Four Beast Diagram

The next morning, Wang Yu woke in the cavern again.

With his spirits restored, he grew interested in the four reliefs in the cavern and walked over to examine them one by one.

The four reliefs depicted a vicious wolf sprinting on all fours, a fierce tiger pouncing with claws and fangs bared, a mountain bear with its arms wrapped in an embrace, and a giant ape throwing back its head in a roar.

According to Daoist Chongyun, these four reliefs had also been left by an Immortal Cultivator and contained some sort of cultivation method. With enough patience and comprehension, one could glean something from them. He had also said to start with the Wolf-Running Diagram.

If Wang Yu could discover something in them and bring it back to Blue Star, that would be another major contribution.

Once Wang Yu stood before the Wolf-Running Diagram, he stared at the relief without moving another step.

Since it was something left by an Immortal Cultivator, he naturally extended his spiritual sense. Within his perception, the vicious wolf in the relief alternated between blurry and clear, and its limbs even gave him the uncanny impression that they were faintly moving.

But when he concentrated and examined it closely with his spiritual sense, the wolf's limbs became lifeless again, showing no further changes.

After this repeated several times, Wang Yu grew restless and irritable. He could no longer concentrate, and he had gleaned nothing concrete.

That was hardly surprising!

Daoist Chongyun had studied them for so many years without comprehending anything. Expecting results in such a short time was somewhat unrealistic. But Wang Yu now had a way to enhance his analytical and deductive abilities.

"Activate Overclocking synchronization."

Wang Yu activated Overclocking synchronization without hesitation. With a boom inside his head, his five senses were instantly amplified, and his thinking accelerated by an unknown number of times.

When he used his spiritual sense to examine the relief before him again, the previously blurry Wolf-Running Diagram became exceptionally clear. Under the analysis of his supercharged mind, every line in the relief seemed to conceal a profound pattern, bringing a sudden flash of understanding.

Overjoyed, Wang Yu continued to devote his full attention to analyzing the relief. Within his perception, the image of the vicious wolf began breaking apart according to a certain logic, transforming into lines of different lengths that assembled into a new image. But moments later, something seemed to go wrong. The new image collapsed with a crash, and the lines began constructing another image...

Barely perceptible specks of crystalline light flickered deep in Wang Yu's eyes. A complete diagram of a small human figure gradually emerged clearly in his mind, and then a second human figure began taking shape.

Twenty minutes later.

Wang Yu exited Overclocked Synchronization Mode, but four complete diagrams now filled his mind. They showed four small human figures imitating four different running and leaping postures of the vicious wolf in the Wolf-Running Diagram.

What Daoist Chongyun had failed to grasp despite his painstaking efforts, Wang Yu had deduced in this brief span with the system's help.

It seemed that, with Overclocking synchronization active, he qualified as someone with "peerless comprehension" and "a memory that never forgot a single glance."

Unfortunately, apart from Overclocked Synchronization Mode, the Taiyuan Auxiliary System gave no response to any of his probing questions. It seemed to be nothing more than a simple "system," hardly living up to its reputation as one of Blue Star's finest artificial intelligences.

And what was the "unknown energy" mentioned when the system first activated?

He remained deeply puzzled by that.

The third day.

Before the Wolf-Running Diagram relief.

Wang Yu pressed both hands and feet against the ground, holding a strange prone posture without moving.

In this position, his hands and feet ached terribly. Every muscle in his arms and thighs trembled nonstop, while his heart pounded with a "thump, thump," seemingly faster and louder than usual...

After a while, Wang Yu changed his pose. He arched his body backward, bent his legs into a crouch, and reached both hands forward in another strange posture.

Now sweat began pouring from his entire body, and the skin exposed outside his clothes started turning red...

Thud!

After completing the fourth posture in his mind, Wang Yu collapsed limply onto the ground. Only after a good while did he slowly get to his feet, grimacing in pain.

He could only manage it because his body was now far stronger than an ordinary person's. An ordinary person probably could not even hold the first posture.

But it truly was marvelous!

Although these four movements were difficult to perform, he could clearly feel that after putting himself through them, his entire body-especially the muscles in his limbs-had grown noticeably stronger.

Could this be the Body-Tempering Method Daoist Chongyun mentioned?

If so, could mastering the entire method fully awaken this body's Iron-Eater Crocodile bloodline?

Although he had little time left, he did not actually need to achieve anything through cultivation. He only needed to deduce the contents of the remaining three reliefs and bring the results back to Blue Star.

With that thought, he hesitated no longer. He stood before the next relief, the Tiger Pounce Diagram, and activated Overclocking synchronization again to begin his deductions.

