You and Her on the Swing!

But how could the sphere Li Qing wanted to form be an ordinary Spiraling Sphere?

An ordinary Spiraling Sphere was composed purely of Chakra, but Li Qing was now on Douluo Continent, and his body also contained Douluo Continent's natural energy—Soul Power.

All this time, Li Qing had deliberately avoided letting the Soul Power and Chakra within his body come into contact.

Sage Mode required natural energy and Chakra to merge. Li Qing was afraid he might accidentally turn into some strange creature, so he had never tried it.

But today, he was going to try.

Of course, not directly inside his body. He would first experiment outside his body, proceeding step by step.

Fusing them outside the body greatly reduced the danger. If anything went wrong, Li Qing would immediately cut off the Soul Power output.

The Spiraling Sphere was one of Li Qing's ideas. He would release the two energies from each hand separately, then use rotation to mix them.

Rotation was the most reasonable method Li Qing could think of. By his estimation, if the two energies collided head-on, the resulting impact would be far more violent than a spiraling collision.

In other words, the Spiraling Sphere Li Qing wanted was a Sage Spiraling Sphere—a blend of Soul Power and Chakra.

Next came the first step of training.

Continuously releasing Chakra from a single part of his body was a way to train Chakra control. Li Qing remembered that in Naruto, the methods for training Chakra control were walking up trees and walking on water.

Walking up trees was the first stage; walking on water was the second.

If one could walk on water without falling in, that meant their Chakra control had reached the required standard.

Li Qing did not know whether Soul Power could serve the same purpose, but that could only be verified through experimentation.

Having made up his mind, Li Qing placed his plan and the formation diagram he had obtained last night beneath his pillow, then headed out.

The small forest on the Back Mountain behind Nuoding Academy. Before a thick tree.

The tree Li Qing chose was slightly slanted, making it suitable for a beginner among beginners like him.

He took a deep breath.

"3, 2, 1, go!"

Li Qing burst forward and arrived less than a meter from the tree.

"Thud, thud, thud!"

"Whoa—ow!"

After taking three rapid steps, Li Qing had already lost his balance. Before he could even take the fourth step onto the tree, his upper body was already at a 145-degree angle to the trunk.

Patting the dirt off his butt, Li Qing tried again.

"Hey!"

"Thud, thud, thud, thud!" Four consecutive steps.

"Ahhh—ow!"

Li Qing fell flat on his back again.

After two attempts, Li Qing had already found the trick. He nimbly climbed back up and wiped his right thumb across the bridge of his nose.

"Again!"

"Thud, thud, thud, thud!"

"Thud, thud, thud, thud!"

For an entire afternoon, Li Qing's miserable wails echoed through the forest on Nuoding Academy's Back Mountain.

A number of teachers and students were drawn over by the commotion Li Qing was making.

Seeing that Li Qing was not using Soul Power and was still trying to climb to the top of the tree, they all said he was wasting his effort.

But Li Qing remained unmoved. He knew perfectly well what he was doing.

In the end, Li Qing successfully climbed a perfectly straight tree. Standing on its highest branch, he admired the most beautiful sunset—the sunset of victory!

Hundreds of years later, Sacred Nuoding Academy's school history would clearly record: Li Qing, a famous figure of our academy, once climbed a perfectly straight tree barefoot. Later, he even stood upon the water out of thin air, utterly unruffled.

It was said that a certain phrase had always inspired him, allowing him to achieve such great accomplishments.

That phrase was:

"No matter what difficulties you encounter, don't be afraid,

Face them with a smile,

The best way to eliminate fear

Is to face fear,

Persistence is victory.

Keep it up!

Oli Gei!"

And what exactly Oli Gei was became one of Douluo Continent's greatest unsolved mysteries.

It drew countless Soul Masters and Spirit Beasts to seek out the truth.

Of course, that was all in the future.

What was happening now could only mean one thing: the first stage of the Spiraling Sphere was a success!

Li Qing glanced at his clothes. They were pitch-black, as though he had just crawled out of a coal pile. How could he possibly tolerate that?

With a leap, Li Qing soared into the air. Then he demonstrated a super "Leap of Faith!" to the air and landed.

After tidying up his clothes a little, Li Qing swaggered back to the dormitory, grabbed a clean set of clothes, and went to take a bath.

Under the starry night sky, a girl dressed in pink, with fair, delicate skin and a long scorpion braid, sat happily on a swing, swaying back and forth. The air rang with her silver-bell laughter.

Behind the girl, pushing the swing, was a boy with wheat-colored skin and short black hair.

A faint smile rested on the boy's lips as well.

That was right. The one on the swing was Xiao Wu, and the one behind her was Tang San.

"Hahaha, Xiao San, push harder!"

"Sure!"

As he spoke, Tang San put more strength into his hands.

"Ah, I'm flying! Hahahaha!"

Xiao Wu spread her arms wide, looking exceptionally excited.

"Hey, Xiao San, why did you stop? Don't stop!"

Xiao Wu turned around and saw Tang San walking behind a tree.

Leaning against the other side of that tree was none other than Li Qing, who had just finished bathing.

Hearing the approaching footsteps, Li Qing knew he had been discovered, so he immediately jumped out.

"Oh, Xiao San, good evening. Look at this night sky. Tsk, tsk, tsk." Li Qing smacked his lips. "It's so dark and... uh... never mind. I'll be going now. You two carry on, carry on!"

With that, Li Qing sped away from Tang San and Xiao Wu's "happy place."

"You and her swing on the swing,

Swinging beyond the heavens,

Watching that Cowherd and Weaver Girl,

Meet beside the Milky Way,

My heart is joined with yours,

Dreaming by the azure sea~"

Tang San listened to Li Qing's singing with a helpless expression.

"Xiao San, Li Qing sings pretty well. You and him swing on the swing—no, that's not right." Xiao Wu lightly furrowed her brow.

"I swing on the swing with you, swinging beyond the heavens~"

Sitting on the swing, Xiao Wu softly sang the correct lyrics.