Immortal Asura Body

In the lightly illuminated cave, John sat there for quite some time without moving. Everything that had just happened seemed unreal, like it had all been an illusion. But when he sent his divine sense back towards his Dantian, he once again found the mysterious sphere revolving around his Dantian.

While carefully observing the sphere, touching it with his divine sense without entering the sphere, John started to slip into a trance. Several minutes later, he came back to his senses.

"Hmm? One second I was observing the sphere, and the next I was, well I don't know what I was doing. My mind just sort of went blank," John couldn't explain the sudden lapse in his concentration. It felt almost as if he was falling into a meditative trance, but he wasn't trying to cultivate.

Sending his divine sense back over the sphere, John once more fell into a meditative trance. Snapping out of it a few minutes later, he gasped in shock.

'This sphere also acts as a perfect meditation enabler? Is there anything it can't do?' he exclaimed internally.

When he started to drift off into a trance, John realized that it was the same type of trance as when he was cultivating. Such a thing was too good to be true. From what he knew, falling into a perfect meditation state was something that only happened through pure chance. It was so rare that some cultivators went their entire lives without ever falling into a perfect state of enlightenment.

'What else can this sphere do?' he thought as he continued to observe it, but was unable to find any other uses. "No matter. Just helping me fall into a perfect state of enlightenment is already beyond amazing. If nothing else, this will improve my cultivation and comprehension speed several fold."

John had a look of pure excitement on his face. Something like this was exactly what he needed to be able to catch up with his peers quickly. After observing the sphere for a bit more time, he stopped and thought about the books that he had found in the palace. He looked at his hands as both suddenly appeared, a book in each hand.

"These must be pretty amazing. Other than the blood drops, I found nothing else inside the palace."

John looked at both books for a bit before deciding to open the pitch black one.

"Immortal Asura Body huh? Sure sounds impressive."

John brushed his fingers across the cover of the book, tracing each of the strange letters. Although he was still unsure of how it happened, he was now able to understand the language on the book cover.

John opened to the first page of the book, at which point a confused expression appeared on his face.

"What? No introduction or summary of the technique?"

The first page of the book didn't have a detailed description of the technique. Instead, it had various complex drawings etched on it.

"That's the translucent orb in the palace?" he said with widened eyes. The very first picture at the top of the page depicted a translucent orb, with 10 revolving blood drops within. After analyzing the first drawing for some time, John lowered his eyes to the second one on the page. It showed a person standing below the sphere, a blood drop hovering in front of them.

"This is exactly what's happened to me," he said, coming to a realization of what it was depicting. It was depicting him, or at least what would happen to the one who entered the place as he had done.

The next drawing showed a person, but unlike before, all the person's veins, arteries, meridians and acupoints were visible. Looking closely, John started to fall into a trance-like state. Although the picture was stationary, he could almost see the blood flowing through the body in the diagram. As he looked closer, there seemed to be two streams of blood. One was normal blood, while the other was a much darker red.

The normal blood seemed to flow throughout the body unimpeded, while the dark red blood flowed towards the Dantian. After flowing into the Dantian, what came out of the Dantian was not blood, but something else. John couldn't' tell exactly what it was, but he could see it flow through certain meridians leading from the Dantian to the rest of the body.

Still in his trance like state, John looked further down the page, but was shocked to find that there was nothing else.

"That's it?"

He tried turning to the next page, but was shocked to find he was unable to budge the second page.

"What? Why won't it open?" he exclaimed as he put more power into his fingers. But no matter how much power he put into his fingers, he was unable to budge the page even slightly.

"Maybe I can only open it when I'm stronger?" he considered. He stopped trying to open the book and focused once more on the contents of the first page. After studying the drawings for some time, an idea formed in his mind. Deciding to test this idea, he sent his divine sense into his body, specifically his veins and arteries.

"Ah!"

Although it was diffused, John was able to notice a darker blood intermixed with his own.

"This is the blood from the orb!" John exclaimed as he studied it. It had the same sinister aura as the blood drop within the palace.

He studied the blood flowing within him for some time before he took a deep breath and started using his new control over Qi to guide the dark blood towards his Dantian as the book depicted. John cried out in pain as the blood came into contact with his Dantian. He felt as if he was about to explode for an instant there, but the feeling instantly subsided.

