4 hours later, Qian Yu had finally done two more dives into his soul world. 

Meanwhile, the two girls were still sitting down with eyes closed practicing finding their soul world. 

Not wanting to bother them, Qian Yu closed his eyes. His heart was beating rapidly as he looked at the martial skill. A smile crept up on his face as he read the name, “Transcending Lightning Step”. 

Without a doubt, it was a movement skill, something he had desperately needed. 

Unlike Zhen Yue who excelled in constant close fighting with her Silver Claws, she didn’t need a movement skill. Yes, it would be nice as an instant reposition but not needed for her offense. On the other hand, Transcending Lightning Step would allow him to close the distance and increase the odds of hitting Lightning Spasm. 

Qian Yu stood up, making sure to not disturb the other two. Reading the scripture in his mind, he channeled the qi in his body towards his feet. He could feel the potent power bursting in his heels, nonetheless, he sat back down and just waited for the other two to finish up. 

Compared to Lightning Spasm, Transcending Lightning Step was a lot easier to start learning due to it naturally being a movement skill. Of course, Zhao Xieren’s Wandering Blade technique was an offensive and movement skill which was a lot harder to learn. 

Just as he was about to start refining the yin qi in his body from Sun Hong, Qian Yu remembered something. “Right… can I use soul exploration right now? Would it work?” Qian Yu remembered Bai Jia had said it wouldn’t be very useful. However, it was the perfect time now. 

‘Xinyi, I will be trying to use Soul Exploration now,’ Qian Yu told Tian Xinyi.

‘Alright,’ Tian Xinyi said. 

Closing his eyes, he started performing Soul Exploration. Contrary to expectations, it was much easier than normally looking at his soul world.

As Qian Yu opened his eyes, he found himself in a desolate wasteland. He looked down towards his legs and filled with dirt and black gravel and rocks. 

Bending down, Qian Yu grabbed a pinch. “It feels completely real,” Qian Yu muttered. Looking in the distance he saw vast tall mountains and mounds of land. There was little light as he looked up. The clouds were large, black and gray with openings where light could illuminate the world. Occasionally, lightning roared from the skies. 

“There is like no qi here,” Qian Yu felt as he started walking around. 

Pausing in place. Qian Yu performed Lightning Spasm on his body for a few seconds. “Again, it feels completely normal and I wouldn’t even be able to tell if I was in my soul world or not,” Qian Yu noted to himself.

As he ascended a nearby mountain, or rather, a more compacted area of dirt and rock, he stared at the lightning. “The lightning laws are stronger here,” Qian Yu felt delighted as he realized the lightning laws in the area were stronger compared to his normal environment. 

However, his smile disappeared as he silently sat there, watching the sky. “But they aren’t that strong,” Qian Yu sighed. 

“Hmm… the soul world is a manifestation of my understanding of the laws. In accordance with that, they can only be so strong...” Qian Yu felt like he had been scammed.

From the distance he heard a voice, “Master!” 

Qian Yu turned around as he saw Tian Xinyi running at him. 

“Xinyi!” Qian Yu descended the mountain as Tian Xinyi jumped at him. She turned smaller as she did and landed on his shoulder. 

“Has my soul world always been like this?” Qian Yu started walking around. 

“Well, originally, there was very little lightning but as time went on, there was more lightning,” Tian Xinyi said. 

It was so dark here that it felt gloomy and depressing. “Are you fine with it?” Qian Yu felt bad. 

“Yeah, the lightning laws here are still stronger than outside. It’s not always dark like this. Occasionally the clouds clear away, but most of the time, it indeed is like that so I just sleep,” Tian Xinyi didn’t mind.

“How much have you explored?” Qian Yu asked, wondering how big his soul world is. 

“No, the soul world is not completely real so it continues to grow larger as you cultivate more. I’ve never bothered since it should be the same everywhere,” Tian Xinyi said. 

“I guess that’s true. Everywhere looks the same,” Qian Yu said. 

‘Sigh, how would the soul worlds of other people look,’ Qian Yu wondered. His master, Tian Wei’s soul world was on the gloomier side. On the other hand, Liu Wang’s was a lot more livelier and had a grassland. 

“Anyways, I should go back. The girls should be done by now,” Qian Yu had forgotten and lost track of time observing the lightning. 

“Alright master,” Tian Xinyi nudged her head against Qian Yu’s neck.

Closing his eyes and sitting down once more, Qian Yu exercised the technique, and as he opened his eyes, he came back to reality. 

“Oh welcome back!” Zhao Xieren was sitting in front of him. 

“Thank you, how long was that?” Qian Yu looked at Sun Hong. 

