Li Yu's return to the Deepwater Menagerie marked the beginning of a new, intense period of self-forging. The knowledge from the ninth floor of the Myriad Tomes Pavilion was a treasure trove, but as Grand Elder Chen had said, they were merely tools. It was up to him to learn how to wield them, and more importantly, to reshape them into weapons that were truly his own.
He did not enter a deep, protracted seclusion. His duties as the master of the menagerie continued. He would spend his mornings overseeing the expanding production farms, his afternoons as the "Quiet Physician" for the sect, and his evenings in quiet contemplation with his friends. But every spare moment, every silent hour in the dead of night, was now dedicated to a single, all-consuming purpose: the creation of his own, personal arsenal.
His first project was the flight art, «Gale-Rider's Passage». He spent a week attempting to practice it as written, and the results were… disappointing. The technique relied on a profound understanding and affinity for the wind element. Li Yu, a being of the deep water and the silent void, had no such affinity. His attempts to ride the wind currents were clumsy and inefficient. He could fly, yes, but he felt like a fish trying to climb a tree.
Frustrated, he retreated to his Koi's Sanctuary. He approached the obsidian ledge where his most powerful advisor rested.
"I cannot grasp this dao of the wind," he projected to Khaos. "It is too… fickle. Too formless. I need a different path to the sky."
A wave of pure, dismissive arrogance washed over him. "Of course you cannot grasp it. The wind is a chaotic, pointless element. Why would you want to ride it like a common bird? True movement is not about following the currents of the world. It is about breaking them." Khaos's voice was a sneer of cosmic superiority. "The fastest path from one point to another is to simply break the void between them and arrive. Instantaneous. Absolute. But your vessel is far too weak to withstand the pressures of true void-tearing. You would be shredded into nothingness."
A new, more practical thought followed. "However, the principle can be applied on a cruder scale. Do not ride the wind. Annihilate it. Carve your own path."
Li Yu was silent, his mind a swirling vortex as he processed the profound, terrifying concept. He then sought the wisdom of his other companions.
"The sky is but a thinner ocean," Kui's boisterous, ancient voice was the first to reply. "Do not try to ride the wind, Wise Host. Swim through it. Feel the ambient moisture, the spiritual energy in the air itself. Treat it as you would the deepest trench. Your body is a vessel. Propel it with your own will, your own power."
"Control," Xylia's cold, melodic voice added from her icy corner of the sanctuary. "The wind is born from the clash of hot and cold. Do not ride the currents; create them. Use a wisp of your ice-aspected power to create micro-currents, to shape the air around you into a path of your own making. It is a more subtle, and more precise, method."
Li Yu now had three, completely different philosophies: Khaos's path of annihilation, Kui's path of propulsion, and Xylia's path of control. He spent the next three weeks in a state of deep, obsessive experimentation. He would spend his nights hovering high above his valley, a silent, solitary figure against the moon. He took the core principles of the «Gale-Rider's Passage» and dismantled them, keeping only the basic theories of movement through the air.
He began to build something new, something uniquely his. First, instead of projecting jets of water, he learned to exude his profound, water-attribute True Qi from his entire body, creating a formless, invisible field of energy around himself. This field acted like the fins and tail of a great fish, pushing against the ambient spiritual energy of the world to provide a powerful, omnidirectional thrust. This was his raw propulsion, the engine that drove him forward.
Next, he took a wisp of his void-aspected True Qi and shaped it into a razor-thin, almost invisible cutting edge that projected a few feet in front of him. This edge did not push the air aside; it annihilated it, creating a perfect, silent, and frictionless tunnel through the atmosphere for him to travel through.
Finally, he cloaked his own body in a shimmering, emerald-green sheath of pure life energy. This protective layer shielded him from the subtle, corrosive effects of his own void-cutting and the immense stress of high-speed travel, keeping his body in a state of perfect, internal calm.
The result was a flight technique that was utterly unique and terrifyingly effective. It was not the fastest, but it was the most silent, the most adaptable, and the most unpredictable. He named it the «Void-Current Passage».
His next project was the staff art, «Ironwood Needle Rain». He admired its core concept—an area-of-effect attack that could overwhelm multiple opponents—but its method was flawed for him. The technique required the user to dissolve their own staff, a concept that was impossible for his impossibly dense, Khaos-forged Star-Iron Rod.
He once again consulted his inner council.
"Why create a rain of tiny, weak needles?" Khaos had sneered. "A pointless waste of energy. It is like being pecked to death by a thousand chickens. True power does not pester; it obliterates. Forget the rain. Forge a single, perfect storm."
"A fine sentiment from the Great Sovereign!" Kui added enthusiastically. "But a good shell is also important! Why not create a single, massive shell of force? A great hammer to crush your foes! Simple. Direct. Unbreakable!"
"Brute force is the tool of the artless," Xylia countered, her voice a chill. "True power lies in precision. A single, perfectly aimed needle of absolute frost is more deadly than a thousand clumsy hammers. Find the weak point. Pierce the heart."
Li Yu spent the next two weeks in his private forge, his Star-Iron Rod in hand. He could not dissolve it, but he could use it as a conduit, a template. He took the core principle of the technique—replicating the form of his weapon with pure Qi—and discarded the idea of "needles." He practiced drawing upon the vast ocean of his Core, combining the abyss-black water with the destructive law of the void.
He learned to replicate the form of his staff, not as a thousand tiny splinters, but as a dozen massive, six-foot-long javelins of pure, condensed energy. They were the color of the deep, sunless ocean, and they shimmered with a dark, corrosive light, humming with the heavy, destructive weight of his void-aspected Qi. They were not just projectiles; they were extensions of his own overwhelming power.
The result was a technique of absolute, overwhelming force. When he unleashed it, a dozen silent, deadly replicas of his Star-Iron Rod would manifest in the air around him, ready to be launched like a volley of colossal, unstoppable spears. He named it the «Abyssal Javelin Volley».
Finally, he turned his attention to the most important task of all: the creation of his own, personal cultivation scripture. The «Oceanic Heart Scripture» of the founder was a profound, beautiful text. It taught the dao of water in a way that was deep and all-encompassing. But it was only water. His own foundation, his own dao, was so much more.
He spent a full month in deep, quiet meditation. He took the founder's scripture as his framework, the elegant, stable structure upon which he would build his own, monstrous cathedral. He began to weave in the other, disparate elements of his own power. He incorporated the all-consuming, absolute law of the void he had learned from Khaos. He wove in the vibrant, generative power of the life essence he had received from the ancient behemoth. He even added a trace of the absolute, crystalline control he had learned from observing Xylia.
He was not just writing a technique. He was codifying his own soul.
The result was the first, rudimentary, but incredibly profound level of his own, unique cultivation scripture. It was an art that did not just cultivate Qi; it devoured, it created, it controlled, and it imposed its own, absolute law. It was a scripture that reflected his two-fold dao. He gave it a name that was both a secret truth and a nod to the Grand Elder who had set him on this path. He called it the «Leviathan's Heart Sutra».
He emerged from this period of intense creation a different man. He was still a calm, unassuming beast tamer to the outside world. But within, he was a powerhouse who had just forged his own crown, his own scepter, and his own, absolute law. His arsenal was complete. His path was clear. And he was ready for whatever the world had to throw at him.