"Whew, that was close. If I hadn't pulled it back so fast, I honestly think I might have died," he joked, then studied his body again. "What's going on, doesn't the diagram show to do this. Is it perhaps not actually referencing the sinister blood? If the blood can't go to my Dantian, does it go to the sphere instead? But why? Isn't the sphere just a giant storage ring?"

Despite his speculations, John could only test his theory out to see if he was correct. Learning from his near fatal mistake last time, he slowly guided the tiniest portion of blood towards the sphere.

"Careful, careful."

The dark red blood carefully approached the sphere. Once it was almost there, it was suddenly sucked in as if consumed by a greedy predator. John's eyes brightened as the blood was rapidly sucked in.

"No pain! So the diagram was depicting the sphere!"

Excited by his progress, John guided more and more blood into the sphere, and after a few minutes, all the dark blood had been absorbed into the sphere.

Just as John was feeling happy about solving the riddle, a burst of energy escaped from the sphere and surged throughout his body. Surprised by the sudden and unexpected outburst of energy, John gritted his teeth in pain as he did his best to suppress the surge of energy, but no matter how much he struggled, he found the energy growing more and more intense.

"I'll die at this pace. What can I do?" he grunted through gritted teeth. Wracking his brain for ideas, John glanced downwards and happened to spot the black book. Struck with understanding, John opened the book to the first page and carefully studied the last image.

After studying the page through the pain, John drew the surging energy back towards the sphere, at which point he started guiding the energy through the meridians depicted in the drawing.

The pain slowly started to fade from his body as John managed to get the energy under control. Slowly guiding the energy through his meridians, he was completely shocked. Wherever the energy was absorbed, John could feel that portion of his body strengthening.

Despite his shock, John continued to guide the energy through his meridians to various parts of his body, the process lasting longer than he initially expected. Several hours later, John had finally finished absorbing all the energy. Sending his divine sense throughout his body, he was beyond shocked.

"Every part of my body has been strengthened compared to before!" John said with surprise, then started celebrating before he suddenly came to a halt.

"Wait, does this mean I'm stuck as a body cultivator now?" he grimaced.

It was common knowledge in the world of cultivation that a cultivator either focused on cultivating the body or essence. For essence cultivators, the cultivator would store their Qi in their Dantian and release the Qi for devastating magical attacks. As such, while their attacks would be strong, their bodies would be weaker.

On the other hand, body cultivators focused on strengthening their bodies. By constantly nourishing their body with Qi from their Dantian, body cultivators were able to strengthen their bodies to absurd levels. Not only would their defensive abilities increase, but so would their explosive power. The tradeoff for cultivating the body was that the Qi in the Dantian would constantly be used by the body for body nourishment.

While body cultivators could unleash external attacks like essence cultivators, they were much weaker as a result. 

Thinking of Qi as food, the body would require a constant supply in order to be able to function properly. As the body grew stronger, more and more 'food' was required to function at peak levels. Since Qi was constantly used to nourish and power the body, body cultivators were unable to store vast amounts of Qi reserves in their Dantian. Without large Qi reserves, any magical attacks would be underwhelming and ineffective.

Because of this, cultivators knew that they were to pick one aspect of cultivating, body or essence, and stick to it. There were genius cultivators that tried to defy the norm and cultivate both, but every single one of them ended up average in both categories instead of a genius in one. As such, no one bothered to cultivate both body and essence together anymore.

The Fenix clan was a clan of essence cultivators, and as such, John had always planned on following that path. Now however, he was unsure if he could do so anymore.

"Although I stepped onto the body cultivation path, I just started. If I stop now and focus on essence only, the harmful effects won't be too great," he said softly as he slowly started to calm down.

Just as he calmed down, John once again was jolted by a sudden revelation, one that in his excitement he had missed as it had happened. Focusing on the sphere again, John treated it as if it was his Dantian, and focused on extracting energy from it.

"Ah!" John's surprised cry echoed throughout the cavern. He fell silent for some time, too stunned to speak. Then he breathed out slowly, finally coming to terms with that he had discovered.

"The sphere...the sphere is a Dantian?"