When he woke up he saw an old hunched back man.
"Drink this bone broth."
Xian drunk the broth as if it was a heavenly tonic.
"Slow down. You aren't in good condition."
Even with his immortality. What he had went through over these months had been pushing his body to the limits.
His immortality also relied on his conscious control.
So as his mental energy was used.
His immortality became weaker and weaker.
After a night of sleep.
His mental energy was fully restored.
He could easily bring his body back to its peak state.
But why would he?
That would just expose his abnormality to this man in front of him.
He had clearly inspected his body.
"Thank you."
So began the process of recovery.
After a few weeks.
He felt good as new.
Nobody asked him about his identity.
Those in the village lacked a surname anyways.
So he remained to just be Xian.
It wasn't a completely uncommon name after all.
The man who had 'saved' him was called Zixuan.
He was the village doctor, and the only one qualified in medicine.
Xian walked around the village happy to be around people again.
He then stopped at a field.
There were people lined up practicing martial arts.
Xian asked the instructor about what they were practicing.
The man smiled.
"Obviously, it is a skin refinement technique! Are you interested?"
"Indeed."
Xian realized he lacked power.
He may be immortal, but that didn't mean he was free.
Afterall... he knew the fate of those immortal creatures from his world.
They became mere experimental lab rats to him.
Trapped and isolated for most of their lives.
He mustn't let others know of his immortality.
If he was able to manipulate his soul.
There may be others that can too.
He shouldn't let himself get complacent.
He talked to instructor Hao.
Then joined the children and elderly in practice of martial arts.
The grade of martial arts he practiced wasn't uncommon.
It was the basic 'Elementary Skin Refinement Technique'.
The people in the village practiced it mainly to be able to defend themselves and flee in case of bandit attacks.
The elderly practiced just for the health benefits and longevity.
He learned there was various stages to martial arts.
You had Skin Refinement.
Blood Refinement
Skeletal Refinement.
Organ Tempering.
Energy Drawing.
The instructor in the village was a blood refinement martial artist.
Supposedly Skeletal refinement was rare.
Organ Tempering was epic.
Energy Drawing was legendary.
Apparently these were just mortal methods.
The instructor told him of legends of cultivators.
Like gods on earth.
They could control the elements with the wave of their hands.
Part the oceans.
Split mountains.
Cleanse the clouds.
These were just legends though told to the instructor as a child.
Xian didn't dismiss these feats outright.
Since his origin was a bit supernatural itself.
Xian practiced martial arts everyday.
He also showed a bit of talent in diagnosing illnesses to help Zixuan.
His knowledge as a scientist helped him put on a front as a doctor in training.
He earned about a tael of silver every month.
He spent this money though quite easily with living expenses.
This was nothing compared to the gold he could easily get when his father was alive.
But it was better then nothing.
He never stopped playing around with his immortality.
He figured that if he could revive from a single vial of blood.
What would happen to his progress in martial arts?
He found his answer.
It was reset!
He found this out by putting a drop of blood in his hut.
Then going off back into the wilderness.
Allowing himself to get eaten by animals.
He manipulated his immortality and revived at the drop of blood.
He was disappointed to find that his progress in skin refinement had been reset completely.
He then decided to try a different test.
Obviously the source of his power came from his abnormal soul.
If he was able to control where he revived in relation to his remains.
What if he could control his death through his will.
Think of his control of his immortality as a spectrum.
But he also has the deathless ability.
This is less like a spectrum and more like an on/off state.
He went outside the village and traveled for a few kilometers.
Until he found a cave.
He pinched his fingers until they bled.
He then focused intensely on the blood on the ground.
He felt a barrier in his mind.
He moved all of his awareness to the blood.
He immediately got a headache.
Then the intelligence faded away from his eyes.
The blood on the ground began to shake.
He reformed from it.
He sat there naked.
He looked at his still standing body.
He walked up to it and checked its pulse.
It was a corpse.
But he could still feel a connection.
He moved his awareness to the corpse.
It came back to life as its eyes regained intelligence.
The body he was just in died.
He could now control his death and even switch between different bodies.
This taught him a few things.
His abilities could be further developed.