Several days later.

Standing before the final relief, Wang Yu at last let out a long breath as four different poses imitating the giant ape's roar emerged in his mind.

He had finally obtained the complete cultivation method of the Four Beast Diagram. Each diagram could be broken down into four cultivation postures, making sixteen forms in total. But aside from the first four forms of the Wolf-Running Diagram, he could not yet practice the remaining twelve.

Even with Overclocking synchronization active, controlling all his muscles and striving to coordinate them, he could barely complete the first two forms of the Tiger Pounce Diagram, let alone the eight forms of Bear Embrace and Ape Roar that followed.

Over the past few days, Wang Yu had practiced the four forms of the Wolf-Running Diagram over and over, and his strength and stamina had surged again. Clearly, this cultivation method had real substance. Its value was certainly no less than that of the Yin Water Art. Once he returned to Blue Star, this would count as another major contribution.

Calculating the time now, nearly a month seemed to have passed. Even if he had miscounted, he could only be off by a few days at most.

Wang Yu suppressed his anticipation. After preparing enough water in some crude wooden basins he had made himself, he sealed the cavern entrance and quietly waited inside for the moment his consciousness would return to Blue Star.

Although he had spent only a month in this world, life in the modern world already felt like something from long ago. Sometimes, he even dreamed of his happy days on Blue Star.

A day passed, and nothing happened.

Wang Yu felt a little disappointed, but did not dwell on it. He still practiced the Four Beast Diagram cultivation method from time to time.

The second day passed, and still nothing happened.

Wang Yu grew somewhat impatient, but could still endure it. He continued waiting silently in the cavern.

The third day passed, and nothing happened yet again.

Wang Yu grew anxious and restless, occasionally feeling the urge to open the entrance and rush out of the cavern.

The fourth day.

The fifth day.

The sixth day...

One morning, half a month later.

The tightly sealed rock wall slowly opened from within, and a haggard figure emerged. It was Wang Yu.

His eyes were bloodshot, his hair disheveled, and he looked as though he had not rested properly in ages. Standing outside the rock wall, he raised his head to look at the azure sky, which he felt he had not seen for a long time. His face was deathly pale.

"It's been thirteen whole days. I can't keep deceiving myself! Even if I miscounted, there's no way I could be this far off."

"It looks like the thing I least wanted to happen has happened. Time flows at completely different rates in this world and on Blue Star. And it's not the slight difference they mentioned in training, but a huge gap. Could this have happened because there was something wrong with the way I descended into this world?" Wang Yu murmured, then suddenly punched the nearby rock wall with his left hand.

With a muffled boom, shattered stone flew in all directions, leaving a small crater about an inch deep in the rock wall.

Blood streamed from Wang Yu's fist, yet he seemed to feel no pain at all. Instead, his eyes shone fiercely, as though two flames were blazing within them.

No matter where the problem lay, he had to return to Blue Star alive. It was his home, where his parents and other loved ones were waiting.

The training classes had said that if the person whose dreams they entered in another world died, their original body's mind on Blue Star might also suffer damage. But he had directly replaced the otherworldly person's consciousness. If he died in this world, the consequences would probably be even worse. It might truly cause a serious problem with his original body's consciousness on Blue Star.

Since he now had no idea how long it would take to return, he could only do his best to stay alive for the time being.

The cavern was fine as a short-term hiding place, but it was hard to say whether it would remain safe over time. He still knew little about the methods of Immortal Cultivators, so caution was best.

If he was going to hide, he might as well do it thoroughly and leave the Yellowstone City region altogether.

After all, the lord of Yellowstone City had also died here. The Huang Household ruled this region and would never easily let the killer go. If he, the killer's disciple, fell into their hands, his fate was easy to imagine.

As for Wang Family Village, returning there was naturally even more impossible.

After thinking it through, Wang Yu finally made his decision. He silently said, Overclocking. The blood flowing from his hand immediately slowed to a stop at a visible rate. The muscle tissue around the wound also writhed and rapidly contracted, miraculously beginning to staunch the bleeding.

He was not surprised by this.

During the latter part of these past dozen or so days, whenever his anxiety became unbearable, he could only activate Overclocked Synchronization Mode from time to time to force himself to calm down. His mastery of Overclocking synchronization was now far beyond what it had been a dozen days earlier. He could already switch it on and off instantly with the briefest command.

Wang Yu turned and returned to the cavern. A short while later, he emerged carrying a large bundle on his back. After activating the mechanism to close the rock wall again, he found a dead branch and swept away the more obvious traces on the nearby ground. Then he hurried down the mountain, heading straight for a nearby large town.