silent.

A library open to everyone, containing even basic theories of cultivation and various magical manuals, was itself a source of great fear for her.

How could cultivation techniques and secret manuals be so easily revealed to others?
She spent a lot of sect merits to exchange for various cultivation manuals and Taoist explanations!

Cultivating immortality should be something lofty and noble, how could it... how could it become so lowly?
However, despite feeling uncomfortable, Asagao did not interfere with the choices made by other sects and forces.

With a broken spiritual root, the path to immortality is severed; how could one possibly achieve anything through cultivation!

She thought confidently.

"Senior, good luck on your exam this afternoon. I'm heading out now!"

As Lü Wenyuan spoke, he channeled his inner energy and, in the blink of an eye, his figure flew towards the Chang'an Library.

Entering Chang'an Library is very simple. After verifying your identity, you only need to apply for a library card to enter and borrow books.

However, when Lü Wenyuan entered the library, he discovered that the entire library was not as rumored, with only a little over a thousand books, but rather a dozen rows of densely packed bookshelves, each one filled to the brim! There were at least several thousand books!
He randomly picked a bookshelf, walked over, and pulled out a thick book.

But when he opened it, he discovered that the entire book was written in a language he had never seen before.

"What kind of script is this!?"

He muttered to himself, puzzled.

"The language of flowers is somewhat similar to the language of Middle-earth, so it's not difficult to learn."

A cultivator had appeared beside Lü Wenyuan without his noticing, and kindly answered his questions. The cultivator's cultivation level was extremely low, barely at the Qi Induction stage. Seeing Lü Wenyuan looking over, he gave him a wide, friendly smile and said, "If you're interested, I can teach you. Besides, the night school at Chang'an Academy teaches this language every night! It can't hurt to learn; most of the books in the library are about flower language!"

After a moment's hesitation, Lü Wenyuan cupped his hands and introduced himself: "Lü Wenyuan, disciple of Master Pinglin of the Taiyi Ziwei Sect."

The cultivator, however, seemed to be unfamiliar with etiquette and manners. He awkwardly returned the greeting by cupping his hands in a gesture that was completely wrong, just like Lü Wenyuan.

He said, "My name is Wang Qiqing, and I should be considered a disciple of the Taiyin Sect."

Upon hearing that the other party was a "disciple of the Taiyin Sect," Lü Wenyuan's expression turned colder, but his curiosity ultimately prevailed, and he asked, "What language is this 'flower language' from? How can it be passed down in so many books? I've never heard of it before!"

Wang Qiqing waved his hand and said, "Hey, this is nothing. These are the results of our Taiyin Sect disciples' hard work copying for over a month. In fact, on our Blue Star, there are at least hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of ancient books and classics that have been passed down for thousands of years! If you include the ones we have now, hey! There are so many that we can't even count them all!"

"Blue Star?"

Wang Qiqing scratched his head and explained, "It's another world, you could think of it as something like the 'grotto-heavens' or 'small worlds' you all talk about! The Flower Language is from there!"

How do you have so many books?

“It’s probably because our lifespan is short!” Wang Qiqing had never really thought about this question. Now that he was stumped, he thought about it carefully and replied, “We humans on Earth can’t cultivate immortality. In the past, our average lifespan was only twenty or thirty years. Later, as technology advanced, our average lifespan was still no more than a hundred years. Compared to your lifespans of several hundred or even a thousand years, it’s really nothing.”

"Perhaps that's why we feel a sense of urgency, especially for us Chinese. We have to record everything we encounter. Individual abilities are limited. Only by recording things can we allow future generations to continue exploring on the shoulders of our predecessors. We should learn from the mistakes of those who came before us!"
"History must be recorded, and knowledge must also be recorded. There is nothing that cannot be written down. By writing it down, future generations can go further based on books."

"That's probably it."

Lü Wenyuan was quite moved by what he heard.

Because the civilization of the Guixu Realm is still in a state of uncontrolled development, the scripts used in different human settlements vary slightly. Only when towns that have been incorporated into some major sects and powers will they gradually assimilate and start using the script and language commonly used by cultivators, namely the Central Continent Language.

Among the ten continents and three islands, there are hundreds or even thousands of languages. Some are not very different, and people can even understand each other to some extent; others are very different and are extremely difficult to learn.

Therefore, in this chaotic situation, the Central Continent language, which has the most users and the widest range of users, has become the "official language" of cultivators. It is a must-learn language for all major sects. After all, learning a language is as simple as drinking water for cultivators. As long as one has the Foundation Establishment cultivation level, one can naturally "understand" it by relying on the cultivation power. On this basis, learning to speak it becomes much simpler.

However, no matter how widespread the Central Continent language becomes, it cannot change the reality that pronunciations vary from place to place, and characters differ from place to place. Languages ​​only become more refined with more use and a larger user base. The situation in the Guixu Realm has resulted in many places having extremely rudimentary language systems, and their writing systems are even more appalling, not to mention the complete absence of any historical records! Even having a county annals or similar records is considered a sign of great refinement in such places!
As for books on astronomy, geography, mathematics, medicine, and so on, only cultivators have the energy and ability to record them. But everyone with a little time goes to cultivate and seek the Dao. Apart from cultivators who are related to the Dao they seek, who would bother to study those things?

As Wang Qiqing said, most cultivators who possess the ability to record knowledge believe they can live forever, so why would they care about their descendants? Why would they compile books? Even if they did write, it would only be cultivation techniques and secret manuals, and they would have little interest in anything else.

Thinking of this, Lü Wenyuan sighed sincerely, shook the book in his hand, and asked, "May I ask what book this is, fellow Daoist?"

Wang Qiqing grinned and replied, "A Brief Explanation of Special and General Relativity!"

"?"

(End of this chapter)