In the quiet morning, mist hung low over the valley, and in a secluded courtyard, a young girl underwent a painful transformation.

In a large ceramic pool, a girl lay curled up in a fetal position, submerged in a medicinal bath. By her size and physique, she appeared to be around 16 years old. Her skin was a light shade of red, and as she tried to rise from the water, a woman sitting beside the pool gently held her head, allowing her to take a deep breath before pushing her back underwater. The medicinal bath required full-body submersion to be effective, but breathing breaks were necessary. Despite the girl's impressive lung capacity, developed over time, she still had to surface every 10 minutes or so for air.

Over the next eight hours, the water level in the bath steadily decreased. The girl, initially curled up, had to shift into a flat position on her back, which caused her more pain, but she persisted. By this point, her skin had turned a deep red. The woman, noticing the bath’s water had dropped below a critical level, lifted the girl with ease, folding her body like a twig, and laid her down on a nearby bed.

The woman collected the remaining medicinal water and poured it into a strange device, thickening the liquid until it became viscous. She transferred it into a glass flask, and with a flame from her right hand, the liquid changed consistency, becoming smooth and drinkable. The girl groaned in pain. Though her eyes had opened long ago, she was unable to move her limbs. Her gaze remained fierce, showing her determination for what was to come.

The woman sat the girl up and opened her mouth, pouring the liquid inside. The girl wished she could scream, but her body was too numb. If the earlier bath felt like magma burning her skin, drinking the liquid felt like swallowing drops of molten lava. The heat spread through her organs, her bloodstream, and even her brain, making her feel as if she might burst into flames. While the girl didn’t ignite, the bedding beneath her caught fire.

With calm precision, the woman picked up the girl and walked through the air, arriving at a hot spring. She gently laid her down, stroking her hair, and for the first time since the process began, spoke softly to the unconscious girl.

“You’re enduring so much for your desire to become stronger,” she murmured. “I wish you weren’t set on the path of body cultivation. Your talent with energy cultivation may be mediocre, but your aptitude for body cultivation is exceptional. I don’t think even I went through this much pain at your age for strength. My foolish little disciple…” Despite her words, the woman smiled warmly.

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The redness on the girl’s skin gradually receded, and her body temperature dropped sharply. Soon, she looked as if she had returned to perfect health. Throughout the medicinal bath, the girl's bones had been constantly shattering and rebuilding under the medicinal effect, becoming denser and her marrow filling with vitality. Her muscles had been destroyed and rebuilt, compressing as they grew, resulting in denser, stronger tissue. Her muscles had constantly bulged and compressed. Her ligaments and tendons underwent the same process as her muscles. While her organs didn’t change much during the bath, after drinking the processed liquid, her organs, blood vessels, and blood underwent significant transformation. The vitality of her organs noticeably increased as they were completely reforged. Her blood cells multiplied and pulsed with vitality, and her blood vessels were rebuilt, their walls becoming denser. The girl’s entire body had been reforged, and now it was in a resting state.

The woman checked the girl’s body, surprised at the level of transformation she had undergone. She hadn’t expected the girl to absorb more than 60 percent of the medicinal bath’s efficacy, but to her astonishment, the girl’s body had absorbed almost 80 percent.

The girl, still lying in the woman’s arms, had truly entered the first realm of body cultivation—the Body Reforging Realm, as indicated by the generation of Prana in her body. While the name sounded similar to the Body Tempering Realm, the first realm of energy cultivation, the two were entirely different. In Body Tempering, one merely strengthened their body with the Ki they were cultivating. But Body Reforging was far more extreme. It involved literally rebuilding the body to the point where it underwent a complete qualitative leap, transforming entirely.

“Astrid, you’ve achieved your goal,” the woman said softly. “Though it took a torturous method, you’ve entered the first realm of body cultivation, and your body is now producing Prana. It will be somewhat easier to progress through the Body Reforging Realm now. You couldn’t break through on your own because of your high innate divine strength, which increased the threshold of the minimum strength you had to achieve. The limit of strength you had to reach before breaking into this realm was much higher than most people’s. Now you have truly become a body cultivator.”

The woman continued caring for Astrid, who now seemed to be in a blissful dream. As she did so, she thought to herself, It didn’t cost me much to help her, but I should assign her some tasks to compensate me. Otherwise, the other elders will accuse me of favoring her too much.

She recalled how she had first met the girl on the streets of Violet Blossom City, one of the minor cities under the rule of the Silver Star Sect.

As the sun began to set, the air cooled, and Astrid remained in a peaceful slumber. For her, this was a new beginning.