At daybreak, Li Yuan went over the Bamboo Slip of the Fire Arrow Technique once more.
The incantation within was fairly short—much shorter than the Fireball Technique—and the flow of spirit qi was more direct.
There were fewer stages of building momentum and more restraint. What it emphasized was not exploding outward, but the instant it was fired.
Li Yuan put away the Bamboo Slip, left his home, and headed straight for Rocky Beach to the west.
The morning mist had yet to fully disperse. Rocky Beach was empty, and the black pits blasted open by Fireballs a few days ago were still there, their cracked edges already coated in dust.
Once he had steadied himself, spirit qi began circulating along the route described by the incantation.
His palm heated up first, then abruptly collapsed inward. The Fire-Attribute Spirit Qi that had originally been scattered was forcibly compressed into a single stream, darker in color and narrower at the edges than a Fireball.
The first attempt failed.
Just as it gathered halfway, the fiery line snapped apart with a pop, bursting into several sparks outside his palm.
Li Yuan shook out his hand and tried a second time.
This time, it formed, but its shape remained unstable.
The foot-long crimson Fire Arrow had barely left his hand before it suddenly veered aside, grazing the rock ahead and flying off to scorch a streak into the dirt slope beyond.
Not a big problem.
Having practiced the Fireball Technique for so long, he had long developed a feel for how Fire-Attribute Spirit Qi should gather and be released. The Fire Arrow Technique was nothing more than changing a circle into a line, changing an explosion into penetration.
The third time.
Spirit qi tightened, his palm sank, and a slender Fire Arrow abruptly