Gaining Insight into Spear Techniques Through the Rain

Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and dense raindrops struck Lucas's bare upper body.

Watching the rain fall thick and fast, he remembered someone in a novel he had read gaining insight into a sword technique. Its attacks were as unceasing as the rain, its sword shadows like strands of rainfall, so dense that the enemy had nowhere to hide!

Lucas began wielding his spear in the rain. Spear shadows intertwined endlessly, forming an impenetrable weave under his hands. Every spear shadow was solid, and Lucas began using his spear to touch each falling raindrop.

As Lucas spun and shifted, his spear tip struck a tenth or two of the rain falling from the sky. The force contained in the spear then shattered those drops into smaller droplets that scattered.

Gradually, as Lucas wielded his spear faster and faster, a haze of mist appeared around him. As time passed, the area covered by the mist slowly expanded.

The rain came quickly and went just as quickly. Lucas slowly emerged from the pleasure of gaining insight into spear techniques! He was delighted, too. Today's rain had given him a different kind of insight!

The spear technique he had now gained insight into was very useful when facing attacks from a group. Although it might not have the offensive power of his all-out strike, today's insight had also improved his attack speed, which had always been a weakness of his.

His previous spear techniques had mostly been single-point attacks, and during this period, Lucas had also cultivated his Battle Qi to the sixth rank. Two years had already passed since he had fought that seventh-rank Velocidragon alongside the people from that tribe who were out gaining experience.

Although his physical strength had still not broken through to the sixth rank, his Battle Qi had caught up from behind and surpassed it. It had already reached the sixth rank, and Lucas was confident that if he encountered that seventh-rank Velocidragon now, he could probably kill it.

Lucas looked at his surroundings, and he was soaked as well. His clothes and armor had been damaged by years of fighting and scraping against things, so he had thrown them away. Now his lower body was wrapped only in the pelt of a Wind Wolf he had killed a while ago!

He returned to the cave where he had been staying and dried the beast pelt he wore!

After eating, Lucas knew that the nights here were relatively dangerous, so he sat beside the fire and began cultivating and replenishing the Battle Qi he had expended while gaining insight into his spear technique. The night quickly passed. When Lucas woke in the morning, he poured the water he had boiled the previous night, which had already cooled, into his waterskin. Then he cooked magical beast meat again. After eating breakfast and replenishing his energy, Lucas prepared to continue on a new stretch of his journey.

Lucas stepped out of the cave and stretched. As he stretched, the bones throughout his body, strengthened by his training, made a series of popping sounds.

It was now early summer, and flowers of all kinds still bloomed across the mountains. After the rain, the mountains were filled with fresh, fragrant scents. As Lucas breathed deeply, the scent of grass mingled with rainwater filled his nostrils.

Lucas's upper body was bare. At fifteen, his body had clearly defined abdominal muscles from all his years of training. His well-proportioned body bore distinct muscles, strong without looking overly rugged.

Walking over the rain-soaked ground, Lucas felt the vitality the earth bestowed upon all things. Suddenly, he understood the words his master had taught him before. The earth's nature was receptive; a noble man sustained all things through ample virtue. The earth was like such a noble man, benevolent and virtuous, nourishing all things with itself.

Unfortunately, although Lucas seemed to have grasped something, it also seemed that he had grasped nothing at all.

Lucas smiled as he walked along the path and did not dwell on it. He understood that the hint he had seemed about to grasp was a manifestation of the profound mystery of vitality within the laws of the earth. He had not seized the opportunity to gain an initial understanding of it, and he understood that his accumulated foundation was still insufficient. Forcing it would therefore do no good. He was already ahead of many humans his own age.

He could not deliberately chase after the laws merely to gain insight into them. That would only make him like a fly blundering about blindly, taking him farther and farther from the initial understanding of the laws he sought. Lucas had always firmly believed in the wisdom of his ancestors: building a deep foundation before making a breakthrough was the true way.

As Lucas walked along the mountain path, he suddenly spotted a black, bear-like magical beast not far away. He also noticed that after glancing at him, the magical beast paid him no further attention and instead walked off in a certain direction. Seeing that it ignored him, Lucas breathed a sigh of relief.

Although he did not know what kind of magical beast it was, Lucas was no fool. He knew that most bear-like magical beasts were high-ranking magical beasts. Fortunately, this one had not attacked him. In the original novel, when Linley drank dragon blood to awaken his Dragonblood Warrior bloodline, he had encountered a Saint-level Purple-Striped Black Bear.

That showed that most bear-like magical beasts were high-ranking magical beasts. Lucas also saw that the black bear before him was walking on the ground. He therefore guessed that it most likely could not be Saint-level, but was probably a ninth- or eighth-rank magical beast.

Although he did not know why it had not attacked him and was instead hurrying in a certain direction, Lucas was also a seasoned novel fan. Based on his many years of reading novels, situations like this generally meant that some natural treasure or something similar had appeared.

Lucas debated whether to follow it and take a look. In the end, he could not resist the temptation. He quietly followed, but did not dare get too close.

After following it for some distance, Lucas saw the black bear stop. It seemed to be observing something, but he was too far away to see clearly.

Yet when Lucas looked around, he saw none of the signs of an impending battle among beasts that accompanied the appearance of such natural treasures. After all, according to the usual conventions of novels, would there not be many, many magical beasts gathering in one direction at a time like this?

Lucas had not spotted a single magical beast nearby apart from the black bear. Just as he was still wondering whether to risk going closer for a look, he noticed the black bear move.

At that moment, the black bear approached the foot of a rocky cliff screened by a tall tree. That large tree completely blocked Lucas's view in that direction, leaving him unable to see what the black bear was doing.

Lucas thought it over. Although he had not spotted any other magical beasts nearby, once a dangerous magical beast like the black bear disappeared from view, he knew it was time for him to leave. Even though the black bear had not attacked him earlier, the dangerous bear's disappearance from view meant that Lucas had lost his last means of detecting danger. With that thought, he prepared to retreat.