With that thought, he didn’t hesitate to abandon the internal routes he’d formed from the first three diagrams, and began cultivating according to the merged twelve-diagram route.
The circulation route was extremely obscure, and running it burned through his mental power at an alarming rate.
Now Ian finally understood why the person who wrote this movement art split one diagram into twelve—because if you didn’t, ordinary people simply couldn’t cultivate it.
You had to know, Ian’s mental power was already incredibly strong—over twenty times the norm—and even so, he felt it was a struggle. If it were anyone else, just trying to run this art would burn through all their mental power and make them pass out.
As the technique circulated, Ian noticed faint traces of a special yet familiar energy flowing into his body from the air.
Everyone knows that heaven and earth qi generally comes in attributes like metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, as well as wind, lightning, ice, and others.
But in reality, many special-attribute qi types also exist in the world.
For example: spatial, temporal, light, and dark attributes.
Of these, spatial-attribute qi is fused into the world itself—it's everywhere, but you can’t absorb it.
If you compare common qi attributes to water in a pond, then spatial-attribute qi is like the water soaked deep in the mud beneath the pond.
Suddenly, inspiration struck him.
Since spatial qi becomes so active during Spatial Stasis, why not cultivate while inside it?
With that thought, Ian immediately activated his divine ability, Spatial Stasis.
Instantly, he was enveloped in a bubble of frozen space—but the effect didn’t touch him.
He had just three seconds. Ian didn’t dare waste a single thought and focused all his energy on running the circulation route.
Boom!
A torrent of spatial-attribute qi slammed into his body, driving the internal circulation route forward in a huge leap.
Boom! Boom!
He kept absorbing.
Even more spatial-attribute qi crashed into his body.
Suddenly, inspiration struck him.
Since spatial qi becomes so active during Spatial Stasis, why not cultivate while inside it?
With that thought, Ian immediately activated his divine ability, Spatial Stasis.
Instantly, he was enveloped in a bubble of frozen space—but the effect didn’t touch him.
He had just three seconds. Ian didn’t dare waste a single thought and focused all his energy on running the circulation route.
Boom!
A torrent of spatial-attribute qi slammed into his body, driving the internal circulation route forward in a huge leap.
Boom! Boom!
He kept absorbing.
Even more spatial-attribute qi crashed into his body.
The surge was so intense it made his body ache, but Ian didn’t care—he just kept absorbing.
But then, Spatial Stasis ended.
The dense spatial energy around him vanished.
But to Ian’s delight, in just those three seconds, his circulation route had advanced by two-thirds.
With the mental power he had left, he could easily push through the final third.
Ian felt an urge to throw his head back and laugh.
But he forced himself to hold back, pouring all his focus into the technique—determined to finish it in one go.
One hour passed.
Two hours passed.
Three hours passed.
Four hours passed.
Dawn was breaking in the east, but Ian, still seated cross-legged on the ground, looked utterly exhausted. He’d underestimated how hard it was to cultivate this diagram—the farther he got, the more mental power it drained. The circulation route in his body had almost reached the end, and his mental power was down to just a tenth.
In the blink of an eye, another half hour had passed.
Daylight filled the sky.
Finally, when Ian’s mental power was down to just three percent, the entire circulation route suddenly connected end to end, forming a complete loop inside his body.
I did it!
With the technique complete, Ian felt the spatial-attribute qi pouring into his body multiply several times over.
At the same time, he sensed that everything within a hundred li was perfectly clear in his mind. With a single thought, he could reach any spot within that range.
With a thought, Ian vanished from his courtyard and reappeared in a remote corner of the academy’s outer city.
He thought again, and instantly he was back in his own courtyard.
Hahaha!
Ian couldn’t hold back his joy any longer and burst out laughing.
After laughing, he decided it was time to give this technique a name.
What should I call it?
Worlds Within a Step? Doesn’t feel right.
Hundred-Li in an Instant? Hmm, a bit exaggerated.
Instant Teleportation? Seems too plain.
What about Shrinking Ground to Inches? Doesn’t really fit.
He tried out several names, but none of them felt quite right.
None of them worked.
Suddenly, a phrase popped into Ian’s mind—it felt perfect. He muttered to himself, “From now on, I’ll call this movement art the Art of Great Teleportation!”
After naming the technique, Ian felt waves of exhaustion crashing over him, making him want nothing more than to collapse and sleep.
He knew it was because he’d burned through too much mental power.
So he went to his room, lay down on the bed, and instantly fell into a deep sleep.
He had no idea how much time passed before a round of knocking woke him up.
He’d only slept a little, and his mental power had recovered by about a tenth—so he couldn’t be bothered to get up and just pulled the covers over his head.
Outside the courtyard, Zoey Zhou stood there in a foul mood. She’d been knocking for two whole minutes, and Ian still hadn’t come to open the door. That made her furious—she almost turned to leave.
But then she remembered that Ian might become the Pristine Way Sect’s master in the future, so she called out, “Junior Brother Huang? It’s me, Zoey Zhou!”
Damn!
Nearly asleep again, Ian was furious. He jumped out of bed, flung open the courtyard gate, and glared at Zoey Zhou. “Why the hell are you yelling outside my door at the crack of dawn? Don’t you know you’re disturbing everyone’s rest?”
Junior Brother Huang, I—
Whatever! Just go. If you keep shouting out here, don’t blame me for being rude!
Bang!
Ian slammed the gate shut and stormed off.
Outside, Zoey Zhou’s face grew even darker. She clenched her teeth and growled under her breath, “Leon Huang, one day you’ll pay for what you did today!”
Back in his room, Ian worried about more interruptions, so he simply sealed his ears with true essence—no matter how much anyone knocked, he wouldn’t hear a thing.
He didn’t wake up again until evening, by which time his mental power had fully recovered.