53 Top 600 (1/2)
A bright grey-whitish full moon peaked from behind the gloomy clouds of the dark night.
The fluffy dark clouds brought down rain like sheets of mist to the ground. The moon had a dull greyillumination which made the night seem hazy and dream-like. Raindrops rapidly hit the cobble stonesproducingflecks of water splashes which reflected the dull moonlight for a millisecond then disappeared like a fleeing firefly.
The soft murmur of the rain and the ambient sound of the gentle splashes made for a cold tranquil calming atmosphere.
Hartley stood ram rod straight on the empty street staring ahead, clumps of wet black hair was stuck to his face as streaks of water raced down from his foreheadto his chin and dripped onto his soaked dark robe. From the soles of his feet to his knee transformed to a dull blue color as if his feet were now made of hard crystal. Tendrils of thin smoke-like mist rose from his legs wriggling a couple centimeters upwards then disappeared as thin blue lightning sparks would intermittently appear and crackle across his blue legs.
He dashed forward! The gentle explosion of air left behind a dry spot of 5 meters in radius where no raindrops penetrated, stood in the middle of the rain-less spot was a life-like after image of Hartley standing straight and staring forward.
By the time the after image faded away like smoke in the wind, Hartley was stood three kilometers away in a remote place facing the high walls of the Pembroke province. His Star feet technique had surpassed his gravity steps by three folds and he could change direction at any time.
He stood still, closed his eyes and concentrated, he could now sense 600 meters around him, he could sense any movement or sound as if he was standing right next to what was happening. That's because the range of his gravity field have been doubled to 600 meters and he could now apply 40x gravity, the downward pressure of such a force could crunch a giant tree to splinters. Hartley's eyes flicked open suddenly.
All the color drained from the world, the raindrops and splashes all stopped in place. Twenty meters around Hartley, the monochrome world was in a state of suspended animation, everything could be seen in exquisite details, from the water molecules separated at the end of the splashes to the oval shaped ripples on each drop of rain as it fought the wind resistance on its way down.
Hartley, the only mobile thing in this black and white portrait felt like the only beingthat existence on the mortal plain.He started counting mentally. One..... Two..... Three... Then whooosh! all the dark hazy color returned to the world, the ambientnoises of the rainand splashes on the floor could now be heard again .
Hartley's budding time domain rangehad increased by 5 meters and the duration increased by one second. As of now Hartley had just stepped onto the lower rungs of the top echelon experts in the country of Aidonia. he might be able to squeeze into the top 600 right now. It was an amazing unknown achievement baring in mind that he was round about 17 years old and the Aidonia country had a population of about two hundred million people.
In reality Hartley should not be compared with people on the mortal plain, because of his mixed blood and his origins he should be compared ot people from the higher plain of Diyu. In Diyu he would be one of the weakest in his age group, fortunately he had time to amass his strength on this plain and his speed of progress assisted by the blue star fragment was tremendous, so there's a chance to catch and match people from Diyu in the future.
He flashed forward and appeared back in the dark wet empty streets of the Rema district. He sent out his awareness to see if there was anyone watching, when he confirmed there was no one watching he walked up the wall of the hotel to his room window and returned.