He pushed his Heaven-Defying Comprehension against the spirit ink restriction. It cracked instantly. The technique unfolded in his mind.
It was elegant. A way to partition consciousness and create mental spaces for storing memories, knowledge, and experiences. Most cultivators used it to remember cultivation insights or technique details.
But with his comprehension, Azrael could see how to expand it. Improve it. Make it something far beyond its original purpose.
He began copying, his brush flowing across the page with mechanical precision. Each stroke was perfect. Each character flawless. His hand moved so fast it blurred slightly, but the elegance never wavered.
Ten minutes later, he'd finished five copies of the Memory Palace Foundation Method.
And memorized the original completely.
He set the copies aside and moved to the next manual.
By the end of the first day, Azrael had completed over four hundred and thirty different techniques.
Five copies each. Over two thousand one hundred total copies.
His body showed no signs of fatigue. His physique, comparable to an early Foundation Establishment cultivator, treated the work like light exercise. His hand never cramped. His focus never wavered. His qi circulation kept him energized and alert.
When Elder Feng came to check on him that evening, the elder's jaw actually dropped.
"This... this is impossible."
"It's all there," Azrael said, gesturing to the neatly organized stacks. "Organized by element and technique type."
Elder Feng picked up a random manual—a water-element breathing technique—and examined it. Perfect. He picked up another—a lightning sword art. Perfect. Another—a formation manual. Perfect.
"How?" Elder Feng asked weakly.
"I work efficiently, Elder."
"This is beyond efficient. This is..." He shook his head. "Never mind. Continue. But please, get some rest. You'll burn yourself out."
"I feel fine, Elder."
And he did. But what he didn't mention was that his mind was overflowing with information. Four hundred and thirty techniques, all memorized in perfect detail, all swirling in his consciousness like a chaotic storm.
When he returned to his cave that night, Azrael immediately sat down and pulled up the Memory Palace Foundation Method from his memories.
"Time to upgrade you," he muttered.
He dove into comprehension.
The technique was simple—create a mental space, organize memories into categories, access them at will. Basic mental cultivation.
But Azrael's Heaven-Defying Comprehension tore through the fundamental concepts and rebuilt them into something greater.
Why limit it to memories? Why not store entire techniques? Complete manuals? Why make it a simple room when you could create an entire library?
And why anchor it to conscious thought when you could integrate it into the soul itself?
He spent hours refining the concept, his consciousness shaping something new. Something that had never existed before.
When he finished, he had created something extraordinary.
"Myriad Spiritual Library," he whispered.
It was a Divine-grade skill. A technique that existed at the intersection of soul cultivation and mental mastery. A technique that would let him store, categorize, and instantly access every manual, every technique, every piece of knowledge he'd ever encountered.
Now he just had to build it.
Azrael closed his eyes and sank into his soul sea.
The soul sea was a strange place.
It wasn't physical. It wasn't quite mental. It was the space where consciousness met cultivation, where the spirit resided between the body and the dao.
Azrael's soul sea had been small before—a dim, cramped space barely larger than his cave. Now, after integrating the Fire Law, it had expanded significantly.
But it was still empty. Formless.
Time to change that.
He began constructing the Myriad Spiritual Library.
The foundation came first. Not stone or wood, but conceptual architecture. He shaped it from pure will and soul energy, guided by his comprehension of the upgraded technique.
The library took form slowly, like a ship emerging from fog.
It was massive. Planet-sized. A structure so vast that its edges curved with the horizon, a sphere of knowledge suspended in the void of his soul sea.
The exterior was impossible to describe—it shifted between architectural styles, sometimes resembling ancient pagodas, sometimes looking like crystalline towers, sometimes appearing as floating platforms connected by bridges of light. It settled eventually on something that looked almost sci-fi in nature.
Sleek metallic surfaces. Geometric precision. Vast walls of transparent material that glowed with soft blue light. The whole structure pulsed with a rhythm that matched Azrael's heartbeat.
The entrance was a grand archway, easily a hundred feet tall, inscribed with flowing script that read: "Myriad Spiritual Library."
Azrael stepped through.
The interior was breathtaking.
The main hall was circular, easily a mile in diameter, with a domed ceiling that displayed a star field—not the sky, but the cosmos itself, as if the library floated in space. The floor was polished to a mirror finish, reflecting the starlight above.
Shelves lined the walls in impossible spirals, reaching up toward the dome in defiance of physics. Each shelf could hold thousands of manuals, and there were thousands of shelves.
In the center of the hall floated a crystalline pedestal, and hovering above it was a translucent tablet—glowing with soft light, its surface blank and waiting.
This was the interface. The catalog. The index to everything stored within.
As Azrael watched, the four hundred and thirty techniques he'd memorized began to materialize.
They appeared as books at first, hovering in the air around him. Then, one by one, they flew to their designated locations on the shelves. Fire techniques grouped together. Water techniques in another section. Earth, wind, lightning, poison, metal, wood, light, dark—each element claimed its own spiral of shelves.
Auxiliary techniques—formation manuals, alchemy recipes, weapon arts—found their places in separate wings that branched off from the main hall.
