Chapter 60: Chapter 54: Formation
Nope. He still refused to believe it. The alternative was much, much more plausible. Special physiques could be divided into two kinds. Random and inherited. Random physiques were the ones that anyone could awaken by chance.
Inherited, on the other hand, were passed down through bloodline. He concluded that his special physique was an inherited one that had mutated. When he was six years old, he was kidnapped from the streets of Sichuan, the home to the Tang Clan.
The Tang Clan was one of the Five Clans of the Righteous Alliance, famous for its immaculate use of toxins. They also had an inherited special physique, the Myriad Toxins Immune Body. Almost every person that had the blood of the Main House of Tang Clan could awaken it or one of its weakened versions, The Ten Toxins Immune Body, Hundred Toxins Immune Body, or the Thousand Toxins Immune Body.
He theorized that he was an abandoned bastard son of one of the members of the Main House. His special physique could have been dormant due to malnutrition. But why did it mutate? To understand that, one would need to understand how the Myriad Toxin Immune Body worked. It wasn’t that it was inherently immune to myriad toxins.
It just had an extreme adaptability when it came to toxins. Whenever it encountered a toxin, it would assimilate it, analyze it, and finally, create antibodies that worked as the antidote. The speed of this process would be decided by the version of the body. The weaker the version, the more time it would take.
If the toxin was strong enough, the person could easily die before their body could even begin to make the antibodies. But this process only took an instant for the Myriad Toxins Immune Body.
Coming back to Zeke’s body and its mutation, when he started eating and received the nutrition that his body so desperately needed, his physique started to awaken from its dormancy.
Then he started to consume toxins, the awakening of his physique hastened. But that still wasn’t enough. Years of malnutrition had resulted in the physique to go into a deep dormancy. To fully awaken, it still needed a catalyst. And that catalyst was the Gu.
Unfortunately, the toxins in the Gu were too strong. They had become an inherent part of its already unstable gene sequence. So, when his physique awakened, it was extremely active and considered the genes of the Gu as a toxin and assimilated them.
But from what Zeke could see, the assimilation wasn’t complete. Hence the unstable non-human genes. And the catalyst that they needed was internal qi. That was the reason why his body was absorbing the internal qi much faster than other people.
He could tell that once the assimilation was complete, his body would undergo another major change. That was both a good and a bad thing for him. Good because his body would become much stronger, Bad because it would change so much that he would need to recreate a body tempering technique for it.
So the only thing that he could do, was complete the assimilation before he created the body tempering technique. But that begged the question, how would he complete the assimilation that needed internal qi, when he couldn’t cultivate?
He couldn’t just use the Three Origins Technique or the Nine Lotus Hells Technique because he had a feeling that it would make his new technique almost useless. The internal qi had to be from an external source, like a pill or a neutral herb at the level of a natural treasure. And although he was in a forest and there were plenty of natural treasures here, trying to get any with just his current strength would be suicide.
All the thinking had made him a bit hungry, so he exited his mental realm and snacked on some bamboo shoots. As he was chewing the fibrous shoots, he suddenly got an idea. He was currently in a forest of bamboo that was full of energy from the earth. Although not at the level of a natural treasure, they could be used as a substitute for the natural treasure. He just needed to make some modifications. He started smiling.
If Cass or Leonel were here and saw that smile, they would run. Because they were all too familiar with this smile. It was the smile that Zeke had whenever he had devised another batshit crazy idea. He entered his mental realm and started working. Three months passed and he had finally gotten all the theory part of the plan. Now, he needed to put that theory in action.
He went to Woong and said, "Can you ask Pooki to take me to another part of the forest. I need another piece of land like this."
Woong said, "Let me check."
He went to Pooki and started communicating with him. He returned after a while and said, "Just sit on Pooki’s back and he’ll take you there. But the area is a bit smaller than this one."
Zeke said, "Thanks."
Then he saw Pooki waiting for him and sat on his back. Pooki roared and started walking. After a while, they reached a small clearing. Zeke got down from Pooki’s back and thanked him. Then Pooki roared again before returning. Looking at the land in front of him, Zeke held his weapon and started engraving a big formation on the ground.
It was an intricate formation made up of the runes that he had discovered. If one looked carefully, they would discover that the formation was very similar to the one that the cultivation technique would make inside his body. It took him some time to draw and engrave it. After he was done, he transplanted bamboo shoots into the nodes of the formation. For the final touch, he used his own blood to trace the energy channels of the formation. Now, he had to wait.
The bamboo shoots would mature very quickly with the help of the formation. The formation would then sacrifice all of their energy and condense a lotus in the center of the formation. The mature bamboo would wither and new bamboo shoots would grow in their place. This would happen nine times until nine lotuses were condensed.
Time started to pass and Zeke fully focused on training his body. Occasionally, he would use his blood to water the bamboo shoots. A year passed.
During this time, he had become bulkier and his proficiency with the Two bladed swordstaff had grown exponentially. He observed the formation. He could see eight lotuses in the center of the formation. Each lotus had twelve petals. They were black in color and were much bigger than normal lotuses.
The ninth lotus was still condensing and would fully condense in a few days. A week passed and the ninth lotus completely condensed. The land underneath the formation withered. Zeke could tell that it would take a long time before it regained its vitality.
As soon as it was done, the nine lotuses started glowing and started floating. It seemed as if they were resonating with each other. They started spinning at high speeds until finally, they collided with each other and imploded.
The scattered energy quickly condensed into a huge black lotus. Zeke could feel that he was connected to the lotus. It was probably a result of him dripping his blood on the bamboo shoots. He counted the petals and there were 108. Zeke thought, ’That’s probably a good thing. Numbers like 3, 9, 12, 36, 81, and 108 hold great significance in Murim.’
Something came over him and he had the urge to go and sit on the lotus. So, he did just that. He sat cross legged on the bloomed lotus and started circulating his new cultivation technique. It was fine in the beginning but then his meridians started hurting. He could feel them tearing. But he still didn’t stop and circulated the technique with even greater force.
As he was focusing on the circulation, the lotus petals started closing, sealing him within the lotus. Inside the lotus, Zeke could feel that his body was absorbing the lotus flower with great gusto.
The technique was circulating automatically, and he couldn’t stop it even if he wanted it to. He could feel that his body was breaking bit by bit, expelling any impurities that had been inside. Slowly, he lost all sense of time and fell asleep while his body was undergoing this extreme transformation.
Back at the middle of the forest,
Woong, Bum and Woo were having dinner. Bum said, "Woong, any news?"
Woong shook his head and said, "No. It’s already been three months since Ryeong sent his last message. It said that he was breaking through and would be unreachable for a while. I even sent Pooki to that place, but he refused to return there. He felt death there."
At this point Woo said, "Stop worrying about Ryeong and worry about yourselves. He is stronger than us. Much stronger. Don’t forget that we still couldn’t beat him even after breaking through to Third Rate Warriors. So it makes sense that his breakthrough would take longer.
Also, he is cultivating the Nine Lotus Hells Technique. Don’t you remember what the old man said? Ryeong is probably refining Hell Qi. That’s why Pooki must have felt the aura of death there."
Bum nodded and said, "It’s not like we have a precedent, right? All three of us are cultivating different cultivation techniques."
The other two nodded and then focused on their food.
Back at the formation grounds, the closed lotus showed signs of movement for the first time in three months.
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’Mission: Become the Heavenly Demon’
’Duration: 35 Years’
’Time left: 30 Years’
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