A branch skill!

It was undoubtedly a new term, but it wasn’t very hard to understand.

Take “Five Thunder Art—Talisman Art” that Ninth Uncle knew for example. The Thunder Talisman and the Evil Banishing Talisman in it could both be considered as independent branch skills!

Such skills could be mastered relatively independently from the main technique.

For example, because he didn’t devote much EXP to “Five Thunder Art—Talisman Art”, Ji Ye’s expertise at this art was only “Basic”, whereas he had already achieved “Lesser Mastery” in the two branches, the Thunder Talisman and the Evil Banishing Talisman.

His proficiency in those branches was clearly because the Earth Thunder only took up one-twentieth of the Five Thunder Heavenly Spirit Technique!

“However, because I’ve accumulated enough Earth Power, my proficiency at the new branch has been directly improved to ‘Adept’, just like what happened with the Nine Yang Divine Art earlier!”

Ji Ye read the information in his head.

This was undoubtedly some sort of EXP inheritance. It also meant that his combat ability wouldn’t drop after the fusion.

“Also, the Earth Thunder Power that’s gathered is no longer stored in my chest but has been condensed in my spleen.

“According to the Daoist theories, internal organs correspond to the five elements. The liver represents wood, the heart represents fire, the lung represents gold, the kidney represents water, and the spleen represents earth. Theoretically speaking, if I fuse the power of the other four elements later, I’ll be able to form a cycle of five elements in my body and let my body automatically gather power through ‘Five Element Thunder Art’. The level of this art will reach ‘Perfect’ too.”

That’s right. Ji Ye had simply named the branch skill “Five Element Thunder Art”, which could also make him slack like what the Primordial Chaos Force did before. It was also why this skill wasn’t rated as “Perfect”.

However, although it was only Superior in terms of quality, it had already absorbed two epic divine techniques!

…

The night had already fallen. Ji Ye arrived at the empty range in the fort and slowly stepped forward.

Whoosh!

A yellow light flashed from him. When his feet hit the ground, he had already moved more than ten meters away.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Then, the yellow light flashed nonstop on the range. After several steps, Ji Ye had already crossed the whole range from the artilleries to the targets.

“Well, the maximal distance for each step is about fifteen meters! It’s not exactly the same as the real Distance Reduction.”

After the yellow light on him disappeared, Ji Ye calculated and thought to himself.

After all, it was only an Extraordinary skill, and it couldn’t reduce the distance of a thousand kilometers into one inch as described in the myths.

Besides, Distance Reduction was also under the restriction of the terrain at this moment.

It was because Distance Reduction actually created a high-speed channel by communicating with earthen energy with the Earth Thunder Power in him.

That was not exactly real “teleportation” that involved spatial powers. He couldn’t entirely ignore obstacles.

Furthermore, because his movement was too fast, he had to protect his own body by consuming some Earth Thunder Power when performing the technique, which could be exhausting. So, the technique could only be used in battles, but not in daily travels!

“However, in terms of speed, this is definitely much faster than many alacrity skills.”

Distance Reduction was indeed very fast. He could cross more than ten meters in one step, and he passed a hundred-meter range after only seven steps.

Of course, unlike the alacrity skills, Distance Reduction was dependent on the earthen energy, so he couldn’t really stand on the water or fly in the sky. It didn’t look as awesome as the alacrity skills.

However, that was clearly not a problem.

Since he received Distance Reduction by fusing Earth Power into the Five Thunder Heavenly Spirit Technique, he might receive the ability to soar or move on the water by fusing the Water Power into the technique!

Well, to be more precise, thanks to the Flood Dragon Bloodline, Ji Ye was already able to tread on the water and ride the clouds. He just couldn’t fly yet because he didn’t have enough Flood Dragon Blood.

Therefore, he wasn’t exactly in need of alacrity skills.

“Well, one step closer to going wherever I want!”

After testing his new ability, Ji Ye smiled again.

He would say that for his fellow players who were passionate about extreme sports such as parkouring, Distance Reduction was definitely their most anticipated ability.

“It won’t be easy for me to die after I learn this technique. I do wish that some Eagle Men will feed themselves to me tonight and let me try out the technique!”

Ji Ye could blink more than ten meters away instantly at this moment. Together with his remote senses that were brought by Extraordinary Rank-5 mental strength, he was even more confident in dodging bullets, let alone the Eagle Men’s arrows!

However, to Ji Ye’s disappointment, no “fireworks” appeared in the sky after midnight!

After obtaining gunpowder, the Twin Dragon Mount had made some “fireworks” with it apart from building cannons.

This should’ve been strongly criticized considering the history of Chidragon. After all, the most popular saying on the Internet was “we invented gunpowder but then set up fireworks with it, while the westerners built cannons with it”.

Those people had probably never really learned the history of firearms in Chidragon.

Besides, the “fireworks” that the Twin Dragon Mount made were technically signal flares.

According to their arrangement, once the Eagle Men attacked, the fireworks would be launched to the sky, and other people would decide what to do based on the colors and types of fireworks.

It was impossible that the fireworks never had a chance to be released before the important locations were all defended by Commander-level heroes and even the Extraordinary soldiers. The Eagle Men couldn’t possibly wipe them out before they activated the flares!

Therefore, it was clear that the Eagle Men didn’t intend to attack this night.

Since nothing was going to happen, Ji Ye stopped wasting his time.

He returned to the fort and continued his training in his room, absorbing the earthen energy to recover the cost to test Distance Reduction.

After his mental strength reached Rank-5, the range of earthen energy that he could absorb had significantly expanded. His speed wasn’t slow even though he wasn’t in the Stone Milk Cave.

Ji Ye didn’t stop training until the sun was high in the morning, because…

Dum! Dum! Dum…

Someone knocked on the door.

“Come on in!”

Ji Ye opened his mouth.

“Brother Ye!”

Surprisingly, the person who came in wasn’t Nie Xiaoqian, who had been taking care of him as his maid these days, but Su Nongying.

Earlier, Su Nongying had been calling him “Master” like what Elder Jiao and the others did, but after they got to know each other, she began to address him in a different way.

“What’s the matter?”

Ji Ye wasn’t too bothered by the way he was addressed.

He simply noticed that Su Nongying seemed solemn. She had also come into his room alone and closed the door the moment she came in.

Clearly, her behavior was rather unusual.

“Brother Ye, a ‘spy’ may have snuck into our territory!”

What Su Nongying said greatly shocked Ji Ye.