Bottleneck

"No matter how wonderful my visions of the future may be, I still need to reach the Saint Realm at the very least. Otherwise, once ten thousand years pass and I turn into a pile of dust, no matter how perfect the plan or how clever the calculations, it'll all be useless!"

Six years later, Monster Mountain Range

Fengyun, already a Level 4 Warrior, was battling a Bloodthirsty Warpig with its left foreleg broken.

Facing a Level 5 Bloodthirsty Warpig, Fengyun was somewhat weaker, but the difference was only one level, and the warpig's broken leg had made up for part of that gap.

"Ha! Light Shadow Slash!"

As the battle reached its fiercest point, Fengyun let out a roar. Light and shadow spread across the Knight Sword in his hand, and five or six white Battle Qi Slashes shot from its blade.

Seeing the Battle Qi Slashes aimed at its vital points, the Bloodthirsty Warpig's pupils constricted. It immediately gathered the energy within its body at the break in its foreleg, intending to forcefully withstand this wave of attacks.

It did so because Fengyun had used this move before. Back then, after choosing to defend itself in every direction, it discovered that among all those Battle Qi Slashes, only the one attacking its broken leg was real. The rest were fake.

As a result, Fengyun had used a single point to break through its defenses, worsening the injury to its broken leg until blood flowed without stopping. Then, Fengyun seized the chance to close in, trading a minor injury to destroy its left eye!

Now that Fengyun had used this move again, how could it fall for the same trick twice?

At the same time, its remaining right eye stared fixedly at Fengyun. As long as Fengyun dared to follow behind the Battle Qi Slashes as he had last time, then regardless of the price, it would definitely strike Fengyun viciously.

But this time, it was wrong again!

Among these illusory Battle Qi Slashes, only one was indeed real, while the others were false attacks he had unleashed.

However, this time, the real attack was the Battle Qi Slash aimed at the Bloodthirsty Warpig's right eye. Just as it was about to hit the warpig, the entire slash suddenly blazed with an intensely dazzling white light.

That was right. This time, Fengyun had never intended to use the Battle Qi Slash as an energy attack. He merely intended to unleash a burst of bright light and temporarily blind the Bloodthirsty Warpig.

This consumed less battle qi, yet the effect was no worse. In fact, it was even more reliable.

If he attacked with a Battle Qi Slash, the Bloodthirsty Warpig might still be able to gather its energy in time to block it. But being blinded by intense light happened in an instant. Its bloodshot eyes were wide open, and it had no chance to close them.

Awoo—

Splat—

After a miserable cry came the sound of blood spurting as a sharp blade sliced across a throat.

Fengyun looked at the fallen Bloodthirsty Warpig and murmured, "Ever since I broke through to become a Level 4 Warrior three years ago, aside from tempering myself in the Level 4 hunting grounds..."

"I've also occasionally left the safe area of the hunting grounds to experience true Monster Trials without anyone protecting me."

"Using this method of cultivation to steal opportunity from heaven, keeping myself tense at every moment in order to advance rapidly, yet I've only tempered my strength to the Level 4 Peak!"

"I'm still just one small step away from breaking through to Level 5 and becoming an Advanced Warrior!"

"And yet, that one small step makes for a world of difference in strength. If this Bloodthirsty Warpig hadn't broken its foreleg and been hindered in its movements, I'm afraid I would have had to go all out and suffer serious injuries to take it down!"

"Was I really right to choose the path of specializing in Light Shadow Slash?"

Ever since personally witnessing the Black Mountain Instructor's exceptionally agile Phantom Slash, Fengyun had decided to cast everything else aside and specialize in Light Shadow Slash. He had even only learned the healing spell his mother had explained to him long ago, using it as a means of recovery.

The reason was simple. The longer he lived in this world, the more he realized that his talent truly was nothing special!

When one's talent was genuinely lacking, rather than scattering time and energy across more methods, it was better to specialize in a single skill. That was his philosophy of cultivation!

Although Black Mountain was an example proving that specializing in low-level Combat Skills was useless once one's strength rose high enough, at most allowing one to wield those Combat Skills more skillfully.

But in Fengyun's view, that argument had overlooked the greatest benefit of specializing in a single Combat Skill: the refined control it gave one over foundational things such as one's body and battle qi.

Before grasping the Laws, warrior cultivation in the Coiling Dragon World was mainly divided into three levels. The third level was Momentum, also known as Drawing Upon Heaven and Earth.

Comprehending Momentum was equivalent to obtaining the key to entering the Saint Realm. Once one's cultivation reached the Level 9 Peak, one could naturally enter the Saint Realm.

The second level consisted of Lifting the Heavy as if Light and Lifting the Light as if Heavy. One was the realm pursued by warriors who used heavy weapons, while the other was pursued by warriors who used light weapons.

But in essence, there was no real difference. They were the same realm, merely approached through different directions of cultivation.

The first and most foundational level was achieving perfection in the basics, requiring a warrior to have perfect control over basic things such as their own strength and battle qi!

Casting everything else aside to focus solely on Light Shadow Slash, Fengyun had already achieved perfect control over everything about himself back when he was at the Level 3 Peak.

Not only had he thoroughly mastered every variation and application of Light Shadow Slash, but after switching to the light-element battle qi manual, the Radiant Codex, he had also developed the Sun Slash and Illusionary Slash around Light Shadow Slash.

With his perfect control over his own strength and speed, together with the naturally swift speed of a light-element warrior, killing a Fifth-Level Magical Beast across a level was no problem.

Against a Bloodthirsty Warpig with a broken leg, he could even kill it quickly with only minor injuries!

Yet despite training bitterly for so long and reaching the Level 4 Peak, he had never made a breakthrough in either Lifting the Heavy as if Light or Lifting the Light as if Heavy!

If he remembered correctly, Lin Lei, the protagonist of the original story, had mastered the realm of Lifting the Heavy as if Light after only three years of training in the Monster Mountain Range.

He had also entered the realm of Momentum, initially grasping Wind Momentum and Earth Momentum.

Yet Fengyun was still only at the first realm, perfection in the basics. Even deliberately having a blacksmith modify his Knight Sword by reducing its weight to practice light-sword techniques, or enlarging and increasing its weight to switch to heavy-sword techniques, had been useless.

He had even affected his greatest advantage as a light-element warrior—speed—by switching to the heavy sword. After leaving the hunting grounds specially established by the Church, he had been chased by magical beasts into danger several times!

Yet he had never abandoned the path of specializing in Combat Skills, much less given up Light Shadow Slash!

Because Light Shadow Slash was different. Although it was also a low-level Combat Skill, and had been directly modified from the low-level Combat Skill Phantom Slash.

As an elemental Combat Skill, however, Light Shadow Slash involved the Mysteries of the Laws. Setting aside everything else, it certainly contained at least the most basic mysteries of the Light Element!