The space-element blade cutting technique materialized as a book bound in silver light and placed itself on a pedestal in a special alcove, marked as "Rare Techniques."
The process took hours. Each technique was catalogued, categorized, and indexed. The glowing tablet updated continuously, creating a searchable database of everything stored.
When it was finished, Azrael stood in the center of his Myriad Spiritual Library and smiled.
"Status," he said.
A new entry appeared in his interface:
[DIVINE SKILL ACQUIRED: MYRIAD SPIRITUAL LIBRARY]
Current Storage: 430 Techniques
Categories: 12 Elemental, 3 Auxiliary
Search Function: Active
Auto-Cataloging: Active
Perfect.
But the effort had cost him. Forging a Divine-grade skill in his soul had drained his qi reserves and exhausted his consciousness. His soul felt stretched thin, like a muscle pushed beyond its limit.
Azrael pulled himself out of his soul sea and collapsed onto his meditation mat.
Sleep claimed him instantly.
The next morning, Azrael woke refreshed and energized.
The Myriad Spiritual Library was complete. Now, every technique he memorized would automatically be catalogued and stored. He wouldn't have to manually organize anything—the library would handle it.
He arrived at the sect library courtyard at 8 AM sharp and immediately resumed copying.
This time, the process was smoother. As his brush moved across the pages, his mind absorbed each technique. The moment he finished memorizing one, it vanished from his conscious thought and appeared in the Myriad Spiritual Library, neatly filed away.
Fire Breathing Art. Catalogued.
Water Blade Formation. Catalogued.
Earth Body Refinement Method. Catalogued.
Wind Step Movement Technique. Catalogued.
Lightning Palm Strike. Catalogued.
The day blurred. His hand never stopped moving. Techniques flowed through his mind and into his library like water through a sieve.
By evening, he'd completed another four hundred techniques.
When he returned to his cave, he immediately pulled up all the breathing techniques he'd acquired—there were twenty-three of them now, covering various elements and cultivation stages.
"Time to combine these into something ultimate," he muttered.
He began the comprehension process, analyzing each breathing technique's strengths, identifying their flaws, understanding their fundamental principles.
Hours passed. His consciousness worked overtime, breaking down and rebuilding, synthesizing and optimizing.
Then exhaustion hit him like a hammer.
His soul was still recovering from forging the library. This level of comprehension was pushing his limits.
"Tomorrow," he mumbled, collapsing onto his mat. "I'll finish tomorrow."
Sleep took him again.
The pattern repeated for the next five days.
Each morning: Copy techniques at inhuman speed.
Each evening: Return to his cave and work on comprehending the breathing techniques.
His Myriad Spiritual Library grew exponentially. After the second day: 850 techniques. After the third: 1,280. After the fourth: 1,710. After the fifth: 2,140.
The library expanded to accommodate everything. New wings formed automatically. New shelves spiraled into existence. The catalog tablet updated continuously.
Elemental techniques. Conceptual techniques. Auxiliary skills. Formation manuals from Grade 1 to Grade 6. Alchemy recipes from basic healing pills to advanced spirit-enhancing elixirs. Weapon techniques for swords, spears, staffs, bows, and exotic weapons he'd never heard of.
There was even a gravity manipulation technique that made his eyes widen. Gravity wasn't an element—it was a fundamental force. Comprehending it would open entirely new doors.
Each evening, he worked on the breathing technique synthesis. The exhaustion was cumulative, but manageable. His soul was adapting, growing stronger with each comprehension session.
By the sixth day, his library contained over 2,500 techniques.
And his ultimate breathing technique was nearly complete. Just one more night of work.
On the seventh and final day, Azrael completed the last batch of copies.
Elder Feng arrived that evening with several other elders in tow. They'd heard rumors of the "impossible scribe" and wanted to see for themselves.
The courtyard was filled with neatly organized stacks of manuals. Fifteen thousand copies, sorted by category, all completed to perfection.
Elder Feng picked up a random manual and examined it. Then another. Then another.
All perfect.
One of the accompanying elders—a stern woman with white hair—picked up an alchemy manual and studied it for several minutes.
"This is master-level calligraphy," she said quietly. "The strokes are flawless. The ink distribution is perfect. The spacing is harmonious. This is art, not just copying."
Elder Feng looked at Azrael with something approaching awe.
"Azrael Voss," he said formally. "You have completed a task that should have been impossible. Your reward, as promised: seventy-five thousand spirit stones."
He presented a spatial pouch—a rare item that could store objects in a pocket dimension. Inside would be the spirit stones.
Azrael accepted it with a deep bow. "Thank you, Elder."
"You've earned it. Take the next few days off. You must be exhausted."
"I appreciate your concern, Elder."
As the elders left, still murmuring in amazement, Azrael allowed himself a small smile.
Seventy-five thousand spirit stones. More wealth than he knew what to do with.
And a library containing over three thousand techniques.
But most importantly—he now had everything he needed to complete his ultimate breathing technique.
He left the courtyard and headed straight for his cave.
Time to finish what he'd started.
[END CHAPTER 4]