Darkness curtains the sky and it was nighttime, his mother already left letting Karloff’s rest more as he was not completely healed. He was now given a chance to organize his thoughts about what the heck has happened to him and the world where he was right now because he understands that he was not in the right place where technology was flourishing. Like flipping the pages of a book, he keeps looking each sequence of memory-like fragments. As he keeps scanning the contents of the memories, he saw a martial technique named “Cloud Hands Art”.

Cloud Hands Art is a technique emphasizes the obscuring of the hands, this technique not only hides his hands but also helps confuse the enemy where was the exact location because he can manipulate the Cloud Hands Art which can hide completely through channeling the elemental energy and create mists. Cloud Hands Art was the major martial technique of the Cloud Hands City which later on, turned into the city’s name.

There are 3 types of stages and 3 kinds of stances of the Cloud Hands Art. They are the Evaporation, Forming, and Condensation. Evaporation stage is a technique making the right hand turned into hot and cold on the other hand or vise versa. This stage is the basic and easiest thing to do and essentially required. Without the evaporation stage, you can’t form the fog, as fog turns to clouds. Typically Cloud Hands Art is a dual-elemental attribute and the elements are the fire and water. Combining the two elements creates new kinds of elements such as fog. Cloud Hands Art was ranked as Horizon Realm, Master level.

The Martial technique was ranked like the cultivator’s cultivation base and with only difference was it has no nine ranks but only three levels which are Beginner, Apprentice, and Master. The first three realms are Mortal, Earthen, and Horizon while on the second three realms are the Heaven, Deity, and Saint than the last three realms are Legendary, Mythical, and God.

The last realm of martial technique levels are hard to obtain and was only written on the legend and only limited skill are still intact in this present time. The ones who have these godly martial techniques are the powerful and ancient sects or clans having deep roots like the Lofty Clouded Mountain not just because it was the head of all the regions but they are also an ancient city and much older than the other eight regions. These kinds of old and ancient city, sects, and clans don’t lack any martial techniques but there’s no one who claimed that they have mythical or godly ranked martial techniques in this present day, most of them have only one Legendary level martial techniques.

Karloff’s eyelids suddenly snapped open and there’s no hint of any fatigue or restlessness in his eyes only excitement is apparent on his face. He is excited because he can really learn these types of martial arts, an art that can control the elements of heaven and earth. He slowly got up, helping himself in a sitting position and stay cross-legged. He then slowly closes again his eyes focusing about the memory fragment about the Cloud Hands Art. The requirements in order to reach the first stage of the technique, the Evaporation Stage, he needed to emit the hot and cold aura on each hand. As far as he knows, the ‘body’ he borrowed now is in the Mortal Realm Ranked Nine and just a little bit push in order to advance towards the Earthen Realm.

The cultivator’s level was still varied in the Nine Realms which is the Mortal, Earthen, Horizon, Heaven, Deity, Saint, Legendary, Mythical, and God. With each Realm, it was divided into nine ranks. He doesn’t need to do anything like a gathering of the elemental energy from heaven and earth because his dantian has already been filled with the elemental energy and was formed into white-colored fog inside his dantian. The reason why the real owner of the ‘body’ having Qi Deviation because he failed for the third time attempting in breaking the barrier between the Mortal Realm and Earthen Realm.

In Mortal Realm, the elemental energy has a form of a fog. In the Earthen Realm is hardening of the elemental energy and crumbling it turning into an earth inside his dantian. Karloff felt that he was lucky because gathering the elemental energy takes time to gather. The age of the real owner of this body is already 15 years old, much the same with him and he felt happy about it because he had not borrowed a 60 years old man whose life is at its near end. He activated the hot and cold technique first, the hot is on the right hand and the cold is in the left hand. His right hand turn a little bit brighter and a little bit hot and the other have glittering-like ice forming from the hands and feeling a bit colder than usual. He quickly put his left hand to the upper part in front of him and below is the right hand. In between the two hands were slowly forming circular water droplet that is floating in between. The cold hand of Karloff was slowly turned wetter rather than turning ice while his right hand is the same as ever, a little hot and a bit brighter.

When the water in between his hands slowly turned into a size like the fist of a baby he slowly raises up his right hand nearer to the circular water as he slowly pours more heat from his hand. After a few breaths of time, beads of sweat slowly forming on his forehead because of his great attention towards the technique. The circular water slowly got smaller as the water itself had evaporated covering the diminishing water. His upper hand was slowly heating from being cold. Three breathes of time slowly passed before Karloff successfully formed the white colored fog as it swirls into each of his hands. He just reaches the Evaporation stage!

