A few hours later, Wu Huang was sitting cross-legged on his bed. From his interspatial ring, he took out a pill and consumed it immediately. Then he closed his eyes, and his mind sank into his inner world. In the blink of an eye, his consciousness appeared in front of the Heavenly Book.
"It is time for you and me to reach an agreement," Wu Huang said as he held it in his spiritual hands.
The medicinal energy of the Qi Condensation Pill began to flow with indomitable force toward the Heavenly Book.
"Originally, I didn't plan to do this. After all, you were already useful enough with the storage talent you possessed. If I strengthened you too much, my immortal cultivation would also advance accordingly..." He paused briefly. "But now that circumstances have been forced to change, it is time for you to ascend in rank as well."
He raised the book and began to guide the spiritual energy flowing into it, carefully enveloping it with his will. The energy, which until that moment had been enough to sustain it in its latent state, finally reached its boiling point.
The Heavenly Book snapped open, and the tide of energy poured into its interior. Its pages filled with an ancient power and began to glow with a dazzling golden radiance. Little by little, the torrent of energy began to subside as the book descended gently into Wu Huang's hands.
"How does it feel to go from a basic level to a second level of connection?" he asked.
"[Better than I expected,]" a monotonous voice responded directly in his mind.
Wu Huang, genuinely surprised, frowned.
"You already developed a spiritual consciousness? Normally that only happens in much more advanced stages of the Book..."
Since the first stages of nurturing this mysterious object were relatively easy to advance with resources but became extremely slow at higher levels, it wasn't strange to have reached that point even without dedicating too much effort to it. In fact, he himself had deliberately limited it to prevent it from strengthening too quickly and breaking the balance with his weak body.
However, one of the great advantages of strengthening the Heavenly Book was that it could actively assist in the practice of immortal cultivation. Thanks to this evolution, advancing in stage in his own body would now be much simpler than usual.
"Did you unlock any new abilities with the evolution?" he asked curiously.
The original ability of his Book was the passive capacity to gather information from the environment and store it. Although the most direct method was written texts, it was actually not the only one: listening to secrets or seeing techniques was also enough to record them. Even so, reading manuals remained the most efficient method. Once the Heavenly Book evolved in rank, there was a possibility of obtaining a new innate ability. However, this did not always happen; in most cases, it simply improved the already existing capacity.
"[Yes, I have unlocked a new function,]" the voice of the book responded immediately.
"Oh, really? What is it?" Wu Huang asked, a faint gleam of genuine interest in his eyes.
At that instant, Wu Huang felt a sudden tug on his consciousness. He put up no resistance. His vision distorted for a moment, and in the next instant, his mind appeared projected into the inner space of the Heavenly Book. A vast space that seemed to have no end, filled with infinite bookshelves of books, stretched before him like a divine vault of knowledge.
Wu Huang observed his surroundings with a look of astonishment.
"Have I spent so much time reading in the sect's library that even the inner space of my own Heavenly Book took that shape?" he murmured amusedly.
He shook his head and pushed aside that idle thought. Those kinds of details were of no importance now.
"Heavenly Book, where are you?" he asked into the void.
"[I am everywhere, Host,]" the voice responded. In front of him, particles of light came together to form a figure... an exact replica of himself.
Wu Huang narrowed his eyes as he stood face to face with his own copy.
"So, what were you going to show me? Don't tell me you're going to do the typical thing from novels and try to possess my body," he said with a skeptical tone.
The Heavenly Book immediately shook its head. It raised its hand, and instantly, the countless books on the shelves of that sea of consciousness began to vibrate forcefully. Then, they shot out and gathered in the air. Thousands of volumes floated above him like a cloud of paper. And then... they began to crumble. The pages separated, the ancient texts fragmented into runes of light, and everything turned into a beautiful rain of pure information pieces.
Wu Huang frowned, but he did not look away from that spectacle. Little by little, the floating fragments began to gather again in the center, condensing and compressing into a single, unique physical volume. A single book with dark covers.
"What is all that?" he asked, his brow still furrowed in confusion.
"[This is my new innate ability: Compendium. Through the gathering, analysis, and selection of countless archived fragments of information, I can bring any incomplete or general technique toward its most optimal and perfect state for a specific individual.]"
As it spoke, the new book slowly descended until it floated in front of the protagonist's chest. Wu Huang took it and began to flip through it rapidly. His pupils contracted violently in surprise.
"A Qi Refining cultivation technique... perfected to the absolute limit?" he murmured in shock.
The breathing technique of the Heavenly Sword Sect was already a version highly optimized by generations of geniuses. However, its only flaw lay in the fact that it was designed to be as general as possible so that thousands of disciples could use it, without being able to adapt perfectly to the specific meridians of each individual body. Therefore, although its performance was high, it was still far from reaching its maximum potential.
But this book in his hands... It had been recalculated and perfected specifically for Wu Huang's unique bodily structure. For any other person in the world, this manual would be practically useless gibberish. But for him, it was the most perfect and divine training method possible.
He felt his breathing become slightly heavier with excitement. Although he wasn't entirely interested originally in following the dangerous path of immortality on a large scale, the fact that he possessed a technique created exclusively for him—capable of increasing his Qi absorption efficiency by more than one hundred percent—made an ambitious smile appear on his face.
"Heavenly Book..." he murmured, bringing a hand to his forehead in disbelief. "If the old monsters of the eternal sects discovered your capabilities, I am sure they would try to kill me and steal you at any cost."
The excitement was quickly replaced by his characteristic and paranoiac caution. He perfectly understood the tremendous danger he would be in if he made a careless mistake. If someone of high level ever discovered the nature of his evolution trap, the consequences would be unimaginable. Fortunately, that was almost impossible; people capable of perceiving the exact properties of his treasure without the user manifesting it externally were extremely rare on this plane.
Wu Huang exhaled slowly, returning his consciousness to the physical world. Countless ideas and strategies began to emerge in his brilliant mind. Now, even the idea of being forced to enter a dangerous Secret Realm seemed like little more than a simple and inevitable formality. There was no real danger that he could not overcome with this.