Huang Ying encountered a few people from the two opposing factions as he walked back to his cabin but didn't bother interacting with them. They seemed to have received some news or orders from their factions so they also didn't bother interacting with Huang Ying, even seeming to keep a slight distance from him. Chen Hong and the two others caught up with Huang Ying not long after he left the martial field, it seemed like Ling Uyong had already left for her own cabin so that she could finally get some sleep after finishing the weapon.
Song Yi and Chen Hong continued to poke at Huang Ying while they were walking, doing their best to tease and laugh about the way he just managed to cut himself while trying to be cool. Langye was the only one who seemed to be on his side, checking to make sure that he was actually fine. But in the end, even she was corrupted by the two troublemakers, joining in on their jokes and their teasing, forcing Huang Ying to endure a three-way assault with his only back-up being the soul of an old man who did nothing to defend him.
Luckily, their dorms were only 15 minutes away from the martial field so it didn't take them long to return there. They were all still rather bubbly and lively, but none of them had reached the stage where they could replace sleep with cultivation and thus they quickly bade each other farewell and retreated to their respective cabins.
Huang Ying's body was special so he was quite a bit better off than Song Yi and the others, he felt that he would still be able to go on cultivating for several more hours. He spent half an hour in the living room of the cabin, quietly waiting for the world around him to go to sleep. The lights on and in Chen Hong's cabin turned off after 20 minutes and when he temporarily left his cabin after 30 minutes he saw that Song Yi had already prepared her circle of lights in her backyard.
She was sitting on a chair and had her knees tucked up to her chest, resting her chin on them while sleeping so quietly that it was hard to see that she was actually alive. Once he was sure that the two of them were asleep, Huang Ying entered his cabin and walked into the bedroom, the array within it activating when he inserted a bit of Qi into it. The voice of Li Jun echoed out within Huang Ying's head when the array activated, directing him.
"Sit down on the bed, the cultivation technique I'm about to teach you isn't like those inferior goods, it doesn't require any pointless movements. Make sure you adjust your state somewhat, fully clear your mind and focus only on your own body."
Huang Ying gave a nod of his head and did as he was directed, sitting down on the bed with crossed legs and closing his eyes. With the array active, the amount of Qi within the room slowly started to increase, slightly increasing the cultivation speed of anyone in the room. Huang Ying took several deep and slow breaths to empty his mind, the voice of Li Jun echoing forth again after half a minute, containing a rare trace of solemness.
"The technique I'm going to teach you is the continuation and full version of the technique I taught you to hide your exact cultivation level. It's one I personally came up with in my later years and it is the culmination of all my experiences, I've taken to calling it the Dark Moon's Whisper. The technique consists of four parts, the actual cultivation technique, the cultivation hiding technique that I've already taught you, a technique to erase your entire presence, and a technique to merge your aura and presence with the surroundings. When all parts are put together, it becomes the greatest stealth technique I have ever encountered. The cultivation hiding technique is known as the Moon Concealing Cloud, the presence erasing technique is known as the Waned Moon, and the technique to merge your presence into your surroundings is called the Dark Moon's Haze. Make sure you focus fully to not miss a thing."
Huang Ying seriously nodded his head and focused fully on himself, information quickly starting to flood into his mind. The sheer amount of information was staggering, Li Jun really hadn't been exaggerating when he called this technique the culmination of his life's experiences. The technique was also far more complex than the Star Shade technique that Gang Yongye had taught him, even the most basic form of it required him to divide his Qi into at least 5000 different thin strands to spread throughout his body.
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Only once he managed to do that would he be considered to have reached a basic understanding of the technique and have managed to lay his foundation. As such, Huang Ying knew that he had a lot of work ahead of him just from looking at the information about the technique. But he wasn't intimidated, a challenge like this only fired up him and made him eager to attempt it.
He temporarily put aside the other parts of the technique and focused on just the cultivation technique part, drawing in the surrounding Qi and starting to form hair-thin strings with it. Just like Li Jun said, the technique wasn't suited for his elements, it was made to be cultivated with the law of darkness. As such, the forming of the threads became more difficult and some of the principles and base parts of the technique were simply unable to be utilized by Huang Ying.
But that didn't stop him from cultivating the technique, thread after thread of Qi slowly starting to spread through his body. And sure enough, the effects of it were far greater than the Star Shade technique that Gang Yongye had taught him. By the time he managed to form the 86th thread after two hours, the effectiveness of the technique had already slightly surpassed the Star Shade technique. And his law of devouring also improved the effectiveness of this Dark Moon's Whisper technique, a sliver of it merging with each thread he created and increasing the speed at which he cultivated.
As the hours passed and the number of threads he managed to create and control increased, Huang Ying started to detect a noticeable increase in his cultivation. Eight hours after returning to his cabin, the number of threads he could control had increased to 416, the limit of what he could currently create and control.
But after cultivating using this technique for eight hours, Huang Ying received a pleasant surprise, he broke through to the 4th Mortal Step. He was still only in the earliest stages of cultivation so each step could be completed rather quickly, but this was still four days earlier than their previous estimate. Huang Ying was somewhat giddy when he realized how good the cultivation technique was, but he restrained his joy for a bit and made sure to remain perfectly calm.
He didn't say anything about his breakthrough, continuing to quietly cultivate for a bit of time, there was a guess that he wanted to confirm. Two hours later the sun had already risen high into the sky but there had yet to be anyone that knocked on Huang Ying's door. It seemed like even Song Yi and Chen Hong were planning on taking advantage of this day off to rest properly. But after these two hours passed, Huang Ying touched upon the shell he had created around his dantian with the Moon Concealing Cloud technique and increased the strength it radiated, making it look like he had reached the 7th Mortal Step. It was only when he did this that the voice of Li Jun finally echoed in his mind.
"Hm, you've increased the output of the Moon Concealing Cloud? According to my calculations, you should only be able to control about 300 threads of Qi right now so it should take you about a day longer. Was my guess off?"
Huang Ying's eyes flashed with a sliver of light when he heard Li Jun's confused question. It seemed like his guess was correct, Li Jun couldn't see everything going on within Huang Ying's body. He might have been able to see everything in the past, but that might have changed ever since Huang Ying's body was remade. If he were to make another guess he would say that it had something to do with the law of devouring. Perhaps Li Jun was unable to see things pertaining to the law of devouring? Huang Ying threw the question to the back of his mind and shook his head, hoping that a suspicion that had started growing within him now was wrong.
"Only slightly, I can control 316 threads right now. And no, I haven't increased my cultivation, it should take a little more than half a day for me to reach the 4th Mortal Step. But since I've already reached the 3rd Mortal step, and am about to reach the 4th Mortal Step, I figured that it was about time I increased the output of the Moon Concealing Cloud."
There was a short sound of acknowledgment from Li Jun, neither of them speaking too much about the matter as Huang Ying returned to his cultivation. He only had about three weeks until they were to leave the academy and head to Cloudreacher Forest, he would have to increase his strength as much as he could until then.