Epoch of Twilight

During the night, at the peak of his starved libido over the last month, Luo Yuan was a beast. He managed 3 rounds with his beautiful companions, and laid his sword repeatedly upon the 3 ladies, satisfying their lust for him, and sapping their juices as his reward. Their suspicion of his disloyalty to them was long gone by the time he finished.He had to prove to them that he remained true to his Chastity and had not been seduced in the one month of their absence.

...

In the early hours of the next morning, Luo Yuan got out of bed quietly. He put on his clothes and walked out to the underground city, with his Zhanmadao in hand.

The sky was still dark, and there were only weak beams of light that came from two factories that were operating all day and all night.

There were no street lights in this underground city as it was said that the light might attract mutated animals that attack the city. Also, energy resources were limited and as the street light was deemed unnecessary, the energy could not be wasted.

Luo Yuan inhaled the cool fresh air mixed with the pollution of industrial waste gases. He sneezed as the smell of the air was too pungent. His spirits were elevated from the release he had the night before and he felt like running. He took off in a run as fast as lightning and stirred up the atmosphere, causing a sudden fierce wind behind him.

Ever since his floating sportswear was damaged, the surrounding airflow was violent and extraordinary powerful against his skin whenever he sprinted.

Normal people had nothing to worry about when it came to air resistance at the speeds they traveled. But he was running at close to the supersonic speed and the density of air was close to a liquefied state. Every step forward consumed a large amount of energy. Since he was reaching his maximum speed, it had become increasingly difficult for him as the air resistance increased for every meter increase in velocity.

He knew that in order to overcome the barrier, his Strength and Agility would have to be at least three to four times stronger and faster. The influence of buoyancy in the air was considered as well. He could make use the atmospheric pressure to balance himself against the forces of buoyancy by lowering his body close to the ground as he sprinted.

However, humans were not flawless beings or adjustable like machines. They were not able to perform the ideal motion that would perfect the theory of fluid dynamics like what an F1 race car could do. He needed to observe the surroundings and pay attention to the geological terrain of the areas as he ran. If his body was lowered too close to the ground, it would be even harder for him to run.

If no equipment was able to balance the airflow like the floating sportswear he had, or an increase in Will, he predicted that his maximum speed limit would only be at subsonic speed.

Of course, this was just applicable to long-distance running. It was still possible for him to burst into an all out explosive sprint, anytime he wanted if he needed to.

...

About 10 minutes later, Luo Yuan had arrived at the Gobi Desert which he had already visited a few times. This was a place where no one would disturb him and it had become his personal training ground.

This time, he did not come here for the usual saber training skills.

Since he came back from New Capital City, he had a thought that kept crossing his mind. At the time it occurred to him, he did not have the time to examine it properly. As soon as he had cleared his mind of sexual thoughts, he felt more at ease and ready to pursue his theory. The thought that was initially brief, had gradually become clearer to him over time. That was why he could not wait any longer and came over to test his theory on his own before dawn.

After he had become an evolved man, Earth Stomp had always been his most powerful ability. He even considered it to be his ultimate skill.

As he grew stronger, Earth Stomp was no longer essential. After he realized that he had the ability to self-heal through Will and that it was even more effective in battle, Earth Stomp almost seemed useless to him.

Luo Yuan was an evolved man more in name than in reality. Perhaps it was his additional six points in Physique that really brought out Luo Yuan’s true identity as an evolved man.

He had never thought about the extent of the true ability, and also did not have a clue of what it meant. He knew he was strong but rarely had any use for power beyond his usual capacity. He never knew what would happen if he further improved his ability without knowledge of his power.

The return from this trip to New Capital City was fruitful. The knowledge gained was merely the tip of the iceberg. It provided him with a wider field of vision and an open mind to all sorts of possibilities. An intelligent barbarian was still a barbarian, yet an elevated field of vision and an enhanced level of thinking could really define one’s ability.

He might have gained some insight but from a different point of view, he felt he did not make a breakthrough and remained the same as he was before.

...

Wisdom could always generate great strength with minimum efforts.

Mechanical waves were propagated through vibration. Earth Stomp was one of the mechanical waves that transferred its energy through the movements in the earth. It was like when a stone was thrown into a lake, it created a continuously expanding circular ripple.

The attack was made with the power of Earth and it was intense and potent. However, the damage in an area like the desert was not as impressive as he thought it would be. With the energy was spread over a large area, it dissipated without estimation of how deadly the force might have been.

It would, of course, be deadly if he were to confront a low-level mutated beast. But the beast that threatened Luo Yuan now was those that were at level seven or more. These beasts were gigantic and their bodies were almost hundreds of meters long. The Earth Stomp could no longer harm them.

But if he could the centralized the waves, he thought, it would definitely unleash a terrifyingly powerful skill.

It was as difficult as if a stone was thrown into a lake but had created water columns instead of circular ripples and these water columns must not be created randomly. The position must be controlled precisely, otherwise, it would be useless for an attack.

It was not until that moment he discovered that possibility, did he get an idea to solve his problem.

...

He gradually lowered his heart rate and entered the state he had to be to generate the Earth Stomp. He cleared his mind of all thoughts and held the darkness still. He looked stony and cold, with no expression on his face.

He could feel the movement of the Earth, its endless energy like how it always was. It resembled a volcano that was on the verge of eruption.

