The whole small floating island rumbled due to the energies that were emanated, the source being a floating Zhang Dong who had his eyes closed. He was moving further up into the air going out of the range of his formation. The golden arcs of lightning energies started flying in all directions, scorching the ground underneath.
The man was too occupied with his ascension to the higher realm, not knowing that he was destroying the spirit herb fields that were painstakingly planted by his fellow clan members. Though a strange phenomenon took place. After the herbs turned to ash, new ones started sprouting as if the roots absorbed the divine lightning energies. This allowed them to regrow themselves with an added boon.
Matt had just reached this realm and he was still in the process of reinforcing his cultivation. Just as expected the immortal grade dimensional regalia treasure contained all of his energies as the people outside the pocket dimension had no clue that their Patriarch reached a new height. If they knew what was happening, they would probably pass out from excitement.
He stopped looking inside of his body, moving his attention to the world around him. He could feel the plants, it was as if they were breathing. His senses all got enhanced, he felt that he could hear a water drop fall from many kilometers away if he really concentrated. He was now floating up in the air, without the need of his sword or the aid of his technique just sitting with his legs crossed.
"Huh... well... that was neat..."
He rubbed his head, not really sure what to say or think. He looked at the charred earth below him and the strange golden herbs that were growing here and there.
"I'll have to take a look at those...but first..."
He stood up while floating in the air, he was now in the higher realm the fabled Nascent Soul was in his grasp. There was one thing that he needed to do first though and this was the perfect place to do it. He looked side to side, making sure that no one was watching. After making sure that he was alone, he stuck out his hands right above his head. It looked as if he was trying to do an overhead press with his hands stretched out.
Then he closed his fists together and flew upwards, yes he was just testing out his new flying technique. He zoomed up high and then right down both his hands in front of him while the wind pressure made his hair shake about. This soon subsided as a golden aura surrounded his body, shielding him from the wind pressure.
"Weeeeeeeeeee........."
He was just like a little kid now, it was as if one of his childhood dreams had just come true. It was one thing to fly on a sword that was more of a stationary platform, and it was another to do it on your own without outside help. He rocketed around the small floating island, he couldn't really utilize his new flight as the area that he could fly around was small. If he tried going into the void he would quickly feel the lack of air and the drop in spiritual energies.
He tried various positions, the first one was just the default one that was probably the most popular one. The next one he tried was with one of his arms stretched out and with the other arm bent backward. He then tried bending one of his legs during that position, then he tried holding out his hands to the sides with his palms outstretched. He even tried flying with his feet in the forward position and then while standing out straight with his hands behind his back in his serious senior pose position.
He finally decided that he had enough and landed on the ground, this wasn't any old landing though. No this was the fabled superhero landing, his palm smashed into the ground producing a thumping sound and cracking the earth under him. Both his legs bent as if he was doing some type of crawl, a blush appearing on his face after he did it.
"Well... that was equally epic and equally silly... also I think if I wasn't so sturdy I could have broken something."
This type of landing was quite cool to look at, but it seemed quite dangerous, he hoped none of his clan juniors would try to imitate it if they saw him do it. He stood up and dusted his white robe off, he had a new one at this time. It was different in the way that it had armor integrated into it.
It was a new design that went more for functionality than looks. He ditched the flowy robe parts, trying not to imitate the popular robes in this world. To this day he didn't understand how those people could fight with those wide sleeves and robes that were longer than their own legs.
This was something added to his first robe, it had two modes now. The first one was just his regular white robe, while the other one made him look like a lightly armored knight of sorts. It left him a lot of wiggle room with his legs but kept his torso well protected. He didn't want it to be too bulky, otherwise, they would impede his movements during combat. He turned the second mode on while he was going past his realm, as it offered some nice bonuses to his stats like more energy and more resilience.
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He turned off his battle mode and went over to one of the spiritual herbs, analyzing it to see what was the deal with it. He got its name which was 'Radiant Spiritual Sage', which was a rare variation of the Sage herb that his clan was cultivating for pill making.
"Hm, this... I should test it with some pills and see what it does if I exchange the regular ones..."
He looked at the destroyed herb fields, not many of those 'radiant' variants were there, most of the old greenery was just destroyed in the process. Maybe if he did some research he would be able to copy this creating process of this rare herb variant. He pocketed the herbs and then thought back to his flying experience, still not sure about the best pose.
"How do those other Nascent Soul guys fly around, haven't really seen any besides that one guy by the secret ground and he only floated a bit with his hands behind his back...."
