Finally, after one full hour of intense pain and agony from the skin refinement, the blood refinement ended. Aeon hadn’t screamed even once during the skin refinement.
But now, after having his blood and plasma completely destroyed into nothingness and then recreated all over again, the situation completely changed.
Aeon felt a level of pain he had never experienced before. In reality, it should be impossible to feel pain when a person’s blood and plasma are destroyed instantly, as any normal living being would simply die on the spot.
But ’thanks’ to his Rune of Primal Life, he was able to stay alive. Coupled with the golden water from the Ocean of Eternal Genesis that kept pouring into his mouth as he screamed, his pain decreased just enough.
The life Essence from the water continuously increased his vitality and retention while vastly quickening the overall process.
Following a full, agonizing hour of non-stop destruction and creation, Aeon finally stopped the refinement.
His blood, which was originally a standard deep red, had now gained a distinctive, subtle golden hue. Having his entire circulatory system destroyed and recreated for 36,000 consecutive cycles made his bloodstream much denser than before.
Even the legendary Omni-Genesis Cosmos Technique couldn’t achieve a result of this caliber, let alone any other common techniques found in this world.
If any other cultivator had gone through this brutal process successfully, their bloodline would have been instantly purified and forced to evolve.
As for Aeon, whose bloodline was already completely pure and anchored at the Origin rank, it didn’t need to undergo an evolution just yet. But in return, his physical strength and cellular density improved significantly.
Aeon finally opened his eyes, watching the glowing rune patterns across his skin slowly diminish in brightness. He let out a long, exhausted sigh of relief.
"Aaah! Finally..This is definitely not what I imagined," Aeon muttered in deep frustration.
For a person who had never experienced any noticeable pain except for the singular moment of his death in his previous life on Earth, this entire training method was not a pleasant experience at all.
"But I can’t give up now. I have to endure it if I want to live forever and suppress the absolute pinnacle of existence. I can never allow myself to give up," Aeon encouraged himself, deliberately hardening his ironclad will.
He immediately started the loops again, this time targeting his internal organs. His heart, lungs, kidneys, and everything else were entirely turned to dust in a single millisecond, only to get perfectly recreated right after. The constant, brutal assistance of his Rune of Primal Life was the only thing keeping him from meeting Yama immediately.
At this rate, the Reaper itself might get angry at Aeon’s relentless, non-stop death calls.
.....
Six hours later, Aeon sat cross-legged directly on top of the golden waves, his small body radiating with a complex network of glowing lights and shifting geometric patterns.
As the light finally dimmed and the runic arrays vanished back beneath his skin, Aeon blinked his eyes open. His gold-and-purple draconic eyes glowed with a faint, dangerous ambient energy.
"Huh... man, that was easily the worst torture ever," Aeon sighed in relief as the ’first’ initial phase of his body refinement drew to a complete close.
Yeah, this was merely the first phase. Aeon had specifically planned this initial run to see exactly how each individual process would occur during a controlled, one-hour experiment in maximum refinement.
Now that he possessed a flawless, highly detailed understanding of how the runes interacted with his anatomy, he decided to continue the grind. But first, he chose to take a mandatory one-hour rest to eat some food.
All that intense cellular torture had left his mental energy completely spent.
With a simple, sharp flick of his fingers, a clean set of clothes materialized directly over his bare body, and a large wooden table packed to the brim with steaming dishes appeared right in front of him.
Aeon didn’t waste a single moment, digging into the food immediately to replenish his depleted stamina.
After a full hour of enjoying a great meal and a peaceful rest, Aeon cleared away the tables and dishes with a thought, centering his focus for the real challenge.
"Phew. Alright, let’s do this! Since I now have a perfect understanding of how the individual Rune interact, I don’t need to focus on each component one at a time anymore. This time, I will refine all eight core body components simultaneously. I will focuson the core some after I am done with this."
Aeon gritted his teeth, knowing damn well that the combined pain of this multi-layered cycle would be a lot worse than anything he had experienced so far.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and activated every single runic matrix at once, focusing his absolute awareness onto every microscopic fiber of his anatomy.
Before a single sound could even escape his throat, his entire physical body was completely disintegrated into nothingness.
Not a single cellular trace was left behind. Instantly, his form was rebuilt from scratch, emerging vastly newer and more powerful than before. And that entire, catastrophic cycle occurred within the span of a mere 0.1 seconds.
Aeon didn’t even have the luxury of time to speak or process the blinding agony. Anticipating the shock, he had already willed the golden water of the Ocean of Eternal Genesis to rise up, completely surrounding his body in a dense, hyper-protective cocoon of pure life essence.
This time, Aeon didn’t stop the cycle after a single hour. He chose to push forward, letting the endless destruction loop continue deep into the temporal flow of his private domain.
....
While Aeon was fully immersed in his torture-like cultivation inside his pocket world, several rats had begun causing significant trouble within the capital city of the Valtthoros Empire. Keeping his parents and the imperial forces incredibly busy.
Deep inside a dark, abandoned building, the faint light of the moon reflecting through the cracked windows was the only thing illuminating the shadows of the room. Hidden in the darkness were four figures.
One of them stood firmly at the front of the room, while the other three knelt respectfully on the floor directly behind him.
The man at the front—clearly the leader of the group was draped in a heavy, dark hooded cloak colored in deep black and purple, while the subordinate figures wore standard, pitch-black robes.
He stood completely still, his back facing his subordinates with his arms crossed tightly behind his waist.
A moment later, his deep, sinister voice cut through the cold air. "So... three separate Divine-rank talents have suddenly shown up within the borders of the Valtthoros Empire, hm?"
One of the kneeling black-cloaked figures quickly spoke up, his voice trembling with a mixture of absolute respect and fanatic obedience.
"Yes, Sir. Our scouts clearly witnessed three massive pillars of golden light shoot directly into the sky from the floating continent of Drakonius. If our ancient records are correct, that specific phenomenon only triggers when an entity successfully awakens a Divine-rank talent."
He paused for a brief, tense moment to gather his thoughts before continuing.
"Furthermore, considering that today was the official mass Awakening Ceremony for the high nobility of the Valtthoros Empire.. and if we take into account the fact that our active Voidbound Cult members inside the capital have been relentlessly hunted down and executed for the last six hours..."
The cultist’s voice trailed off into an uncomfortable, heavy silence, leaving the conclusion hanging in the air.
The hooded leader didn’t say a single word for a long moment. Then, a low, rasping sound escaped his lips, quickly erupting into a cruel, deeply sinister laughter.
"Jijijijiji! For three separate Divine-rank awakeners to suddenly manifest within this pathetic Lizard Empire all at once. It is highly probable that the other sovereign nations and hidden races have birthed their own Divine-rank awakeners as well. Do you fools even comprehend what this truly means?"
The leader turned around, connecting his gloved hands together in a twisted prayer pose as he laughed crookedly.
His expression morphed into a mask of pure, unadulterated cruelty as he looked up through the glass toward the sky.
"It means an absolute, world-ending Disaster is fast approaching! Oh, great primordial beings of the void, please show us your glorious salvation! Cleanse this wretched world with their blood, and destroy every single shred of existence!"
"HAHAHAHAHA!"