"Trial? What trial?" Eon asked.

"Every 3 years, the sect hands out a difficult mission to its newly accepted disciples in order to strengthen their mental fortitude and to ensure they have the qualities required to become a warrior. After all, we are often at war with other sects, be it openly or secretly, so we can't afford to waste time and resources on cowards who break down at the first sign of struggle. With my current standing in the Fort Scale Sect, it seems that I won't be able to get you out of it. I declared you my disciple 2 days before the cutoff period, which means you will need to participate despite your lacking the ability to cultivate even to the level of body tempering. If you go with your current strength, you would be courting death. It isn't uncommon for body-tempering cultivators to die during it. If you refuse to take the trial, you are kicked out of the sect, so it's not like I can just keep you in as an unofficial disciple. Unless you want to lose your opportunity to move past your limits and I want to lose the greatest finding in my life, we need to find a way to ensure your success in the trial." Zerle responded.

"You think I haven't tried to break past my limits before? It isn't that easy. I have pretty much reached the limit of bodily revelation, I am not capable of taking it further."

"Who said that you will be using bodily revelation to move further? From what you told me and showed me, bodily revelation was actually a failure, which I confirmed last night. Life sparks, which are the ultimate goal of bodily revelation, can't actually affect bloodline like the creator intended, and are largely of no use except maybe as regenerative energy. The strength of bodily revelation is also severely reduced thanks to the impossibility of the late stages of the technique alongside the incompleteness in the later stages. The fact that you were able to take it this far is a miracle and a testament to your effort, taking it any further would be impossible. So I propose an alternate solution to merely improving bodily revelation. Since you are a mortal, your state of being is much more 'malleable' than cultivators as your bodily energies are weak and soft, like wet clay. If you give me the opportunity, I can largely reform the technique in your body to make it so that you can control the qi of the body instead of the body. Hell, by allowing you to touch the bloodline, bodily revelation is already halfway there, making my job easier. The downside is that you will no longer have bodily revelation, it will become a new technique in its own right." Zerle said with a light smile.

"Can you really do that?" Eon asked with shock and doubt.

"Mhm. More than likely anyway, at least in theory. I have never done anything like it before and will need your full cooperation to minimize the risk. I can't promise that it will turn out exactly like I want either, this sort of thing has many inherent risks and the end product may diverge greatly from my vision even if I succeed in reforming bodily revelation. Besides, I can only try once, and if I mess up, I won't be able to change it again or reverse it as your malleability will have been used up, like dried-out clay, any attempts to mold it again after will snap your vital energy, killing you, and even this is an oversimplification of how this process actually works. There is a non-zero chance that this process will cause you to become stuck as a mortal for the rest of your life or worse. Are you willing to attempt the ritual?” Zerle said with an unusually serious tone.

Eon contemplated his options for several minutes before giving Zerle an answer: "I want to become strong. I have been trapped for countless years before, and in that time, I didn't think about much other than escape. Now that I am out, I have many desires I want to fulfill. But my greatest desire is to gain enough strength to prevent losing control of my life from happening again. I want to be the one in charge of my fate, and I want to be able to go wherever I want and do whatever I want. I also want to improve for the sake of improving myself, it is an inherently worthwhile pursuit to better oneself, it is a desire that has been with me for as long as I can remember. Finally, I want to find and visit Earth. While my connections to Earth are relatively small now, it is still my homeland and I have some unresolved feelings and ties that I wish to deal with if possible. A man who ran from an unresolved past can't have true resolve in the future."

Zerle looked Eon up and down before letting out a laugh alongside saying "Well, it seems I misjudged you a bit. I wasn't sure you had the spine for this and thought it was quite likely you would reject my proposition, but we are more alike than I originally thought. Or perhaps I am just becoming more understanding in my old age. Alright, since you agreed, let's not waste any time. For the first step at least, I don't need any preparation. Step 1 is teaching you to sense the energy in your body, your environment, and the space that exists parallel to our own known as the metaphysical plane. Normally, this would be done through a few weeks of meditation alongside some breathing techniques, allowing you to grasp the sensation of energy entering and exiting the body and applying it to your mental qi to form your qi perception. But since we lack time, I am just going to flood your brain with true qi until your mental qi forcefully opens its qi sense to cope. This will hurt a lot, and since I am directly attacking your consciousness, using bodily revelation will only make things worse, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you find that you actually like pain." As he spoke, a fiendish look appeared in Zerle's eyes which gave Eon a spook. He began to feel a little nervous.

