Boundless Cultivation-Chapter 59 - Body Reforging

After demonstrating how to weave killing intent into mana strikes, Edgar and Alaric paused for a brief snack break. He reassured Alaric not to be too anxious about learning how to infuse killing intent into his attacks for now.

It wasn’t a priority at the moment. Edgar simply wanted Alaric to learn about and recognize aura and killing intent so that he wouldn’t be caught off guard in the future. They focused on something more relevant for Alaric’s growth.

“Alaric, today we commence your body reconstruction journey,” Edgar announced. “Your objective is to concentrate on reforging at least three aspects of your body. Strive to reach the high grade in each, and if you can push further—aim for the peak grade.”

Alaric had his own goals. He aimed to reforge all 5 aspects of his body to the supreme grade. No, it would be 7 aspects including a perfect main organ reforge. But he kept that thought to himself and simply nodded.

Inwardly, he chuckled. I’ll have to prepare an excuse for how I managed to achieve such a feat when I advance to tier 2.

Reforging the body was a long process that took years. Coupled with his requirement to advance his mana core, progress the development of his chakras, and complete delving the Tutorial Rift, Alaric would become even more busy. Of course, he was already progressing at a rapid rate and for that, he was really grateful.

“Have you considered which three aspects of the body you want to reconstruct?” Edgar inquired, clearly testing him. Alaric had no doubt Edgar had already selected the choices for him. Of course, Alaric was also aware of the most probable options to prioritize, but he pretended to think a little just for show.

Depending on their fighting style, available resources, and future aspirations, a cultivator could prioritize reforging these primary aspects of their body: bones, blood, a main organ, skin, and the complex network of muscles, ligaments, and tendons.

Among the main organs, most cultivators usually focused on either reforging the heart, lungs, or brain since reforging all of the main organs - a perfect main organ reforge - was extremely resource-intensive and difficult.

Sure, a perfect main organ reforge yielded more value compared to reforging one main organ and other aspects of the body.

However, it wasn't widely pursued due to two primary reasons. First, most cultivators had limited access to resources, and second, each main organ harmonized well with another aspect of the body when reforged together.

Thus, it was possible to extract the maximum value out of the reforging process when one had a solid vision of their cultivation path.

In Alaric's case, it made the most sense to focus on reforging the bones, blood, and the interconnected system of muscles, ligaments, and tendons. The reason was simple - he had acquired three resources for it - the Peak-grade Bone Reforging Pill, Troll’s Blood Elixir, and Molten Blood Elixir.

Pushing things further, he could reforge any one of the three main organs. His best bet was reforging the heart since it would harmonize well with blood reforging. When Alaric shared his thoughts with Edgar, he looked satisfied and remarked that he had the same opinion.

“Good. It seems you’ve contemplated this for a while,” said Edgar. “Now, let me explain how the body reforging process is done.”

Edgar explained the body reforging process in detail. Alaric found no fault in his explanation and reasoning. It was a much more in-depth explanation than those found in the books.

However, he didn’t possess the insights Alaric had acquired in his previous life. Of course, Alaric didn’t convey his opinion and insights regarding the body reforging process. There would be no use in doing so without being able to explain how he acquired the insights. In fact, it would only arouse suspicion.

Under Edgar’s supervision, Alaric adopted a meditative posture and initiated the process of bone reforging for today. It was best to focus on reforging a single aspect of the body on any given day.

For reforging multiple aspects, it was more beneficial to alternate the reforging sessions of different aspects each day.

Body reforging was an intense process that involved infusing mana into the body to reconstruct and fortify it permanently. It was a fundamentally different process compared to infusing the body with mana and temporarily strengthening it using a skill such as [Mana Strengthening] or any other physical enhancement skill.

Thus, this allowed cultivators to reap benefits without actively channeling mana.

During the body reforging process, the body tissues were continually purified. That is, they were fundamentally broken down at the molecular level and restructured with mana.

The old body tissues didn’t simply disintegrate; they gradually transformed into impurities that accumulated inside the body and could cause health issues. Thus, it was crucial to expel them.

These impurities could manifest in a variety of ways - foul odor, dirt accumulation on the skin, physical discomfort, high temperature, and more. Thus, the process was best conducted outside in a field.

Alaric settled himself on the ground and concentrated inwards. He slowly examined his entire skeletal structure, carefully engraving every minute detail into his mind. In order for the reforging process to succeed, a cultivator must hold a precise mental image of the body part they intend to reforge.

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This was essential because one needed a clear vision of what they aimed to achieve through the reforging process. Without excellent visualization skills, the reforging process could become stunted and extremely inefficient.

Fortunately, Alaric possessed exceptional visualization skills due to years of meditating on and visualizing the chakras of his subtle body. He pulled a bit of mana from his core and slowly directed it to the extremities of his toes.

Concentrating solely on his big toe, Alaric slowly infused mana into it until it felt full to his senses. Up to this point, the process was not that different from temporary physical enhancement.

He drew in a deep breath and started stuffing even more mana into that isolated part, ensuring that the mana didn’t diffuse into other sections of the body. Simultaneously, he mentally envisioned the mana gradually dissolving the bone in his toe and replacing it with his mana.