He also wondered if he could manipulate the body as it was regenerating.
So that he could find a way to keep his progress in martial arts training.
A plan began to form in his mind.
He decided to try to push the limits of his ability.
What if he split his awareness?
There were so many possibilities to his immortality.
Perhaps he could manipulate multiple bodies like puppets.
He split his awareness across two bodies.
His senses immediately became overwhelmed.
But he could manipulate both of them.
Although it was unnatural and robotic.
He tried having alternating schedules.
One body would sleep while the other would train.
While the other would train while the other slept.
Obviously the bodies were treated differently.
Seeing that he only slept around 6 hours a day.
That meant one body would be up 18 hours a day.
While the other body would be up 6 hours a day.
This made it so his senses weren't as overwhelmed.
The body awake 18 hours a day was his main body.
Since his focus was split, the body didn't become a corpse.
It merely entered a sleep.
In this way, he kept his mental energy full.
But also remained aware at all times.
Just not of the sleeping body.
He tried to will a body into existence without having an anchor to 'respawn'.
But he was currently unable to.
He didn't give up on this though.
Because if he could figure it out, wouldn't he almost be able to teleport?
The way his powers worked currently didn't really allow him to teleport.
He would need to plant a body in advance.
He had infinite time though...
Who was to tell him he had already reached the limits of his abilities?
He had just acquired them, but had already seen how much it could be stretched.
In a 100 years... no a 1000 years... just how different would his powers be?
He couldn't fathom it.
He hoped to continue evolving his immortality.
So began his journey of martial arts.
Skin refinement was broken down into three stratums.
You had leather.
Mud.
Iron.
Apparently, by hitting your skin with sticks.
And applying a special ointment on your skin.
You could make your skin as rough as leather.
Then it just took a time to refine it to be as hard to cut as mud.
At this point cold weapons that were dull would have a bit of resistance in cutting you.
You then had Iron.
You reached this level not through just beating your skin with sticks.
You had to soak your body in hot sand.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
After years.
Your skin would supposedly be as tough as iron.
Even sharp weapons would have a hard time breaking through your defense.
Xian practiced the nine forms of 'Elementary Skin Refinement Technique'.
In the morning with everyone else.
In the evening he beat his skin with sticks.
Instead of applying ointment and waiting for his skin to heal.
He directly used his immortality.
He used this technique to work on his abilities.
He focused on the feeling of his skin healing.
Trying to carry the progress in a fresh body.
A few months went by.
He had practiced to the mud level.
The village didn't have resources to practice to the iron level.
It wasn't required in order to break into blood refinement.
It was optional.
The various refinements could be done at any stage.
So someone could directly refine their blood or organs before refining their skin.
It is just bad practice and doesn't leave a steady foundation.
Xian had got an idea though.
He wasn't afraid of a bit of pain.
So he bought a giant cauldron.
He filled it with oil and cooked it.
He jumped in and let himself cook.
It was extremely painful.
His skin and muscles were thoroughly cooked and fried.
He then focused his mental energy.
Healing his skin rapidly.
After a day of doing this.
He had reached the iron level.
He made sure to hide his training away from the other villagers.
After a week of spending a few hours each day boiling.
He reached the legendary Diamond level.
He then talked with Hao about blood refinement.
Hao told him it was too soon to breakthrough to blood refinement and that he would leave dark wounds if he didn't reach iron level first.
Xian realized that Hao wasn't willing to teach him the blood refinement methods yet.
Xian didn't care about leaving dark wounds or any sequelae from trying to make his own martial art method.
His main body was diamond level in skin refinement.
His other ontology in the wilderness was mud level.
He didn't have access to oil in the woods.
And the other body was only up about 6 hours a day.
Hao said it was take about a decade to reach iron level naturally.
Xian specially controlled both his bodies and brought his cauldron filled with oil on his back.
He gave it to his other body and allowed it to also undergo the special training.
It soon reached diamond level.
He then began to experiment and try to do blood refinement.
He tried various visualization techniques from his previous world.
He visualized the red blood cells in his body flowing through his veins.
Sadly, nothing really happened.
He was able to imagine it.
But he had no direction.
He continued to experiment for about 5 years.
