Chapter 317 - 287: The Island-Landing Time Limit Has Expired

Chapter 317: Chapter 287: The Island-Landing Time Limit Has Expired

Everything was rendered in the same dark hue, blurring the boundaries until it seemed all solid forms had lost their distinct outlines.

He had a sudden epiphany.

The key to the Shadow Escape Technique wasn’t merely about manipulating some form of Elemental Power.

It was a profound understanding of "void" and "substance," of "light" and "dark."

Like a shadow cast by moonlight, it was both proof of a physical object’s existence and a dynamic flow and fusion, constantly changing with the light source.

If a Cultivator wished to master Shadow Escape, they had to grasp the natural laws of light and shadow, learning to adapt to and command this "change."

They had to let their aura merge with the surrounding shadows, emulating the subtle, inseparable relationship between light and dark, achieving a state of mind like a shadow that takes the shape of any object.

This was different from the Five Elements Escape Technique, which directly controlled the Five Elements as a medium. This was a higher Realm of applying Laws, one of sensing and manipulating the non-corporeal power of shadows.

The moment a dark cloud obscured the moon, everything grew even quieter, and the only sound was the clear beat of his own heart in his ears.

He closed his eyes, cast aside all distracting thoughts, and tried to feel his connection to this vast, boundless world of darkness.

His Divine Sense extended, establishing a subtle resonance with every wisp of shadow around him.

He was beginning to understand that the key to the Shadow Escape Technique was the harmony between one’s mind and the shadows.

Only when the mind could shift its form as fluidly and tracelessly as a shadow could one truly master this Escape Technique.

And so, Jiang Xu slowly raised his hand, his fingertip gently touching a patch of shadow on the ground.

As if touching the surface of water and causing ripples, the patch of darkness seemed to come alive under his touch, fluctuating with life.

He recited the Mantra in his mind, trying to guide the Magical Power within his body to merge with the external power of shadow. In that instant, with the moonlight gone, his figure began to fade silently on the earth.

He faded until he had completely merged into the deep shadow that enveloped him.

Now, he was no longer someone who could only run through the physical world. He had become a part of the night itself, flowing with the light and shadow, shifting with space and time.

[Shadow Escape (Beginner): 1/100]

For Jiang Xu, the experience of being in such a state was entirely new.

The Spiritual Power in his Sea of Consciousness was constantly draining away.

He could feel himself within the shadow, as if he himself had become illusory.

It was as if he had transformed into an elf of the night, intertwined with the darkness, dancing together between heaven and earth.

He could sense his connection with his surroundings growing tighter. Every shadow was like one of his tendrils, swaying with the wind and moving with the light.

In the state of Shadow Escape, Jiang Xu seemed to have become a part of the dark night. He was both visible and yet seemingly transparent and formless, achieving an unprecedented level of Stealth.

Although his Spiritual Power consumption was immense, the wondrous experience of merging with the shadows allowed Jiang Xu to deeply feel the power of the Shadow Escape Technique.

He could feel that with a single thought, he could dart through the shadows like a fish in water, arriving wherever he wished, as long as there was a shadow there.

The sensation was utterly novel, as if he had grasped freedom in another dimension.

However, Jiang Xu understood that he was only at the Beginner stage.

’To truly do as I please, I’ll need long hours of practice and a massive amount of Limit-Breaking Points.’

Before long, more than half of the Spiritual Power in Jiang Xu’s Sea of Consciousness was gone.

A chill went down his spine. He knew this was the drawback of using Shadow Escape without a Yin Spirit Root.

The Spiritual Power consumption was simply too great to sustain for long.

’To solve this, I either need to use a Yin Attribute Supporting Magical Artifact, increase my Skill Level with the technique, or boost the strength of my Spiritual Power.’

Silently, Jiang Xu stepped out of the shadow.

The feeling of sluggishness and unfamiliarity remained.

By his rough estimate, with his Spiritual Power at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage, he could barely maintain Shadow Escape for a quarter of an hour.

He finally understood why that middle-aged Cultivator had to stop and rest midway through his escape.

The man’s Spiritual Power must have been completely depleted, making it impossible to continue using Shadow Escape.

It was likely so drained that he couldn’t even use a normal Escape Technique and had to immediately sit down and meditate to recover.

