Chapter 90
For the past few days, whenever she cultivates the Five Elements Shield Technique, a tickling sensation arises in her small chest.
As a result of noticing this feeling and spurring her cultivation,
She was finally able to achieve great mastery in the Five Elements Shield.
In the past, the black light of the Water Element, the red light of the Fire Element, the blue light of the Wood Element, the white light of the Metal Element, and the golden light of the Earth Element had been mottled together, making it obvious at a glance that she was deploying a technique.
The sight of herself wrapped in a colorful, mottled shield looked so ridiculous that, the more she looked at it, she couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed.
But the current Five Elements Shield was different from back then.
The Five-Colored energies melted into one and flowed naturally along her skin.
The energy lingered thinly over her body like a layer of transparent clothing, making it difficult to tell with the naked eye whether she was deploying a technique or not.
Only a cultivator with excellent Spiritual Perception focusing closely beside her would barely be able to notice it.
“This might actually be usable?”
Baek-Cheong moved her body from side to side while maintaining the Five Elements Shield.
The energy rearranged itself like flowing water following her movements, leaving no gaps anywhere.
In the beginning, the time she could maintain the Five Elements Shield at minor mastery was only a dozen breaths, but now she could maintain it for as long as her spiritual energy allowed.
Handling the technique through the Baekju Dharma Tool allowed her to produce double the output with the same Amount of Spiritual Energy, giving her that much more leeway to focus on increasing the technique’s precision.
“I must be the only cultivator who can build up proficiency in this manner.”
Her cultivation did not end with just the Five Elements Shield.
There were over two hundred basic techniques from the Archives on the first floor of the Hundred Scriptures Pavilion she had begun to learn.
She repeatedly practiced all sorts of basic techniques one by one, including Flame Projectile, Water Stream Art, Earth Wall Art, Wind Blade, Wind Movement Art, Illumination Art, and Purification Art, using the Baekju Dharma Tool as a medium to raise her proficiency.
Normally, it would take several months just to raise a single Basic Technique to minor mastery, but thanks to the Baekju Dharma Tool, her speed was extraordinary.
Thanks to this, she succeeded in raising all two hundred or so basic techniques to minor mastery.
“Even if they are just basic techniques, reaching minor mastery in over two hundred of them… honestly, is pretty amazing.”
According to the common sense of the Cultivation World, learning a multitude of miscellaneous techniques caused a Dispersion of Cultivation, rendering them useless in actual combat.
The established theory was that delving into a single one to the extreme and reaching great mastery was the correct path.
However, this did not apply to her.
Because she handled the Five Elements, she could wield a variety of techniques, and thanks to the Baekju Dharma Tool, she could instantly double her technique proficiency. Furthermore, she was skilled in Divine Sense Division, allowing her to deploy Multi-layered Techniques.
To others, it was a Dispersion of Cultivation, but to her, it was merely the Wondrous Art of Divided Mind and Multiple Uses.
‘The one that’s truly useful is Ice Dragon Shatter, though.’
Baek-Cheong withdrew the Five Elements Shield and moved on to the next technique for her cultivation.
She drew up Water-attribute Qi from her Dantian and infused it into the Baekju Dharma Tool.
The Water-attribute Qi swelled as it passed through the Baekju and stretched out into the empty air.
Crackle.
The moisture in the atmosphere froze, forming ice.
Ice Dragon Shatter revealed its form in the air, but it was distinctly different from the ice earthworm of the past.
Its thickness had grown to the size of a forearm, scale-like patterns had sprouted on its torso, and the faint shape of horns had even formed on its head.
It was still far from being called a dragon, but its shape had definitely moved past that of an earthworm.
“Reaching minor mastery turned it into a snake instead of an earthworm.”
The true essence of Ice Dragon Shatter lay in its control rather than its form, but when it reached minor mastery, its form had changed accordingly.
As the ice snake coiled in the air and hovered around Baek-Cheong, she felt that the sensation of controlling it with her Divine Sense had become much smoother.
Its reactions were faster, its changes in direction were smoother, and above all, the consumption of spiritual energy required to maintain its form had decreased.
“It still falls short of a flood dragon, though.”
As Baek-Cheong rolled the Ice Dragon Shatter this way and that, a thought suddenly occurred to her.
‘If I do it right, couldn’t I ride on it?’
With a thickness the size of a thigh and a length of three or four zhang, it didn’t seem impossible to climb aboard.
For a Qi Condensation cultivator without a means to fly, flight was like a dream.
Of course, she could get one if she asked her father, but the important fact was being able to roam the sky under her own power without a Pavilion ship or a Flying Dharma Treasure.
“Let’s try it right now.”
The ice snake rose half a zhang from the ground and maintained a horizontal position.
“Carefully, carefully.”
Baek-Cheong carefully climbed onto the Ice Dragon Shatter.
The moment she placed her left foot on it first and lifted her right foot,
Her balance collapsed before both feet could even be placed on the Ice Dragon Shatter.
Balancing while riding using an active technique was a task that required the control of energy and the body’s sense of balance simultaneously.