Hao then taught him the method for blood refinement.
This is how it worked.
You individually control each drop of blood in your body.
Instead of there being three stratums, or even the legendary diamond level like with skin refinement.
Blood refinement was extremely different.
It was more a percentage.
You went from 0% -> 100% control.
There are about 85k drops of blood in the body.
By controlling the blood. You can stop internal bleeding or wounds from bleeding out.
The peak of 100% become extremely hard to kill.
But again, even at 0% you can still start the other refinements.
There is even the legendary reversal.
This is when you control your blood so well that you can reverse its flow.
You can take blood that has left your body and use it as a weapon.
Launching it like needles.
This is a legendary realm though and hasn't been seen in hundreds of years.
Xian was extremely interested in reaching 100%.
He had the time.
The village also didn't have much to offer him anymore...
Some the villagers tried to get him a wife.
But he was over 90 years old mentally.
He wasn't willing.
He could feel himself age normally.
Afterall, his immortality was controlled through his intent.
He allowed himself to grow old.
He spent three decades refining each drop of blood.
Hao passed away due to an old dark wound.
Xian took the job in the village of training everyone.
He slowly watched the elderly pass away.
He had long reached 100% control of his blood.
He wasn't satisfied though...
He kept delaying leaving the village.
He was trying to reach the reversal stage.
He wanted to be able to manipulate his blood after it had left the body.
This could be useful in conjunction with his immortality.
For example.
In a desperate situation, he could launch his blood far away and reform from it.
It was through trying to reach this stage that he unlocked another ability.
He could make his blood grow restless.
He could cause it to boil in his veins.
The first time he did it on accident he blew up.
Organs and blood went everywhere.
He reformed, but this time because of his control of his blood.
He was able to shape his body how he wanted.
This wasn't limited to just his skin.
He was able to control his height, hair color, eye color, facial structure.
He reformed with all of his progress.
It had taken him decades to do this.
But it was time well spent.
He could instinctly manipulate 100% of his blood.
He called his suicide move 'Blood Explosion'.
In a desperate situation.
He could blow himself up like a bomb.
This wasn't all that he improved on.
He became numb to the overwhelming of his senses from controlling multiple bodies.
He left a body at the blood refinement realm to stay at the village and teach the kids.
He allowed this body to grow old.
He named the body 'Xian'.
He then reformed in a random cave by his other body from some blood.
It looked exactly as he did in his last life.
"I'm Back!"
He was no longer 'Xian'.
That man would spend his life in that village.
He was John Destinatus!
A scientist!
An Immortal!
Eternal...
He would study this world for eternity.
Perhaps he would even figure out how to visit other worlds.
He had infinite time! Infinite options!
He could watch the world go from this backwater era into a glorious modern civilization.
Even then... he could watch technology advance beyond his previous world.
A century passed.
He was alone in the wilderness meditating.
He held out his hand and pinched his fingers.
The blood was floating!
He had reached the legendary realm of blood refinement!
Now he had reached two legendary realms.
Both in skin refinement and blood refinement.
"It only took me a few decades. Not bad!"
"The next step is skeletal refinement!"
He was alone in the wilderness half naked.
It had been many years since he had talked to anyone.
He found a cliff.
He jumped off of it.
He was smashed into a bloody paste.
He activated his immortality and reformed.
He paid attention to his bones as they unshattered and reformed.
"This isn't going to work. I lack the skeletal method..."
"Perhaps it is time that I've found civilization again."
He had wondered the wilderness for many years.
He knew it better then his back hand.
He quickly found a city.
He stood in line at the entrance of the city.
"It is three coppers to enter."
"I see..."
John walked away and went out of sight.
He had great control over his body now.
He changed into the appearance of a kid.
He walked back.
"It is three coppers to enter."
"Here you go..."
He reached behind him.
He then dashed into the city.
"Hey! Stop him!"
He was chased by the city guards.
He turned a corner, his fitness was extraordinary.
With a hop he landed on top of a building.
He jumped from building to building and eventually lost sight of the guards.
He found a house and slammed his foot down on the roof.
Normally the brain doesn't allow you to use your full strength in order to prevent you from hurting yourself.
