Visualization.

Yin Long stood in the shower attached to his room, quietly enjoying the drops of warm water that splashed against him. He had increased the power of the array that controlled the water so each drop felt like a tiny needle that pricked him and drew a line across his body. It was a sensation that was slightly uncomfortable during the first few seconds, but after that, it allowed his mind to truly drift away. It was somewhat similar to what you might consider perfect meditation, an empty mind that barely even registered your surroundings.

"If you're going to stay in here much longer then you'll end up missing the departure. And if that's your plan when we may as well just have spent the time sharing an embrace."

The voice of Lan Yun tugged at Yin Long's drifting mind, forcing it back into his head. He slowly opened his eyes and turned his head, his hand sliding across the array that controlled the water. Lan Yun was standing by the entrance, leaning against the frame of the door with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"That time already, huh, could have sworn I had more time."

Yin Long wiped his face as he muttered, catching the towel that Lan Yun pulled out from her interspatial ring and tossed to him. He dried himself as he walked out of the bathroom, Jin Wang lazily resting next to the fountain that served as the centrepiece of the room. It didn't take long for Yin Long to dry himself, and by the time he finished, Lan Yun had already prepared a nostalgic set of robes for him.

"Seeing as you're finally going to meet them again, don't you think it's just fitting?"

The set of robes she had prepared for him was one he was exceedingly familiar with. Light yellow in colour and a back embroidered with three dazzling moons, they were only missing the howling wolf and then they would be a pristine set of Lang clan robes. It truly had been a long time since Yin Long last wore robes like these, but even so, he shook his head.

"No, I'll just go with the standard white."

"Are you sure? I've had them altered so they can't be traced to the Lang clan, people will just think you have a fondness for yellow and our collection of moons."

Lan Yun questioned him almost instantly, deliberately showing off the embroidered back. She knew Yin Long, probably better than anyone else at this point. So she knew that the yellow robes he wore in the past were a mark of pride for him, they could even be considered something his parents left behind for him. But Yin Long simply shook his head again, pulling a simple set of white clothes from his interspatial ring and slipping them on.

"I'm sure. Those robes belonged to the Young Master of the Lang clan, but he's already dead. Yin Long has no need or right to wear them."

The lazy and playful young master of the Lang clan, the dark blade of the wolf, these robes belonged to that person, not to Yin Long. His elder sister had even gone to the extent of orchestrating his death, inflicting untold harm on herself and their sister, just so that she could free Yin Long from those shackles.

"...But you'll always be the Young Master to me..."

Lan Yun's quiet mutter was heard by no one as she put away the robes. Those past identities may indeed be something that others could consider shackles, restricting Yin Long's freedom and abilities. But to her, they would always just be parts of who he was, they would be marks of a burden that the man she loved willingly chose to bear, no matter how heavy they were.

"Alright, Jin Wang, we'll head out, you can follow us if you want. If not, I can't promise when I can come back to see you."

Yin Long hadn't heard Lan Yun's mutter, nor could he read her thoughts, he had already walked over to Jin Wang and was running his hand through the lion's golden mane. Jin Wang was the same as Lan Yun, he wasn't his pet or servant, he was one of Yin Long's companions. If he wished to leave, then Yin Long would not force him, and if he did not wish to follow, then Yin Long would bid him farewell until they met again.

But of the three words that could be best used to describe Jin Wang, loyal was one of them. Yin Long had long since beaten him and subdued him, Jin Wang wholeheartedly admitted the fact that Yin Long was stronger than him. So he would follow him wherever he went, because he was the alpha, the existence closest to a lord. As for the other two words that could be used to describe Jin Wang, they would be lazy and proud.

The group of three left the room, Yin Long didn't have the habit of bringing a lot of personal belongings with him so there wasn't really anything in the room that they would need to pack before leaving. Compared to how filled to the brim the streets had been when they first arrived, they could now almost be considered deserted.

The Three-Fold Territory Clash had come to an end so those that had come here solely to spectate had already left, either heading to the location of the Province Championship or to their own homes. Of course, with how grand the Province Championship was, it was still possible for them to spectate parts of it even if they lived in the smallest villages.

