An Fei’s first independent flying experience ultimately resulted in a full day’s duration of high-altitude combat practice. In the span of a few hours, the young girl experienced what many high-altitude combat development groups could only desire for within their hearts.
That was, running on nothing but thin air below her feet!
“Do you think that the <Steps of Underlying Shadow> will let you lazily float in the air?”
The amused voice of the heavenly dragon echoed through her ear, full of the teasing that a senior within the same department often displayed to a complete newbie. Xilong tapped the young girl on the top of her head with a claw, its invisible eyes crinkling in laughter.
“Even if you’re iterating its Construct, you’ll still fall if you don’t constantly move around, ah.”
An Fei stood on thin air that was three hundred meters in the air. The young girl clutched at her chest as she panted for more air, her heart desperately struggling to maintain the body’s excruciating level of exertion.
What Xilong had wanted her to do was run a mile on thin air.
…with a pair of weights strapped to her calves, thighs, forearms, and upper arms.
Why was this even allowed?
The young girl sobbed in her heart as she stomped with her right foot, lunging forwards in with her right leg. Stabbing her right arm forwards as though performing a guarding motion towards her chest, An Fei awkwardly took a free and unfettered step through the world.
The motion was incredibly embarrassing and shameful, and the young girl thanked the heavens that nobody was there to witness a teenage young girl bumble around with movements even crankier than an infant that had been just born.
…at least, nobody except for a handle-less sword and a scarlet dragon.
But handle-less swords couldn’t speak, and Xilong was far too caring and nice to tease her about it…
“Young Fei, your motions are too wide and unnatural. Normal walking and running, ah, the <Steps of Underlying Shadow> will take care of the rest!”
It’s a divine luxury, so make excellent use of it!
An Fei clearly grasped the underlying message within the heavenly dragon’s words, and closed her eyes and cleanly imagined that instead of slowly falling through the sky, she were standing on an endless road of cement and asphalt.
The young girl imagined an empty street with asphalt roads and avenues, with modern buildings on either sides with an endlessly snaking network of electrical wire that brought life to inanimate cities.
And with a deep breath, An Fei raised her right foot, and brought it forwards. And at that moment, her body instantly halted its fall.
Her back faced the now miniscule city of Goeun, and her eyes stared directly towards the boundless skies. The young girl inhaled breaths of cool air until her lungs felt numb, and placed her foot down.
It’s an asphalt road, it’s an asphalt road, it’s an asphalt road…
Instead of the weird realization that her body had ceased moving even though her foot was clearly suspended in the air, An Fei felt nothing but a hard, porous surface underneath her feet.
The sensation was not unlike that of concrete, the variations in the pores of the rock prompting An Fei to repeatedly raise and lower her right foot to verify.
Her eyes relayed to her that she stood on nothing but thin air with her back against the ground, but her feet strongly protested that she stood on a perfectly flat road of well-developed concrete. And choosing to believe the heavenly dragon’s words that the discrepancy was perfectly alright, An Fei chose to take a second step.
…then a third, followed by a fourth… until she began running through the air.
An Fei first ran vertically in the skies until she had gotten used to the sensation underneath her feet, then was instructed by Xilong to change directions to eliminate her unease.
Under the caring yet stern instructions by the heavenly dragon, the young girl ran, walked, and leapt through the skies for the entire day, only permitted to return to the ground when the sun was beginning to set.
With her clothes utterly soaked in her sweat and her lungs barely having enough strength to heave for breath, she fled into the Sanctum for a restorative bath the instant her feet touched solid ground.
“I’m not doing this again tomorrow!”
“You’re doing this tomorrow!” the heavenly dragon retorted with a flicker of its long whiskers.
“Until your movements are perfectly steady, you’ll continue to walk through the skies, day after day!”
–
As if to round off a perfectly efficient two months of rewarding and gruesome training, Xilong forced An Fei into a final two weeks of unimaginable workload. At the end of the day, the young girl was reduced to a grumbling heap of complaints and exhaustion, only capable of begrudgingly dragging herself into the exquisite bathtub of the Sanctum.
From what used to be just calisthenics three hundred meters above the ground, the scarlet dragon abruptly came to the conclusion that An Fei could easily continue realizing the Construct of <Calligraphy> whilst in the air, much less practicing her usage of <Hemorrhage> whilst her training.
As a result, the young girl read books, practiced calligraphy, and exercised three hundred meters in the air that was abruptly raised to five hundred meters in the air, then seven hundred meters, followed by a kilometer…
Her body might not be directly injured, but her lungs certainly felt sore!
An Fei massaged her body, a pained groan escaping her fatigued and pale lips. The young girl waved her arms in the hot water of the bathtub, her exhausted mind producing mindless giggles as she enjoyed herself in the Sanctum.
As her sanity and physique gradually recovered whilst she enjoyed a prolonged soap bath, An Fei’s expression began to darken as she realized what she was going to have to do…
When Wen Jiu knocked on her door early in the morning of the next day, he found to his surprise that there was no response even after continuous pounding for several breaths of time. Surmising that the young girl couldn’t possibly remain sleeping after experiencing such a racket, and worry shrouding his heart, the handsome man took a deep breath to steel his resolve.
Infusing all five fingers of his right hand with highly concentrated spiritual essence, Wen Jiu forcefully grabbed onto the handle of the door, directing the thin threads through the simple locking mechanism.
When the major components of the lock had all been isolated by the spiritual essence, Young Master Wen squeezed hard – shattering the lock with a soft snap.
Whoosh!
“Young Miss Xu!”
The door was swiftly opened and the handsome man rushed in with a quiet cry. His eyes quickly adjusting towards the still-darkened room of the inn, Wen Jiu carefully scanned the room for any suspicious changes.
The bedsheets were still in decent condition, having seen not much use from the young girl who preferred to sleep in the Sanctum. The dressers remained shut, the purchased clothes untouched with their receipts folded neatly on top.
With the only set of windows firmly shadowed by a thick layer of curtains, the room that An Fei had lived in for two months was tranquil and silent save for the soft morning breeze and Wen Jiu’s agitated breath.
There were no signs that a human was currently living in the room, and the handsome man’s heart stuttered in a cold, shocked rhythm.
“…gone?”
Wen Jiu muttered in surprise, carefully recalling that a few days prior, he had witnessed An Fei emerge from her room with ink-stained hands and robes, as well as the faint peripheral image of numerous cluttered sheets of paper. His eyes and rational logic confirming that Young Miss Xu had truly left the inn, the Young Master of the Wen Family sharply inhaled, the swift stream of air cutting into his lungs.
“Just when did she begin preparing to leave… huh?”
On the drawing table, there existed a neatly folded sheet of paper – the only evidence that a certain young girl had occupied the room.
When Wen Jiu exposed the contents to the world, he encountered a set of unfamiliar handwriting whose appearance was so monotone and machine-like, devoid of any emotions or literary flair.
“Jiang’an…”
He didn’t know whose handwriting was on the sheet of paper, but Wen Jiu clearly knew that the message was either meant for An Fei, or the young girl’s reminder for him as a farewell. The handsome man folded the sheet of paper into a thin square and secured it firmly within his chest pocket, a smile gracing his lips.
“With the horrible relations between Great Yong and Bei Tang as well as the geographic barriers, there’s only one route that safely leads to Jiang’an – the Ban Shou Conservatory that’s before the Crag’s Pass,” Wen Jiu carefully murmured in thought.
“If I take three months to rush… then, Young Miss Xu, this Wen Jiu shall meet you at the Ban Shou Conservatory!”
