Carving away the dried, sinewy flesh from the torso of the old mummy, my discovery was revealed in full. The shriveled bones were anything but normal. Through their cracked pale yellow surface, rivers of sparkling stars ran.
Like the diamonds in the sky, the hard bones were speckled with tiny dancing lights. Producing a small light on the top of my palm, the specks reflected it, dancing along the cavern walls.
I squinted in suspicion and then opened up the corpse, thoroughly examining every piece. The bones were all the same, encased in a web of glitter through which Qi ran faster than anything I had ever seen before.
[Fascinating…] I quietly whispered.
Whatever the skeleton was, it had to be some good stuff. However, when I dug deeper, searching for the Dantian, all I found was a small, broken, shriveled-up shell the size of an egg. The Cultivator, whoever he was, had his precious Cultivation crippled before his death.
I threw a wary glance at the sparkling bones and produced the dusty journal. It was the only thing that might contain some answers.
Browsing through it I ignored the day-to-day records of the man whose name was… not important. However, after devouring page after page, my eyes grew wider with insight.
What stood out to me the most were the last few paragraphs, the ink scratched into the paper with obvious haste. Whereas the rest of the journal had uniform writing, the final part was all jagged and smudged by the speed of writing. And it carried a warning.
[Oh~ So that’s what happened…] I glanced at the dried corpse and clapped the book closed as a myriad of thoughts rushed through my head.
The man was a Spirit Realm Cultivator, as I have already realized, yet he was not one to stick to orthodox techniques to achieve his power. He was on a path similar to mine, augmenting his body with various techniques and rare bloodlines. Apart from that, he also did many body modifications.
Having realized that, and having read the book, I reexamined the place.
With a wave of my hand, the dust and debris shifted and a small blade shard appeared and flew into my open palm. It was small, like a razor blade, and just as sharp. I examined the piece of metal up close and then stored it away for later use. It was the carving tool the man used, a broken piece of a weapon from ages past. It had no other use but to be the simplest, sharpest, indestructible, cutting tool he utilized for his work.
Back on topic, after a lifetime of research, the man found a way to augment his bones, to change them, to bring forth their true potential, to form a pseudo-Dantian inside each and every one of them. All of them connected to the single real core in his body.
He wanted greater energy stores.
I looked again through his storage ring and brought out what I previously thought were but mere stones, maybe some metal ore. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were something much more… unique.
The Cultivator studied them and extracted from them something he called Celestial Metal. It had no equal in the world, apparently. Even Spirit Metal, Mithril, the blood of Dragons, was inferior in comparison. Not by much, of course, but it was.
And with the help of this Celestial Metal, he realized, he could do the impossible. Reinforce his body to contain more Qi. Outside his Dantian. Of course, that was nothing new, the flesh of every Cultivator could contain significant amounts of Qi, but he wasn’t aiming at mere fractions of the whole. He wanted to multiply it. He wanted it all, as crazy as that sounded.
He carved intricate channels into his bones with the help of the blade shard, and one by one, drew runes with the Celestial Metal over many years, as long as it took for the wounds to heal, and finally, his new body was ready. He just had to activate the technique, and he would be reborn.
Yeah, well, he just made one tiny mistake. In his haste for power, he underestimated the energy needed for such a transformation.
Every power had its price. And he asked for something he could not afford.
Once the technique was activated and the transformation began, it could not be stopped. His bones began to transform exactly how he wanted, but, he realized, the energy needed was much higher than he thought.
He drained countless Spirit Stones, yet the more he consumed, the hungrier the technique became. In the end, he drained treasures, pills, and his own flesh, but it was not enough. His Dantian was the last line of defense, containing great stores of power, yet it too was drained, his bones, like dry sand in the desert, drank it all.
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While the outside energy was sufficient for the technique, the pressure placed upon him had to be counteracted by his own power. And he couldn’t hold it long enough.
In the end, his Dantian shattered, dried and empty, cutting his life short. The last few hours were most likely spent in desperate agony as his centuries of Cultivation slipped through his fingers. And the Grim Reaper came to claim his Soul.
I looked at the mummy, its carved body and glowing bones. The man, in his impatience, began too soon. He was not fully prepared. Well, that, and he also had an enemy on his tail. As one might guess, his research of greater power was lusted after by many. So much knowledge… Such a shame it was all in his head. Everything, except the detailed technique for the Starlight-Tempered Jade Bones.
[What a crazy bastard.] I grinned at the dead man.
