Black Onyx - Phoenix Resurrection

Later in the day, I decided to visit a friend. I had some questions to ask, and for some reason, the old ghost wasn’t as talkative as before. He said he was getting tired and decided to get back in the Thousand Faces Mask to recover. Keeping his Soul form inside my mind seemed to be taxing on him, and my mind space wasn’t the nicest place to be in. It was quite boring and empty, like the void.

“Oh, Junior! What brings you here?”

[Hello, Senior Ren!] I cupped my fists in greeting. I then took out one of the Gray Essence Cores. [I was hoping you could help me with this… I found this thing and apparently it can be used to help with Body Cultivation, but I’m not completely sure how to use it.]

“Oh, Essence Core? Can I see it?” I handed over the Essence Core to Senior Ren and he looked at it closely. “It’s not the best quality, but for a beginner, it should be good enough. It’s best if you don’t overload your body with too much of it.”

I already knew that, but he didn’t know I knew. And since I decided to find answers to various questions without the old ghost’s help, Senior Ren seemed like the right person. He probably knew a few things about it, considering how strong he was.

[I see. But how do I use this Essence? I know that it can be used to make your body stronger, but I’m not sure...]

“Oh, they didn’t tell you? Well, I guess it’s a bit early for you still…” Senior Ren said, appearing to be thinking about something. “I can show you how to use Essence to promote growth, of course. I dare to say that I am quite an expert on that topic.” Senior Ren announced proudly. But I already knew how to extract strength. I was more interested in increasing my defense at the moment.

[I heard you can also extract other things out of wild beasts. I am really interested in defensive techniques.]

“Oh, that’s right… I nearly forgot. Well, I guess Lilly can help you with that. Considering Essence, she is quite good with it. You would be amazed at how tough she can be. Not to mention she is extremely flexible, isn’t that right honey?” He gave a meaningful wink that didn’t go unnoticed by the girl that was listening to our conversation.

“Hey, that’s private information!” Lilly slapped him on the shoulder, as that was as high as she could reach, and made a furious expression with a deep frown. Senior Ren then burst out laughing and took her in a bear hug and lifted her off the ground, landing a kiss on her cheek and then didn’t stop giving them, even going so far as to continue down her neck.

I could see the girl quickly blushing and I turned around just in time to hear her laugh come out. “Hee-hee! Stop, you are tickling me!”

“Do you forgive me, or would you like more kisses?” I heard Senior Ren jokingly ask.

“It’s enough, enough! I forgive you! Let me go already you… you big, handsome, muscly man.”

They were really going at it!

[Ahem!] I loudly cleared his throat. I didn’t care if they were displaying affection to each other, but I was kind of in the middle of a conversation with Senior Ren, not to mention they were doing that in public. I mean, they literally stood just behind the counter hugging each other for all the passers-by to see.

The two jumped and then slowly left each other’s embrace.

“Oh, right... Junior…” Senior Ren took a moment to recompose himself and straighten his clothes. “Right, what were we talking about again? Ah, yes, the Essence…”

[You were saying Senior Sister Lilly can teach me how to become tougher?]

“Absolutely! It’s not that difficult, really. You should be able to quickly build a strong body with the help of Essence.” Senior Ren stated. Turning to Lilly, he received a nod of agreement from her.

I was slightly confused. Did he say I could get tougher with that Gray Essence? I thought I needed a different extraction technique to achieve that. I wasn’t sure I understood correctly, so I just went with the flow. [Oh, thank you, Senior Ren, Senior Lilly!] I cupped my fists and bowed. [I’ll have to call you teachers for helping me.]

“Don’t be silly, Junior Brother Gerald!” Lilly said and smiled. “We’ll gladly teach you what we know. You just need to keep in mind to train hard and grow big and strong!”

“Come in now, let’s not waste any time.” Senior Ren said and went to open a side door so I could get into their little shop. The place was nice and warm and smelled of medicine, pills, and refreshing incense. The walls inside were filled with shelves, and those had a myriad of boxes and glass bottles with all kinds of plants inside.

But I didn’t have much time to admire their grand collection of magical herbs, as Senior Sister Lilly pulled me by the hand and led me to a table. She gestured for me to sit, and then bought a heavy book and slammed it on said table.

“Here is everything you need to know about Body Essence. How to extract it, how to properly contain and store it so it doesn’t decay, and how to absorb it to achieve the desired results.” Lilly said as she opened the book to the first page. “Let’s first go through the basics so you can understand what we are talking about, and then we can dive deeper into the specifics, alright?”

[Yes, thank you!] I found a real treasure trove with these two! They were so nice and kind, willing to spend time helping me. I nodded intensely and focused my mind to absorb and store every single piece of information that came out of their mouths.

“Alright, then let’s begin. Now, first things first, you need to learn what is Essence. Essence, in its most basic state, is just a form of Qi, and like the rest of it, it has grades and can be manipulated and shaped...”

