A few days later, Kaelen was shifting back and forth in an explosive yet graceful manner in the area where he battled the Golden-eyed Shadow Leopard. After defeating the leopard, he decided to take a few days to practice the Golden Crow's Divine Ascension movement art. During his fight with the shadow beast, although he won quite comfortably, he realized that when facing an agile and elusive opponent, he needed an adequate movement art to be able to battle on equal ground. He couldn't rely solely on his physical explosiveness; his movements lacked a degree of nimbleness to go with his sophisticated spear moves. Thus, he took a few days to practice the movement art.
Initially, he had picked the skill from the library. However, he did not have time to practice it, as a great deal of his time was spent on practicing the very high-level spear art his master gave him. Since he wasn't sure how long it would take him to defeat every single beast in the mountain, he decided he would take time, an average of a week, between each fight to learn from his mistakes, make breakthroughs, or consolidate them.
Rustling noises, the sound something moving at high speed, could be heard from a distance. A red figure broke through the sound barrier, landing on a tree trunk. A flame-like aura emanated from his feet. Kaelen stepped on the tree, soaring towards another with great agility and speed.
The last few days, he had been practicing the first two levels of eight pertaining to the movement art: Flashing Light Step and Traceless Outburst. The first move aimed for quick and agile movement, chasing light as you turned into a flashing glare, darting toward your opponent and striking them before they could realize it. The second move emphasized sudden bursts of speed with absolute control, allowing no wasted strength in the form of loud explosions or useless displays of power like crushing the ground. You needed to muster all that strength and not waste it by stomping on the ground; instead, you absorbed that impact as it was about to leave your feet, doubling the speed at which you moved while reducing the noise to an almost null level. Of course, unless one had an extremely hard body, it would be incredibly difficult for a human body to withstand all that force.
Thankfully, until Kaelen further hardened his body, he could limit the amount of impact force he kept with every step. Instead of going full throttle, he kept ten, twenty, or a maximum of thirty percent – that is what his body could currently handle. This last ten percent, in particular, he realized he could only reach it safely by using the heart spirit, which seemed to harden objects as a way to strengthen it beside increasing power output. Meaning, by covering his feet with the bronze light, he could withstand an extra ten percent of impact force, which was a great discovery for Kaelen; it meant he has another way of increasing his progress of the technique beside just refining the body.
Even using just twenty percent of the impact helped his speed to greatly increase, and he also moved at quicker speeds, not requiring as much time to accumulate power. The technique had the practitioner moving past sound barriers with ease and in no time. What's even more interesting, however, is that the third level is not a different technique but a mix of the initial two – Illusory light-burst; with agility and quickness of light, merged with the explosiveness of impact force, the practitioner attains impossible speeds. However, one can only begin merging the two after complete mastery on both, and Kaelen is not yet there.
"Traceless Outburst," Kaelen stepped on another tree and changed the movement style. His body turned into a red comet moving at incredible speeds. The behind him exploded from the impact, leaving but half of the trunk.
"Crash…" He landed on the ground a dozen meters away, his feet dragging for a bit before stopping.
Looking at the half trunk, Kaelen shook his head to the side. "I have made great progress in both techniques the last few days; however, I can't seem to improve further on the 'Traceless Outburst' technique. In order to reduce the damage caused to the environment while moving and be truly 'traceless,' I will have to absorb more of the impact. Looks like that's it for that. At least for now."
"Hey, big black." He shouted in a direction and paused for a moment.
Not long after, a giant black shadow drew near, a pair of piercing golden eyes accompanying the shadow as it moved.
The big and menacing cat soon reached Kaelen and obediently sat on its back, dutifully waiting for instruction.
Kaelen watched the domesticated beast with slight amusement. It wasn't that hard for it to submit to him, which he hadn't expected. He attributed the submission to the great difference in power, but he instinctively felt it may be the dragon bloodline forcing it into submission. It was widely known that all beasts had a degree of reverence towards dragons.
Smiling, Kaelen extended his hand to caress the beast's big head. The golden-eyed leopard lowered its head in response so the boy could reach it.
"I'm going to need you to lead me to the closest beast's lair," he said to it softly while petting the great beast.
The leopard nodded repeatedly with great zeal. An apparent slight smirk heightened its cheeks as it rejoiced at another beast being subdued beside him.
"Alright, lead the way." Kaelen jumped on its back and tapped on it, indicating the beast to get moving.
The boy sat cross-legged on top of the giant beast, while it led him to his next victim.
...
On another mountain.
Raizel was sitting in a lotus position next to a blue thunder tree. Purple and gold electric snakes moved about his body. He looked like a child of thunder as he sat next to the tree, the golden lightning exuding a divine aura, while the purple lightning released a profound quality. The occasional leaves of the tree would fall on his lap but be immediately destroyed by the purple and gold lightning. It formed a sort of protective aura shield that nothing could get past by.
Besides him, a blue-haired middle-aged man watched closely with a dignified expression. "This boy's lightning attribute is the purest I have ever seen. Not only that, but the golden lightning also seems to have an additional 'divine' attribute similar to tribulation or calamity thunders, while the purple lightning has a mystical and artistic appeal to it. While he is breaking through Elemental Resonance, his elemental power will only grow explosively from here. God knows what height he will reach. It's hard to think there are two children with talents similar or even above this one. Something terrible must be brewing; the worldly laws do not foster divine talents within an era unless great doom accompanies it…"
Senior Zhu got lost in his thoughts while he supervised Raizel. He could not help but begin to worry at the possible calamity looming. Indeed, it has been recorded throughout the world's history that when great talents appear within an era, it usually comes with a tribulation that requires great heroes in order for it to be successfully passed without near extinction level destruction. It's a way of self-preservation of a great world, as it could read opon the threads of fate.