Jiang Xu lowered his gaze. After a long moment, he began rummaging through the pile of techniques in his Storage Bag for the better part of an hour.

Finally, he had picked out all the movement and escape methods he had obtained from Sun Long.

There was quite a large number of them.

Among the Foundation Establishment Techniques:

There were three Lower Grade Techniques and one Middle Grade Technique.

Among the Qi Cultivation Techniques:

There were even more techniques for increasing speed and movement. There were nearly a hundred Unranked Magic techniques, and another fifty to sixty combined Lower, Middle, Upper, and Top Grade Techniques.

Staring at the techniques once again piled up before him like a small mountain, Jiang Xu let out a deep sigh.

’Might as well learn them. What else can I do?’

...

Normally, the Cultivation of techniques was an extremely tedious affair.

But for the current Jiang Xu, that was not the case.

The reason was simple.

There were just too many techniques.

As soon as he finished learning one, he would start on the next.

None of the techniques were repetitive; every day, he was learning something different.

Every day brought a new sensation.

As a result, the three weeks he had left on the island passed by in the blink of an eye.

For those twenty days, Jiang Xu was completely immersed in studying techniques, forgetting the passage of time and the disturbances of the outside world.

He didn’t make any further attempts to investigate the whereabouts of Third Elder and the others.

He threw himself wholeheartedly into the Cultivation of every single Escape and movement technique, striving for perfection in every detail.

His figure would often vanish into thin air at dawn and dusk, only to reappear silently elsewhere as he constantly tested and reinforced the effectiveness of his newly learned arts.

It wasn’t until the day of his departure from the island was near that Jiang Xu suddenly snapped out of it.

His mind was so flooded with a vast number of techniques and Cultivation experience that his time with the Sun Clan already felt like a distant memory.

Inside the Array, Jiang Xu gathered up all the techniques laid out on the ground.

These past three weeks, Jiang Xu had been both exhausted and fulfilled.

With every technique he grasped, his sense of unease diminished bit by bit.

But three weeks was still too short a time.

Aside from his daily Cultivation of Shadow Escape,

he had only managed to learn all the Unranked, Lower Grade, and Middle Grade techniques from the Qi Cultivation Realm once through.

At first, Jiang Xu thought that with his panel, learning all these techniques in three weeks wouldn’t be difficult.

But he was wrong. Utterly and completely wrong.

While learning a single technique was simple—

he could even reach the Beginner stage for a low-grade technique of the Qi Cultivation Realm just by reading it once—

that only applied when cultivating a single technique.

Jiang Xu was now cultivating a large number of similar techniques all at once.

This came with a drawback.

While the techniques sometimes had connections, they also had points of conflict.

For example, take the Lower Grade Techniques "Wind Shadow Step" and "Gale Escape."

Both were fast-movement Escape Techniques.

But the former focused on using the agile nature of wind for flexible changes in direction.

The latter, on the other hand, emphasized extreme speed and linear momentum.

The two were similar in principle but differed in their practical application.

This required Jiang Xu not only to master the essentials of each during his Cultivation,

but also to switch between them fluidly in actual combat, avoiding mistakes caused by muscle memory.

Beyond that, the conflicts between the various techniques were also reflected in the regulation and control of Spiritual Power.

Every Escape and movement technique had its own unique method of circulating Spiritual Power and its own consumption pattern.

Cultivating multiple techniques in succession required Jiang Xu to precisely manage the Spiritual Power in his body.

He had to avoid causing his Spiritual Power to fall into disarray, or even triggering a backlash, from switching techniques too frequently.

During those three weeks, Jiang Xu repeatedly experimented and made adjustments.

He discovered that the connection between these techniques lay in their shared understanding of fundamental escape principles.

The conflicts, however, stemmed from the different requirements for utilizing various elements and Laws.

Although the process was arduous, through constant exploration and practice, Jiang Xu gradually found a way to balance the different techniques, allowing him to successfully cast each of the Escape and movement arts.

During his Cultivation, Jiang Xu also came to realize that while the panel could help him quickly understand and master the basics of a technique,

if he wanted to truly synthesize these techniques and form his own combat style,

he would still need to spend much more time and energy on exploration, experimentation, and refinement.