Cultivation Through Artifacts

Planet Thov became chaotic. Hundreds of Night Crawlers surrounded a single mountain range and used their strongest attack, striking the huge summit with all their might.

Pillars of blazing flames, flickering bolts of lightning, and sharp weapon minds enveloped the whole sky, sending huge chunks of debris and entire pieces of trees flying across the air while causing the entire surroundings in a hundred miles radius to tremble like crazy!

BOOOOOM!!!

TREMBLE!!!

Watching as the whole range was decreasing in size bit by bit, Bane showed a cold grin and fixed his gaze on a specific point, almost as if he had the ability to peer through the solid surface.

"Just wait and see... Once I get you out of that little den of yours, I will make sure you will experience hell a thousand times over and make you wish you were never born!" Bane hissed with unsurpassable rage and without a second thought ordered all of his soldiers to quicken up their pace.

Meanwhile, deep inside the center of this mountain, Khal was cultivating with a relaxed expression, his whole body emitting an azure blue light that made one feel he was an ancient being instead of a mortal!

However, if one looked closely at his face, one would notice that he was not as relaxed as he showed it. Thick, bean-sized sweat drops rolled down his cheeks, while his sharp eyebrows twitched from time to time due to unprecedented pain. 

'This is much harder than I have thought. Refining your body from the inside out is indeed a hard and dangerous process.' Khal thought with gravity as he controlled the essence inside his body with caution and watched as one of his rib bones slowly but surely changed, becoming slightly jade-like in appearance.

So far, he turned 60% of his bones successfully, using about 4,000 units of Body Essence, leaving him with a little bit more than 30,000 for the rest of his bones, muscles, tendons, and organs.

Though, just after this many, Khal felt like collapsing on the spot from the immense amount of pain he was feeling throughout his body whenever his bones were changed because of his essence.

And the worst part didn't even come yet!

If just some collarbone or fingerbones were enough to make his head turn dizzy, what will happen once he attempts to refine his lungs or even worse, his internal organs like his heart or brain? Just what kind of hell will he experience at that time?

When thinking about the approaching trial of a nightmare, which will be one hell of torture, Khal couldn't help but swallow a big from anxiety.

'Let's hope for the best.' Khal sighed inwardly, praying he will be strong enough to withstand the pain, or else the only thing that will wait for him if he doesn't and loses his focus will be death and nothing else!

The following minutes were rather calm and without mishaps. Except for the crazy tremor that shook the entire mountain range thanks to the continuous assaults of the Night Crawlers outside, and the slightly sharper pain during the time when he refined his spine, Khal was able to refine all of his bones and now began to concentrate on his muscles and tendons.

Using his Body Essence, which now plummeted below the 27,000 margin, Khal refined his muscles and tendons bit by bit, turning their appearance into a similar, jade-like looking to his bones, that they had a deep crimson and bright white flush instead of just white.

However, the biggest contrast was not the outer look or color between those two and his bones, but the agony he felt; every time he refined a muscle or tendon in his body, the pain he previously felt was doubled, driving him almost insane and making him lose focus many times over.

But luckily, it never happened and he was able to keep his mind on track every time, withstanding the pain with sheer willpower. Therefore, after refining every bone, muscle, and tendon in his body for close to an hour, Khal took a deep breath and controlled his essence to one of his organs, his liver.

'Here comes nothing...'

Whoosh!

In a blink, a dense amount of Body Essence enveloped his liver in its entirely, making it glow with a bright azure color while its appearance began to change the same way just like how his bones or muscles did.

But unfortunately...

"Bleargh!"

Coughing up a huge amount of blood and painting the ground in front of him red, Khal felt like something akin to a huge blade was stabbed into his lower chest, making his body turn so weak that he almost fell to the side unconscious!

'F-Fuck! This is no joke at all!' Khal swore in his heart as his face turned white as a sheet of paper, feeling that if he loses even a bit of concentration right now, he is as good as a dead man for sure!

Thus, clenching his teeth to the point where crushing them was almost possible, Khal forced his mind to refocus and proceeded to refine his liver then went to refine the rest of his organs one by one.

After another hour of almost unbearable torture, where Khal almost wished that death would be better than this hell, Khal finally arrived at his final two organs, his heart, and brain.

[You still have enough time before they reach you, so make sure you have calmed down and are ready before you start.]

Nova said those words as a means of help, but still, her voice couldn't mask the deep shock she was currently feeling. Why? Because Khal did something no one has ever done before!

He refined every bit of his part inside his body under a few hours without losing focus and dying! Even his veins were refined in their whole, something that is only possible when one had great concentration and control over one's essence, or else it would take days to achieve completion!

Also, she didn't tell Khal this when he began to refine his body and neither did the book mention when he read it, but Body Refining was something that no one wished to rush as that would only make one die faster!

Normally when someone attempts to break into the Third Cultivation Stage and start to refine their bodies, they would do so for days as they would take slight breaks whenever they successfully refined one of their inner body parts, particularly after one of their organs.

Yet, Khal not only did refine almost everything inside his body without doing a mistake and losing focus, but he did so under just a few hours of time while also enduring the horrendous pain that invaded his mind and body because of his ridiculously rushed method.

It wouldn't even be an underestimation to say that it is a complete miracle that he survived until this very point!