The control of energy was not an issue.
She could easily manage adjusting the output to account for the rider’s weight while simultaneously controlling the Ice Dragon Shatter with her Divine Sense.
The problem, as always, was her body.
Balancing the body was purely the Realm of the Physical Body, something that could not be assisted by Divine Sense or energy.
The problem she had felt to her bones when learning the handheld sword from the Pacheon Sword Saint applied here in exactly the same way.
Flop.
“Ouch!”
Unable to hold on, Baek-Cheong fell backward and landed flat on her butt.
Her rear ached from the impact of the fall.
The Ice Dragon Shatter floated leisurely as if nothing had happened.
The technique was floating perfectly fine, but the caster was the one who couldn’t get on.
“One more time.”
She dusted herself off, stood up, and tried again.
This time, she tried to place both feet on it at the same time, but her foot slipped.
Flop.
She slumped down in the exact same spot, in the exact same posture.
On her third attempt, she grabbed the torso with both hands and climbed on as if lying face down.
She finally succeeded in getting on, but the moment she tried to stand up, her body leaned to the left and she rolled off to the side.
“This is seriously a body problem.”
The more she tried, the only thing that changed was the direction she fell; the result remained exactly the same.
Her butt, knees, and elbows were covered in dirt, and naturally, her Training uniform became completely dusty.
‘I can fly a Flying Sword just fine, so why can’t I ride this?’
Despite receiving the evaluation that her Flying Sword was better than that of a Young Prodigy of the Heavenly Sword Sect, she couldn’t even stand on top of a single ice snake.
Casting a technique and standing on top of a technique were problems of completely different realms.
The former was the control of Divine Sense and energy, and the latter was the balance of the body.
And her physical balance existed at the very bottom of the world.
“I give up.”
Baek-Cheong abandoned the idea of flying on the Ice Dragon Shatter without any lingering regrets.
It was a clean surrender after only six attempts.
The sky was something she could deal with later by obtaining a Flying Dharma Treasure once she reached the Foundation Establishment stage.
If she traveled sitting on a dharma treasure, she wouldn’t need any sense of balance.
“Whatever.”
She brushed the dust off her Training uniform, corrected her posture, and changed her mindset.
Since riding it was out of the question, she had to go with shooting it.
Gripping the Baekju with both hands, she drew up her Water-attribute Qi with all her might.
She unsparingly extracted the Water-attribute Spiritual Energy accumulated deep within her Dantian and infused it into the Baekju.
As the Baekju received the Water-attribute Qi and multiplied it, she divided her Divine Sense into twenty streams.
Crackle, crackle, crackle.
The atmosphere rapidly cooled, and ice snakes revealed their forms one by one in the sky above the Training Ground.
One, two, three.
Ten, eleven, twelve.
Fifteen, sixteen.
In the end, twenty Ice Dragon Shatters filled the airspace above the Training Ground.
The sight of the ice snakes coiling in unison in the air and standing by was quite a majestic display.
The freezing water energy enveloped the entire Training Ground, dragging down the temperature of the air, and every time she breathed, white vapor bloomed from her lips.
“This is a breeze.”
Baek-Cheong controlled all twenty simultaneously with her Divine Sense.
At that, the ice dragons began to move at the same time.
Ten of them rotated in a clockwise circle, while the remaining ten crossed in a counterclockwise direction, weaving past each other.
Even at the moments of intersection, no collisions occurred.
It was because twenty streams of Divine Sense were connected to each Ice Dragon, precisely controlling their paths.
“It feels like just yesterday I was handling ten.”
When she first discovered the true value of the Baekju, ten Ice Dragon Shatters had been her limit.
After breaking through to the 7th star, her Dantian had doubled in size, her energy meridians had become even sturdier, and her handling of Divine Sense had become masterful, allowing her to increase the number to twenty.
Of course, maintaining all of them simultaneously caused a rapid consumption of spiritual energy, so she couldn’t keep them deployed for long.
However, even a momentary Deployment would be able to exert considerable power.
‘With twenty of them, I wouldn’t even flinch if twenty Qi Condensation cultivators attacked me.’
She had never used it in actual combat, so it was purely a theoretical calculation.
Looking up at the sight of the ice snakes embroidering the sky above the Training Ground, she nodded in satisfaction.
There was no way a cultivator at the Qi Condensation Stage capable of such technique operation existed, even if one searched the entire Lower Realm.
“If I do it right, I might even be able to take on a Foundation Establishment cultivator?”
With a gratified heart, Baek-Cheong withdrew the Ice Dragon Shatters.
The sight of the ice dragons surging in unison had been quite a spectacle, but after withdrawing them all, only the freezing water energy hovered whitely in the Training Ground.
“With this much, could I be called the strongest in the Qi Condensation Stage?”
She nodded with inward satisfaction and left the Training Ground.
She needed to change out of her dust-covered Training uniform.
However, she decided to completely forget about the fact that she had fallen flat on her face six times trying to ride the Ice Dragon Shatter.