Start of the Body Tempering Process (III)

Cecilia has continued to melt the magical herbs to maximize their potency and Zhen can see the medicine bath start bubbling.

With so many herbs inserted inside, Zhen feels some sweat in his back as he imagines himself being soaked in it. 

Cecilia has repeatedly warned him and says how dangerous it is. This is enough to give Zhen a foreboding and an anxious feeling.

1 hour later~

"Ok, this medicine bath is complete, now strip your clothes and soak in it for 15 days. During those 15 days, not only do you have to rigorously absorb the potency of the herbs, you have to make sure all impurities are gone."

*Gulp* 

"Eh, Cecilia, is this what every one of the cultivators who start their path with this kind of method? I can't imagine millions or billions of people doing this kind of body tempering." Zhen said nervously.

The medicine bath is steaming with white smoke, indicating the boiling point is extremely high and for a mortal body to soak in it. 

This is basically asking Zhen to cook himself alive. 

"What? You're scared now? Who was the person an hour ago that tried to be a sentimental person before and swore a deadly oath? I'll be honest with you as this body tempering method is the cruelest method ever."

"C-Cruelest method ever? You mean that this body tempering method is uncommon?"

"That's right? You have started cultivation way too late and due to the lack of spiritual qi, this is the only way for you to catch up with those so-called geniuses. Also, there is only a 5% chance of success with this method and requires extreme luck." Cecilia slowly said with a smug smile.

'She definitely mentioned extreme luck on purpose as she should be able to pry into my memories if she can easily pull my conscience away.' 

This is truly a cruel body tempering method and requires one with insane luck.

"Sigh, I have already boarded onto your pirate ship and cut off any path of return. There is only a path forward and if I'm destined to fail then it simply means that heaven doesn't want us to succeed. If that's the case then we shall destroy heaven itself and create our own."

Zhen said loudly as he dove inside the medicine bath. Cecilia didn't expect this sudden outburst from him that she took a few seconds before regaining her composure.

Meanwhile, Zhen didn't notice her reaction at all since he felt the brunt of the pain already. 

His body is starting to heat up so badly that his skin has turned bright red already.

"Arghhh," Zhen screamed as the pain was magnifying as time continued to pass. 

'How am I supposed to endure for 15 days when I'm struggling when a minute hasn't even passed?'

"Calm your emotion boy. Listen to me now carefully. Slowly, adjust your conscience and start to trigger your spiritual core. It may not be seen with any method but it's there and you have to simulate it. Your meridian right now is simply assimilating with the magical herbs and with this boiling point as the base, the impurities will slowly seep out from the body."

Although the pain is immense, Zhen slowly calmed his emotion when he heard a soothing voice from Cecilia. 

Very soon, his soul and conscience went inside his body as he navigated to see the meridian absorbing the herbs.

Zhen saw his bones were slowly extracting some black color and he knew they were impurities. 

'No wonder why the process is painful.'

The impurities are embedded deep inside the bone and you'll need to extract it out slowly to not damage the body structure.

===============

While Zhen slowly loses his conscience in meditating to assimilate the potency of the magical herbs and extracting the impurities out. Cecilia is slowly watching his body condition.

She has been slowly manipulating the temperature of the boiling point to the maximum limit that he could handle.

"I hope you're able to complete this process... Zhen. This is the true reason why our family was hunted down by multiple empyreans because they believed with this technique, they could ascend to a whole new realm and become the ruler."

As Cecilia recalls the past, she still blames herself for entering a legacy tomb of the supreme being who is known to have passed the boundary of an empyrean.

It was said that he was able to kill an empyrean as easily as an ant back when he was alive. 

Although there was little to zero information about him, when rumors of his tomb appeared in the dangerous ruin, everyone went to test their luck.

At that time, she was still carefree and completely neglected the warning of her family and entered this ruin to explore. 

Once inside, she was met with many dangers and due to multiple events, she landed in a mysterious space.

The mysterious space assimilated with her soul and soon a cultivation manual landed in her hand. This cultivation manual is extremely treacherous and difficult to cultivate as it needs multiple conditions.

The condition was too much for a single person to even achieve 2 of them but because of those malicious people in the tomb. 

They spread rumors of Cecilia obtaining the legacy cultivation technique that can ascend past the empyrean rank.

Alas, her family was destroyed completely with the excuse of saying their bloodline can assist a person to a higher rank. 

'Some crap lies that they made.'

Cecilia suddenly gritted her teeth harder when she thought of that situation. If it weren't for this mysterious space assimilating with her soul and allowed her to escape her.

She would have died too but now, she has finally awakened because of obtaining her pure blood that activates her core.

"10,000 years spent in nothingness, this favor of you people. I will definitely repay this gratitude in full."

An extremely savage expression appeared on her face. Although it was still a peerless beauty face, the expression of her is frightening beyond. If Zhen was to see her now, he would have been shocked into disbelief.

*Huff*

Taking a deep breath, Cecilia returns to her calm expression as she slowly eyes at Zhen who is still in meditation. 

A slight smile appeared on her face as she can tell he has no malicious intent toward her.

She was thinking about whether to dispose of Zhen if he has nefarious thoughts toward her. Also, she wants to know if he would steal this power for his own benefit.

She has been testing him when he was beginning to continue to walk for a long time and baiting him. 

The platform with fragmented memories was the last straw in his test.

Alas, she was surprised at how he reacted with nothing when he saw her core. The core is something extremely precious that could completely boost a person to a new height.

Most of the empyreans wanted to steal the cultivation manual and their core at the same time. They were foolish to think if they would simply allow them to benefit from everything.

Her family members would rather self detonate with their core and ruin their own samsara cycle since escape was impossible with all those powerhouses.

Cecilia has purposely given Zhen a fragmented memory of how her core can boost him to new heights in the path of cultivation. But Zhen never mentions it nor acts with greed brimming in his eyes to get her core.

If Zhen were to be greedy for power and try to steal her core, Cecilia would have destroyed him.

Unfortunately for Cecilia because her calculation and prediction were completely off the mark.

Instead of trying to steal her core for power, Zhen was more concerned about her mood and condition. 

Heck, Zhen didn't even bat an eyelid on the core and rather stare at Cecilia's beauty in awe.

"Truly a fool who doesn't know anything and a kind-hearted boy if it weren't for his dark past," Cecilia said when she thought about her ridiculous action on him.

'Since you tried your best to untie my knot, then I also apologize for testing, you boy. I'm sorry for testing your character to see if you're greedy and lustful like everyone else.'

A never-before-seen gentle smile appeared on Cecilia's face before disappearing as she continued to manipulate the temperature.