Chapter 271 – Overnight epiphany
“You just catch them all and swallow them up. This is the easiest way to naturally grasp knowledge!” Ye Mo chuckled. He simply did not care the method, he just wanted for Ye Xiwen to get stronger as fast as possible.
Even if Ye Xiwen was to skim through so many books, it was similar to scanning documents with a scanner and storing unprocessed data in his mind. This did not mean that he understood everything he read, but if he consumed these book demons then he would immediately understand the essence of all the information because these book demons themselves were nothing but the very embodiment of books’ essence.
This suggestion seemed very attractive to Ye Xiwen but the same wasn’t true for the little book demon standing next to him. To the terrified book demon, these two strangers seemed like ominous people with cruel motives!
This was a world of books and these book demons were basically the embodiment of school’s martial art heritage.
Ye Xiwen used soul search and instantly began to sweep through a book. Although for ordinary experts, there were going to be some disparities between merely reading a book and digesting the book’s essence by digesting the book demon associated with that book, however, this wasn’t an issue for Ye Xiwen. Of course, Ye Mo didn’t know about Ye Xiwen’s secret and that was why he made the suggestion of digesting the book demons instead of reading the books.
Ye Xiwen’s soul search began to sweep through books and simultaneously began to gather a variety of information within his mind. At the same time, the mysterious space began to deconstruct the large inflow of information into bits of knowledge and transferred them to his mind for permanent storage.
Ye Xiwen discovered that he did not need to consume a book demon to obtain its book’s essence. With the help of soul search and mysterious space, he could quickly stock up knowledge and that too in a considerably short amount of time.
The stock of knowledge began to increase in his mind and his cultivation level also began to increase, though very slowly. However, the influx of knowledge and information was constantly expanding his foundation.
Ye Xiwen was pleasantly surprised to find out that his inner state was consolidating bit by bit, while at the same, his understanding of this world was also improving bit by bit. This was also beginning to positively affect his cultivation as he could clearly feel faint traces of improvement.
Ye Xiwen finally understood why the ancients said – reading a book is like taking a walk on a ten thousand miles long road. He had to accept that he lacked enough experience about this world, and if by reading these books and gaining their essence, he could gather up experience and knowledge then there was nothing that could stop him. Most of these books were ages old and contained the gist of insights and knowledge gathered by ancient experts through thorough research and hard work, but right now, Ye Xiwen was plundering their hard work so effortlessly.
Ye Xiwen could see that the authors of these books must have also read books from the authors that came way before in time. In that way, these books were a continuation of ancient knowledge, passed down by many authors from different eras through their books.
While he was absorbing the essence of the books, he felt as if he was actually experiencing the whole thing in real life. He could sense various sentiments and emotions surging within his heart.
The more he went inside this world of books and absorbed their essence, the more he sensed a gradual change in his own temperament. He also noticed the presence of overgrown pride within himself, something he was unaware of all this time. He realized that his own breath (aura) was constantly changing and there was now a recognizable presence of an emperor-level-aura within his body. As he continued to gain knowledge, insights, and experience, he was basically gaining wisdom and this was having a major effect on not just his personality or temperament but also on his cultivation.
The little book demon was staring at him with his eyes opened wide like those of a dead fish. Being a book demon himself, he certainly understood what was going on. He could clearly see how Ye Xiwen was so effortlessly reading books using his soul search skill and absorbing those books’ essence like it was no big deal, meanwhile, his cultivation was also rising gradually as a result of that.
In fact, even book demons did the exactly same thing. A book demon also needed to comprehend and then extract the essence of a book to enhance knowledge and cultivation so it usually took a lot of time.
Ye Xiwen was now simply like a humanoid book demon, but unlike other book demons, he was able to thoroughly understand the contents of countless books and absorb their essence and that too to an extent of exaggeration when compared to other book demons and their slow comprehension speed.
The little book demon was shocked, how could someone understand the essence of a book so easily as if it was no more difficult than chopping vegetables?
Most people did not succeed even after using soul search to obtain so much knowledge so fast. The little book demon was shocked by the scene unfolding in front of his eyes.
It was basically impossible to digest such huge amounts of information so fast and there were so many books in the library that a normal expert might have to take multiple rebirths in order to learn from all the books! But what Ye Xiwen was doing right now was simply unprecedented and the result of that was right in front of the little demon’s eyes as he could see Ye Xiwen’s aura changing constantly.
This was bizarre and unscientific scene!
Well, the little book demon would never know that this was all because of the mysterious space that was hidden in Ye Xiwen’s mind. It was like a million times more efficient computing machine than the best supercomputer made on the Earth.
Hence, Ye Xiwen’s comprehension speed was off the charts and he was basically reading an entire row of books from a large bookshelf with just one sweep of soul search.
Although he still had to go through a lot of books because there were countless bookshelves in this so-called small world of books and his progress so far was insignificant.
