After finishing the cultivation of Withered Tree technique, He Yiming calmly walked out to settle his bills. Only then he realized that a whole day had passed while he was cultivating.
This was but the longest time he’d ever spent on any technique after attaining the sixth layer, and it caused him to sigh to himself.
However, if others knew that he had such a line of thinking, they would feel like snapping their own necks and just die. One day and one night. A mere one day and one night. For an ordinary cultivator, not to mention the cultivation itself, just the process of examining the technique before cultivating might not suffice within such a short duration.
However, in this short duration, He Yiming was able to cultivate from the first layer to the tenth layer….
This had already exceeded the limits of a human.
Fortunately, nobody knew. Otherwise, he would become the subject of curiosity and envy of countless people. Regardless of how much he strength he possessed, he wouldn’t be able to change his fate of being dissected and examined.
Of course, that is, if this world actually had something like anatomy in the first place.
After settling his bills, He Yiming rushed out of the county town- venturing deep into the mountains.
With his strength, not to mention a few hours without food and water, he would be fine even if he didn’t eat or drink anything for several days.
Tai Cang county consisted quite a few high mountain ranges. In the true sense of word, these mountains didn’t stand too high, but still, the entire county town lay in between a stretch of mountain ranges extending from far east and going endlessly towards west, which resulted in its terrain being complex and roads craggy. The number of high-quality official roads amounted to a pitiful figure, which was also the primary cause of Tai Cang county lagging far behind other areas.
However, to He Yiming, walking on the mountainous trails or walking on the spacious roads of the continent didn’t seem much different.
After walking for an hour, he arrived at a desolate place.
A forest could be seen as the best cultivation place. Regardless of how much destruction one might wreck here, the forest would gradually smoothen it out.
He’d heard his grandfather mention that deserts and wetlands- located far away from here- made even better places to silence somebody. However, he’d never witnessed these places in person. Thus, he had no way of imagining what these places looked like.
In the forest, He Yiming ensured that he was alone. With a loud shout, the Internal Energy inside his body began to circulate in a frenzy. Instantaneously, the tenth-layer Withered Tree technique’s Internal Energy erupted.
Suddenly, he indistinctly felt as if all the sounds in his surroundings had vanished.
He seemed to have transformed into a gargantuan tree that had been standing loftily at its place for thousands of years.
At the same time, his body started to undergo a subtle transformation. With a rate noticeable by a pair of naked eye, his flesh started to wither.
This was not true withering, but a mechanism to form a defensive layer around his body. At this moment, he felt that even weapons wouldn’t be able to injure his body in the slightest. Though he would still like to maintain his distance if this weapon turned out to be something like his grandfather’s blade.
Of all the techniques he’d learned so far, Withered Tree technique indeed ranked number one in terms of defense.
In his mind, an idea emerged. If he could find a peak level earth type technique and cultivate it, what realm would his defense end up attaining then?
Of course, ordinary earth type techniques like the trash in his clan’s Book Pavilion couldn’t even be compared to the Withered tree technique.
His mind reeled at a lightning fast speed but his movements didn’t slow at all. Taking a step forward, he struck at the tree that stood right before him and had a width of about half a man’s.
“Bang,”
An explosion rang out. The big tree didn’t fall due to the strike but developed a hole as He Yiming’s arm pierced it through.
His eyes shined. The offensive power of Withered Tree technique was no trifling matter either and didn’t seem one bit inferior in comparison to tenth layer Primordial Energy. Not only had the flesh on his arms withered and bones compacted like iron, when his fist penetrated the tree, he didn’t feel anything at all.
As if he hadn’t pierced a huge tree but a paper.
When he withdrew his arm, he suddenly discovered that in his current situation, his joints seemed a bit rigid. The instant he pulled his arm back, he felt as if he’d lost some of his control over his arm. However, this tiny bit of inconvenience didn’t amount to much before the offensive power that Withered Tree technique offered.
Slightly exerting his feet and without bending his knees at all, he jumped upwards- his entire body seeming rigid. Just relying on the strength of the tip of his feet, he jumped as high as himself in the air.
In mid-air, against the onslaught of incoming wind, he opened his arms wide. Resembling like a log, he dropped down.
When his body reached the ground, it had been displaced several meters apart from his original position. This ending seemed rather surprising to him. Under the influence of Withered Tree technique, his speed actually didn’t suffer at all. However, this jumping style appeared rather odd. If somebody were to see this scene in the night, he might think as if something had suddenly popped out in air from a human-sized chest going by how flat He Yiming looked while jumping as such.