While he was contemplating the meaning of the advent of so many great geniuses, a commotion shook him out of his thoughtful state. The surrounding lightning elemental energy of heaven and earth was being swallowed by Raizel at stupendous speeds. The purple and golden lightning snakes grew at alarming rates, quickly forming a huge ball of purple gold thunder.
Elder Zhu, who stood next to him, hurriedly soared in the sky in order to be outside the scope of the boy's breakthrough, for he may encumber him.
The strands of blue hair on Raizel's head turned golden, making his hair mostly purple with a few gold strands. As he swallowed an increasingly massive amount of the surrounding energies, the sphere grew until it could be seen from a great distance. Then, Raizel, who had not moved at all during the whole commotion, opened his eyes. The mass of purple gold elemental energy quickly contracted into itself and entered his slim body. When all the elemental energy and the purple gold thunder was absorbed completely, his body shook violently, and peace was restored.
Elder Zhu, thinking the breakthrough was finished, was about to descend on the mountain, when another commotion began. A brilliant, beastly golden light burst out of Raizel's body. A sonorous tiger roar shook the atmosphere as the energy coalesced into a giant golden white tiger. The majestic king roared at the sky, dispersing all the clouds above the mountain as rays of sunlight bathed the form in it's divine glory. The elemental energy it released was different from the previous golden thunder. This one was a metal-attributed energy, carrying a sharp and indestructible aura. With the apparition of the great tiger, Raizel's purple gold hair changed into a completely golden color, black stripes appeared on his face below his eyes and around his neck, his slim body grew a few centimeters in height and size. Additionally, slight changes occurred in his facial features; his eyebrows grew a bit thicker and his jaw slightly more pronounced. The change all appeared at once, giving the previously beautiful Raizel a more masculine charm.
Witnessing the transformation, Elder Zhu's face changed drastically: "That's... a tiger bloodline? Heavens, he has dual bloodlines. Different attributed ones at that. This is a bit…" The thunder deity-like man couldn't conceive what was happening, how could such a monstrous boy be born in this world.
While Elder Zhu stood in shock in the sky, Raizel felt the changes happening to his body. He felt his physical strength surge, actually increasing by forty thousand pounds, equaling that of Thorin's. He also felt a newfound affinity for metal energy, though noticeably weaker than his affinity for lightning, it was still up there in terms of talent.
"Is this a second bloodline? Grandfather didn't tell me about this, but I kind of expected it; my physical strength shouldn't be this high, competing with a strength type like Thorin when I have an elemental bloodline. Most of my strength should've came from this bloodline then. Hmm, it seems to be a tiger bloodline with the metal attribute. I wonder how it compares to my mystic lightning bloodline. No, wait. Grandfather said that only bloodlines of equal strength can exist at the same time, so it must be equivalent... So, this is my mother's bloodline." In his thoughts, Raizel's mind raced.
"Anyway, I managed to breakthrough the next stage. So, it's time to stop." Exhaling loudly, he waited for the changes in his body to settle down. The tiger bloodline was still transforming his physique, so he could only wait.
A few hours later, the changes finally stopped. The golden-white tiger's shadow entered Raizel's body, his hair turned back into a purple color, albeit with golden accents. He was still considered pretty but became more masculine with the awakening of his tiger bloodline. He stood up and noticed he grew five centimeters, now also 1.80m. Though still a bit shorter than Kaelen and Thorin, the difference was not noticeable as much. His slim and muscular physique gained more muscle mass as well, making his slim body into one that matched a more 'fit' description.
Elder Zhu descended beside him, his face kept a complicated countenance. "Is there something else that I should know about you, disciple?" he asked exasperatedly, blue arcs of lightning occasionnally flashing on his hair.
Raizel only shrugged his shoulder in response, leaving his master speechless.
"Seriously, where do you small monsters came from? Are the others as... deviant as you?" When faced with the incomprehensible situation, master Zhu Lei took some time to digest what he witnessed.
"Deviant!? You're the deviant...' the boy said in his mind before answering.
"I know Kaelen is definitely more monstrous than me. As for Thorin, though he's not explicitly as talented as the both of us, his combat strength won't ever truly be lower than mine. Which I can't really explain, but after having sparred many times with him over the last months, I can tell he also has terrible potential. So, yea, I guess they are. Ahah." He jokingly said, holding his head with both hands, he looked pensively at the sky.
"Speaking of Thorin, he should also be breaking through around this time… I wonder how our next fights will be. Normally he beats me in strength, but I manage to retaliate thanks to my lightning energy, making us roughly equal. Now upon reaching Elemental Resonance, my lightning energy is much stronger, and I can use it without activating my bloodline. Additionally, I got a strength boost and a metal attribute through my mother's bloodline. Technically, I should easily defeat him, but he's definitely hiding stuff as well. I can't wait to battle against him. As for kaelen...", gaizing at the clear sky, Raizel thought about his friends.
..