However, Ye Xiwen was not in a hurry as he could feel his own cultivation level rising bit by bit. In fact, he could also feel the gaps in his previous knowledge being filled by the bits of information coming from these books. He felt like entering a profound world of knowledge where he could learn anything so long as he wanted to.
Today, Ye Xiwen discovered that if the world of knowledge was like a sea, then his own possession of knowledge was nothing more than a drop so far. There was so much to learn that his blood was boiling with excitement in the anticipation of what might be the next new thing he was going to learn.
Ye Xiwen knew that if he could comprehend all this knowledge then he would certainly be able to advance to a realm of unfathomable proportions, though he would still need to accumulate huge amounts of energy to have breakthroughs in the process of reaching the realms above. However, this much knowledge and experience should be enough for a long period of time to help in upgrading his cultivation level.
So long as he had sufficient stock of energy, he should be able to have multiple breakthroughs overnight.
In other words, he was experiencing the famous ‘overnight epiphany’ right now since he was obtaining century’s worth of knowledge so quickly.
The little book demon was flying next to him but did not dare to disturb his comprehension process. At this time, Ye Mo was also on his side and concocting Ling Dans in order to keep Ye Xiwen’s comprehension uninterrupted at all times. He was also playing the part of Ye Xiwen’s bodyguard.
The rise in Ye Xiwen’s cultivation was very fast but this was useless without the support of massive amount of energy. Tianyuan mirror was the only source of Ling Dans and Ye Xiwen had consumed a lot of Ling Dans on the demon island. Since the consumption pace was high so production pace must match or at least outmatch the consumption pace in order to have a sustainable comprehension process.
The situation was compelling Ye Mo to maintain a constant production of Ling Dans in order to avoid a lack of fuel for keeping the mysterious space running non-stop.
Fortunately, however, Ye Mo had not been resting for the last more than half a year on the demon island. While Ye Xiwen was busy killing god’s descendants and absorbing divinity from their bodies, he also used their neidans (demon cores) for his cultivation enhancement. The flesh and blood of those demon beasts were all absorbed by Ye Mo to restore Tianyuan mirror to the peak of truth ninth stage. Yes, Tianyuan mirror was at a higher level than Ye Xiwen right now.
This was the reason why Ye Mo’s speed of concocting Ling Dans had an unprecedented increase, enough to meet the consumption needs of Ye Xiwen.
“So this book is on the art of war and battle tactics. I never thought it to actually have so many hidden secrets.” Ye Xiwen muttered while digesting the art of war and all sorts of tricks and tactics mentioned in the book. Now, even if he was suddenly asked to command a huge army of a million soldiers, he would not find it troublesome. This was the benefit of having a full understanding of the art of war.
Being a lone warrior who preferred being alone even during fights, this was a fairly unique concept. Ye Xiwen had to accept the fact that he had always been a brute who used sheer power over tactics to deal with his opponents. Now, he was slowly changing bit by bit as he continued to read the books on various topics.
After reading several books on military and war strategy, he comprehended the combined essence he gathered from them and suddenly felt a sublimation occurring in his temperament. He had started to understand the mindset of soldiers and generals better and better. He also gained a better understanding of how to manipulate people, both friends, and foes, to do his bidding.
Ye Xiwen’s aura was changing dramatically and gaining the characteristics of the imposing aura of a commander. If his friends would see him right now after the transformation, they would say that he no longer looked like an uninterested and unsocial teenager who mostly focused on cultivation unless provoked. Now, he looked like an experienced commander who, if needed, could easily command soldiers at his fingertips.
Of course, he was benefiting a lot by using this method but his soul search was gathering too much information and the time for processing was less in comparison since he needed to properly analyze the information and separate out the valuable knowledge. However, this was taking much more time since he had to process unnecessary and redundant information as well.
It was said that truly invincible experts could achieve the so-called level of mastery where they could manipulate one world law to command one hundred world laws at once, like the Demon Emperor who had never practiced sword martial techniques but was still able to display unsurpassed sword skills.
In fact, the Demon Emperor’s sword intention attack was far superior to that of the old man whom Ye Xiwen met in the ruins, located at the bottom of the East China Sea.
Ye Xiwen certainly had not reached that level of mastery yet but he was using the method of analogy to comprehend tough concepts and ideas. He was basically using practical examples to understand complex concepts.
Ye Xiwen used the same method of ‘comprehension by analogy’ to thoroughly comprehend the art of war. That was why he was able to easily understand the same military concepts when dealt in several other military books.
Ye Xiwen was fascinated as his self-confidence was building up naturally. He continued to move forward little by little while gathering knowledge.
There were some travel notes, miscellanies, personal letters and books that were covered in thick layer of dust, apparently, no one had opened them in a long time. Ye Xiwen could not help but sigh with emotion as he could clearly see that the authors must have been true sages and legends to have compiled such hard-to-obtain knowledge in these long forgotten books. However, even if most of this section of knowledge was valuable but not of immediate use to him.
Of course, like others, he would also not waste valuable time and resources in obtaining this kind of knowledge but he still read them and stored unprocessed data in the mysterious space for future use –
