A Staggering Influence

"Tribal Chief!"

"Tribal Chief!"

Yi Chen returned to the Tribe.

Everywhere he passed, respectful greetings rang out.

The snow in The Valley had already been completely cleared away.

Wrapped in thick animal hides, the children happily threw snowballs or chased and played with one another, carefree and untroubled.

The elderly gathered together, chatting about amusing things that had happened in the Tribe, their faces glowing with delight. ✤

This was the first time such a scene had ever appeared in the history of the Flame Mountain Tribe.

In previous years, once the Harsh Winter arrived,

the Flame Mountain Tribe would enter its most desperate period of survival.

The first problem was food.

During this period, wild beasts were almost nowhere to be found.

The only creatures unaffected by the bitter cold were those powerful Ferocious Beasts.

Going out to hunt meant finding no prey at all. With bad luck, it even meant walking into death and delivering food to those powerful Ferocious Beasts.

If the food stored away in autumn was insufficient,

the Tribal Chief and High Priest would have no choice but to hold a ritual.

Its content was to have some of the old, weak, sick, and disabled set out in all directions from the Tribe, scattering withered leaves along the way.

The farther the withered leaves were scattered, the more the gods would bless the Tribe with successful hunts in the coming year.

The cruel truth behind it was that these old, weak, sick, and disabled were being sent out to die, so the Tribe could save food.

Every Harsh Winter, even when food reserves were sufficient, people from the Flame Mountain Tribe still starved to death.

Nor was there any shortage of tribespeople freezing to death.

This was because food and supplies were generally allocated first to strong, healthy men and children.

The former were the foundation of the Tribe's continued survival in the coming year, while the latter were the hope for the Tribe's continuation.

This year, however, was entirely different.

The Green Leopard Yi Chen had killed alone was enough to see the Tribe's more than one thousand people through a bountiful Harsh Winter.

Together with the food the Tribe had originally stored, it was enough for every tribesperson, young or old, male or female, to eat their fill.

More importantly, as the Chaos Art spread through the Tribe,

the tribespeople's physiques improved.

Their resistance to the cold rose dramatically.

They no longer had to worry about surviving the following year at all.

Because once this Harsh Winter had passed, aside from some very young children, every member of the Tribe would become a warrior capable of easily hunting Ferocious Beasts.

Their vigor, vitality, and spirit had been completely renewed.

To Yi Chen, their new Tribal Chief, the tribespeople practically worshipped him as a god.

Every gaze was filled with deep admiration and awe.

The High Priest, whom Yi Chen had nearly killed, could also be credited for no small part of this.

In order to preserve his status within the Tribe, this High Priest spared no effort in turning Yi Chen into a legend.

Every evening, he gathered the older elders of the Tribe and chatted about everything under the sun—about how Yi Chen had stopped the falling snow with a wave of his hand, how he had made the clouds dance gracefully, how he had made Lightning and Thunder illuminate the starry sky...

Those elders then added fuel to the flames, solemnly passing on the Tribal Chief's miracles to the younger generation.

The results were remarkable.

Yi Chen made his way to the end of The Valley.

To give himself a quiet environment, he had the tribespeople build an even larger Wooden House at the end of The Valley for him to use.

Before the Wooden House lay a broad open space.

Yi Chen began sprinting wildly across the clearing.

Spiritual Power surged into his legs, making him far faster than an ordinary person.

But that was clearly not enough.

As he sprinted, he also recalled everything he had comprehended over the past half month, trying to meld it all together into one whole.

"Huh? It looks like Yi Chen has finished comprehending and started studying and creating a cultivation method?"

"After finishing his comprehension, shouldn't he begin by studying and testing the cultivation method's energy circulation routes?"

"Only after testing them should he combine his insights with the circulation routes, make minute adjustments, and bring the two into perfect harmony. Only then can the cultivation method be considered created."

