Liang Chen looked at the fingernail-sized gray crystal for a short second longer before allowing it to pierce into his hand, digging into his bone and dissolving into his bone marrow. Before starting the arduous process of turning his bones into this kind of crystal he first had to upgrade his bone marrow to a liquid version of this fused element.
But before he started that process, there was something else he wanted to attempt first. He swiped his interspatial ring, taking out the jade fragment that contained the first part of the Ocean God Physique, tossing it to Yan Ling.
"Check if you can learn anything from this one, it works excellently alongside the Chaos King technique."
The Ocean God Physique had advantages and disadvantages over other body cultivation techniques, the main advantage being the fact that it turned your body into the element you chose, making you practically immune to attacks of that element. Of course, since you turned yourself into that element, you would be weaker against attacks that came from an element that was effective against yours.
An example would be using lightning to cultivate the technique, it would make you far more susceptible to wood, stone, or earth-based attacks, as they were elements that greatly restrained lightning. Yan Ling caught the jade fragment, sinking her mind into it and studying the words written within it. After spending almost half an hour, she could only shake her head.
"Nope, can't make out anything. You've explained the principle to me, but I can't glean anything from the words, they almost just seem like gibberish."
Liang Chen wasn't too surprised by her judgment, he had been the same when he first received it after all. Even the Sealing God Empyrean and his friends had been stumped by this jade fragment and its words, unable to acquire the cultivation technique hidden within. Liang Chen stretched out his arm, placing his finger on Yan Ling's forehead and transmitting what he knew about the Ocean God's Physique, much like how he had transmitted what he knew about the Chaos King Technique.
The reason he had given her the jade fragment first was simply because he had it on hand and she might not end up needing him to transmit the information. But the moment he started to transmit the information to her, Yan Ling's entire face distorted in pain, the veins on her forehead sticking out and wriggling like worms. She quickly called out, pushing away Liang Chen's hand and rolling backward.
"Stop, stop, stop!"
Her eyes had turned bloodshot, the veins in her eyes threatening to explode while her breath had turned ragged and shallow. Liang Chen rushed forward to check up on her but she simply waved her hand to show that she was fine now. She spent a few minutes catching her breath, the veins on her forehead returning to normal as she cursed out.
"Son of a bitch that hurt, I should slap you just for putting me through that. The information entered my mind, but it simply sounded like the roaring of a thousand beasts, all of them stomping inside my head while they were roaring in rage. I have no idea how you managed to learn anything from that, but it just made me realize that the name I gave you is just getting more and more appropriate."
Yan Ling held onto the side of her head with her left hand while speaking, her brows furrowing as she was still in a bit of pain. She felt like her head would explode just from hearing that symphony of roars, she couldn't even fathom how anyone could listen to that for longer than a few seconds. Liang Chen sat down in front of her grabbing onto her right hand and inserting some of his poison into her body, numbing her sense of pain while he spoke.
"You heard it like the roaring of beasts? When I first understood the technique, the information just entered my mind as normal words, if a bit obscure in some areas. Maybe something special is needed to properly understand the technique, that might be why the Sealing God Empyrean was unable to learn anything."
This was the only explanation Liang Chen could come up with, but he had no idea what this special something might be. He didn't think it too strange that the Ocean God Physique would have some special requirements, it was a rather supreme technique after all. Yan Ling's brows relaxed with the numbing poison entering her body, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly.
"Maybe, but whatever it is, it seems like that technique isn't for me. No need to dwell on what we don't know, I'll just continue to cultivate the Chaos King Technique, we might find a different technique I can use in tandem with the Chaos King Technique in the future. "
It was important to not be too greedy, so even though she would like to have another technique to further improve her body cultivation, she was also fine with just having the Chaos King Technique. After all, the Chaos King Technique was also a supreme technique, it alone was more than enough for most people. Yan Ling gave Liang Chen's hand a squeeze, feeling the bone in his hand for a short second before speaking.
Stolen novel; please report.
"How far do you think you'll be able to alter your bones for now?"
The first step of the Ocean God's Physique, the act of altering the bone marrow, was the easiest and fastest to cultivate, one could manage just fine even if they only used their own Qi to alter the bone marrow. But changing the bones, especially in the way Liang Chen was planning, would be far harder. After the two of them pooled together almost half of their Qi, they had only managed to form a fingernail-sized crystal. If they kept doing it like that, just how long would it take for Liang Chen to finish altering his entire skeleton?