He fully exerted his aura and his eyes shot back in his head. The air surrounding him had instantly become motionless. He was exuding a horrifically powerful energy as if the entire space was covered by an invisible force field. The fine grains of sand and stones on the ground started to shake vigorously and levitated slowly.

Meanwhile, there was a static electrical force building in the area like growing inferno. It seemed like he owned the entire desert as various types of energy lingered in the area under his control.

He was granted a memory boost and inspiration points after he had upgraded his Saber Specialist to 7 points. He could now feel it all starting to grow after months of training.

In a matter of moments, Luo Yuan calmed his thoughts and everything around him subsided. However, it still felt like the storms were getting stronger in the silence.

Luo Yuan relaxed his mind and moved to raise his leg to walk forward. All of a sudden, the ground shook beneath his feet, like an earthquake, and the whole ground cracked and split in half! With caution, he laid his foot back on the ground.

The land masses and trees flew up to five or six meters high in the air. Not far from the ground of the Gobi Desert, a rock formation that was at least 10 meters high was completely destroyed and obliterated to just a few rocks on the ground.

Luo Yuan stood still and meditated to still his racing heart.

"This trial did not succeed, but it wasn’t a failure. The rock formation in the Gobi Desert that had collapsed had proven that the power could be harnessed, controlled and directed for destruction. Unfortunately, he had not mastered the control and most of the energy was wasted."

"This trial must be continued."

The Gobi Desert had stayed flat and undisturbed for thousands of years but, it had been destroyed by Luo Yuan’s with that powerful thought.

Numerous notions flooded his mind. "Will is too weak to have total control over such immense energy. As long as the seesaw effect can be demonstrated, I don’t need full control over Will."

"The power of Will could only be exercised when the energy is released. It had nothing to do with his own strength. This could be one of the ways to avoid too much of energy being wasted and reduce the use of his Will!" He looked at another rock as the thought played on his mind.

Subsequently, with every trial, he tried to adjust and reduce the amount of energy he released to his surroundings. Soon, he finally mastered the perfect way to control his power and he had completely cleared the area around him with each trial.

Ultimately, he raised his head aiming at the highest and largest rock formation that was about 50 to 60 meters away. It looked like a small mountain and was 50 to 60 meters high with a diameter of about 100 meters across.

With his sharp eyes, he focused at the point of attack. He raised his leg and stomped down hard with mastered intent!

...

Bang!

Dust shot everywhere like a shock wave. But other than that, no vibration was felt on the ground. Luo Yuan glanced around and saw that the Gobi had exploded, sending billows of smoke into the sky.

The rock formation which was insanely heavy weighed approximately 70,000 to 80,000 tons. Despite it being his full force exerted on this rock formation, only dust and some small stones from the outer layer had fallen. The rock formation was able to sustain the damage from the shock waves.

He was not disappointed as he had expected that outcome.

He was satisfied as he could still somewhat cause a little bit of damage on the small mountain. Besides a speedy dash, the Earth Fountain could now cause a deadly high-frequency vibration. He could imagine the effects of such an attack on level seven mutated beasts when they had to confront him as mere flesh and bone!

...

It had been an hour and the sunlight was breaking through the night to bring forth the dawn. Luo Yuan frowned as he felt exhausted and had to get out of the state of the Earth Stomp to conserve energy for the journey home.

The Earth Fountain was only one of his tentative plans. There was a lot more waves could be manipulated to do, such as create resonance and superpositioning. To examine all of them, he would need more time.

The former required the gaining of insight into the ground’s frequency. Every Earth Stomp would be regarded as one vibration. Through the formation of a sequence of stomps, he could bring forth a pattern of resonance, and trigger an earthquake. The Earth Stomp was based on the combination of the frequency of the Earth’s crust, mantle, and core. It would require a very detailed analysis of the geology, thickness, and topographical structure of the area he was at before performing the attack.

Of course, even that he had gone completely mad with rage, it would be impossible for him to cause a shock at will on the earth by forming resonance through the frequency of the Earth Stomp.

This was because to the Earth’s crust consistently had a different frequency and would absorb all the energy before resonance was formed if he did not have a feel for the frequency beforehand.

He would only be capable of applying shock on a small region depending on the variability of the earth’s crust, with the circumference of either a few kilometers or hundreds kilometers.

He wanted to try again but the crust plates of the ground were already relatively weak. A minor magnitude earthquake aftershock still rumbled beneath. He might have triggered a full-on earthquake if he had generated resonance here but he put the thought out of his mind as it would have been tiresome to try escape.

He was unable to clearly identify the speed he needed for superpositioning a wave, the latter option, even though he had 16 points for his Agility. The frequency of Earth Stomp was incredibly high as it would vibrate each stomp at over thousands of times per second. When the vibration was at its peak, the duration of each wave was approximately 0.1 seconds and the level of energy would fall rapidly. In order to be even stronger, he had to make two attacks in a row in a short period of time. The most difficult part was that the power of the Earth Stomp must coincide with each other. The wave crests and also the trough must coincide with each other.

Besides, to make two consecutive attacks would certainly make them even more difficult to control and maneuver to his Will.

He knew he had to upgrade his Agility so that he would be able to handle this. The advantage of superpositioning was that as long as he was able to keep up his Agility and control the flow of energy, the force of the wave created would be limitless as he could increase the number of times of the superpositioned Earth Stomps until he was satisfied with it.