A jolt of pain shot through his toe. Sweat trickled down his temples, and his face flushed red.

But Alaric clenched his jaws and continued. Reconstructing the body parts using mana was an excruciating process, but it was also worth it.

The intensity of pain one endured was directly proportional to mana infusion potency in the localized region of the body. The potency of mana infusion simply meant the ratio of mana to body tissues that occupied the same region.

Thus, the higher the mana potency in the body, the greater the pain, but it also meant a higher grade of reforging.

This was one of the hurdles that a cultivator had to overcome if they desired to reforge their body into a higher grade. Most simply couldn’t withstand the pain past a certain mana potency threshold.

Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes into an hour. Alaric didn’t stop. He kept on cramming more mana into his big toe to increase the potency as much as possible.

He was already past the stage a typical Tier 1 could bear since his body was already fortified by root chakra energy, and his mind was tempered by the sacral chakra energy.

When he was nearly done with his first bone-reforging session, distant voices slowly sailed into his mind. Edgar was saying something to him, but he couldn’t spare the focus to respond appropriately.

Alaric opened his eyes and exhaled deeply. His big toe throbbed with pain but he had completed his first bone-reforging session. A series of dings echoed in his mind.

Edgar glanced at him with furrowed brows. “You’ve been at it for a whole hour,” he said incredulously. “I’ve never seen anyone endure a reforging session for more than a few minutes during their first time.”

Alaric grinned and scratched his cheek. If only you knew that I have a lifetime of experience reforging the body.

When he didn’t respond, Edgar continued, “Well, what are you waiting for? Check your stats.”

Congratulations! You have initiated the reforging process of your body. New status options are unlocked.

Alaric dismissed the notification and opened his new status screen that tracked the progress of his reforging.

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Bone Reforging:

Reforging Progress - 2%

Mana Infusion Potency - 3%

Egar had already explained how to interpret the notifications he would receive from the system. The ‘Reforging Progress’ bar signified how close one was to completely reforging an aspect of their body.

A cultivator must achieve 100% reforging progress before they could trigger the completion of the reforging progress and ascend to Tier 2. However, it wasn’t as straightforward as that since the mana infusion potency in their body mattered too.

As the name suggested, the ‘Mana Infusion Potency’ bar highlighted the permanent concentration of mana in a specific aspect of the body.

If the mana infusion potency remained below 20%, the reforging process couldn’t be triggered for completion even if the reforging progress bar had reached 100%.

The level of mana potency also determined the grade of one’s reforged aspect upon completion. Alaric mentally recalled the different reforging grades according to mana potency.

Average - 20 to 39 percentMid - 40 to 59 percentHigh - 60 to 79 percentPeak - 80 to 99 percentSupreme - 100 percentFor the vast majority of cultivators, the mid-grade remained a zone they couldn’t cross. Talented cultivators dwelled in the realm of high grade, and if they had access to cultivation pills and elixirs, they could set foot into the realm of peak grade.

Attaining supreme grade wasn’t assured even with pills and elixirs since these were only crafted to provide a boost up to the peak grade. There were no documented treasures that could enable cultivators to reforge their bodies all the way up to the top. It all hinged on one’s own potential.

There was only a difference of 1 percent between peak grade and supreme grade body reforging level, but the gulf was immense - just out of reach. A doorless gate that cultivators simply couldn’t cross.

Generally, there were two ways to utilize pills or elixirs - to increase the mana potency of the body while reducing the pain or to accelerate the progress of reforging.

Thus, a cultivator who found himself stuck in a certain grade could consume a pill or elixir to break through and reach the next grade. In such a case, they would have to consume the pill or elixir after they had reached their limits.

Otherwise, if they were confident in reaching a certain reforging grade, they could consume a pill at the start of their reforging journey and reach their desired grade much earlier. This was the strategy of talented scions who focused on reforging multiple aspects of their bodies.

An average cultivator required about two to three years to completely reforge an aspect of their body without the aid of cultivation resources. The speed of the reforging process and the mana potency level increased initially but slowed down significantly towards the end.

Many factors could influence the reforging speed such as insight, pain tolerance, consumption of pills and elixirs, visualization skills, bloodline, mana potency level, and more.

Typically, an improvement of over 1% per week was considered good if a cultivator engaged in 3 to 4 reforging meditation sessions per week for a specific aspect. Of course, this average was calculated after the completion of the reforging process due to the non-linear growth metric.

Naturally, when one concentrated on reforging multiple aspects of their body, they had limited time per week to focus on reforging a single aspect. That meant they had to utilize cultivation resources to maximize the effectiveness of the reforging meditation per session.

Alaric would need to concentrate on reforging all the 7 aspects of his body. Thus, at some point in the future, he would only be able to allocate 1 day per week to reforging a single aspect of his body. Even with a cultivation treasure, his growth would become too sluggish.

Fortunately, his experience as a chakra cultivator and the benefits he received from the purification of his chakras helped mitigate that disadvantage.

Alaric retrieved the peak-grade bone-reforging pill and swallowed it. Now, let’s see what this can do.