Freedom

After enjoying a comfortable breakfast, Huang Tian returned to his apartment to continue his cultivation.

Only about three hours later, he felt his meridians begin to swell slightly, a clear sign that he had reached his limit.

"It seems my daily cultivation time cannot exceed twelve hours, otherwise it might lead to a chaotic flow of spiritual energy, doing more harm than good."

He pulled himself out of his meditative state. "Since I cannot continue absorbing spiritual energy, I might as well try practicing those two spells."

Huang Tian flipped to the pages recording the Earth Golem Technique and the Lesser Cloud and Rain Technique, doing his best to memorize and comprehend their contents.

Two minutes later, he closed his eyes, and the cultivation details for both spells appeared in his mind with perfect clarity.

At the same time, he understood every detail and nuance of how to execute these spells, as if he had practiced them countless times before.

My memory and comprehension have improved significantly!

Is this also an effect of cultivation? The former might be, but the latter... Mo Qiu never mentioned that practicing the Yellow Heaven Mountain-Suppressing Spirit Scripture would improve one's comprehension.

Therefore, it must be the effect of my superpower again.

Huang Tian was very satisfied with the changes brought about by his superpower, and he wanted to say:

Not enough! Not enough!

He shook his head and chuckled, feeling that he was being quite childish at this moment.

"I really am still a young man, with a wandering mind, prone to getting carried away..."

Huang Tian steadied his mind, suppressed the urge to cast the spells immediately, grabbed his keys to lock the door, went downstairs, and rode his little e-bike toward Guangming Park.

Guangming Park had a grand name, but in reality, it was just a flat patch of land on the outskirts of the city with only a pavilion and a dozen or so exercise machines, connected to several small hills behind it.

There were no ferocious beasts on the small hills, but the trees were quite dense and mosquitoes were plentiful in the summer, so as soon as it got dark, people exercising or resting in Guangming Park would leave immediately to avoid serving as a feast for the insects.

Huang Tian lived near the outskirts, so he arrived at Guangming Park after about ten minutes of riding.

After parking his bike, Huang Tian walked along the gravel path into the park. At this hour, there were only a few elderly people inside, either resting on the long stone benches of the pavilion or playing chess with worried expressions.

Huang Tian did not linger; he walked straight through the park and followed a narrow path into the small hills behind it.

The further he went, the denser the trees and grass became. From time to time, birds were startled by Huang Tian, flapping their wings to fly into the sky, circling a few times before landing back on the branches.

Huang Tian avoided the crisscrossing branches of the trees, walking unhurriedly up the hill until, finally, the dense forest completely blocked the path ahead.

Huang Tian stopped and looked around. The surrounding trees stood either straight and tall or leaned like beauties, and it was extremely quiet, with only the faint sound of old men arguing over a retracted move in the park far away.

"This place is good—quiet, and no one is around."

He stood on the dirt ground, closed his eyes, and focused. After a few breaths, he faintly felt a sense of heaviness coming from the earth.

With a slight movement of his intent, he mobilized the spiritual power within his body and changed his fingers into a hand seal.

"Condense!"

Rumble~

The ground within a radius of several meters trembled slightly. The surrounding soil and sand seemed to be kneaded by an invisible giant hand, rapidly bulging upward and aggregating to form a nearly ten-foot-tall earth golem holding a stone hammer.

The golem's face was blurred, lacking features, but just looking at its height, build, and the weapon it wielded, one could feel its power.

Huang Tian walked up to the golem and realized he only reached its waist, curiously patting its abdomen, back, and arms.

"It really has the texture of dirt and stone."

Huang Tian circled the golem and said softly, "Reach out your hand."

The golem immediately stretched both hands out straight.

"Lift your leg."

The golem quickly lifted its leg.

"Move that rock."

The golem walked in the direction Huang Tian pointed and easily lifted a half-person-tall rock to its waist.

"Great strength and decent movement speed; the Earth Golem Technique is indeed a good low-level defensive spell. The pity is that it consumes too much mana. Just condensing a golem that can only last for fifteen minutes cost me nearly a third of my mana."

"It is mainly because my cultivation base is too low. If I were a few levels higher, my mana reserves would naturally be greater, and using spells would certainly be easier and more effortless."

Huang Tian shook his head, looked at the motionless golem, and said, "Dissipate!"

As the words fell, the tall golem immediately collapsed, turning into piles of gravel and loose soil.

After testing the Earth Golem Technique, Huang Tian did not rush to try the Lesser Cloud and Rain Technique, but instead took out his phone and opened the weather forecast.

"It says the weather will change in an hour and there will be a light rain."

He looked up at the sky and found that the sun had been mostly covered by thick clouds. The sky was gradually darkening, and the air felt muggy.

"While I have this time, I'll do some breathing exercises to replenish the consumed spiritual power."

Over half an hour later.

Huang Tian felt the spiritual power in his body return to fullness. He nodded slightly and looked up at the sky again. The sun was completely blocked, and dark clouds were piling up layer by layer, looking like they had been stained with ink; the daylight was dim.

"Time to try the Lesser Cloud and Rain Technique."

His fingers shifted, and spiritual power surged out, guiding the moisture in the air to gather toward his location like a tornado.

Whoosh~

A series of warm breezes blew over, causing the branches on the hillock to sway gently. Soon, the wind intensified, the trees began to rock, leaves took flight, and dust was whipped into the air.

The clouds in the sky seemed to change in tandem with the wind; lead-grey clouds moved rapidly, piling up and deepening in color, shifting from lead-grey to charcoal-black.

At the same time, the cloud layer descended lower and lower, pressing down into mid-air, as if something were churning and brewing within the masses of clouds.

BOOM—

Suddenly, a bolt of purple, spiderweb-like lightning tore through the sky, followed immediately by a massive peal of thunder that startled the birds and beasts in the mountain forest; they either curled up in terror or let out cries of unease.

Drip, drop~

Individual raindrops landed on the leaves, creating soft splashing sounds. In the blink of an eye, the sparse rain connected into strings of beads, then wove together into an impenetrable curtain of rain.

The rain poured down as if it were being dumped from the heavens by the basin-load, a torrential downpour that showed no sign of stopping.

Gale-force winds howled amidst the storm, at times lashing out with rain, at others swirling with water vapor as they surged upward. Muffled thunder rumbled vaguely from within the heavy black clouds, but it was completely drowned out by the clamor of the downpour.

The entire mountain forest was left with nothing but the continuous, roaring sound of the storm scouring all things.

God Huang Tian looked relaxed, allowing the rain to wash over his entire body.

When he was a youth, he had loved standing in the rain, walking and running through it, because he thought it was cool.

After growing up, he realized that such behavior was truly foolish and rather cringeworthy.

But now, he bathed in the gale and driving rain with delight, because at this very moment, he felt a powerful sense of something called Great Freedom.

Long trapped in a cage, he had returned to nature once more!