The salty, cool sea breeze, carrying the dampness and faint tang unique to the open ocean, swept ceaselessly across this remote, rarely visited coastline.
Jagged black reefs jutted up like the backs of giant beasts, stubbornly enduring the relentless battering of the waves, which sent countless white sprays flying.
Lin Yi slowly opened his eyes. Deep within his gaze, billions of tiny golden runes seemed to flicker past like a flowing galaxy before vanishing without a trace, leaving behind a calm deeper than the sea.
He remained seated cross-legged, sinking his awareness into his body to carefully assess his condition.
Nearly three years had passed since his last epiphany.
For most of those three years, he had sat meditating atop this weather-beaten reef, like an old monk in deep contemplation, devoting himself entirely to digesting the profound afterglow of that epiphany.
Using his own abilities, he had gradually separated it out, analyzed it, absorbed it, and ultimately incorporated it into his understanding of the universe's Metal Rule, making that understanding more rounded and clear.
This was also what made Lin Yi feel most involved.
After all, the epiphany had handled the hard part. He could at least contribute a little himself.
Based on the pattern he had established over the years, once he had fully digested and absorbed the afterglow of an epiphany, it was time for him to emerge from seclusion.
He would then spend some time handling non-urgent matters that had piled up, and further test and reinforce his insights through actual combat.
This had become an almost fixed rhythm.
This time, however, things were a little different.
His last epiphany had brought his comprehension of the Metal Element Rule all the way up to an astonishing ninety-eight percent, leaving him just one step short of the legendary