111 Visiting The Head of Body Refinement

"What the fuck was that?!" Danger Noodle was staring at Jam like he was greatest toy in existence. That shiny sparkling glint in her eyes were unmistakable when Jam recalled the way James behaved when he saw a new jigsaw puzzle, during his time in the mortal world.

"Uh… Just a normal beam? Wait. Why aren't you showing any apprehension towards me?" Jam was confused as he was still in his demonified state. With the amount of threat he inspired, he had caused Greater Sages to flee on sight. So, why was Danger Noodle, a mere Lesser Sage, perfectly content flying over to him; never mind standing at such close proximity.

"Huh? What do you mean? You're my master, why would I fear you?" The way Danger Noodle phrased her sentence and spoke as if she were just retelling some common sense made Jam unable to express himself properly. Should he be happy that his companion didn't fear him out of trust? Or was he just the most weak-looking master to ever exist?

"Mhmm… Anyways, sorry to barge in on your fight, it's just… I'm planning on returning to the outside world today. Do you want to stay here?"

"NooOOoOOoo~" As if Jam had proposed selling her off to slave merchants, Danger Noodle assumed her trademark noodle form and bound herself to Jam. Not even raging buddhas and abyssal devils would find the strength to separate her from Jam in her current state.

Jam thought it was odd for her to be so attached, but he didn't really mind; he was after all used to her sticking to him like this, as it was her primary state of being after being contracted to him. So, the two of them were directly teleported out of the Core Nexus and back to Jam's cultivation chamber within the academy.

However, as Jam came out of the space rift, he stumbled a bit and even fell down to one knee as his mind was swirling and his body felt weak. It was his first time using up his Blood Essence so the result was only natural, but Danger Noodle was behaving as if Jam had died right then and there. She was so caught up in the moment that dozens of talisman she had created when training in the Core Nexus appeared and were almost used up to heal Jam.

Of course, regenerating Blood Essence wasn't that easy of a task, especially not considering it was Jam's Blood Essence; Blood Essence that had been tempered by body refining and his Blood Dao. Thus, Jam denied her attempts to heal him and just staggered back to his feet. He made a mental note to not use up his Blood Essence lightly, even if it was an amount that could be regenerated, as this kind of feeling was unacceptable to him.

After taking a couple breaths to regain a somewhat normal body condition, Jam walked out of his house and headed to the Occupational Division. There he walked to the section for body refining and told a receptionist that he had intentions to meet with the Head.

At first, the receptionist looked at Jam like was an idiot. How could she recognize him, if he had never publicly displayed his wealth of skill? To her, when confronted with a no-name Saint Master who wished to meet with the Highest ranking member of the entire sector, it was like a peasant wishing to meet with an emperor.

Luckily, Jam had his identification on him as well as his Tier 7 Alchemist badge. Just flashing these two accessories would get him across most of the restricted areas along the sect. Showing them to the receptionist that initially looked at Jam like trash, nearly brought her to tears. Not just for offending a high ranking member of the sect, but a Grandmaster Alchemist in particular.

If it were a grandmaster in any other profession she would still be irreparably "fucked," but alchemist and body refiners had a much closer relationship. Offending a grandmaster inscriptionist might get her on the offended party's hit list, but messing with an alchemist would make everyone, even those on her own side, to turn against her!

The receptionist was so downcast thinking that Jam would definitely ruin her life, that she physically shut down. Jam only managed to rile her up from her thoughts by once again asking for directions to the Head's Office. The way he showed no contempt for her after she realized his identity gave her a shining light of hope, and she managed to get back on her feet and take Jam to the Head herself. She hoped he would have mercy on her and not destroy her life within the academy just because of her earlier ignorance, but knew that the number of cultivators that didn't care about losing face could be counted by the fingers of her hand.

Jam was taken to the Head's Office and once again met with that hulking mass of muscles everyone agreed to be the academy's top body refiner. There, the receptionist was infinitely grateful to Jam for excusing her from the room instead of berating her to the Head's face.

After the terrified receptionist had left Jam alone with the Head of Body Refining, he began speaking "So… I'm here because I finished my previous training earlier than expected." Up to here, the Head of Body Refining was all smiles. He even said "Great, so we can start your own body refining now! Don't worry, I know you haven't started the Marrow Realm cultivation, so I don't expect you to be able to complete it in a mere fifteen days..."

Jam had in fact already completed cultivating his bone marrow; he had reached great perfection. And one of the perks of having one's body cultivation reach great perfection — or 100% completion — is the emergent property of complete control. Upon reaching great perfection in any Realm of Body Cultivation, a cultivator may control their energy to not be present in the parts of their body they've already perfectly cultivated. Thus, when the Head of Body Refining saw Jam initially, he couldn't see Jam's Marrow Realm Cultivation as he had hidden it away — along with the rest of his body cultivation — with his control.

He only finally decided to reveal his perfect cultivation when the Head of Refining was finishing his statements to get the most shock out of him. Jam was starting to go down the wrong path as he was starting to instigate moments to shock others even without misunderstandings…

Upon letting his true cultivation reveal its magnificence, the Head of Body Refining took a more serious look at Jam. Only, the closer he looked and the more details he unearthed the more serious his face became. From his initial gathering that Jam had perfected the Marrow Realm due to his control, then the more subtle perfections in his cultivation came to light.

For one, the Head of Body Refining was a Sage himself, thus his divine sense was needless to say much more ridiculous than Jam's. Upon using his divine sense to take a comprehensive analysis of Jam's body, his flesh, muscles, bones, and marrow, the differences he saw in cell composition and tissue arrangement left him baffled.

Everything Jam could have trained up to now, his flesh, muscles, bones, and marrow… They were all saturated with energy. It didn't sound impressive as that was the most basic way to explain what Body Refining was, but its impressiveness was known to fellow Body Refiners. What did it mean to saturate ALL? It meant that everything from the cellular level had been infused with just enough energy to evolve, but not explode. It meant that for Jam had transformed trillions of cells all over his body without a single missed step.

No where that the Head looked could he find a part of Jam's body that had not been evenly trained to the limits of his current cultivation. Only his organs had been left untouched and that was only because he had yet to become a Sage. And then the realization that Jam accomplished all this in less than a half a month set in…

The Head of Body Refining thought back to his own experience training the Marrow Realm. All those times he wished he could just die instead of continuing… All those years of arduous tempering and the constant cycling of old and new blood… Then he thought about condensing that horrible time in his life down to around a dozen or so days, and true fear set in from the repressed trauma of his past experience.

The Head just stood there for minutes on end, giving Jam a solemn look. Jam himself only knew he was being observed by divine sense because of how long the Head just kept staring at him, but given that he — The Head — had been forced to "teach" him, he didn't mind as it was integral for a Body Refiner to know the state of their student's body before passing on a method of training.

Eventually though, Jam grew tired of just being stared at, as he wanted to go back to training in the Dao. So, he said "Well, I'm sure you can tell that I'm already done with my current cultivation allowance on body refining. So… Can I go?"

The Head, still wondering how Jam managed to arrive before him in an intact state, snapped out of his pondering as he looked at Jam. He was stunned for just the slightest second, before he laughed uproariously and said "What? No! We must go to the Training Grounds and have you shatter the… I mean, go through the challenges of Body Refining!"

Oh right… Jam had gone through the various tests of aptitude within the Training Grounds, but he had never tested himself through the various challenges. In fact, he had never explored much of the Training Grounds at all! So, this would be a good change of pace regardless of his reason for visiting.

(A/N: Bonus Boi for 150 power stonerinos. See yall tomorrow.)