Flowing Light, Fleeting Shadow

Lin Yi sat cross-legged on the stone bed with his eyes closed. In his mind, that ink-black diagram of Divine Markings slowly unfurled like a painted scroll.

The process went unexpectedly smoothly.

He had originally thought the Inkshadow Leopard's Divine Markings would be far more complex than the Savage Bull King's. After all, that black panther's cultivation level was there for all to see, and speed-type Divine Markings should logically have been more exquisite in structure than strength-type ones.

Yet when he truly immersed himself in comprehending them, he found the patterns simple and clear. To put it exaggeratedly, he only had to glance at them to know what they meant.

Following his intent, the layers unfolded one by one and became transparent. The function of every node and the purpose of every arc appeared clearly in his understanding, without the slightest hitch or obscurity.

The entire comprehension process took less than an hour. He even felt as though he had merely "recalled" it a little before thoroughly grasping everything.

"So smooth..." Lin Yi opened his eyes and could not help sighing. "Comprehending the Inkshadow Leopard's Divine Markings, I understood them with barely a thought. Has my comprehension really become this strong?"

He lowered his head to look at his palm, undisguised satisfaction curling at the corners of his mouth.

Honestly, even he was somewhat surprised. When he had comprehended the Savage Bull Diagram last time, it had been fast too, but he had still needed repeated deductions, trial and error, and fine adjustments. He had even suffered several bouts of blood-qi backlash along the way.

But this time, from touching the first pattern to closing the loop on the last, it had gone as smoothly as if someone had fed him the answers beforehand.

He smacked his lips and credited it to the further growth in his comprehension during this period. Then he swiftly moved on to the next stage: modification.

With the complete experience of modifying the "Savage Bull Diagram" before him, he was far more practiced this time.

The layout of the human body's meridians and the distribution of Aperture Points had already formed a complete framework in his mind. He only needed to dismantle the portions of the Inkshadow Leopard Divine Markings corresponding to explosive power in the limbs, piece by piece, and recalibrate them to the corresponding positions on human legs.

Though the Savage Bull Divine Markings and Inkshadow Leopard Divine Markings headed in different directions, their underlying logic was connected. They could even offer each other minor complementary benefits.

Following that line of thought, Lin Yi completed the preliminary modification of the entire set of Divine Markings in less than an hour.

He took a deep breath and drove his blood-qi toward his legs. Familiar blood-gold patterns slowly surfaced beneath his skin. They shared the same origin as the "Savage Bull Diagram," but their distribution had clearly changed.

The Inkshadow Leopard's pattern characteristics had been fully retained. Beginning at his waist and hips, they spread along the outer sides of his thighs to his knees, then gathered downward at his ankles and soles, forming a streamlined layout brimming with tension.

The instant those patterns lit up, Lin Yi felt as if a force both light and violent had been poured into his legs. His muscles and tendons tightened at once, while his joints gave off a springy sensation that seemed eager to leap.

He stood up and casually jumped in place.

Boom!

A dull thud rang out. Lin Yi's head slammed solidly into the stone house's ceiling, making the entire room tremble slightly.

Several bits of rubble showered down from overhead, striking his stunned face.

"...Fuck."

Lin Yi rubbed the red mark on his forehead and sat back down on the bed with bared teeth. "I didn't control my strength. No, I need to test this outside."

He pushed open the door and hurried to the open ground outside the stone house. The sunlight was just right, and the packed earth beneath his feet was level and firm. The surroundings were spacious, perfect for cutting loose and running.

"Let's test the speed first."

Lin Yi bent forward slightly, his legs bending at the knees as the blood-gold patterns lit up again. With a thought, his body shot forward in an instant!

Wind violently rushed into his ears. The scenery on both sides of his vision stretched into blurred blocks of color. Dirt roads, stone walls, and wooden fences all swept backward in a blur.

He swept across the tribe's open grounds at a speed he had never experienced before, the shriek of air being torn apart ringing in his ears.

