22 Shadow Movement Ar (1/2)
”The concept behind Shadow is to become one with the shadows, disappearing in an instant and reappearing in an instant - this concept should not be mistaken for allowing the user to enter the Realm of Shadows; however, this technique will allow for instantaneous small distance movements which could save you in the midst of battle...”
The introduction continued on but I was already hooked, if I could really reach the speed the book had described along with my ability to enter the Shadow Realm wouldn't I have an absolute advantage in combat?
I could only imagine myself using the Shadow Realm and Shadow together to surprise my enemies, attacking from one side.
Entering the Shadow Realm before reappearing almost a second later and attacking them from a different angle.
If the advantage that Core Gathering Experts had in reaction speed I could make up for with an increase in my actual speed, then what if I leveled up to the Core Gathering Realm myself?
I might be able to declare myself invincible in the same realm by that point, my heart began to beat wildly; however, I calmed it down in an instant just the increase in one Large realm wasn't enough to close the gap between me and King by much at all, the opponents I found troublesome could be killed with a flick of his finger with how he had so many of them brainwashed as his lackeys.
...
”This is a scam!” I let my emotions take over and threw the manual at the corner of the dark room, it flew across the room with frightening force.
”Thud.” The manual hit the wooden beam in the corner of the room slightly causing the foundations to shake - I knew I had to be careful with a building this old but I couldn't help but rage at the contents of the book.
On the first page after the prologue of the technique, ”This Movement Art has twenty levels of Mastery with the first five being considered the initiate stage, the next five being the Stage of Preliminary Understanding, the next nine being considered Mastery of Technique with the final level being called the Level of Perfection; however, the technique focuses on speed - to achieve the level of true instantaneous movement would theoretically mean you would have to train to the final realm of perfection - even I as the creator of the technique have only progressed to the nineteenth level and no further, the twentieth level only exists in theory. I hope a successor of this technique in the future will be able to achieve this level...”
There was another line of writing beneath it, the caligraphy different than the first few sentences of the technique - clearly written after the founder of the technique had passed on the manual as the words weren't as faded as the original text.
”I, the Successor of the Ling Lineage of the Lion Might Sect, have cultivated this technique to perfection - the teachings of the senior of my sect who wrote this technique are too valuable to be spread out of the sect, this manual is being transported to the Divine Light Sects Technique Pavillion within a few days as an agreement between our sects to share martial techniques to improve both of our strengths. To prevent this technique being used against our sect in the future I have removed levels in this technique; however, I have left the future generations with the first ten levels so regardless of the future no one will blame my Sect for being heartless and sending an incomplete technique, from henceforth this technique reaches perfection at the tenth level.”
These were the lines of text which had infuriated me, how can you make so little sense?! By removing the final levels of the technique you've already displayed how heartless you are if you were going to remove the levels of the technique did you have to brag about it? If you had just kept quiet and not bragged about taking the final ten levels I could accept the missing levels but knowing who took them?
It infuriated me, the 'Successor of the Ling Lineage' was carved into my mind as I made a mental note to visit him in the future to beat the final ten levels of the technique out of him.
For now, all I could do was calm myself down and try to learn the technique to the tenth level - maybe I would be able to comprehend the next levels from there myself but considering I had no experience in doing so I lacked the confidence to do so.