Extra's Strategy: Cultivate Protagonists, Become Invincible-Chapter 149: For Research Purpose

A pause followed Han Xuhan’s announcement as both the man and the skeleton of a man stared at each other.

"Master, you are aware that I don’t have meridians, right? Surely, your knowledge of cultivation is not that shallow..."

"Of course I know that, idiot. I discovered this manual with the help of Xuanyuan Zhou. I know you don’t trust my ideas, but surely, you know that she can be trusted on these matters. She brought this manual out of the archives after I asked for a technique suitable for you!"

Intrigued, Zhanxian placed the manual on the desk and began to study it. Han Xuhan had to explain the basics of the technique to the skeleton patiently, since he had some trouble reading the texts.

Apparently, academic achievements were not his strongest suit. Being an undead whose memories had likely been tampered with probably had something to do with that.

Still, Han Xuhan persisted, dragging his undead minion through the ordeal cheerfully. Truth be told, this manual wasn’t actually something he had gotten by asking a technique for Zhanxian.

Knowing that Xuanyuan Zhou could give him a solution to his cursed physique, he had spent some time around her dropping explicit hints. Moaning about his shitty meridians, complaining about his cultivation speed, sighing after every cultivation session, dispiritedly comparing the results of his qi cycles with hers...

Eventually, Xuanyuan Zhou had taken the bait. Claiming that she might have seen a technique that could compensate for malformed or damaged meridians, Xuanyuan Zhou had visited the archives and returned with this manual.

Han Xuhan was quite certain that this manual didn’t actually belong to the archives. From Sect Master Xuan Zi to Elder Kong Ye, to even the seniors working inside the Archives Pavilion, everyone had told him the same thing; they didn’t know of any Mystic Arts that could work properly after being channeled through his meridians.

So where could Xuanyuan Zhou have gotten this technique from?

This observation had made Han Xuhan sure of it. This manual contained the unorthodox Mystic Art that his system had alerted him about under her Quest data.

This meant that Xuanyuan Zhou has already initiated her ’experiments’ on him, her first research subject! This manual was her tool!

Well, she wasn’t the only one who could conduct research, hehehe....

Han Xuhan had wasted no time in handing the manual to Zhanxian, a skeleton who had no meridians at all! And now, all he had to do was to plan his steps based on the results of Zhanxian’s cultivation process.

If the outcome was a net positive, he had no qualms about becoming Xuanyuan Zhou’s research subject at all.

As the evening approached, dyeing the sky red, Han Xuhan and Zhanxian finally took a break and decided to give it a shot for the first time.

"Alright, now it’s time for the first step," Han Xuhan muttered as he took out a sharp knife from his collection.

"According to the manual, since you do not have meridians, we will need to create artificial channels on your body to enable you to cycle qi."

Zhanxian knew what to expect by now and stretched out his bony arms. Han Xuhan took a deep breath and picked the right arm first, poking its middle finger with the tip of his knife.

Under Zhanxian’s expressionless gaze, he started carving out a long groove from the tip of the middle finger.

From phalanxes to carpals and metacarpals of the palm, then past the joints of the wrist, and to the radius, ulna, and humerus, creating artificial qi channels on his right hand took an entire hour of thoughtful carving.

Of course, there were mishaps. Often the knife cut a millimeter too deep and created cracks. He had to resort to the Skeleton Monarch Technique to heal the bones then.

Some of the bones were too easy to break, forcing him to change his routes. He also had to make sure the channels wouldn’t be in danger of being affected during a physical brawl.

In the end, it took him the rest of the evening and the entire night to carve a full channel of qi across Zhanxian’s body, enough to complete a cycle. After connecting the final two grooves that met behind Zhanxian’s atlas, Han Xuhan took a step back to admire his handiwork.

Unless one focused intentionally on Zhanxian, they’d miss the tiny grooves spread all over his body, usually in inconspicuous parts of his bones.