The three moved through the streets, their group receiving quite a few stares from the people moving about. It was no secret that Yin Long was one of the 10 selected people, he was about to represent their entire province in front of what may as well be the entire dominion. That was an immense honour, but also an immense weight, the hopes of countless living beings forced directly onto his shoulders.

Of course, that weight would only matter to normal competitors and people, to Yin Long it didn't really matter. He could have several hundreds of times more gazes focused on him and it wouldn't put any weight on his shoulders, simply because he did not give a whit about what they thought. He desired a sharper sword, a stronger technique, an ascension for his sword, and that was it.

Jin Wang disdained to care about the gazes focused on them, and Lan Yun simply smiled sweetly due to them. It was just like she had always known, it was the sun's destiny to shine so brightly that all could see it. Yin Long had tried to be low-key in the past to enhance his sister's position, but now it was already becoming too late to hinder his shine, soon all of creation would be forced to close their eyes in front of his glow.

Their inn was quite close to the centre of the city so it didn't take them long to reach it and join up with the others. When you considered where they were about to head, the plaza they gathered in was surprisingly empty. The 10 chosen competitors had gathered, each of them had brought along two or three companions, but other than that there were only four other people present.

But the status of these four people wasn't something that could be scoffed at, they were precisely Province Emperor Starblood and his three Territory Lords. The over three-metre tall Emperor Starblood stood atop a small wooden podium, his dark silver hair swept back while his crimson eyes carried a stern light as he gazed upon the gathered youths.

"I am not a man of many words, so I will keep this short. The 10 of you will represent our great province in the championship, do not disappoint! I have selected 10 further youths from throughout the rest of the dominion, and I can assure you that each and every one of them is a true monster, a genius beyond compare! But even so, I hope that you can win over them, prove my judgment wrong and show that our province is the strongest!"

This planet of theirs, the Waveborn planet, was the third-largest planet within their universe, it was massive beyond compare. But even so, there were still countless other planets out there within their Floodlight Dominion, the number of geniuses was so high that you shouldn't even bother to count it. Yin Long had no doubt that the various Province Emperors had picked out the 180 strongest geniuses they could find, wanting to claim victory over them would be an uphill battle.

Emperor Starblood stepped back after he finished saying his piece, waving his hand and causing 10 house-sized carriages to appear at the side. He waved his hand once more, several intricate structures that seemed to be made from a murky silver crystal appearing around the carriages.

Yin Long was very sensitive to the law of space, so he could sense that these structures, which looked like lines connecting together into intricate shapes, were filled with spatial energy. Emperor Starblood nodded to one of his Territory Lords and then vanished, the Territory Lord taking a step forward to address Yin Long and the others.

"There is one carriage for each competitor, you will find that they all have plenty of space. I won't hide it from you, the place where the Province Championship takes place is a bit special so we don't have any proper spatial arrays there, they corrode too quickly. Space there is also very chaotic, so while this make-shift array will bring us there, we are definitely going to end up quite off-course. But we will arrive within three or so days, it's rare for any group to end up further away, so you can take this time to calm your minds."

In truth, Yin Long hadn't paid much attention to information about the Province Championship. Even while going through the martial library of the Heron's Ascension dojo, it was hard to find information. It was a grand tournament encompassing more than just this entire planet, but this grandness also made it a bit hard to find information on it if you didn't get it from a truly large sect. After all, members of sects like the Heron's Ascension Dojo would really only know what they got to hear or saw, and that generally didn't include where the championship took place.

He was curious, so he did the first thing that came to mind, he asked the Territory Lord about where the championship took place. But the answer he got was quite far removed from any expectations he had.

"The Province Championship takes place in the heart of the Demon's Descent Wasteland, inside a pocket of fractured space that has stretched out to cover the entire galaxy. It is vast beyond compare, and it has countless exits, but we've luckily managed to stabilize it so that it only has a single entrance. But that stabilization took place long after it was formed, so the pocket of space has already drawn in the environment of innumerable planets, forming a twisted picture of a world."