Lin Yi turned to look at the distance he had crossed, his heart pounding faster as an uncontrollable surge of excitement burst from his chest. "Fuck—this speed!"

He made a rough estimate. That instant burst had been at least three times faster than his normal speed.

And that was without using Spirit Eyes. If he added Spirit Eyes' dynamic tracking ability, his reaction precision during high-speed movement could improve even further.

But before his excitement had faded, he felt the drain.

That one brief sprint had caused nearly half a tenth of his blood-qi to evaporate into thin air.

The proportion did not sound like much, but translated into actual consumption, with his current cultivation reserves, he could only sustain around twenty such extreme bursts before he was completely drained.

Lin Yi stood there for a while, stroking his chin as he began to think.

"I won't need to go that fast for ordinary hunting or traveling. Most of the time, I only need to be a little faster than normal running. The extreme speed should be saved for critical moments, for preserving my life."

The more he thought about it, the more he felt those two needs should be separated.

He ran all the way back to the stone house, sat cross-legged again, and dismantled the newly modified leg Divine Markings line by line. He separated the explosive-speed portion as the "second layer," then fused and reorganized the remaining sustained-acceleration portion with the patterns in the original "Savage Bull Diagram" that amplified lower-body strength, forming the "first layer."

First layer, Flowing Light: low consumption, long endurance, roughly double the speed, suitable for daily running, pursuit hunting, and long-distance movement.

Second layer, Fleeting Shadow: high consumption, fierce bursts, triple the speed, suitable for short-range bursts, evading lethal attacks, pursuit, or escape.

"Finished." Lin Yi clapped his hands and examined the complete, self-consistent two-layer structure in his mind with satisfaction.

"This new martial skill will be called 'Flowing Light, Fleeting Shadow.' The first layer is Flowing Light, the second is Fleeting Shadow... Perfect. Hehehe."

He went outside once again.

This time, he activated the first layer, Flowing Light. As expected, the speed was much gentler than before. His feet were light as wind as he ran, granting only a bit more than double his normal speed.

Its blood-qi consumption was about the same as the "Savage Bull Diagram," practically negligible for his current cultivation. It was enough to support him chasing herds of Earth Gnawers across the hunting grounds for most of a day.

Lin Yi ran a lap and returned to where he had started. Taking a deep breath, he activated the second layer, Fleeting Shadow.

The blood-gold patterns suddenly brightened, and an even stronger current of blood-qi surged into his legs. His body shot forward again—this time, he was even faster than in the previous test!

The wind struck his face hard enough to sting. After estimating it, he found that, together with the optimization boost gained from fusing the lower-body portion of the Savage Bull Divine Markings, Fleeting Shadow's extreme speed had already reached nearly four times his usual speed!

It was so fast that even his own eyes could barely keep up.

If Spirit Eyes had not passively activated its dynamic vision, he would have nearly crashed into a tree at the tribe's edge.

Lin Yi slowly came to a stop, feeling the instant loss of a tenth of his blood-qi.

"...This consumption is really brutal."

He suddenly could not help laughing.

No wonder the Inkshadow Leopard, despite being absurdly fast when it fought him, had still failed to pin him down and kill him in a short time.

That beast's explosive power was strong, sure, but its consumption was also immense. After several rounds of sprinting, it had visibly started to wobble.

"If that Inkshadow Leopard's endurance had been a little better, Biao and I would probably have already been buried in that forest."

Lin Yi looked up at the sun overhead and grinned. The blood-gold patterns on his legs slowly faded away. He stretched broadly, and every joint in his body crackled.

The "Savage Bull Diagram" amplified strength, while "Flowing Light, Fleeting Shadow" amplified speed. He had offense and speed, bursts and endurance.

Together with Spirit Eyes' penetrating vision and tracking ability, his combat system was gradually becoming complete.

"Next, it's time to break through to the Blood-Qi Mountain Sinking Realm." Lin Yi clenched his fist, feeling the increasingly fervent blood-qi surging through his meridians.