He had to fully focus on creating the crystals, so he couldn't even increase the flow of time around them. At this point, it was clear that it was better for them to gather up various resources of their elements and using the energy within them to let Liang Chen cultivate his Ocean God's Physique, or Endless Storm God Physique as it had become at this point. Liang Chen sank his mind into his interspatial ring, quickly counting over the resources that remained after the two of them had finished all their cultivation, giving a slight shake of his head.
"With what we have left, one of my hands. If we were to suddenly acquire an endless supply of money and could buy up all the suitable resources from the markets we've checked so far, maybe one and a half arm."
The more he cultivated, the more Liang Chen understood why it was rare to cultivate all three different cultivation systems. He needed poison and time element resources for his soul and his Qi, and he needed lightning and wind for his body and his Qi. He would have to split all his cultivation resources and time between his soul, Qi, and his body cultivation, meaning that all three would be lagging behind someone who focused solely on just one or two. But he still felt that the end result would be worth it, so he had no intention of changing his plans. Yan Ling nodded her head, checking her own interspatial ring and taking out all the remaining resources she had on hand.
"Alright, then I say we finish altering all your bone marrow and then alter the bones in your right hand, it is your main one after all. After that is done we can start participating in battles again, we should be able to scrounge up enough money to alter a bit more of the bones in your right arm before we head up to the third floor."
The third floor would have better resources and most likely have richer competitors, both would make it easier for the two of them to progress in their cultivation in a shorter amount of time. Liang Chen didn't see a reason to reject Yan Ling's plan so he simply nodded his head and brought out all the resources he had within his interspatial ring, Yan Ling doing the same.
He then stretched out his other arm and grabbed hold of her left hand. Both of them closed their eyes, drawing out the energy within the resources in front of them and starting the slow fusion progress, slowly upgrading Liang Chen's bone marrow.
This wasn't the first time Liang Chen had upgraded his bone marrow like this, thanks to this it only took them a week to fully upgrade all his bone marrow into the fused storm element, slightly increasing Liang Chen's strength. They then started the slower and more arduous process of altering his bones.
They did this by injecting the fused energy into Liang Chen's bones, slowly adding more and more energy and condensing it, using the same principle as the one used to alter his bone marrow. Slowly but surely the energy became too much for Liang Chen's bones to bear, cracks starting to appear on all the bones in his hand. Eventually, the bones in his hand became unable to handle the highly condensed energy, shattering into tiny fragments that were further crushed as more and more energy was condensed.
The energy swallowed up and absorbed the small fragments while it was crystallizing, his already altered bone marrow aiding in the process by forcing the energy to crystallize and form the same shape as his old bones, even connecting the crystallized bones to his body.
The process was excruciatingly painful, to the point where even numbing his sense of pain using his poison wasn't enough anymore. Luckily he had Yan Ling by his side, she not only offered emotional support but was also able to use her law of water to help ease his pain and speed up the healing process when bone fragments dug into his flesh.
Thanks to this, they were able to continue without pause, the process of altering all the bones in his right hand taking a little over a month. It required not only the full concentration of both of them but also a large amount of energy that they controlled exceedingly precisely, so spending only a single month was surprisingly quick.
After the process was complete, the bones in Liang Chen's right hand had become a somewhat transparent gray crystal, his gray bone marrow just barely visible if one looked close enough. He didn't even have to test it out to know that his right hand had grown quite a bit stronger than it used to be, it might even have grown nearly twice as tough thanks to the change. Seeing the change, he couldn't help but look forward to the future levels, just how strong would his body end up becoming if he could fully cultivate this technique?
Liang Chen and Yan Ling took a three-day break to rest and recuperate, they had just spent over a month in full focus after all. After these three days, they started to enter the arena again, observing some battles and taking part in others. They were both young and quick-witted, so each battle they watched allowed them to learn something new. They watched and they learned, then they fought and tested it out, adding their own touches and improvements. They were like young dragons slowly sharpening their fangs and claws, preparing them so that they could sink them into the flesh of those they wanted to kill.