After the lively meal, Lu Liangsheng took Zuo Zhengyang and the tree demon to stroll around the mansion. They went up to the top floor, where the number of rooms gradually decreased. Most of them were study rooms. The first room was connected to the second. When the curtain was rolled up, they saw rows of bookshelves arranged in three columns and six horizontally. On the shelves were mostly ancient books and scrolls, as well as quite a few bamboo slips.
Zuo Zhengyang reached out to take a scroll of bamboo slips, but was stopped by Lu Liangsheng.
"These scrolls and bamboo slips are free of dust. There must be some magical restrictions nearby. Taking them without permission may trigger the magic."
As he spoke, he walked to the hidden locations in the four corners of the library and found four small stone sculptures of different shapes. There was hidden magical power flowing on them, and even if Lu Liangsheng was not careful, it would be difficult to discover them.
It seems that it will take some effort to look through the books and bamboo slips here. The magic array on the stone carvings is not arranged according to the Five Elements or Eight Trigrams. So Zuo Zhengyang had to go down and bring his master up.
Not long after, the Toad Taoist priest, carrying the gourd on his back, fell from Zuo Zhengyang's shoulder along his arm to a chair beside him. Without waiting for Lu Liangsheng to ask, he turned over the gourd and poured out a bright red bead. The red color was pure and fiery, and there was a curl of fire around it. When it touched the wooden chair, there was no flame, but it was immediately burned black.
"Take this. This is what your master just found from the corpse of that rat. It is a top-notch magic weapon. When combined with the Five Elements Fire Method, its power will be greatly increased. Even without magic, it can ignite the fire spirit within you."
"Why don't you want it, Master?"
Taoist Toad snorted and jumped off the wooden chair, as if he looked down on such things. He walked to the bottom of the stone sculpture, climbed up the edge with his legs, and pushed a few times before he could get up.
"What are you going to do with it, Master? Are you going to roast yourself?"
Well…
Lu Liangsheng had forgotten about this. All monsters have similar images. The Toad Taoist is naturally a yin and water monster. This has been mentioned in Lu Jing's "Illustrated Records of Mountains and Seas".
But there are a few exceptions that are the opposite, but they are very rare, and Master is definitely not one of them.
As he was thinking about it, the head of the Toad Taoist who had climbed up suddenly swelled up, and he swallowed the stone sculpture in one gulp and held it in his mouth. With a bang, his face hit the floor heavily, causing the wooden boards to creak a few times, which scared Zuo Zhengyang.
"Let's see... I can't get tired of this..." The Toad Taoist spoke vaguely from his swollen mouth, waving his hands: "Hurry up... turn the pages..."
With his big head, he felt top-heavy and kept bumping into the wall and table legs. He walked out staggeringly, and then he heard: "Ah..." There was a series of 'dong dong' sounds as heavy objects rolled down the stairs.
Here, the two men and the monster looked at each other, and Qi You reacted, "Old monster, I'm going to go see the toad." She kicked up her skirt and quickly went out.
Only Lu Liangsheng and Zuo Zhengyang were left in the library. The latter didn't like this environment full of books and was about to make an excuse to leave and go somewhere else when the scholar over there suddenly stopped him.
"Zuo Qianwei, wait a minute."
Lu Liangsheng walked to the charred wooden chair, cast a spell to hold the fire spirit bead in his palm, and sent it to the opposite side in mid-air.
"Qian Wei, take this."
Looking at the spiritual pearl floating in the air and emitting a burning breath, Zuo Zhengyang did not take it. It was not because he was afraid of getting burned, but he stared blankly at Lu Liangsheng opposite him, somewhat puzzled. After all, how could such a treasure from the immortals be given to him
"Mr. Lu, you don't want it?"
Lu Liangsheng walked to the bookshelf next to him, carefully picked up a scroll of bamboo slips with both hands, slowly unfolded it, looked at the words on it, and put it back.
She turned around and looked at him and smiled, but instead of answering, she said, "This is what Qian Wei deserves."
But then he still explained the confusion to the other party.
"Liangsheng has a calm mind and is not a warrior, so he is not suitable for this thing. Qianwei is a master of martial arts and has already stepped into the ranks of Taoists. Rather than having it be useless, I might as well help him. Moreover, Qianwei has made great efforts in this matter, and Lu Liangsheng has not thanked him yet."
Zuo Zhengyang was silent for a moment, looking at the spirit bead in front of him, and lowered his head slightly.
"Zuo Zhengyang thanks you!"
"No need." Lu Liangsheng raised his hand and used his magic power to help the other person stand up straight. "I am not a person who eats alone, so I will naturally take good care of you."
Without retracting his arm, he took it to the bookshelf on the other side of Sheng Jianjian's house. There were ancient books on it, many of which he had never read, and some of which he had only heard of. He opened the book and found the ink fresh, which showed that he had not read them often.
Walking down the bookshelf, Lu Liangsheng would take out one or two books and take a look at them casually almost every few books. There were very few books on the studies of sages, and most of them were books on alchemy, pharmacology, geography, and strange people's stories. They were bizarre and incredible.
Zuo Zhengyang, who was standing by, didn't want to disturb them and just followed quietly.
"Qianwei's martial arts skills are now at their peak, but they have reached their limit. I want to see if I can find some key techniques that suit Qianwei here."
Lu Liangsheng put a book back, without stopping his words, and turned his head to instruct him.
"I just heard from my master that this Fire Spirit Pearl can allow the owner to use Fire Spirit even if he does not have any fire magic skills, but I think it may also harm Qianwei's meridians and flesh."
As if he had sensed something, Lu Liangsheng was about to say a few more words of advice, but suddenly he stopped talking and his fingers that had put down the book subconsciously moved to another slightly larger book.
Lu Liangsheng moved the corner of the book with his fingertips and turned his head. A line of words on the cover of the book caught his attention.
—"Illustrated Records of Mountains and Seas"
The whole person froze in place, staring at the book without moving.
"Mr. Lu?"
Seeing that the scholar suddenly stopped talking, Zuo Zhengyang called out to him softly. On the other side, Lu Liangsheng came back to his senses, smiled and waved his hand.
"Nothing, I just found a book I like to read."
He smiled calmly, but in his heart he couldn't wait. He took the book and opened it. What came into his eyes was the terrain outlined in light ink. The shapes of the mountains were clear, and the trees and rocks on them were realistic. Even a squirrel holding fruit on the rock was painted vividly.
'It's so magical...'
Lu Liangsheng's fingers quickly flipped through a few more pages. Almost every page had different names of mountains and rivers, and none of them talked about strange, mythical beasts or ferocious beasts.
"Sure enough, this should be the third book... Could it be the terrain guide for the first two books?"
Suddenly thinking of this, he hurriedly took the "Illustrated Records of Mountains and Seas" and ran downstairs in front of Zuo Zhengyang's puzzled gaze. He returned to the hall, whistled to call the old donkey, and hurried down the mountain to find the bookshelf that was originally placed in the wilderness at the foot of the mountain.
He cast a spell to avoid the rain, took out two more books from the bookshelf, and placed them side by side on the donkey's back to compare them one by one.
However, at the moment when the three books were spread out, the old donkey suddenly raised its hoof in panic and let out a long neigh.
A golden light instantly enveloped the man and the donkey.
"What's going on..."
Lu Liangsheng covered his eyes and when his eyes felt better, three books glowed golden and slowly rose up in his sight.
Next second.
Suddenly they overlapped and became one.