Suddenly, a childish desire emerged in his heart, and he began to jump about in the forest.
His knees didn’t bend and his arms remained motionless, but with a base of tenth layer Internal Energy, just the tip of his feet were no less than a cannon. Jumping, he advanced at a lightning fast speed.
En-route, even a group of vicious wolves that he came across turned their tails and ran away- not to mention small animals scattered all around.
After all, these beasts had never seen a such a strange creature in the forest before. Although this creature didn’t emanate a ferocious aura, its every jump that covered about two meters of the sky and several meters of land made these beasts tremble with fright.
After quite a while, He Yiming had enough fun and decided to stop for a rest. The Ripple technique covered every single meridian of his body. After a short while, his body resumed its optimal state.
His face had an excited expression and irrepressible joy filled his heart- like a child who had gotten his hands on his favorite toy.
Gradually, he calmed down. At this moment, he felt a sort of indescribable emptiness inside him.
How much time had passed since he had last felt something like this?
Since his strange encounter in the lake, he seemed to have never felt anything like this.
Since that day, his mind seemed to have matured and pleasures of childhood seemed to have gone far out of his reach.
Two years.
In these two years, never for a moment had he felt like following his heart’s desires without thinking of the consequences.
As he looked at his recovered arm, he suddenly thought. Withered Tree technique could push one’s heart into quiescence. However, for him, what it pushed into quiescence was not his original heart, rather a sort of pretense- something he’d been always forcefully repressing.
After this pretense was peeled off, the resultant that emerged from underneath was the true him.
He listlessly looked at his two arms like a statue- unsure of his own thoughts.
After a long long time…
He raised his head to look towards the sky before his eyes gained a bit of clarity.
More one’s strength grows, more responsibility one has to shoulder. These were the words his grandfather always said. Since he’d obtained the fortune in the lake, he was bound to lose some things.
If he had another chance. If he could go back to that night, he would still choose to enter the lake without the slightest hesitation.
However, this time he wouldn’t be ignorant. He would enter that lake even if knew he might die hundred times for it.
At this moment, bits and scraps of these two years flashed in his mind. His mind seemed to have undergone transformation one more time and had entered a higher realm yet again.
Not a bit of indecisiveness or loss could be seen in his eyes anymore.
With a flick of sleeves, his Internal Energy resumed.
However, this time, the operating Internal Energy wasn’t that of a certain type. Instead, the four different types of Internal Energy began to alternate inside his body.
First, metal-type Primordial Energy, followed by water type Ripple technique, then wood type Withered Tree technique, and finally, fire type Blaze technique.
After the four types of Internal Energy made a complete cycle, the command switched back to Primordial Energy again…and so on…forming an endless cycle.
After a short while, He Yiming clearly felt.
A light and feathery sort of feeling emerging in his body. He felt as if his abilities had gained a substantive improvement. He felt an extreme confidence as if he controlled everything in the palm of his hand.
This kind of confidence reflected his mastery over the Internal Energy. He felt as if he could, at any time, recreate that day’s gold-crowned python-slayer strike.
However, this was merely a feeling, and he felt this feeling gradually disappearing away.
Because when his Internal Energy switched from that of Blaze technique to Primordial Energy, he would feel a strong sluggish, obstructive feeling.
This kind of feeling was quite unbearable and completely ruined that perfectly synchronized feeling.
Furthermore, this unbearable feeling was becoming increasingly stronger. He felt like that this alternating of different types of primary techniques inside his body would also not be able to preserve for too long. This situation was akin to a perfect machine suddenly encountering a fault in one of its components and being disabled from working due to it.
Letting out a sigh, He Yiming eventually gave up.
However, his mind already had several thoughts on how to resolve this issue. He felt like as long as he could get his hands on an earth type Internal Energy cultivation technique and cultivate it once through, he should be able to resolve this problem.
However, he was not too excited. Because for him, ordinary techniques could no longer get the job done.
After all, in the light of his current strength, not even his grandfather or Xu Yinjie would necessarily qualify as his opponent. Moreover, that unconscious state which he would have to sustain after recreating that strike was also akin to a housefly in a delicious soup- making him apprehensive of touching the soup.
Faintly turning his head, he looked at the faint red glow and the gradually disappearing sun on the horizon before quickening his footsteps as he advanced towards the main clan.