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"Wait, just how bad will- AHHHHHHHHHH!" Eon asked with evident concern before Zerle placed his hands on Eon's head, making Eon feel as though his entire being was covered in frost. It froze him in places he didn't even know existed. While Eon did have impressive pain tolerance, his use of bodily revelation prevented it from becoming really good. This means that he still couldn't handle pain on this level. It was very reminiscent of the resurrection process in the tutorial, though Eon was a little too preoccupied to notice that. It took 10 agonizing minutes for the "lesson" to finally end. By the end of it, Eon had passed out and been woken up by the pain several times. After he removed his wrinkled hands, Zerle gave a low grunt seeing Eon's sharp stare. He said "sorry, but it is easier if you aren't prepared for it because your mental defenses are weaker. You probably know this by now, but I am crippled, and this sort of thing takes a lot out of me, so every bit of energy matters."

Eon softly sighed, letting it go. "It doesn't matter. Just tell me it worked?"

"See for yourself. Close your eyes and focus deeply on them, after about a minute open your eyes and tell me what you see. After some practice, qi perception becomes second nature as any other sense like sight, taste, touch, hearing, or smell. This can take 1 month to 3 years depending on one's talent. Generally, qi perception is directly tied to the other aforementioned senses and can be trained to rely on those senses more or less depending on your needs and path. For you, it should be linked to your eyes like most beginners."

Eon did as instructed, and when he opened his eyes, his surroundings changed. He was surrounded by countless swirling rivers made of light, mostly gold with the occasional flash of another color. Zerle was an almost blinding ocean of gold, constantly swirling in and out of seeming countless points across his body. Eon looked down at himself, but instead of the gold that surrounded him and concentrated around Zerle, Eon only saw a translucent dim red fog spread around his body, mostly concentrated around his heart. The fog also pulsated in rhythm with his heartbeat. Eon relayed everything he could to Zerle with barely contained excitement, he couldn't put it all in words but he did his best. Zerle nodded and said "Good, from your description, you have a moderate talent for qi perception and should be able to make it largely second nature by the time of the trial. Qi perception and many of the techniques rely greatly on the imagination and visualization abilities of the user. I would dare to say that almost every technique in existence relies on visualization to at least some extent, except maybe mortal arts, but we won't discuss those just yet. Just remember that intent and how you think of things are very important for how a technique works. For now, spend some time familiarizing yourself with activating your qi perception and deactivating it by closing your eyes and relaxing. You should be able to shorten the activation time and focus requirement if only a little. In the meantime, I need to make the necessary preparations for altering bodily revelation. I will send Hela with some food, I know you are probably starving. Besides, Hela has been worried about you as well. Don't tell her I said this, but I think she sees you a little bit like her own child. This is especially after you beat the hell out of that gangster that tried to extort you 2 and took care of her to ensure her recovery despite your lacking speech at the time."

Zerle left, and an hour later Hela came with a large meal, mainly consisting of the meat sticks Eon deeply enjoyed. Hela gave Eon a deep hug, which surprised him, and these 2 things made him feel warm in a way that made him miss his parents greatly, so he returned the hug despite the cast over his body making it difficult. Hela spoke over the course of events that happened over the past few days, and Eon listened happily, occasionally adding on or asking questions. It was pleasant, and Eon felt much better about the future after the meal. He realized that he was beginning to care for these two people, master, and servant, alike. In the end, Zerle was working hard to save Eon's life at his own expense without any exterior incentive to do so since Eon already told him everything after already taking an effort to save Eon and treat his serious wounds. Hela was kind and caring, reminding him of his mother, she was also the one who ran to find Zerle immediately after Lein showed up to try and help despite knowing that Lein might target her for it. Eon felt that he found 2 people worth trusting.