New Martial Skill: Flowing Light, Fleeting Shadow

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

It went unexpectedly smoothly.

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

Yet when he truly immersed himself in comprehending them, he found those patterns simple and clear. To exaggerate a little, one glance was enough to tell him what they meant.

They unfolded layer by layer along with his thoughts, becoming transparent section by section. The purpose of every node and every curve appeared clearly within 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 fully digesting it.

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

He lowered his head to look at his palm, the smug expression at the corners of his mouth completely undisguised.

To be honest, even he was somewhat surprised. The last time he had comprehended the Savage Bull Diagram, it had been fast too, but he had still needed to repeatedly deduce, test, and fine-tune it. 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, everything had gone as smoothly as if someone had filled his head with the answers beforehand.

He smacked his lips and attributed it to the further increase in his comprehension over 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 much more familiar with the process 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. All he needed to do was dismantle, section by section, the parts of the Inkshadow Leopard Divine Markings responsible for explosive limb strength, then recalibrate them to the corresponding positions in human legs.

Although the Savage Bull Divine Markings and Inkshadow Leopard Divine Markings were oriented differently, their underlying logic was connected. They could even complement each other in small ways.

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

He drew 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 preserved in full: beginning from the waist and hips, they spread down the outer sides of his thighs to his knees, then converged at his ankles and the soles of his feet. The whole arrangement formed a streamlined, intensely taut design.

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

He stood up and casually jumped in place.

Thud!

With a dull bang, Lin Yi's head slammed solidly into the stone room's ceiling. The entire room trembled faintly along with it.

Several bits of broken stone rustled down from overhead, striking his stunned face.

"...Fuck."

Lin Yi rubbed the red mark on his forehead, bared his teeth in pain, and sat back down on the bed. "I didn't get a grip on the force. No, I need to test it outside."

He pushed open the door and quickly walked to the open ground outside the stone house. The sunlight was just right, the earth underfoot had been trampled firm and level, and the surroundings were wide open—perfect for running flat out.

"Let's test the speed first."

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

The wind rushed fiercely into his ears. The scenery on both sides of his vision stretched into blurry swathes of color—the dirt road, stone walls, and wooden fences all swept backward in a blur.

He streaked across the tribe's open ground at a speed he had never experienced before, the sharp shriek of torn air ringing beside his ears.

Lin Yi turned back to look at the distance he had covered. His heart pounded faster, and an excitement he could barely suppress surged up from his chest. "Fuck—this speed!"

He made a rough estimate. That instantaneous burst had been at least three times his usual speed.

And that was without using Spirit Eyes. If he added Spirit Eyes' dynamic tracking ability, his reaction precision while moving at high speed could be raised even further.

But before the excitement had faded, he felt the expenditure.

That single burst of sprinting had caused roughly half a tenth of his Blood Qi to evaporate into thin air.

The proportion did not sound like much, but converted into actual expenditure, with his current cultivation reserves, he could only sustain around twenty such high-speed bursts before being completely drained.

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

"I won't need to run that fast when hunting or traveling normally. Most of the time, I only need to be a little faster than normal running. I just need to save top speed for critical moments when my life is on the line."

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 diagram 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 enhanced lower-body strength, forming the "first layer."

First Layer: Flowing Light. Low consumption, long endurance, roughly double speed, suitable for everyday running, pursuit hunting, and long-distance travel.

Second Layer: Fleeting Shadow. High consumption, fierce bursts, triple speed, suitable for short-range bursts, evading fatal attacks, pursuit, or escape.

"Finished." Lin Yi clapped his hands and studied 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 more.

This time, he activated the first layer, Flowing Light. The speed was indeed much gentler than before. When he ran, his steps felt light as the wind, giving him only a little more than double his usual speed.

The Blood Qi consumption was about the same as the Savage Bull Diagram's. Given his current cultivation, it was practically negligible—enough to support him chasing a herd of Earth Gnawers across the hunting grounds for most of the day.

Lin Yi ran a lap and returned to his starting point. Taking a deep breath, he activated the second layer, Fleeting Shadow.

The blood-gold patterns abruptly brightened, and even more powerful Blood Qi flooded into his legs. His body launched forward once again—this time, he was even faster than during the previous test!

The wind struck his face painfully. After estimating it, he realized that with the optimization boost from integrating the lower-body portion of the Savage Bull Divine Markings, Fleeting Shadow's top speed was now 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 his dynamic vision, he would have nearly crashed into a tree on the outskirts of the tribe.

Lin Yi slowly came to a stop, feeling the tenth of his Blood Qi that had just been drained away.

"...This consumption is really brutal."

He suddenly could not help laughing.

No wonder the Inkshadow Leopard, when fighting him back then, had been ridiculously fast yet still failed to pin him down and kill him in a short time.

That beast's explosive power had been strong, sure, but its consumption had been immense as well. After several bursts, it had visibly begun to stagger.

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

Lin Yi raised his head to look at the sun overhead and grinned. The blood-gold patterns on his legs slowly faded away. He stretched lazily, and every joint in his body crackled.

The Savage Bull Diagram enhanced strength, while Flowing Light, Fleeting Shadow enhanced speed. He had offense and speed, explosive power and endurance.

Together with Spirit Eyes' penetrating vision and tracking abilities, 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 surge through his meridians.