His brain had long learnt that he was capable of using his full strength and his body would remain fine as long as he allowed it to heal.
The roof collapsed from his attack.
He landed into a room.
Looked around and saw that nobody was home.
"Good."
He looked through the closet.
"Nice."
He tore his tattered clothes off and threw them away like they were garbage.
He changed into a blue robe.
He also put on some shoes so he was no longer barefoot.
He reshaped his foot to fit it.
He looked into the drawer by the bed and found a pouch containing a few coppers.
He naturally stole it.
He then jumped up using 100% of his strength as he landed on the part of the roof that wasn't broken.
He changed his appearance back into how it was in his previous world.
He then jumped from roof to roof until he found an alley.
He landed and then was about to walk out of it.
But he was stopped by three people.
"Nice clothes. hand over your money and we we'll leave you with an intact corpse."
John began to laugh.
He squinted his eyes and rushed at the three men.
He bashed one of their heads into the wall.
Another stabbed him in the back.
But his skin was diamond grade!
Sparks flew and it slid off his skin.
"Hey man! We were just joking!"
They grabbed their unconscious friend and ran away.
John left the alley.
He wondered the streets looking at the stalls.
It had been a few years since he had eaten anything.
Or drunk anything.
He fought back his temptations.
He found a tea house.
He ordered some tea.
He sipped leisurely as he listened to the conversations around him.
From controlling multiple bodies and having to task switch constantly in the past.
He was able to fine tune his senses.
Deciphering the conversations all at once was as easy as breathing to him.
He listened until something caught his interest.
"Have you heard? The Medicine Valley is looking for drug testing!"
"I heard that Mountain Worshipping Sect is recruiting."
"Miss Xue is singing at the storytellers inn later tonight."
"Sadly it cost 5 taels of silver to take the test to join the Mountain Worshipping Sect..."
John learned that a good way to make money was to be a drug tester.
It paid well, because people often died from the tonics.
He stood up and tipped a copper.
He walked out and wondered around the town.
He eventually found the place doing the drug testing.
He changed his appearance into that of a beggar.
They looked at him like he was scum at first.
"I'm here for the drug testing."
The persons attitude immediately changed.
"Follow me! This way!"
He was brought to pharmacy.
There were three corpses on cots on the ground.
"We are trialing this new 'Organ Tempering' medicine. You are paid 1 tael per pill. How many pills do you want to try?"
"How many can I try?"
"People that have tried more then one have all died... you can try as many as you want!"
"But you need to sign this first. Agreeing that we are not responsible for your death."
Fine.
He signed a random made up name.
"I'll try 20 pills!"
"20 pills!?"
"Does he have a death wish?"
John sighed.
"You are right. I wasn't thinking straight... 30 pills it is!"
"You are a dead man!"
John was looking forward to organ tempering from the pills.
Even though he hasn't done skeletal refinement yet.
He could use this as a learning experience.
As for revealing his immortality?
He had changed his face and height.
Nobody would be the wiser.
"Here you go sir."
He was handed a tray with 30 pills.
He started swallowing all of them in front of everyone.
He immediately noticed that his heartbeat became irregular.
The doctors normally didn't do this, but they came out to personally ask him how he felt.
"My heart is racing. I feel dizzy."
"He's going to die!"
John had a heart attack.
His expression remained neutral.
His soul immediately went to work expelling the medicine.
His organs absorbed some of the medicine.
"Interesting..."
"You are fine?"
The doctors were shocked.
"That was clearly a lethal dose?"
John spoke up.
"I actually have a digestion issue haha. So my body doesn't absorb medicine as fast. I'll take my pay now though!"
The doctors nodded.
Handing him a pouch filled with 30 taels of silver.
"Are you interested in a signing a five year contract? We can offer you 1 gold for every pill you take."
"I'm sorry, I have to go!"
John held his stomach and ran out of the pharmacy.
Pretending to be sick.
"The medicine must be kicking in now... he probably won't be alive much longer."
"What a shame..."
He turned the corner and then began to scale the building.
He jumped from building to building enjoying the wind.
Until he saw a line of people in front of a shack.
"This must be the testing for joining that sect!"