The Demon's Descent Wasteland, as long as you had access to a public library, you would know about this place. The current Waveborn planet houses 18 provinces, but the records say that it used to actually house 21 provinces. But then a demon descended upon the planet, and in a single battle, three of those provinces had become a wasteland where not even space was able to function normally. Even now, countless years after their fall, the three provinces were still practically inhospitable, a permanent scar on the planet.

As for that pocket of fractured space, it was different from a separate world in a simple way, it wasn't intentional. When you set up a separate space, you would use your law of space to form the framework, keeping it stable so that the natural laws of space didn't collapse it. But a pocket of fractured space was different, it didn't have this framework to keep it intact.

It was only kept intact thanks to the fact that the power that created it, generally an attack, had shattered space so thoroughly that the natural laws of space refused to consider that space as belonging to it. It was not something that a Province Emperor could do even if he gave it his all, Yin Long wasn't even confident that a Dominion Deity could do it, because it required you to utterly ruin a natural law's core function.

None of the other competitors had any questions, mainly due to the fact that they would be properly informed about everything they needed to know when they reached their destination. Thanks to this, they all separated into their respective groups and boarded their carriages.

The insides of the carriages were quite simple, despite their size. It was really just one large room containing a few beds and a place where you could sit and chat while eating. It was just meant to house you for a handful of days so they clearly didn't bother going overboard with the luxury.

"I'll be training for a bit, probably best to keep a bit of distance since I want to try something new."

Yin Long casually picked a spot on the floor as he spoke, Lan Yun nodding her head in understanding. He sat down and crossed his legs, closing his eyes as he emptied his mind. Within the darkness of his mind, two figures appeared, one that looked like him and one that looked like Bai Xiang, the strongest person that Yin Long had ever sparred against.

The two figures quickly started to fight, Yin Long merging his memories of Bai Xiang with the other techniques he had read about over time. The Bai Xiang was mostly controlled by those memories and techniques, practically a textbook example taken straight from the manuals. As for the Yin Long, he was controlled by Yin Long's own mind.

This was a training method Xiao Yin Yu had taught him while she was teaching him about how to use a whip sword, visualization. The whip sword was flexible yet sharp, supple yet rigid, it could easily be altered by something as simple as your opponent knocking against it. So you needed perfect control over your sword as you fought, you needed to be aware of every possible way the weapon could move when it touched something else.

And that's where visualization came in, you simulated fights to test out how your sword would react when blocked in a certain manner. It wasn't as useful as actually trying it out in real life, but it didn't require any physical energy and could be done even if you couldn't move or didn't have the weapon at hand so it was still very useful. It was a bit taxing on the mind since you had to simulate so many different memories and outcomes, but it was generally worth it.

But Yin Long had a different use for it, it was a good way to give form to the sword techniques he had previously only read about. Once he visualized them and 'fought' against them, it would be much easier for him to incorporate them into his own style. Usually, visualization took all your concentration, you had to infuse your knowledge and memories into one figure after all, but Yin Long had something most other people didn't.

Part of his senses connected with the surrounding space, forming a three-dimensional image of his surroundings. This was something that happened practically naturally to him, it was active at almost every waking moment, a constant map at the back of his mind. And now he was going to use it to take his visualization a step further.

His Qi seeped out from his body and interacted with the surrounding space, two figures only visible to his senses forming around him. His law of swords mixed with the Qi, each of the two figures quickly grasping a sword. The figures were invisible to others as they were basically formed from space, but the swords were created using the law of swords so they were more than visible.

So as Lan Yun sat there and observed Yin Long, she saw two swords appear around him. And following their appearances, the sound of them clashing also quickly sounded out, the two swords constantly colliding, the invisible figures wielding them as they performed their moves. Like this, Yin Long could have one visualization run in his mind and another one around him, the second one allowing him to truly see how a body would move to perform those techniques.

"I'm wasting energy... I can condense it further."

The soft mutter escaped his lips as he observed the two clashing figures, he could feel that he was using too much energy to maintain their shapes. So he started working on condensing them, refining his control over space to achieve the same effect for less energy. So in a way, the simple concept of visualization, when in his hands, turned into three different ways of training, Yin Long completely shutting out the surrounding world as he delved into his training.