Arthur was grateful, once again, that he was using the Tower enabled scroll. It still required him to read it over and comprehend the techniques, but between the 3D projections, the almost mythical way it entered his mind and the clarity of the words, he was learning how to use the Seven Cloud Stepping technique faster than the rest of the team.
Of course, he’d also taken to sitting on the top of their building to train and study, since the inside of their building was a complete mess. The quartet below – Rick having joined them to at least understand the technique if not learn it fully – were consistently attempting to test various aspects, providing one another insights as they ran around trying to climb on beds, stepstools and pots and pans in a racket that was doing his own, quieter, study little good.
Occasionally, they’d come up to share their latest understanding and borrow his own insights. In this way, what should have taken a week or two to understand at the least was compressed significantly. Arthur figured he’d be done in a day or two more, which was why he’d kicked the can of the Thorned Lotuses even further down the road.
Best to have something to show them, rather than just mention it in his view.
Breathing out, Arthur forced Tower energy to suffuse his meridians. Energy coursed through the various worls, meridian points and merdians themselves to alter the form and format of the energy, bleeding normal Tower energy into various elemental alignments.
In this case, the Seven Cloud Stepping technique at the first level was mostly wind and water, with just a touch of gravity. It lightened the body but also connected one with the water and the wind that suffused the environment, allowing one to basically step on tiny cloud projections beneath the feet.
This had the advantage of creating the very stepping stones one needed to traverse the air, meaning that one did not need to find a landing spot. Of course, the negative of this was that it was quite exhaustive to create the clouds themselves, the amount of Tower energy being used quite intensive. As such, initially, one would only form a single step or cloud to use. Each level – each cloud – was a level in the technique, allowing one to bound further and lighten oneself even more, such that you could, in theory, walk across seven clouds.
At the penultimate level, theoretically, each of those clouds would form again allowing the user to continually stride across the air. At least, that was what Arthur thought it meant, though specific details were hidden from him at the moment till he finished understanding the technique.
It might be that there was a different, entirely different, technique to use.
Unlike other qinggong techniques, the Seven Cloud Stepping technique had certain disadvantages too. Rick’s own technique pulled him along straight lines with great speed, which the Seven Cloud Stepping technique did not. While an individual was mildly faster when suffusing the body with the technique due to the lighter weight, it did not, by itself, make the Climber faster.
Nor was it a teleportation technique like Uswah’s. And because it only made the individual mildly lighter, one could not stride across water like the water stepping technique the Thorned Lotuses had. Branches had to be picked carefully too, if one used it.
But having so many steps to learn, the technique had more variability and more uses. Arthur had a feeling that if he could learn this technique and then study p on the water walking technique’s ability to diffuse his weight over a larger area, he might be able to truly develop a powerful qinggong technique.
Then all he needed was a movement one that sped up his actual movement and he was golden.
Right now though, he had to figure out how to make this work. Focusing within, he pushed the Tower energy that was ready into his flesh. Technically, you were supposed to start with your feet, but he was looking to short-circuit the training a little.
After all, you eventually needed to infuse the entire body with the elementally infused Tower energy. Better to do it from the start. In addition, the Heavenly Sage’s Mischief was built upon the idea of suffusing the body with energy anyway, such that the methodology of such things was much simpler and easier for him.
There were only so many techniques out there, and once you studied a few, adopting the next one was easier. It was one reason why more powerful or more experienced Tower climbers were able to study and make use of early beginner techniques quickly, because they already knew the infusion and diffusion methodologies in play.
Or even knew better ones.
Energy suffused through his body, and for a few moments, he felt himself lighten. His body lightened and he pushed a little with his crossed legs, testing the change. The moment he did so, his concentration broken and he found himself falling back down with a thump, his body aching a little at the backlash.
The pain was like getting pummeled all over by a padded bat. All at once at the same time. Painful, but not particularly dangerous. He did, however, let himself slump backwards, lying on his back till his breathing recovered.
“Still nothing?” Cassie asked. Like him, she had taken to sitting on the rooftop to avoid the chaos while benefiting from the Clan building.
“I’m getting there.” Arthur sat up, forcing himself to circulate his breathing slowly. “I just need to split attention and make it, well, normal.”
“Always hardest, making it second nature,” Cassie commiserated. “Once you get it though, the Tower will help.”
“For definitions of help.”
Lam over in his own seat smiled, though he did not shift and the pull of energy from the monster core never stopped. He kept pulling the energy to his core as he did so, head tilting from side-to-side to watch for potential trouble.
Not that there was likely to be. Not only was the building set apart among the trees, the only ways in were via a couple of swinging road bridges. Add the Tower Guard and they were pretty safe, unless someone decided to fire on them.
“It’s not a bad technique at least,” Cassie said.
“Not as good as yours,” Arthur replied. “What was it called again?”
She smiled in reply instead, forcing Arthur to give up on that line of questioning. The pair had trained the Chin family supplied technique while the group were gone and mastered it, such that Cassie and Lam Kor were both quite adept. It sped up their movements and lightened their body, making it an almost perfect qinggong method from what Arthur had seen. If there were disadvantages, it likely would be apparent in the name or under closer observation.
For now though, with the pair choosing instead to cultivate, he had little chance of discerning it. All he could do was practice his own techniques himself and get it ready to showcase to the Thorned Lotuses. And, hopefully, finally get their buy-in.