"He's probably familiarizing himself with and integrating the knowledge he comprehended first, then he'll start studying and testing the cultivation method's energy circulation routes."

"That's possible!"

Seeing that Yi Chen had finally stopped comprehending wind every day and studying birds and beasts, the tens of billions of viewers in the Live Stream Room immediately perked up.

Having watched Yi Chen create cultivation methods many times before,

they quickly figured out what he was doing.

"Come to think of it, he had been comprehending the characteristics of wind and studying how birds and beasts run. Now he's constantly sprinting around the clearing. Could the cultivation method he's creating be one that increases speed?"

"The odds are at least ninety percent. Otherwise, there'd be no way to explain it!"

"That's amazing. He can even create a cultivation method to increase speed?"

"When he was at the Qi Condensation Realm Sixth Level, pouring Spiritual Power into his legs let him reach a maximum speed of thirty meters per second."

"Now that he has broken through to the Spirit Release Realm First Level, his Spiritual Power has undergone a qualitative transformation. If he pours it into his legs, reaching forty or fifty meters per second definitely won't be difficult."

"With Yi Chen's abilities, it definitely won't be hard for the New Cultivation Method to increase speed by fifty percent. By that calculation, reaching seventy or eighty meters per second is practically a nail in the board. He might even break one hundred meters per second."

"My god, possibly over a hundred meters per second—and as long as his Spiritual Power isn't completely depleted, he can maintain that speed indefinitely."

"Wouldn't that mean he could reach three or four hundred kilometers per hour?"

"Holy shit, once I learn this New Cultivation Method, Mom will never have to worry about me being late for class again!"

"Good heavens. Once this New Cultivation Method comes out, I dare say the stock prices of those car companies will definitely plummet."

"How could flooring it in a car compare to tearing across the ground yourself, becoming lightning in a blaze of glory?"

"And it saves electricity and money too. No fuel costs, no maintenance. Once your Spiritual Power is depleted, you can cultivate it back."

"Depleting your Spiritual Power and cultivating again can even help your cultivation advance to a higher realm!"

"The only problem is that it burns through shoes! It feels like the stocks of shoe manufacturers are about to soar."

"Fuck, the stock market really reacts fast! We only just raised the possibility here, and over there, stocks across the entire automotive industry are already falling. Even the stocks of Flying Vehicle manufacturers have started dropping along with them."

"Meanwhile, shoe industry stocks are surging wildly!"

"Everyone's gone mad. Yi Chen hasn't even created the cultivation method yet! Is the stock market's reaction already this intense?"

"Starting today, all stockholders will probably have to move their battlefield to the Live Stream Room. Instead of watching the broader market, they'll need to watch Yi Chen."

"Even the slightest stir in the wind and grass could be the prelude to one type of stock crashing, or the beginning of another type soaring."

"Not just stockholders. The major news outlets probably see Yi Chen as the parents who feed and clothe them now, sending people to watch the live stream every day. At the slightest development, they immediately swap out their front-page headline."

"<Yi Chen Returns to the Tribe from the Forest—What Is He Going to Do?>, <Yi Chen Sprints Across an Open Field—What Does He Want?>, Yi Chen Takes a Sip of Water—What Is He Planning?. Any random nonsense can make the front page now, and the click rates are explosively high."

"Congratulations, you've cracked the code to traffic!"

"Those experts and scholars are also riding Yi Chen's coattails every few days."

"The craziest thing was a movie that came out on Planet A698 the day before yesterday. It actually changed its title at the last minute to The Story Yi Chen and I Have to Tell. Fucking thing pulled in more than five hundred million in a single day, breaking the planet's annual record for single-day box office revenue."

"Then the next day, though, the film company's headquarters got smashed up."

"All I can say about that outrageous move is: 666..."

The viewers in the Live Stream Room were filled with emotion.

Especially the early viewers. Even if beaten to death, they never would have imagined that Yi Chen's every move could exert such an enormous influence over human society.