Even when death was upon him, he refused to let his life’s work disappear. In his journal, he left detailed instructions and a warning. A warning for those who would come after, not to play with fire, lest they get burned.
What a great analogy. It’s just that… I was immune to flames. And similarly, danger or warnings never stopped me before. How could I possibly let an opportunity like that slip through my fingers?
Turning my bones into extra storage for Qi? That’s exactly what I needed! I didn’t have decades to waste, waiting for my Dantian to grow into its full size. The process was too slow, and I just found a shortcut.
There was nothing anyone could say, the opportunity was too tempting, and I already had decided. I was going to make sure the old man’s legacy shall live on! Besides, what was life without a few risks?
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The first thing I did, was to repair the cloaking Formation. If I wanted the technique to work properly, I needed peace. The worst possible thing would be for some beast or roaming Cultivator to detect the energy surge and interrupt the transformation. Then things could really go to shit.
Secondly, I had Qi Pills to fill. In total, I had 73 remaining, though most of them were still empty. Since the guy ran out of energy in his Dantian and he was in the Spirit Realm, I could only guess that I would need even more energy to compensate.
I wasn’t worried about not being able to manage the pressure since the density of my Qi was so high, but I was a bit concerned by the quantity since my Dantian was, well, young and small.
Each pill only replenished a few percent of my energy, but with enough of them, I would have about three to four times as much energy as my Dantian could contain on its own. Hopefully, that would be enough.
Now, because I had to fill them one by one with my energy, that meant I had to drain the land around me of Base Qi. And because I didn’t want to create voids in the environment, I roamed the jungle for the next two weeks, diligently absorbing the natural Qi and compressing it into its higher form.
By my calculations, it was already early spring, though it’s not like I noticed any changes in climate since wherever I landed had a pretty tropical climate. It was warm, wet, and full of life.
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I returned to the cave and settled in nicely.
The old mummy was still where I had left it, leaning against a wall with its lifeless, empty eyes. I sat down on the other side and sighed. It was time.
I took out the unrefined ore and created a barrier around it, before filling it with flames. I just pumped the energy inside it until it glowed a blinding white, and then kept pouring in some more. If I wanted everything to work as it should, I had to extract the Celestial Metal in its purest form, and nothing worked better than a bit of heat.
The funny thing was, that despite how hot I made the flames, the metal didn’t even soften, not even a little bit. It was the stone around it that began to melt and bubble, turning into gas. I let it escape the barrier and forced it out of the small cave. What I was left with after an hour of that, was a fistful of white sand. Pure Celestial Metal, exactly as the instructions required.
[Uh-oh…]
With slight concern, I realized I didn’t have enough. What I managed to extract was less than half of what I needed, and there was no more raw ore left. That was a small problem, one I luckily knew how to fix.
My gaze turned to the mummy, to those sparkling bones. I knew what I had to do.
[Sorry my guy. It seems I’ll need your help with this one.]
Without further ado, I separated the bones from dried flesh and set them ablaze. They burned hot and bright, but to speed things up, I added a tremendous amount of energy until they crumbled to ash, and the sparkling white sand was thoroughly refined.
The first ingredient was ready, but there were more still to make. I took out my other Spirit Beast core and crushed it into powder, before mixing it with my blood. While usually such ink would be of sufficient potency, in this case, it was not.
I took one of my Spirit Metal daggers and began heating it up until it glowed a blinding white. Adding more energy to the fire, the dagger slowly softened and began to melt. At that time, I made use of my mind and turned the molten metal into a million little droplets, which I mixed with the rest of the ink.
A powerful reaction took hold, but with blood that was immune to heat, no special preparations were required. Spirit Metal combined with a Spirit Beast core and my blood, creating the ultimate form of Qi conductive paint. One of the highest forms of ink for only the strongest Formations. It was done.
And so, I got to work. I expanded the cave and carved into the ground multiple containment arrays, Qi-focusing wards, and reinforcing glyphs. A hundred shallow holes were formed in a circle, each of which would carry a Spirit Stone to power the Formation.
With that complete, only one thing remained. Carving my bones.
I took the ancient blade shard and mentally prepared. That was the most important part of the process, where the greatest attention to detail was required. I closed my eyes and focused. My flesh trembled and shrunk, getting reabsorbed into my bones, and compressed into its densest form.
Such a thing required incredible concentration, and any slip in judgment would expand my body to its normal proportions.
I gripped the blade with my mind, its sharp, pointy end aimed at the tip of my black, bony finger, and I made the first cut.