After entering the Magical Beast Mountain Range, life slowed down.
Loa was in no hurry. As long as he got home before the end of the year, that was fine. It was only February, so he had plenty of time. He focused on cultivation, traveling in fits and starts each day and camping for a few days whenever he found a suitable spot.
There were no real shortcuts to cultivation.
Every step had to be earned through steady effort. There was no room for slacking off.
The first thing he did every morning was still practice his swordsmanship. But his approach had changed-before, he had pursued speed, the faster the better, until his sword flashed in an unbroken blur and no one could distinguish feints from real attacks. Now he began trying to slow down.
Controlling his sword, he extended it forward little by little.
Slowly.
Slower still.
So slowly that the tip seemed almost motionless, so slowly that he could see the faint ripples the blade stirred as it passed through the air.
His mind grew still, his sword slowed, and everything around him seemed to slow with it. The wind slowed, the paths of falling leaves slowed, and even the sound of the distant stream stretched out.
Then he abruptly shifted to speed.
The sword left an afterimage in its wake. A streak of azure light flashed past, and a branch thirty feet away fell at the sound. The transition between fast and slow flowed seamlessly, without the slightest hitch.
It was an intriguing sensation.
He practiced over and over, experiencing it again and again. The rhythm of alternating speed and slowness gradually became ingrained in his body.
Loa no longer took action against magical beasts of the sixth rank or below.
He left them all to