In retrospect, Han Xuhan understood why this technique was labeled as unorthodox by his system. Hell, it should be called a demonic art!

Would a normal human even dare to mutilate themselves like this to cultivate? Would they even survive? What was Xuanyuan Zhou thinking, giving him this manual so casually?

"She has to know that he wouldn’t be able to cultivate it, right? Does she want me to go ask for her help? Is this her method of reclaiming her ’ownership’ of me, now that I’m set to become a proper disciple of the sect?"

"No, no, no. What am I thinking? My mind has really become rotten because of those novels I read during my otome-fan phase..."

Shaking the degenerate thoughts out of his head, he focused on the task at hand again.

He took a small cube of frozen qi out of his pocket, holding it in front of Zhanxian’s face in one hand.

"Look at it, you know this is qi. Now, due to the absence of natural meridians in your body, you cannot establish any sort of mental control over it. And that’s the hurdle we are going to solve now," he explained, determination seeping into his tone.

Giving the documents on the ground another glance to make sure he wasn’t missing anything, he directed his thoughts at the qi cube, establishing a mental command over it. Then he willed the qi into a liquified state, from where he directed the floating colorless liquid to slowly drift over toward Zhanxian.

The skeleton stood stock still as the qi touched his bones and began to fill up the artificial channels on them, reaching into even the tiniest grooves and joints and finally forming a complete passage full of qi.

Beads of sweat crawled down Han Xuhan’s face as he pushed all of his concentration into managing the qi on Zhanxian’s body. The amount of qi he was trying to manipulate was nothing to scoff at, almost enough to surpass his own meridian’s maximum qi capacity.

"Time for the next step, Zhanxian. You know what to do," he said through gritted teeth after applying the finishing touches.

Zhanxian nodded solemnly and took out the spell formation that Han Xuhan had bought the previous day for his expensive cultivation sessions. It was shaped like a very large ring made of terracotta, its rim full of unrecognizable texts.

The formation was designed to constantly attract qi from the surrounding area and trap the qi within its boundaries where only the owner of the formation would have an easy time controlling the qi, regardless of their cultivation base.

Most orthodox cultivators looked down on this type of formations. Such gadgets were for children to have fun with qi, not for real cultivation sessions. Wouldn’t a cultivator who relied on it become useless in any unexpected situation?

Relying on external help in regular cultivation was almost a taboo of sorts. But Han Xuhan didn’t care about these taboos.

A few seconds later, with a small nudge of qi from Xuhan’s own reserves, the formation was activated, instantly creating a circular area that encompassed their hut and attracting qi from every direction like a sinkhole.

"Final step!"

This was it. The most important part where it would be determined whether the technique was worth their effort or not.

His back drenched in sweat and veins throbbing in his temple due to the pressure on his mind, Han Xuhan split half of his focus on keeping the qi attached to Zhanxian’s body while he directed the rest of his focus on manipulating a significant amount of his own qi inside the center of the formation.

"Get Ready, Zhanxian. Here it comes!"

Half shouting, Han Xuhan used his qi to wipe off the proof of his ownership from the formation’s control center. Then he activated its default search mechanism for its owner and leaped away as far as he could at the next second.

It was a simple mechanism, usually used by new cultivators with a low cultivation base. The formation would immediately seek out the closest living creature around it by following qi signatures. Any creature with the tiniest amount of active qi in its body could become the owner of the formation this way.

The moment the search mechanism located Zhanxian standing next to it, it identified the skeleton as its owner, and the subsequent effects took place in the blink of an eye.

Han Xuhan lost control of his own qi, as well as any bit of qi around him since he was within the boundaries of the formation. Instantly, the qi he had glued to Zhanxian’s body began to drift away.

But the formation also gave Zhanxian, the new owner, the power to command all qi within its area of effect. And Zhanxian did not waste a second of the precious window of opportunity.

Sitting down in a meditating pose, Zhanxian began to command qi for the first time in his undead life.

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