“An hour... what were you doing?” Sun Hong had thought Qian Yu was just trying to look at his soul world, however, he had taken 60 minutes which was too fast. 

“I was testing out Soul Exploration, the martial technique from the Immortal Soul,” Qian Yu replied to Sun Hong who he had already told her about. 

“I was basically able to walk on my soul world… nothing special really happened. Anyways, shall we go outside now?” Qian Yu stood up. On the contrary, he was much more interested in testing out Transcending Lightning Step.

“Yeah, let’s go!” They were all curious as to what was the new technique that Qian Yu had learned.

Qian Yu left the room with the three girls following him. Minutes later, they found themselves in a snow covered field. 

“It’s a movement skill,” Qian Yu said as he bent forward and concentrated the qi in his legs towards specific areas in his feet as mentioned in the cultivation technique. 

Transcending Lightning Step! Qian Yu stepped forward as he activated the skill. 

*Zip* A small lightning sound was heard as Qian Yu dashed forward, instantly melting the snow behind him into a puddle of water. Yet that wasn’t all. In the direction he had dashed, the snow had melted. On the soles of his feet, the qi there was still potent. Lightning qi continued to encircle his feet for a few seconds before disappearing. 

“...” Everyone stood there with their mouths agape for a few seconds before it turned into a grin. Of course, Qian Yu had the biggest smile on his face. 

In just a quarter of a second, he had traveled about 20 feet or so! Normally, his fastest running speed was close to 30 feet per second and as such, this technique allowed his speed to instantly jump (1). Even though it didn’t seem like much, proper usage of movement skills could easily turn the direction of a battle. Furthermore, as he used the skill more and increased his mastery and understanding of it, the dash would be able to go further. 

“Master! That’s so cool!” Zhen Yue was the first to break the silence. She couldn’t hide her smile seeing Qian Yu had learned an extremely useful martial technique. 

“Indeed, the lightning on your feet is cool as well,” Zhao Xieren chimed in as the three girls started walking towards Qian Yu. 

“Not bad,” Sun Hong said. Her words were humble but her expression was a happy one.

“Hehe, I didn’t expect it to have the lightning effect. I’m already satisfied,” Qian Yu said. 

“Let’s test out some things. How fast can you perform it consecutively?” Sun Hong asked. 

“I’ll check,” Qian Yu said. Like before, Qian Yu channeled the qi into specific areas of his feet, a quick process that was almost instantly.

*Zip* Qian Yu used the skill as he appeared a few dozen feet away. Right away, he started performing the technique channeled qi into his feet again. 

*Zip* Qian Yu performed Transcending Lightning Step once more, but this this time, he couldn’t activate it right away, taking a lot more time than before 

Qi was everywhere in your body, with most of it being concentrated towards your torso, and more specifically, the dantian, because qi also passively protected the body. You could live with a lost limb but a hole in your torso would be more severe. 

When Qian Yu performed Lightning Step the first time, the qi in his feet were moved towards certain areas of his feet. During the second time however, there was a lack of qi in his feet. Even though the body would move qi to “resupply” the feet, it wasn’t instantly. As such, Qian Yu had to actively channel and help move the qi in his body downwards, taking more time. 

“5 seconds down time, about the same as mine normally,” Sun Hong muttered. This duration before Qian Yu could activate it again was called “down time” and varied depending on factors such as the type of technique, strength of the technique, amount of qi needed or any preparation done beforehand. Regarding Lightning Spasm, there was pretty much no down time. 

“Let’s try to lower the down time,” Sun Hong said. 

“What do you mean?” Qian Yu asked. 

“Do the same thing as before. But this time, channel a lot more qi towards your feet so that there is a surplus of qi in your feet,” Sun Hong explained.

Qian Yu nodded as he followed her instructions. 

*Zip* Qian Yu moved like a lighting bolt. Yet as he started concentrating the qi towards the specific points in his feet, it was much faster. 

*Zip* Qian Yu dashed again. Yet this time, he had done it after 2 seconds only! With the surplus amount of qi in his feet, he didn’t need to move as much qi to his feet and it only took about 2 seconds!

“2 seconds is good,” Sun Hong casually said. However, everyone else there was speechless. 

---

Author's Note:

(1) Holy crap. One of the most interesting things I’ve learned while writing this novel is that the record for a 100 meter dash ( 328 feet or 109 yards) is 9.58 seconds. This is about 10 meters a second or about 30 feet a second… wtf... So yeah… I guess cultivators can travel that fast easily… o_o

Anyways, hope you guys like the technique and enjoyed the explanation on the skill. It’s a fantasy novel but I’ll try to have some logic behind the techniques whenever applicable.