Chapter 42: The Ice Maiden
In the blink of an eye, another week passed, and the annual exchange and friendship meeting of the Five Elements Academies was held as scheduled at Thunder Academy.
On the Thunder Academy grounds, aside from the original students, figures in all kinds of uniforms could be seen everywhere. There were Blazing Fire students in gold and red, Elephant Armor students in black, Divine Wind students in cyan, and Sky Water students in blue.
Some of the older students clearly already knew each other. They took advantage of this once-a-year opportunity to catch up, chat, laugh, and play.
Most of the crowd had gathered on Thunder Academy's large playground. Five arenas had been erected there, and students would go up from time to time to spar and exchange blows. Their classmates shouted and cheered from below, and the atmosphere was lively and hot-blooded.
However, all this excitement had nothing to do with Yu Tianlin.
Half a month had passed since he started his tree climbing training. By now, he could maintain just the right suction force under his feet while keeping the power of lightning completely under control. He could walk along the trunk as if it were flat ground and even run without issue. In other words, his tree climbing training could be considered a complete success.
Yu Tianlin could clearly feel that his control over his lightning attribute Spirit power had improved greatly, yet he still felt something was missing, that it was not quite perfect. He could already attempt to develop Chidori in this state, but the effect and efficiency would be lower than he wanted.
Since that was the case, he decided to move on to the next stage, water treading. Once that training was completed, it would not be too difficult to develop Chidori.
So even during the Five Elements Academy's grand exchange, Yu Tianlin did not participate. He focused entirely on training his water walking.
He found a secluded lake where few people ever came and began his practice in earnest.
Cough. Originally, he had wanted to do this training in the bathtub in his dormitory room. The result was that the bathtub exploded on the very first day.
Left with no other choice, Yu Tianlin had to come out and find a lake instead. He could not very well blow up the lake too.
Water walking was different from tree climbing.
Tree climbing involved gathering Spirit power at the soles of the feet to create an adhesive force, allowing a person to cling to a tree or wall.
Water walking was the opposite. It required releasing Spirit power from the soles of the feet to generate an upward push, allowing a person to stand on the surface of the water.
One training focused on attraction, the other on repulsion. If one could master both tree climbing and water walking, one's control over their own Spirit power would be so refined it would feel like moving their own arm.
Fortunately, Yu Tianlin had already mastered suppressing the power of lightning during his first week of training, so water walking was not as miserable a start as his earliest attempts at tree climbing.
He gathered Spirit power into the soles of his feet, then slowly extended his left foot toward the lake's surface, carefully releasing the Spirit power downward. When he felt a faint repulsive force, he shifted his body weight onto his left foot.
However, as his center of gravity moved, Yu Tianlin suddenly realized that the repulsive force was far too weak to support his entire body. His left foot slipped, sank into the water, and his whole body was about to fall in as well.
Yu Tianlin had already expected failure on his first try. He did not believe he could succeed in one go.
So what if he fell into the lake? He could swim. At worst, he would just climb back up and try again.
At that critical moment, the water beneath his feet suddenly began to freeze at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Although he did not know what was happening, Yu Tianlin reacted quickly. He stomped his right foot down onto the forming ice, used the force to pull his frozen left foot free, and then leveraged the momentum to retreat back to the lake shore.
For the lake to freeze so suddenly, someone clearly had acted. As soon as he stabilized himself on shore, Yu Tianlin turned toward the source.
About ten meters away, a girl stood leaning against a tree.
She was shrouded in a faint blue light, and two yellow Spirit rings slowly rotated around her body. It was obvious she had been the one to make the move.
"Why did you walk onto the lake for no reason? Are you planning to commit suicide?"
The girl's clear voice rang out as the blue light around her body faded. She had withdrawn her martial soul.
She was petite, about 1.4 meters tall, dressed in a light blue long dress, the uniform of SkyWater Academy. Her long, light blue hair flowed down her back, and her skin was fair, her features delicate. However, her face still carried a bit of childishness, so she clearly was not very old.
"You are from SkyWater Academy," Yu Tianlin said. "Thank you for helping me just now."
"I walked toward the lake not to commit suicide, but to train my control over Spirit power."
When she heard the words "improve control over Spirit power," the girl's interest was instantly piqued. She walked toward him and asked, "Are you also a control type Spirit Master?"
The word "also" directly revealed her own path of cultivation.
"I am a power attack type Spirit Master." Yu Tianlin shook his head. "I just think that power attack type Spirit Masters should also improve their control over Spirit power. That way they can reduce waste when using Spirit skills and increase their ability to fight continuously."
"An offensive type, hm. Interesting."
The girl walked up to him and asked curiously, "So how exactly do you train like that?"
It was just water training. There was nothing to hide. Yu Tianlin patiently explained the principle and method to her from beginning to end.
"I see."
After roughly understanding how water treading worked, the girl could not wait to try it.
However, as soon as the tips of her toes touched the water, a thin sheet of ice immediately formed beneath them. She stepped lightly onto the newly formed ice and then looked back at Yu Tianlin with a slightly smug expression.
"It doesn't seem that hard."
"That is completely wrong."
Seeing this, Yu Tianlin immediately corrected her.
"You are just using your ice attribute advantage to freeze the surface of the lake and then stand on the ice."
"If your only goal is to stand on the water, then this works. But what I am talking about is training Spirit power control."
"You need to suppress the chill in your Spirit power and support yourself on the water using only the repulsive force generated by the Spirit power itself. You should even be able to run quickly on the water's surface. Only then can you be considered qualified."
"You make it sound so easy. How could that be possible?"
The girl puffed her cheeks slightly. "You can't do it either, can you?"
"That is exactly why I am practicing here, because I cannot walk on water yet. If it were tree climbing, I have already mastered that perfectly."
Yu Tianlin walked toward the tree the girl had been leaning against and smiled.
"Come over here."
"And what about tree climbing?"
The girl was a little confused, but she still followed behind him.
Once at the tree, Yu Tianlin placed one foot directly on the trunk. After his foot stuck firmly to the bark, he lifted his other foot off the ground and pressed it onto the trunk as well.
At that moment, both of Yu Tianlin's feet were attached to the tree trunk, and his entire body was parallel to the ground, as if gravity had no effect on him at all.
If Newton could see this scene, he would probably burst into tears.
The girl's eyes went wide.
"It really is possible to do that!"
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