He rubbed his chin and contemplated the best pose to take, he couldn't make a fool out of himself. Thinking that his regular hands behind back pose was good for slow floating, it looked the most honorable and menacing at the same time.
"Well, I guess I could fly with my hands behind my back while looking stoic... but that will be probably a bit uncomfortable in the long run."
After having his fun with his new flying skill, that was several times faster than his old sword flight. He decided to see how much his power increased. He took out a pinnacle graded earth treasure that looked like a large tower shield. This thing was made with defense in mind so it would act as a good test item.
He propped it up against a log that he inserted into the ground close to the edge of the pocket dimension. He then walked back a couple of steps so he was standing about ten meters away from the tower shield. He then clenched his fist tightly and took on a fighting stance.
"Okay, let's see..."
He pushed some of his spiritual energy into his fist and cocked it back, quickly punching forward. His punch produced immense wind pressure along with golden lightning energies, the sound of thunder reverberating throughout the area. He thought that he would probably put a dent in the shield, as it was quite a crafty. Instead, he watched on in surprise as the thing broke into small pieces along with the area around it, exploding in the process.
He whistled and looked at the big chunk of earth missing, thanks to standing next to the edge of the pocket dimension not much of the area was destroyed but he could see some of the shield chunks floating in the distance of the void.
"This will take some time to get used to..."
He fired off a couple of more ranged attacks, the lightning dragon that he could create now was several times larger than what he was able to produce previously. Same thing with his avatar form that made him at least as tall as a popular kaiju from the movies. He felt full of vigor and power. If he faced the demon from that secret ground this time around he could probably defeat him with one well-placed hit.
He was still fresh and had to reinforce his cultivation level, it was a miracle that he was actually able to do everything according to plan. No one was attacking the city or knew that he pushed himself into the new realm. Everything seemed to be working out.
"Okay, let me work on some of those heaven grade techniques a bit, then I'll craft that heaven graded weapon and get my body refining up... think a dagger should be fine and don't really have the resources for anything big..."
Getting to the nascent soul level was one thing, being both a body refiner and a Qi cultivator at that level was another one. He felt like he would be undefeatable if he got both of them up to at least the late-stage. He wasn't sure how long that would take, but with his increased life spawn now he had a lot of time on his hands.
"No need to rush things, I got all the time in the world. As long as we stay hidden that Dark Palm sect shouldn't notice anything and it will be too late for them after I get stronger. If I manage to help Liena and Qiang to reach this realm, even if that sect finds out, we should be able to defend ourselves."
"Well, time to get to work, this is going to take a while..."
He had many things to do, upgrading his techniques was one thing. Crafting a new set of weapons and treasures was another thing. He was even planning to use some black market connections in some more shady areas to get more nascent soul level resources later. He could always change his appearance and no one would actually believe that he was thirty-two. Only old monsters above the age of hundred were in the nascent soul. It shouldn't be traced back to him, even if someone noticed something off with his disguise.
While Zhang Dong vanished into his crafting abode the last trial back in Jade Grass City was in full swing. There was a lot of fighting happening among the junior members as quite a lot of them had gathered into large groups. The larger camp that was created by the more powerful clans was the one on top, managing to sweep past the more unorganized factions.
The Triforce Alliance wasn't far behind, but some of their members had already fallen in the process of trying to gather together with their allies. Not everyone was with the main group though, the trial ground was way too large for them to find each other in just a couple of days of time. The people also had to fend for themselves against the other contestants. There was no magic teleportation formation that brought people out if they were critically injured, so deaths could happen.
At this time Zhang Liu and Zhang Tai along with a couple other clan members from the other two factions were chatting.
"Still no word?"
"No, brother Kong and sister Xue still haven't been spotted... we were separated from them during a fight..."
One of the Zhang Clan youths replied while talking to his clan brother, one of their main powerhouses in the form of Hou Kong was missing and Zhang Xue that wasn't a slouch wasn't there either. This was troubling as they didn't think that the two could take on that large clan alliance on their own.
"Okay, let's move out... let us form two large teams and let's search the area for more of our brothers and sisters. If you find anyone, be sure to alert the other people from our alliance."
Zhang Liu and Tai were the two defacto leaders, they tried to mix the teams up in a similar fashion to the platoons that they were in at the secret ground. Some fighters along with ranged support and healers, Feng Nuana was sure to stick to Liu like glue so they headed in a different direction than Zhang Tai did, the older brother concerned about his sister that was probably alone.
'Don't worry Xue, big brother is coming.'