Ch-37- The First Steps

Not clarifying the bomb that I just dropped on the poor girl, I closed the book and started walking out of the room. Walking past the stunned Mr. and Mrs. Xia and the maids who followed them, it took a few minutes before I heard footsteps start to catch up with me. At this point, I was already at the doors leading to the backyard with my hand on the handle. Opening the door I hear Lou Xia speak behind me. "How did you make a technique above any currently known ranks?"

"It was pretty simple, actually. You just have to integrate all the techniques in the library together while improving upon them." I casually replied while walking into the gardens.

"How is that simple?!" She shouted while following me. "And where are we going?"

"Because it's me, and we are heading over to the shrine," I answered succinctly.

"Why are we going to the shrine?" She asked, continuing her string of questions.

"So that I can use the natural Qi gathering array there to help speed up the process of testing my new technique," I answered, now halfway to the shrine.

Next to me, I could hear her starting to sputter in confusion. She clearly wanted to say more but did not have the words to say them. By this time, we had already entered the range of the shrine, so I walked off to the side, not wanting to walk up to the shrine itself, though I still bowed and prayed for a quick moment. With that finished I sat down on the ground in the lotus position and cracked open the manual to the instruction on the first stage to start reading through it once more. At this Lou Xia finally started to speak again, "Why are you reading through the technique you wrote again?"

"Because while I did write it, I do not remember everything perfectly, just the general matter, and that won't work when you are trying to start cultivation," I answered without even looking up from the book.

With that, she remained quiet while I focused on memorizing the first stage of the technique, which only took me reading it three times. During this time, I heard some other people approach and stop at the edge of the shrine. Only one of the new people dared to enter, and that was someone whom I could tell from their walking pattern: Silica, my assigned maid. During the two weeks, she first had apprehension about entering the shrine, but by the end, even if she did not pray, she still seemed to show some amount of respect while not fearing the shrine itself anymore. Soon, she stopped behind me at the same time as I finished my reading. Looking behind me, I saw that she had her head bowed and her hands placed together as her mouth was moving without making any sound for a few moments before she stopped and lifted her head again. Choosing not to question her about it right now, I then turned back to what I was doing.

The technique itself seemed simple but was, in fact, very difficult and complex. The first thing that I had to do was draw in Qi as well as the essence of the world and then direct that towards all the bones in my body simultaneously. This step was the easiest of them all to do, and it still took me what felt like ages, but it was probably only about ten minutes. From here, I then needed to infuse this energy and essence into my bone marrow with the intent of it being a blank and perfectly moldable state. That was because the bone marrow would produce more blood in my body with the same properties, and if I wanted to use multiple different concepts and laws, this would be necessary. It was not easy either as it felt like all of my bones were shattering piece by piece as the fire was burning the inside where a bunch of ants and wasps were taking their last stands with my bones as the battleground. 

During this time, I could not help but scream out in pain due to this being the most I have ever felt in either of my lives. Still, I needed to press on as this needed to be completed in one go if I wanted the best results. Soon, I had infused all of the bone marrow in my body, but this was still not over, as I now needed to infuse all of the hard bone in my body. Unlike the marrow, I needed my bones to be ridged and stronger, so instead of making them a blank and moldable slate, I needed to strengthen them and engrave patterns on them. These patterns consist of a series of lines and points that look like constellations and circuits when viewed up close. However, when viewed from afar, they look like engravings made to represent each of the ten major elements combined into one tapestry.

If I thought that the pain of the last step was anything major, it was utterly dwarfed by the pain I now felt from this. This pain was so bad that I was screaming from pain and almost lost concentration from almost going unconscious. During this period, I thought I heard people moving around and trying to do something, but I was in so much pain I could not tell. Soon, though, the task was at its end, and there was only one thing left to do. That was infusing the cartilage with the same energy and intent as the marrow while giving it the same qualities as the hard bone by carving into the cartilage itself. This step did not come with any pain and was just taxing on the mind to complete, though it, too, was soon finished and far faster than anything else.

When I finished all this, I had not only entered the first stage of the body tempering realm but also completed it simultaneously. Taking in a few lungfuls of air and Qi, I could feel my bones start resonating with the power I had just absorbed. Compared to earlier, this felt so good that I became slightly too comfortable and fell asleep.

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(Lou Xia POV)

When I saw the tribulation clouds descending, I did not think much about it except that someone must be making a breakthrough in town, which was very rude. It was only when I heard the rumbling of thunder directly over the house that I got concerned. Everyone in the house was made aware in no uncertain terms that they must only make a breakthrough outside of the premises. So when I had the chance, I looked to the sky to see where the center of the tribulation was. Seeing that it was above the room where Vale was staying almost gave me a heart attack as I was entrusted to look after her and could not have her die on my watch.

Running as fast as I could toward her room, I managed to meet up with my parents, followed by a few maids. Reaching her door, I did not even wait for someone to open it and charged through. On the other side, I saw Vale put down her tools, and I could feel the charge in the air signaling that the tribulation was about to strike. Still charging forward I opt to just tackle her into the ground as it would be the fastest way to get her out of the danger zone. When both of us were on the ground, the tribulation made contact with the ground. What surprised me was that, for some reason, the tribulation did not last for as long as I thought it would have.

That did not have much influence on my thoughts, though, as I asked her what happened for her to have caused that. The answer, though, was not one I could have ever expected. Creating a technique above the Imperial Primordial realm should be impossible as there was no realm higher but somehow she managed to do it.

When I recovered from my shock, I chased after her. After catching up, I began bombarding her with questions that I needed answers to, eventually learning that she was heading to the shrine she had built to test her technique. I did not feel confident about letting her test the technique, but there was no one in the mansion who had not even started cultivating to help her, and the technique was too valuable to just find someone else. So I let her try. I soon regretted this, though, as she started screaming not long after. From what I could tell of the pain she was going through, it must have been horrible, but when she started screaming even louder and started to have blood coming out of her eyes and ears, I knew something must have gone wrong. I was about to jump in and save her when I was held back by, shockingly, my parents. They tried to tell me that she was at a critical stage right now, and I could not interfere, but I would not listen to them. She was clearly in a lot of pain; how could they just leave her there suffering? The streaming lasted for a few minutes before Vale stopped and was conscious for about a minute more then going unconscious.