Ceiling

Jingle! Jingle! Jingle!

Facing Mu Yang's pouncing attack, Korin narrowed his eyes and dodged around. He did not deliberately conceal his presence, so as he swayed from side to side, the little bell gave off a jingling sound.

Following the sound, Mu Yang altered the course of his leap. Many times, he came close to grabbing the water jug, but with a curl of Korin's paw, the wooden staff lifted the jug and slid it elsewhere.

The air high atop Karin Tower was thin. Before long, Mu Yang began panting heavily.

Korin stopped, resting his staff across his shoulder.

"The environment atop Karin Tower is different from down below. The air here is only half as dense. If you don't control yourself and cut down on unnecessary movements, your body will soon be unable to endure it."

"I... understand." Mu Yang panted, shouted loudly, and seized the chance to leap forward.

Korin burst into laughter. Whenever Mu Yang was about to touch the water jug, he would sway aside, and the jug would brush past Mu Yang once more.

"Listen carefully to the bell. Don't let my movements distract you."

Korin's voice suddenly sounded beside Mu Yang's ear, startling him. Looking closely, he found an enlarged cat face had suddenly appeared before him.

Korin grinned at Mu Yang, revealing two rows of gleaming white teeth.

Just as Mu Yang reached out, the cat face before him suddenly turned into an afterimage and was torn apart...

"You need to reduce your own expenditure, find the optimal path for your leaps, and train a sharp pair of eyes. When fighting others, you don't need to pay attention to all of their movements. You only need to learn to seize the key points. Sometimes, a simple strike can have a decisive effect. Like this..."

As soon as Korin finished speaking, his eyes narrowed into slits.

His constant dodging suddenly changed. Korin left several afterimages in place, then directly extended his wooden staff and jabbed forward. The staff struck Mu Yang in the chest. Mu Yang's whole body convulsed, and a tremendous explosive force seemed to detonate in his chest. He collapsed to the ground, unable to fight back.

"That attack just now tested your eyesight and decisiveness."

Seeing it with his eyes was not enough. He also had to make a decision at the very first moment.

"So amazing!"

Mu Yang bared his teeth as he climbed up, rubbing his chest, but his eyes were filled with an intense desire to grow stronger.

"Hahaha, it was nothing. Rest for a while. Once you've thought it through, continue your training." Korin laughed heartily, then yawned and lay down on a nearby bench to sleep.

Mu Yang watched silently and committed Korin's words to heart. On the path of cultivation, receiving guidance from someone skilled could save one from many detours.

Although he had known the principles Korin spoke of before, practice was the best teacher. Listening without training was empty talk; listening while training produced incomparable results.

In the blink of an eye, eight or nine days passed.

Over these days, Mu Yang was like a sponge that absorbed water, continuously soaking up the martial arts principles Korin taught him during training. His understanding and control of power improved noticeably. Although Mu Yang's energy value remained at a standstill and did not break through the threshold of 100, he felt that he had gained enormously. It excited him far more than an increase in Battle Power would have.

By the tenth day, Mu Yang had greatly reduced his ineffective movements, and his openings had become fewer and fewer. When he played the water jug-snatching game with Korin again, he had already begun to display his own style.

Korin saw all of this and secretly nodded to himself.

Finally, on the eighteenth day, Mu Yang successfully snatched the water jug from Korin. Korin then went with the flow and revealed the truth about the Super Holy Water. "There is actually no such thing as Super Holy Water in this world. That jug contains nothing but ordinary spring water. The true training lies in the process of seizing the water jug."

"You can give it a try. Your strength is already far greater than before."

The strength Korin spoke of did not merely refer to Battle Power, but overall strength. For martial artists on Earth, because their energy levels were generally not high, what they valued was overall strength. Battle Power measured solely by instruments was not the key factor that determined victory or defeat.

Battle Power was the force of a single strike, while overall strength considered every aspect, including combat techniques and combat strategy. Simply put, it was how to defeat an opponent more effectively.

Of course, the two were highly related. If one's Battle Power was high, then one's overall strength could not be low, since Battle Power was the foundation of overall strength.

"Karin the Immortal, I understand now."

"It's good that you understand." Korin nodded and removed the little bell from his body. "Come on. This time, I won't go easy on you."

"Please!" Mu Yang's spirit soared. His expression was serious and solemn as he began adjusting his body's energy.

Mu Yang launched the first attack. His movements were swift as the wind and forceful as lightning. A white streak flashed through the air and appeared before Korin in the blink of an eye, then changed direction and attacked the water jug hanging from Korin's staff.

However, after removing the bell, Korin's movements became even more unfathomable than before.

Korin chuckled and casually assumed a stance, instantly fooling Mu Yang.

Thud! Thud-thud!

Only the sounds could be heard; Mu Yang himself was nowhere to be seen. His speed had accelerated to its limit, yet Korin seemed even faster. Two blurred streaks flashed continuously through the training ground of over a hundred square meters, while fierce gusts swept out beyond Karin Tower.

Mu Yang's eyes followed Korin's movements without pause, but Korin's actions were full of deception, shifting unpredictably between truth and falsehood. His eyes almost seemed insufficient.

"Although unnecessary movements are wasteful, movements that confuse your opponent are not unnecessary."

With a series of crackles, Korin lightly leaped up. His wooden staff traced a graceful arc through the air, then flicked upward, sending the water jug steadily onto the central stone platform.

"All right, that's enough training for today. Think over today's training again tonight."

Korin waved his paw and went off to rest again.

"..."

Watching Korin's back as he descended the stairs, Mu Yang panted, wiped the sweat from his face, and dropped onto the floor.

Once he had rested enough, Mu Yang began adjusting the energy within his body. Then, with a swoosh, he entered Acceleration Space.

At this point, Acceleration Space still had a radius of ten meters, but compared with before, it had changed tremendously.

As Mu Yang's strength continuously approached the threshold of 100, a thick layer of clouds and mist had accumulated in the pale sky. The clouds churned endlessly, like a solid wall blocking the heavens above. Especially after he climbed Karin Tower, the clouds accumulated at an ever-increasing rate, and that "ceiling" grew lower and lower.

"At this rate, the ceiling of this space will come crashing down before long."

As he looked at the dense cloud layer, it felt like dark clouds pressing down upon a city on the verge of collapse. Yet Mu Yang felt an urge to smash it apart.

It seemed that as long as he shattered that ceiling, a clear road would unfold before him.

"Take it slowly. At this rate of progress, perhaps it won't be long before this Acceleration Space undergoes a complete transformation."

To this day, Mu Yang could not figure out where Acceleration Space had come from. He could only attribute it to being an accessory of his transmigration, so he handled this space with great caution.