New Techniques

"Lil Bro. My family kicked me out of the clan. Would you mind if you let me stay with you?"

Lin didn't answer and slithered to his home, giving his unvoiced agreement.

"Lil Bro, where is your house? The rain is going to come soon!!"

Lin went back to his den, followed by Ning, tired of the new day.

"Where?" Ning was confused, not seeing a house anywhere near her. She didn't see any buildings anywhere nearby. "Oh"

Lin ignored Ning, and went into his den. He curled up and slept in the corner. Ning felt embarrassed, and went to sleep in the other corner, hearing the sound of the rain hitting the forest floor. The night quickly passed, and the pitter-patter of the rain eventually ended. Lin woke up in the new day, with a fresh mind.

'I can finally start learning my skills' Lin thought excitedly. He recalled the Unseen Shadow Movement Technique he could learn. The technique would use demonic energy to cover the user, lowering air resistance and hiding the user's aura from another cultivator's spiritual or demonic awareness. If used in the shadows, there would be higher speed, due to the resonance of the same types of demonic energy. It used the quick compression and explosion of demonic energy to move forward in short bursts of speed.

The first stage of the Unseen Shadow technique was to make the demonic energy into a liquid form around the user, that would restrict outside forces. In the second stage, the liquid darkness needed to cover the entire body, and surround all the cells. The third stage and above were not in his memory. Using this technique required extreme agility not possible by humans, due to the high speed and obstacles.

Lin drove his demonic energy, sending it through his demonic awareness, trying to make his demonic energy wrap around his body, like a liquid. The first time, he failed, the second, he failed, the third...and finally, on the fifth time, he succeeded. He felt his energy wrap around him. Lin had achieved the first stage of the technique. He pushed his body and moved faster than before, with less resistance from the air slowing him down. He felt his demonic energy drain by a sliver.

'It took a hundredth of my energy for a minute. I could use this technique for a hour and a half.' Lin thought, after using the technique. Lin sent more of his demonic energy to the flow of energy around himself. He compressed the spiritual energy and let go. He was then launched in a burst of speed forward. A small chunk of his energy was taken away. 'This takes more energy than just surrounding myself,' Lin thought. 'I could hide my body in the shadows, remaining unseen behind objects. Then, I could launch myself at them.'

Lin surrounded his body with his liquid form dark demonic energy, and compressed energy. He aimed for a tree, and launched himself, but missed. 'I need more practice before I can use this technique' Lin thought, 'I'll just practice my Corroding Fang technique now.'

The Corroding Fang required the use of the corroding properties of darkness demonic energy. This technique would use the power of dark demonic energy to strengthen the fangs and poison. Lin drove his demonic energy to his fangs, and had his demonic energy permeate his fangs. He tried merging his venom with the darkness energy, and felt that the mixture was many times more deadly than before. He felt that his venom could corrode energy barriers. With the addition of his sharper fangs, most barriers would be unable to sustain his bite's sharpness.

Lin strengthened his fangs and bit a tree. His fangs easily went through the bark, and a huge hole was left where his venom had dripped down. The tree was dead, even though it was still standing. The venom had corroded away all of its life energy. As Lin's demonic energy grew stronger, the potency of his strengthened venom would multiply.

'If I met those bandits from that time, they would have died', Lin thought.

"That's some deadly venom you got there, Lil Bro" A soft voice came from behind him.

Lin looked behind him and saw Ning. He nodded in greeting and began to try to get used to his demonic awareness. His head immediately hurt, but it felt a little better than the first time he tried it. At this rate, however, it would be a while before he could use his awareness constantly.

"To get used to it, you can try sending less demonic energy through your awareness" Ning advised Lin. "It takes less of a toll on your brain."

Lin tried sending less strands of energy out and felt the difficulty plummet. Using demonic awareness required using the energy from the demon core to feel around, using threads of energy. Lin felt stupid, not thinking of such a way. Doing this would make it take less time to get used to the new increase in perception.

"Once we are strong enough, let's go to the city. Cultivating alone is not as good as with the help of the materials and guidance of a sect." Ning planned. "It may be easy enough right now, but in the future, you will need more knowledge and materials in order to advance."

Lin nodded his head in agreement, trusting Ning to have more knowledge than him. After all, Lin had lived in the forest his entire life.