"I can probably get the method of skeletal refinement from them..."
He instantly became an old man.
Then jumped down from the roof and asked around about it.
After figuring out the requirements.
He became a teenager.
He had great control over his bodies age.
His ability to shift his appearance and age was now child's play to him.
The requirements he found out were simple:
5x taels of silver.
Less then 18 years old.
A healthy body.
He went through the process.
They tested his skin.
He controlled it intentionally.
"Iron grade! A healthy well nourished body. Sixteen years old. You are a genius in martial arts! Accepted."
He entered the line of people that were accepted and watched the others.
Some people passed.
Others failed and left dejectedly.
At the end of the day he followed the line of people to a whole set of carriages.
"The sect is a few days away. Don't worry, transportation was included in the fee."
He traveled for a few days with them.
Once he got to the sect he was told that he would be an outer disciple.
"You can pay 1 gold in order to become an inner disciple or you can work your way up by doing task."
"Or if a teacher fancies you, you can become a closed disciple."
John asked about skeletal refinement techniques.
"You plan on skipping blood refinement? Not bad, not bad."
"You can find those techniques on the third floor of the library."
John cusped his hands.
"Thank you."
"It isn't free though! You need 300 points per hour you spend on the third floor."
"Find the task manager, and accumulate points. Work hard and the Sect won't fail you!"
"YES!"
The others shouted as well.
They were soon assigned rooms to live in.
Shown the cafeteria.
The forging room.
The gym.
Training fields.
"You have a great degree of freedom as a disciple. Don't waste your time Xian."
John's name was a bit foreign in this world.
So he used Xian when others asked about his name.
John went through the process of accumulating task points.
The task were simple.
Cleaning.
Drying medicine.
Counting prescriptions.
Cooking food.
He found a special task that everyone avoided.
Anybody was able to put up tasks for others to do.
You just used points from yourself as the reward.
He saw a sparing partner task that had been left alone.
100 task points a minute.
Fighting a 'perfect' Organ tempering expert.
He picked up this task despite the looks.
He followed the map and found the private training room of the expert.
"If you can't handle 90% of my strength for 10 seconds, you won't receive any points at all. Understand?"
John laughed.
"Got it!"
So began the fighting.
The expert was surprised.
This was clearly someone who was just in blood refinement.
He was a whole two realms higher then him.
Yet this person took his punches like they were nothing.
Soon three minutes passed.
"Stop! I don't have enough points to continue. You want to keep fighting for fun?"
John was having a bit of fun getting actual combat experience.
This was something he lacked even after having lived for over a hundred years.
Fighting animals in the wilderness was simply too easy.
It was different fighting a human.
They used tricks and martial arts!
They sparred for the entire day.
"My name is Bowa. What is your name?"
"I am Xian."
They soon became friends.
John continued to spar with him around 5 days a week.
John didn't even need to go to the library to learn about the skeletal refinement realm.
Bowa told him all about the stages.
"The first stage is called copper bones. The second stage is called jade bones. The third stage is called iron bones. There is also the legendary fairy bones."
"As for organ tempering. There is blood shielding, protection membrane, calcification."
"Then there is the legendary Energy Drawing."
"At that stage you can supposedly allow the Qi in your body to exit it by about a meter. You can inject your Qi into others through your punches and turn their organs into mush. But almost nobody has reached this realm in over 1000 years. So it is more just something we aim towards."
John thanked him for teaching him about the higher levels.
This wasn't all Bowa told him though.
He also told him the steps needed to temper these stages.
For skeletal refinement, one needed to break their bones on a micro level and soak in medicinal baths.
John completely threw out such a training method.
It was slow and he could directly manipulate his bones.
During the night, he would sneak out of the sect.
Repeatedly jumping of cliffs and turning into paste.
Repeatedly tempering his bones.
But it wasn't enough.
So he built himself an underground lab.
He went grave robbing and dug up those skeletal refinement experts that had died from bandits.
He dissected their bodies and looked at the composition of their bones.
He found that those in the copper stage, had brown bones.
Those in the jade stage.
Had green bones.
Those in the iron stage had silver bones.
"This is unscientific!"