Sitting at home, I let the Gray Essence Core dissolve into nothing and be absorbed into my flesh and bones.

I was deceived. Another wrong information I received in the Before. Or, actually, since I was the only one that figured out the Essence Extraction from the old manuscript, it was most likely just incomplete, having only the part about increasing strength remaining. I mistakenly thought there were other types of Essence Extraction when in reality, other techniques existed to utilize the same Essence for all kinds of effects.

Essence was Essence. Only the techniques to absorb and incorporate it into the body were different. Body Cultivation Techniques.

I wanted to bang my head on the ground in frustration. If I knew that before, I wouldn’t end up on the path of a freaking glass cannon! Because my strength increased exponentially, my body couldn’t keep up, and I was forced to stop consuming Essence so I didn’t accidentally break all of my bones by flexing too hard. Now imagine if I poured everything into defense! I would be invincible, and I wouldn’t have to die so pathetically!

I grit my teeth in frustration. My blood was boiling in anger. I was angry at myself. Once again I made an assumption with incomplete information and completely missed the point! Luckily Senior Ren and Lilly helped me to open my eyes. If it wasn’t for them, who knows how long I would be stumbling in the darkness? Especially since a certain someone forgot to mention this tiny detail.

[Why didn’t you tell me?] I asked in a frosty voice.

“Tell you what?”

[The stuff about the Essence.]

“Oh, that… Well, you didn’t ask.”

For a moment there I felt like strangling the old ghost, but he didn’t have a physical body, so I had to let it go. And besides, it didn’t matter anymore. I got what I needed in terms of Essence absorption techniques, and I had yet to test them all out. I had no time to waste arguing with him.

“Usually you would get access to these techniques after becoming an Inner Disciple, so I thought it was odd how you already knew it. Outer Disciples need to focus on Cultivating their Souls for the first few years, not waste time with Body Cultivation. Because with Base Qi, the speed of Body Cultivation is nothing in comparison to that of higher Realms.”

I begrudgingly agreed with his words. Senior Ren already told me that much. Cultivation was all about balance. You couldn’t just force your way in one direction without expecting to fall off a cliff eventually. That was the reason most people picked the middle path when talking about Body Cultivation. If you just tried to grow without increasing the density and strength of your bones, at a certain point you would crumble under your own weight.

Cube-square law was a bitch, but it gave me something to think about. While Senior Ren Kong gained strength from growth, mine came from the increased power my muscles could exert. We both achieved the same result by going on different paths, and both of us were wrong. We were missing that crucial piece that held it all together. Well, he would probably find out soon on his own, because since he was growing very slowly, his body could probably adapt to the increased stress on its own. Mine couldn’t as I was growing too fast.

Certain videos came to mind, where bodybuilders snapped their tendons while lifting weights. Muscles could grow and become stronger much faster than sinew, resulting in common injuries, especially in the biceps and the Achilles tendon. I shuddered just thinking about it.

I was previously in not insignificant danger of my tendons snapping unexpectedly, but that’s where these new techniques came in. I would be using my great collection of Essence Cores to fix the weaknesses of my body, and hopefully make it invulnerable to physical damage. Though I was still decades away from achieving that goal, probably.

Essence was what our body created on its own while bathing in Qi. It could spread out evenly across the body, or it could be concentrated in certain limbs or organs if the Cultivator so desired. Some Martial Arts had requirements like those, such as the Iron Claw Martial Art where hands became stronger than forged steel. But the most simple way to train in it was to keep it equal everywhere.

It could have various effects on the body, like, for example, making it more stretchy and resistant to tearing. Something I seriously suspect was what Senior Sister Lilly was mainly training in, considering how much she knew on the topic, among other things.

Apart from that, Essence could create other effects as well. It could make the body harder and resist puncture. It could make it tougher, and harder to break or cut. It could also make it resistant to changes in temperature or acid. Heck, it could even lower the natural conductivity, making it harder for lightning to show its destructive power.

All of these things were possible because Essence could change the body on a molecular level while keeping it working like normal. It was a crude explanation, and I still didn’t exactly understand why these things happened since it seemed as if it was changing some fundamental properties of matter, but I didn’t question it.

Stuff happened, and that was it, basically. Why it happened didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that it did. Ancient Cultivators already figured this stuff out, and we just had to follow in their footsteps. There was no reason to reinvent the wheel for no reason.

I placed another Gray Essence Core into my mouth. After learning all those techniques I was able to much more accurately gauge how much my body could take at a time, and it seemed that if I was enhancing multiple aspects of my body at a time, the process was way more stable. I guess that was the benefit of balanced Body Cultivation. It used up a whole lot of Essence though.

I imagine that if I didn’t have access to Essence Cores, this way of growth would be extremely slow. The other way to speed it up would be to have a lot of Qi at your disposal, so perhaps expensive pills and formations would be required. That’s probably why people focused on Soul Cultivation first since it was the higher Grade of Qi that made Body Cultivation faster.