For the next half month, Lu Changfeng practically lived in the forbidden stele forest.
Everything housed within the forbidden grounds was the essence of the Longbo Tribe's ten-thousand-year heritage. Besides the Heaven-Splitting Axe Technique and the Thunder Marsh Dance, there were dozens of other stone steles, large and small.
Each bore a martial art or spellcraft powerful enough to unleash a bloody storm in the outside world.
Lu Changfeng did not reach beyond his grasp. He kept a strict daily routine-meditating and cultivating qi at dawn, studying spellcraft in the morning, practicing martial arts in the afternoon, and standing alone before the Thunder Marsh Dance Stele at dusk, absorbed in its imagery for two to four hours at a time.
He could now clearly discern nine complete sequences of dance steps within the stele, but seeing them clearly was one thing; making them his own was another.
He simply observed and reflected, again and again, trying to cross-check the divine intent High Priest Ming Ke had sealed within the stele against his own martial arts. His aim was to move beyond spellcraft's manipulation of natural forces and instead resonate with heaven-and-earth spiritual qi. He was in no hurry to succeed.
Occasionally, he would also glance at the Heaven-Opening Axe Stele.
The ten-thousand-year-old axe intent sealed within the immense axe scar running through the stele was fierce and domineering. Whenever he studied it intently, he felt an unstoppable force rush toward him, as though it would cleave heaven and earth apart.
But he only looked; he did not practice. An axe technique of such supreme hardness and ferocity required the right moment and abundant true qi to sustain it. This was not yet the time to force an understanding.
The other martial arts and spellcraft within the forbidden grounds did not