"But fair enough."
He didn't stop experimenting with his immortality.
What if he grafted the bones of these experts and replaced his skeleton?
He could control his blood and his body control was godlike.
So he performed surgery on himself.
At this point he had experienced a strange state.
He could control his pain level.
He could directly cut off feeling to whatever body part.
He wasn't a surgeon in his last life though.
So it involved a lot of trial and error.
Luckily he could restore his body to its peak whenever he wanted.
After replacing the bones in his arm with that from a corpse.
He felt a strange phenomenon.
He could see inside of his body!
He could see the various systems of his body.
This included his skin, blood, muscles, organs, skeleton.
He could even magnify and see at the microscopic level.
He could see his blood cells.
"Interesting."
His understanding of his immortality was brought to even greater heights.
He instantly strengthened his bones to the iron level.
As for fairy level bones?
He didn't have any examples to copy.
He could began to practice organ tempering.
But he was greedy for perfection.
He had reached the legendary realm in skin and blood refinement.
Why not reach the legendary fairy bones?
So he waited patiently.
Even if he jumped off cliffs from very high heights.
His skeleton and muscles were tough enough not to become paste anymore.
He wished to try to jump from higher heights.
But he couldn't fly yet.
This was something that even Energy Drawing experts couldn't do.
But who was John?
He regretted deeply that he didn't have enough time with his soul manipulation abilities.
If he knew he was going to come to this world.
If he knew he was going to inherit those monsters abilities.
He would of captured every type of creature there is.
He would of tried to get every ability possible.
Sadly, he didn't know.
He also didn't have enough time.
He was already at the end of his lifespan in his last life when he got the ability to interact with soul.
He was extremely lucky to have his brain structure change from the seizure allowing him to see soul.
But clearly something else must of changed as well.
What let him interact with it as well?
There were people that spent their entire lives meditating.
There were others like him that studied the supernatural.
But never had he seen anyone with his ability.
He spent 4 decades in the sect accumulating task points and climbing the ranks.
He allowed his body to age normally.
Nobody knew he was immortal.
He became an elder of the sect.
Through his tempering he had long reached fairy bones.
He grinded it slowly with time and intense impossible exercise of repeatedly destroying it completely and reshaping his iron bones.
His bones now had a faint glow to them.
His Blood Explosion could send his bones flying everywhere.
They could damage nearly any expert now.
He was quite a dangerous man.
John had stopped relying on mental feelings to control his immortality.
He decided to make it more systemic.
He compartmentalized his mind.
Keeping blue prints of his body and his progress.
His control over his body reached even greater heights.
Now that he reached the legendary realm in skin refinement, blood refinement, and skeletal refinement.
It was time for him to focus on organ tempering.
There were three stages to organ tempering.
As well as a mythical stage.
They were:
Blood shielding.
Protection Membrane.
Calcification.
And the legendary stage was fusion.
This was a theoretical stage that no-one had ever entered.
Unlike the other legendary stages.
This one had never been recorded in history.
John took many tonics and became a salted fish.
After 3 more decades.
He died from old age.
He had reached calcification.
In the courtyard of another city.
A bottle containing one of his cut off fingers was floating.
He immediately reformed young and brand new.
His old identity had died.
He had already gotten all the benefits he could get from that Sect.
He decided to live a leisurely life as a normal person for awhile.
As he manipulated his organs.
It took him another century to reach the fusion realm.
It took much trial and error.
He couldn't imagine anyone else being able to pull it off.
Now he just needed to reach Energy Drawing.
He packed many sets of clothes.
He then retreated back into the wilderness.
He tried meditating under waterfalls.
Running in fields naked.
He resorted to the visualization techniques of his past world.
But he had no insights.
Energy Drawing was mysterious and elusive.
He spent five centuries wandering the world on foot.
It was during a moment he was drowning repeatedly under ice during the winter.
He felt a ringing in his ears.
He sent out a punch.
He felt the energy flow in his body.
The ice above him shattered into many pieces.
He climbed out of the icy water.
"I've done it! It only took a few centuries. But now I've pushed my martial arts to the top of the world."
"I suppose it is time to look for a fairy fate! hahahaha!"