In Cloud Hands art, even in any stages, it can be used as long as it reached any stages. Though it was just formed into a fog it can be used to hide the movements of the hands from the opposing person and it can only be executed by using the three stances which is the Clouded Steps, Cloud Dancing Flood Dragon, and Cloud Weaving Punch.

Evaporation stage called in another term Hiding Shadow because it can help the user to be indiscernible of its movement helping him outmatch the enemy. In Forming stage is the stage which you can form any shape you can from manipulating the fog. It can be sword, shields, axe, blades, and etc. Unfortunately, it cannot block any material weapons because it was only an ethereal substance but the user can still hide his presence using this stage. Because of Forming Stage was only an ethereal substance then Condensation stage appears, filling the ethereal substance turning it into a real item, in this stage, it can really block most of any types of material weapons and even magical techniques it can block it because the fog has condensed into physical form. He stood up from his bed and unhurriedly familiarized the movements of his new body and the techniques he got from the Cloud Hands Art. When he was really tired, he laid back to sleep.

---

Then morning came.

Weirdly, Karloff was up early in the morning as he proceeded into the practice area for the practitioners. He started warming-up his body. He had learned that without warm-ups can have a chance to damage or lacerate the muscle tissue if it will be used suddenly on physical movements. After he finished warming up, he activated the hot and cold technique prior to his study of the Evaporation stage. He wants it to reach the Forming stage in order for him to power up himself against future enemies, though, he doesn't know who is that unlucky person is. Though from the memory fragment, he knew that the real owner of this ‘body’ was just an average practitioner only reaching the peak of Mortal Realm and having just learned the basics of activating the hot and cold technique when he was already 15 years old. He can only helplessly sigh for the real owner being weak, it’s not like Karloff was underestimating him but his comprehension was so weak like has brawns but has no brains but he can’t deny the fact that ‘Chen Yun’ really gave him a chance to experience what is the real magical world.

“Oh, my hardworking son, early in the morning already started practicing his martial arts.” His mother’s surprised voice has awoken him up from his fantasies and turn around and looked at his beautiful mother before smilingly replied, “Yes mom, I don’t want to neglect my cultivation with just a trifling injuries… hehehe”

“Are you really okay? How've your injuries?” caringly answered from the beautiful woman who he called ‘mom’. The hint of being worried was discernible on Karloff’s sharp ears.

His mother’s name was Chen Mingyue as he scanned the memory fragments on his mind, though he has no prior knowledge about the actual meaning of the Chinese names he feels that her mother’s name was beautiful like her. Chen Mingyue’s cultivation base had not seen from Karloff, making him shocked but he wouldn’t ask about why he can’t detect her cultivation base.

With a little bit courtesy towards her mother reassuring her not to be worried about his injuries too much and just said that he was already healed, though, 70% of his original peak condition. He attempted once again in creating the fog through hot and cold technique from the Evaporation stage. As time waits for no one, he easily created the twin swirling fog than last night and was now trying to understand the Forming Stage. Looking him from afar, he was like an indulged RPG player in a hardcore difficulty mode. He was solely focused on reaching the Forming stage.

Based on the Cloud Hands Art, the forming stage is basically stated that in forming a shape from the fog state of the Evaporation stage is like imagining things in your mind, having many fantasies that are not going to happen in Karloff’s world, but in this world was an exception because it can make all things into reality, making the person control the elemental energy of the heaven and earth. In Karloff’s imagination, he wants the fog to turn into a sword. He slowly revolved his hands in circularly without a gentle rhythm as if he was molding something in a rough manner. The revolution of his hands slowly picked up the pace as it gets faster and faster defying the average speed of a normal person. If Jun Coeur is here he will be shocked that his childhood friend turns into a strong and unfathomable warrior! Unfortunately, all the people whom Karloff was acquainted with did not exist in this world.

Pa!

Before he can push the spherical fog in between his hands it suddenly dissipated, because of the uncontrolled rhythm and wrong timing of releasing the second stage which is the Forming stage. Literally, reaching forming stage is not easy to achieve in just a day. If there are people who can manage to know and see him almost constructed the sword-shaped fog between his hands. Shocked will be written on their face. Even he failed for the first time, he was not discouraged because he knew that it was not an easy feat to do it quickly in just a short time. He reads many stories relating that only through hard work can yield absolute result. He attempted once again as he perform the Evaporation stage and it was much faster than his previous execution, an improvement suddenly come up on his mind and he felt happy about it though it was a little bit improvement. When he finished forming the Evaporation stage, he continued to the second stage.

Boom!

Failed…

Boom!

Bang!

Pop…

He was failing but he kept doing it tirelessly until late in the morning.