Your footwork is lagging

The Notting Academy playground was bathed in the harsh, blinding glare of the midday sun.

Three layers of students crowded around to watch, and even a few teachers stood in the distance, arms crossed as they observed with keen interest.

Yu Xiaogang stood in the center of the field, his expression solemn.

"Since this is an academic discussion, let us stop once the point is made."

He looked toward the two youths on either side.

On the left, Tang San stood tall and straight, his hands hanging naturally at his sides. A faint, lustrous jade hue flowed across his fingertips, and his eyes were as sharp as a hawk's.

On the right, Qin Feng stood in a lazy posture, followed by a Grey Wolf that walked on two legs and wore a tattered coat. The wolf held a strange hand-cranked device, muttering odd phrases like "overqualified" and "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."

"Begin." Yu Xiaogang waved his hand and retreated to the sidelines.

Before the words had even faded, Tang San moved.

Without any warning, his body seemed to defy the laws of inertia, vanishing from his spot in an instant.

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

Three afterimages of Tang San appeared out of thin air on the playground.

They charged at Qin Feng from the left, right, and rear respectively. Each shadow appeared incredibly lifelike, and the force of their footsteps kicked up the fallen leaves on the ground.

"Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track!"

Wang Sheng exclaimed, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. "How is it possible to tell which one is the real body?"

The surrounding work-study students also gasped. This kind of speed was simply not something a Spirit Master could possess.

Tang San sneered inwardly.

This was the unique skill of the Tang Sect.

By using the Mysterious Heaven Skill to stimulate the meridians in his legs and combining it with a unique rhythmic footwork, he could create a visual deception. Even an opponent ten levels higher in spirit power would find it impossible to easily track his true form.

He looked at Qin Feng, who was still standing there in a daze, and a trace of disdain flashed in his eyes.

Since you were so arrogant, I will make it so you can't even touch the hem of my clothes before I throw you right off the field.

All three "Tang Sans" reached out simultaneously, grabbing toward Qin Feng's shoulders.

Just then, Qin Feng moved his lips.

"Brother Wolf, crank it."

"So annoying! Why does this trashy thing require me to do it myself!"

Grey Wolf grumbled, but his hands moved with astonishing speed.

He violently cranked the wooden handle, and the sound of grinding gears rang out instantly.

"Zzzzt—"

At the front of the device, a lightbulb crudely fashioned from a glass bottle and a tungsten filament suddenly flared to life.

But it did not shine steadily.

Driven by the rapid rotation of Qin Feng's custom-made shutter, the light began to flicker frantically at a frequency of thirty times per second.

The intense strobe light acted like invisible blades of light, slicing the scene on the playground into fragmented pieces.

A bizarre sight unfolded.

The three afterimages of Tang San, which had been perfectly fluid and ghost-like, instantly suffered from severe stuttering under the strobe light.

Just like a skipping video player, Tang San's figure became jerky, each movement broken down into stiff, static frames.

The coherent, dazzling "afterimage" effect vanished without a trace!

"Wh... what is going on?"

Wang Sheng rubbed his eyes, feeling a wave of nausea.

That high-frequency flickering was extremely uncomfortable, but it also completely exposed the true form of the seemingly miraculous footwork.

Two of the three shadows instantly faded and disappeared, leaving only the real Tang San, who remained in an awkward lunging posture, stiffly exposed two meters to Qin Feng's left.

His rhythm was broken.

Human vision relies on persistence, and the Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track utilized this persistence to create afterimages.

But the high-frequency strobe light forcibly severed the continuity of visual retention.

Tang San felt as if the light and shadows before him were in chaos. His originally fluid footwork rhythm was completely disrupted by the flickering light, causing his blood to surge in his chest. He stumbled, nearly falling over.

"Right there."

Qin Feng did not even turn his head.

He casually grabbed a handful of soybeans he had prepared earlier and tossed them onto the ground to his left like scattering feed.

"Clatter!"

The moment Tang San's foot touched the ground, he stepped right onto several round soybeans.

Under normal circumstances, given his balance, this would have been nothing.

However, under the triple blow of obstructed vision, disrupted rhythm, and an unstable center of gravity, this kick became the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Sliiiide--"

Tang San's foot slipped, his body instantly lost its balance, and he fell face-first, crashing heavily into the dirt in a humiliating sprawl.

"Bang!"

Dust billowed into the air.

The entire arena fell into a deathly silence.

Only the generator in the hands of Grey Wolf continued to emit a "creak-creak" sound.

Qin Feng signaled for Grey Wolf to stop, then walked over to Tang San, who was lying on the ground. He crouched down, his tone as flat as if he were stating an objective fact.

"Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track uses high-speed movement and sudden changes in direction to leave afterimages on the retina, deceiving the brain."

"It's just like a cartoon; if you play twenty-four pictures in one second, the human eye perceives it as motion."

"I just used a strobe light to turn your twenty-four frames per second into three frames per second. Your fluid movements became a slideshow to the human eye, and your afterimages naturally fell apart."

Qin Feng pointed to his own eyes, then pointed at Tang San.

"Your so-called ultimate technique is nothing more than exploiting the physiological flaws of the human eye's incomplete evolution."

"As long as you understand a bit of optics and physiology, breaking your move is easier than drinking water."

Tang San lay on the ground, his hands digging fiercely into the soil.

His fingernails broke, and blood began to seep out.

He didn't understand what "frames" or "retinas" were, but he understood the sense of matter-of-fact contempt in Qin Feng's tone.

The footwork he took such pride in had been completely dismantled by a broken lamp and a handful of soybeans!

What's more, Qin Feng hadn't even activated his martial soul!

This was more painful than being killed!

"I don't accept this!"

Tang San sprang up violently, his eyes bloodshot and his face covered in dust, looking utterly wretched.

"That was an accident! You blinded me with a bright light! What kind of skill is this kind of crooked path?"

Qin Feng stood up and clapped his hands.

"Science is the use of tools to achieve a goal. You call this a crooked path, but what does that make your Mysterious Heaven Skill? Bio-electric reinforcement of muscle fibers?"

"Enough talk!"

Tang San didn't want to hear any more of those incomprehensible terms.

He had to win!

He absolutely had to win!

Even without his footwork, relying solely on Mysterious Jade Hand and Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon, he could crush this ordinary person who possessed no soul power in close-quarters combat!

"Again!"

Tang San let out a low growl, his hands instantly turning as white and translucent as jade, radiating a chilling aura.

Mysterious Jade Hand!

Impervious to all poisons, hard as metal and stone!

He pushed off the ground, abandoning fancy footwork and relying instead on pure physical explosive power to charge straight at Qin Feng.

This time, he would use absolute strength to crush this guy's stubborn mouth!

Qin Feng watched Tang San charging straight at him, but instead of dodging, he pulled a strange device wrapped in copper coils and connected to two metal probes out of his pocket.

He looked back at Grey Wolf.

"Brother Wolf, increase the power."

Grey Wolf rolled his eyes, his arm muscles bulging as he violently accelerated the speed of the crank handle.

"Zzzzzzt--"

The sound of strange electrical currents crackled through the air.