'Monarch's Eternal Body'
Shun Long instantly understood everything after these images flashed through his mind. The 'Monarch's Eternal Body' was a heaven-defying technique just like the 'Monarch's Hourglass'.
However the 'Monarch's Eternal Body' was completely different from the 'Monarch's Hourglass'.
This was a body refinement art.
Shun Long had already learned earlier from Lu Wen's books, that there were 2 types of cultivators.
Qi cultivators and body cultivators.
Qi cultivators gathered qi inside their bodies by circulating their cultivation techniques, whereas body refinement cultivators would refine their bodies instead.
When Shun Long had been in the 'Sky Fortune Kingdom' he hadn't even heard of body cultivators. Body refinement is said to be 100 times more difficult than qi cultivation, thus it had completely disappeared from the 'Mortal world'.
Despite the higher difficulty though, there were plenty of cultivators who focused on body refinement in the 'Cultivation world'.
Shun Long had understood from these images in his head, what type of body art the 'Monarch's Eternal Body' was. It was an art that enhanced the body and made the person cultivating in it able to tear space with his bare hands.
Shun Long knew that he already had a cultivation technique that could affect time around him, but he was just too weak to properly use it at the moment. Now with a body that could tear through space as well, he wondered
''How strong will I become by then?''
He sat in his room cross-legged as he studied this body refinement art.
In the 'Cultivation world', it was unbelievably hard for people to follow a path of both qi and body refinement as they were two completely different paths. To become a qi cultivator, the qi you absorbed from nature had to pass through your meridians and circulate through your body, before becoming yours to use.
However, the path of body refinement was completely different. The most common way to cultivate in body refining was to train your body for many years, injuring yourself every time before then consuming medicinal pills or taking medicinal baths that could help you recover and strengthen yourself even further.
Shun Long though, knew that he couldn't follow this path of body refinement. Firstly, he didn't have enough time to do so as that would require many years to succeed and secondly, the 'Monarch's Eternal Body' was completely different and couldn't be trained in such a way.
It required Shun Long to refine certain medicinal pills and use the immense energy they contained to destroy and then rebuild his body from the inside.
However, every path had its own shortcomings.
Although it would be faster for Shun Long to advance in body refinement compared to other body cultivators who have been training their bodies for years, he would have to pay the equivalent price for it.
Instead of having your bones, tendons, and internal organs to slowly strengthen themselves like they usually would have during body refinement, the 'Monarch's Eternal Body' would completely crush them before reforming them properly. This was the kind of pain that couldn't be described with just the word excruciating.
Shun Long was slightly afraid inside. The smallest misstep could cause him to die this time.
After taking a deep breath, he seemed to have realized something as he mumbled
''Now that I think about it, this all seems to be just parts of a bigger whole.
First I had to cultivate in the 'Monarch's Hourglass' to have enough qi in my body as well as become a qi cultivator.
Then, when my qi reached a certain level, the golden book sucked me inside and almost killed me when it filled me with all that information.
And now that I have the knowledge I need regarding medicinal plants, magic beasts, and the human body, I can cultivate the 'Monarch's Eternal Body' by refining the pills I need.
Could it be that the optimal path to follow is this double way of cultivating both in qi and body refinement? ... Even if it isn't, I still can't pass on such an opportunity.
I have to at least try to cultivate in the 'Monarch's Eternal Body' as soon as I can gather the medicinal plants I need for it.
For now though, I should start with becoming more proficient in alchemy.''
Then Shun Long took out the 3 sets of 'Honey Fruit', 'Blue stripped grass', '5-leafed giant flower', and 'Grisly growing root' that he had purchased with fatty Fu's help and sat down cross-legged.
After that, he took out the peak rank 3 bronze grade cauldron that his father had given to him before Shun Long had left the 'Blue Forest-city'.
Shun Long took a deep breath, his eyes fully focused in front of him as he said
''It's time to start.''
The first thing he had to do was to turn part of his qi into the fire element and start warming his cauldron.
Unless a person had trained specifically in an ice-focused cultivation technique, they should be able to easily turn their qi into fire.
After about an incense stick of time, the cauldron was already warm enough, so Shun Long took out the '5-leafed giant flower.
''According to Lu Wen's books, I first have to pluck the petals before throwing the body of the flower in the cauldron. After it is fully converted to medicinal essence, I have to throw in half of the 'Grisly growing root' before adding the 'Honey Fruit' and the 'Blue stripped grass'.
Hmm.. but this doesn't make any sense.
If I pluck all the petals from the '5-leafed giant flower' although its energy will be easier to be refined into a pill, the pill would at least be 20% less effective due to this, and the medicinal efficacy will fall even further if you throw in only half of the 'Grisly growing root' as well. The root grows under rocks and absorbs the energy of the earth to mature, throwing half of it makes no sense if it is just to balance out the wood energy from the '5-leafed giant flower' with the 'Grisly growing root' s' earth element. ''
Shun Long pondered for a bit before he decided
''I will first add in the 'Blue stripped grass' before plucking one leaf from the '5-leafed giant flower' to balance out its energy and refine it faster. Then I will put in the rest of the flower along with the grisly growing root, and I will add the 'Honey fruit' last. This way the 'Qi barrier-breaking' pill will at least be 60 to 70% more effective compared to the book's recipe''
If any competent Alchemist had heard Shun Long's thought process this time, they would definitely spit on his face. 'If it was that easy to modify alchemy recipes wouldn't everyone just do that?'