"The concept behind Shadow is to become one with the shadows, disappearing in an instant and reappearing in an instant - this concept should not be mistaken for allowing the user to enter the Realm of Shadows; however, this technique will allow for instantaneous small distance movements which could save you in the midst of battle..." 

The introduction continued on but I was already hooked, if I could really reach the speed the book had described along with my ability to enter the Shadow Realm wouldn't I have an absolute advantage in combat?

I could only imagine myself using the Shadow Realm and Shadow together to surprise my enemies, attacking from one side.

Entering the Shadow Realm before reappearing almost a second later and attacking them from a different angle. 

If the advantage that Core Gathering Experts had in reaction speed I could make up for with an increase in my actual speed, then what if I leveled up to the Core Gathering Realm myself? 

I might be able to declare myself invincible in the same realm by that point, my heart began to beat wildly; however, I calmed it down in an instant just the increase in one Large realm wasn't enough to close the gap between me and King by much at all, the opponents I found troublesome could be killed with a flick of his finger with how he had so many of them brainwashed as his lackeys.

...

"This is a scam!" I let my emotions take over and threw the manual at the corner of the dark room, it flew across the room with frightening force.

"Thud." The manual hit the wooden beam in the corner of the room slightly causing the foundations to shake - I knew I had to be careful with a building this old but I couldn't help but rage at the contents of the book.

On the first page after the prologue of the technique, "This Movement Art has twenty levels of Mastery with the first five being considered the initiate stage, the next five being the Stage of Preliminary Understanding, the next nine being considered Mastery of Technique with the final level being called the Level of Perfection; however, the technique focuses on speed - to achieve the level of true instantaneous movement would theoretically mean you would have to train to the final realm of perfection - even I as the creator of the technique have only progressed to the nineteenth level and no further, the twentieth level only exists in theory. I hope a successor of this technique in the future will be able to achieve this level..." 

There was another line of writing beneath it, the caligraphy different than the first few sentences of the technique - clearly written after the founder of the technique had passed on the manual as the words weren't as faded as the original text.

"I, the Successor of the Ling Lineage of the Lion Might Sect, have cultivated this technique to perfection - the teachings of the senior of my sect who wrote this technique are too valuable to be spread out of the sect, this manual is being transported to the Divine Light Sects Technique Pavillion within a few days as an agreement between our sects to share martial techniques to improve both of our strengths. To prevent this technique being used against our sect in the future I have removed levels in this technique; however, I have left the future generations with the first ten levels so regardless of the future no one will blame my Sect for being heartless and sending an incomplete technique, from henceforth this technique reaches perfection at the tenth level."

These were the lines of text which had infuriated me, how can you make so little sense?! By removing the final levels of the technique you've already displayed how heartless you are if you were going to remove the levels of the technique did you have to brag about it? If you had just kept quiet and not bragged about taking the final ten levels I could accept the missing levels but knowing who took them? 

It infuriated me, the 'Successor of the Ling Lineage' was carved into my mind as I made a mental note to visit him in the future to beat the final ten levels of the technique out of him.

For now, all I could do was calm myself down and try to learn the technique to the tenth level - maybe I would be able to comprehend the next levels from there myself but considering I had no experience in doing so I lacked the confidence to do so.

Sighing I walked over to the manual that laid slumped in the corner of the room and picked it up carefully trying to contain my anger towards the idiot who had ripped out the levels of the technique and decided to try and learn it myself.

It was better to at least learn the levels in the manual to perfection and maybe find the next levels in the future than have to train it from the start in the future.

...

About three hours had passed since I had started training the technique, the perfect thing about this cellar was that it was literally pitch black with the doors closed as they were, I could see perfectly without any light, however, maybe night-vision was one of the features of a Mortal Leaving Cultivator? 

Or another perk of having the title of Shadow Monarch? A conclusion that made more sense as I had already had many conversations with the Tiger King before and he'd never mentioned any other abilities of the second realm other than the ones I already knew of.

If anyone could see me now right now they'd see me disappearing and reappearing across the room in an instant, a combination of both the second level of Shadow and the Shadow Realm - compared to channeling my raw energy into my legs the technique had a diagram of a way in which to circulate my energy to improve my speed the final results had increased my speed by two-fold at the first level and three-fold at the second, it was an exhilarating feeling to move at the speed I currently had.

If I was to fight the Monkey King again I was confident I could take him down in one strike with how fast I was moving, his reaction speed should only be slightly slower than the speed I was moving at now 

Luckily as a beast he'd never cultivated any techniques to increase his speed or power or else that fight before would've been my last. 

It was just another reason for me to not engage the Core Gathering Experts in this city - most likely they'd studied many of the techniques available, my speed was already impressive enough at the Pinnacle of the Mortal Leaving Realm if a Core Gathering Realm cultivator did the same I had a feeling their speed would be much more frightening than my own I would never be able to outrun them.

I had to find a way in the chaos to acquire a battle technique manual if I could increase my battle power as much as my speed I wouldn't have a problem fighting on par with other cultivators in the future, I was lucky last time that a group had been passing up the stairs of the Pavillion or else I would've had to try outrun an Expert who had probably read most of the techniques they possessed. Just the thought of how close I had been made me shudder.

If that Expert had detected me and comprehended a movement art on the same level or faster than Shadow then I would be doomed to be captured by him, even if I could hide in the Shadow Realm I couldn't hide forever.

'Faster... I need to be much faster... If I want to be able to come and go as I please I need to have the speed to do so without restrictions.' I continued to train for hours but I wasn't about to break through to the third level of the technique - it felt like I was stuck, this must be what's called a bottleneck, if I had more practical combat experience it should be enough to push me towards the third level of the technique and most likely would lead to a four-fold increase in my speed, I could only imagine the speed I would have at the tenth level before getting infuriated at the b*stard who had ripped out the final ten levels.

In my frustration due to both my bottleneck and anger I turned to the over manual on the table, a bitter smile on my face - my life could never just get easier could it?

"Hahaha" My own self-deprecating laughter echoed in the small empty room, 'All that's left is to wait...' 

A small glimmer of light shined through the gap in the cellar doors as night turned into day...