Breakthrough, Prototype Movement Technique

This time, Di Tian perfectly captured the movement of the Cloud Leopard under his 'Territory' vision.

Several slow-motion playbacks were simulated in his Sea of Consciousness automatically, as well as a simulation of feasible escape routes.

Di Tian chose the option that had the most likely chance of success and immediately dodged the attack using it.

The Cloud Leopard growled irritably and vanished once more.

For the next couple of minutes, Di Tian went on to face several sneak attacks. However, he managed to dodge them all. He was so smooth with them that he didn't look like someone walking the thin line of danger.

In truth, Di Tian found the pain of the constant lacerations forming on his body more torturous than the Cloud Leopard's sneak attacks. But it didn't mean that the Demon Beast's attacks were of no threat; Di Tian could tell from the earlier smacking from it that it was at least ten times as strong as him.

If the Cloud Leopard managed to land just one successful hit and performed its instantaneous blink to finish him off before he recovered enough to get up, Di Tian knew that it would be over. He could only hold out and try to avoid a frontal clash for as long as possible

Mentally, Di Tian was cursing Fang Ao furiously, "Didn't Fang Ao claim that the strongest beast on the mountain was only at the level of a Bone Marrow Refinement Body Tempering cultivator? With this Cloud Leopard's Beast King Might alone, any initial level Body Tempering in my shoes would be toast!" This led Di Tian to start speculating whether the cultivator intentionally just wanted to send him to his death. 

In truth, he was overthinking it. Although Fang Ao did not give him all the details and let him to find out for himself, there was one card Di Tian possesed that could directly nullify the effects of the Beast King Might. This was the Meditative Tea Ceremony.

If Di Tian had activated it from the start, he wouldn't have needed to stuff himself with Spirit Aphrodisiac Herbs to negate his body-mind link restriction. The special nature of the meditative art allowed users to directly ignore mental coercion effects. In fact, although Di Tian thought that it was the aphrodisiac Spirit Herbs' effect that helped him numb the Demon Beast's bloodline spell, it was actually the Meditative Tea Ceremony he activated right after consuming them that did the job.

But Fang Ao's calculation did not account for the Cloud Leopard awakening two other bloodline spells, Baleful Wild Aura and Phantom Blink. When he had scanned the mountain two days ago, the Cloud Leopard was just in the process of awakening its first bloodline spell.

"I can't go on like this," this was the paramount thought running through Di Tian's mind, especially as he felt himself grow weaker by the second.

This was because his physical body was presently working overtime to keep up with his mind's directive to dodge, duck and defend at human-defying angles. His heart was pumping furiously, his muscles were strained at maximum capacity and enzymes and hormones were constantly regulating his physiological condition. 

All these processes consumed a lot of energy, not forgetting that a major portion of the energy from the Spirit Herbs was also being channeled to his Bone Marrow.

"At this rate, I'll have to consume more Spirit Herbs to replenish my energy," he thought to himself.

Without missing a beat, Di Tian dodged another incoming attack and quickly shoved several Spirit Herbs into his mouth, chewing and swallowing in record time. Right after, he fell back into pattern.

The battle dragged on tediously as the night unfolded. 

At some point, Di Tian discovered that his outer skin was developing a defensive layer after being destroyed and regrown over and over again.

"This should count as a prototype of the External Refinement that typically occurs at the seventh to ninth level of Body Tempering," Di Tian was excited as the pain he had suffered so far was definitely worth it with this new development. As of now, he was certain that only attacks above the seventh level of Body Tempering could break through his skin defense.

Even better, the capacity of this defensive layer was still growing under the radius of the omnidirectional Baleful Wild Aura. 

Unfortunately, the Cloud Leopard soon disabled its bloodline skill when it sensed a vast amount of its bloodline source had been consumed so far with it having been activated for so long. 

Di Tian was secretly disappointed, but this development gave him a bit more leeway in battle. He now only had to focus on dodging the Cloud Leopard till it revealed an opening.

The Cloud Leopard was still using its last bloodline skill, Phantom Blink. Out of all three it currently possessed, it was the one that consumed the least bloodline power, almost negligible even.

Di Tian soon found himself in despair when half an hour went by and he was still unable to land a direct hit. It wasn't that the Cloud Leopard did not reveal any vulnerable spots at all but that it was just too agile; even without its Phantom Blink, it was extremely fast, multiple times than Di Tian.

If he didn't possess his 'Territory' radar, Di Tian knew that this battle would have ended a long time ago.

One hour passed.

Two hours.

Three.

Five.

Di Tian and the Cloud Leopard played a game of tag all through the night, switching between offence and defence intermittently.

By now, Di Tian had almost exhausted all the Spirit Herbs gathered from the conquered Demon Beast Territories so far. The good thing was, under the rapid energy influx and intense combat pressure, he completed Bone Marrow Refinement and even moved on to begin Spleen Refinement, the third level of Body Tempering.

Another thing was that Di Tian developed a prototype movement technique of his own. Constantly monitoring the Cloud Leopard with his radar, he was able to observe its agile motions closely and started to incorporate and mimic some of them with his body.

The body of a Demon Beast and a human were very different, so the best Di Tian could do was a passable imitation. But even though it was very basic and basic, it increased Di Tian's dodging reflexes and movement speed by more than 70%.

Di Tian called this movement technique, Cloud Steps and was very satisfied with it.

"It seems tough battles are perfect for stimulating rapid growth," Di Tian was in a very bright mood despite fighting for hours as he reflected on his gains so far.

At this point, it was almost dawn. A sense of weakness washed over him and he quickly reached into his backpack to grab some Spirit Herbs.

His expression froze when he found it empty.