PtM Book 16 - Chapter 11: The Body Trials

2/3 this week!

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Cha Ming and Huxian decided to shore up on general information. Cha Ming, conscious of his dwindling funds, remained in the general information section on the main floor while Huxian got a librarian to find him a cultivation technique and some elementary spatial manipulation techniques.

Huxian had never studied much in the past, but it came as no surprise to Cha Ming when he mastered the first layer of his cultivation technique, Great Maw of the Void, in the span of a single day, then proceeded to learned two supplementary techniques the day after.

Points were the root of their worries, so they decided to go to the trial grounds next. 

There were many more cultivators there than in the residential area. Many of the Invited, as they were known by those native to the Heartforge Realm, essentially lived there.

Cha Ming and Huxian chose to challenge different trials, at least in the beginning, as this would allow them to gain more information quickly. Cha Ming wasn’t feeling very comfortable about how his fight with Cao Wenluan had ended in the entrance trial and wanted to increase his absolute strength as quickly as possible. The Body trials were naturally the best place to do so.

As for Huxian, he’d just started cultivating qi. The Law Trials might be just what he needed to get started.

There were many cultivators travelling in and out of the Body Trial Complex, including hundreds of Invited and thousands of support staff.

This was because the trial grounds were only one part of the Body Trial Complex. Most of the building was occupied by support facilities like spas and stores selling medicinal supplements. There were even alchemists on site concocting potions and pills tailored to individuals.

The Body Trial Complex was easy to enter but difficult to leave. The only way to exit the place was through these many shops and businesses, where a host of salespeople were avidly pitching their wares.

Fortunately for Cha Ming, these shops and services didn’t come until after the trial grounds. Which made sense. Dejected our wounded cultivators would make for much better customers. He briefly wondered whether or not Patriarch Heartforge and Elder Zhong were pen pals or at least part of the same business think tank.

Most of the complex was inaccessible to the public, however, as it was an extension of the Hall of Trials where the Invited trained. The hall was built like a cathedral, with frescoes lining the ceilings, and stained glass windows depicting scenes of battle that included immortals, gods, demons, and mysterious dark creatures.

There were angels and devils as well, but for some reason they weren’t fighting each other – the dark and twisted creatures that could be found in each battle scene was their common enemy.

There were three main archways in the Hall of Trials. One archway was labelled ‘Tempering’ and another ‘Strength’. The middle archway was labelled ‘Combat’. Each of the three archways led to three paths that were further divided into 9 segments by transparent light screens, one segment for each of nine white obelisks.

A cultivator had just placed his hand on the first obelisk of the tempering trial when Cha Ming arrived. The man disappeared for a few seconds before returning looking a bit drained. He proceeded to the next obelisk in line, and the light screen did not stop him.

Cha Ming took note of the obelisk and walked past it to follow the cultivator who’d just finished. The cultivator he was following had passed through the light screen effortlessly, but Cha Ming was blocked from going forward. It seemed he needed to pass the first trial before proceeding to the next one.

Not everyone had passed the first trial, Cha Ming noted. Many dozens of prayer matts and meditation cushions were laid out on each side of the first and subsequent obelisks for rest and recovery. The ones loitering around the first obelisk were obviously new to body cultivation. They were some of the few Daoists that had made it into the Heartforge Realm against all odds and realized that they would not thrive by pursuing a singular path.

Seeing that the person in front of him had survived the trial, and the other newer cultivators had also survived it, Cha Ming placed his hand on the obelisk. It turned blood red just before he was forcefully teleported form the Hall of Trials into a small room barely large enough to accommodate him.

“Your task is to survive,” a cold voice said from the walls. “Endure the elements for a single hour. You cannot defend. All abilities save divine abilities have been disabled. Should you suffer near-lethal damage, you will be saved, but your injuries will remain. Demonstrate resilience!”

A small sandglass appeared not far away. It was filled with glittering golden sand that trickled through a serpentine contraption at the center to count the seconds.

Then fire appeared all around Cha Ming. It wasn’t weak like he’d expected, but an attack a cultivator of his level might suffer. The flames were bright red and reminded him a vermillion bird. The small room instantly became an oven.

Interesting, Cha Ming thought as he resisted the heat. These trials must be scaled to strength. Otherwise, there’s no way those new body cultivators would have survived. He could feel his skin burning away repeatedly, only to be immediately regenerated by his divinity.

Skin damage was the extent of what he suffered. Strong as they were, the flames could not damage his strong, divinity-infused muscles, forget his awakened blood and refined marrow and forged bones. What felt like an extended tanning session ended after an eighth of the total time had passed.

A stand storm immediately arrived in its place. The sand was blood red and wore away at his skin like sandpaper. It tried to drink his divine blood and the moisture in his eyes, but his body, tempered by the five elements, resisted

Tanning then exfoliation, Cha Ming mused as his skin was repeatedly worn away and regrown. This continued for an eighth of an hour before ending just like fire before.

Red was obviously a theme here. Tiny red blades filled the room, along with red needles that dug into his skin. They injected him with poisonous red metals that tried to work their way into his blood. Cha Ming reframed the tempering exercise as acupuncture. It was painful but he endured.

Red waters came next. They struck him with the force of a blast hose that tore his skin to pieces. Again and again, they hit him, washing away anything that might have escaped the sand from before.

There was also a pulsing from the water. The kind that would wear away cliffs if given enough time. But they did not have time, only an eight of an hour, and when that time came, the waters vanished.

Suddenly, Cha Ming was surrounded by red greenery that belched out a red wood-aligned poison that had little effect on him. Tiny red vines began leeching away his divinity, but it proved too much for them, so they exploded.

At the end of the 5th time period, the vines receded, and heavenly winds came blowing into the room. They were light red and not aggressive in the slightest. In fact, they promoted growth and healing, which seemed fine at first, until his body became a battlefield. His skin mutated and deformed, and extra bones began growing. The only thing he could do to fight it was redirect these creative energies into less invasive places while simultaneously bringing out the destructive divinity stored in his inner world.

Tumors, bacteria, and overgrowth. This was what death by creation looked like. His flesh sagged and his bones grew spikes, forcing him to destroy what was created again and again.

Then, after an eighth of the time had elapsed, the heavenly winds faded. They were mercifully replaced by blood red lightning. As the most unstable of elements, it was most difficult to resist and caused Cha Ming to take actual damage.

Unsteady bursts of electricity shot through every inch of Cha Ming body, entering through his head and shooting out through his legs. And this was not regular lightning. Whatever it struck had to resist an overwhelming destructive force or cease to exist.

His skin was erased. Chunks of his empowered muscles were damaged. The lightning could not damage his bones, however, or any of his internals.

Will it be destruction or creation next? Cha Ming wondered. Or perhaps both? An eighth of the time remained, and the heavenly winds were a form of creative energy, while this red lightning was a form of destructive energy.

A swirling mass of reddish white wind and reddish black wind descended into the room, with Cha Ming at their center. Then they collided with his body, filling him with both types of energy that could not coexist.

One part of him began to grow out of control, while another part began to vanish from existence. And where both forces collided, a true emptiness appeared. It was an emptiness of primordial chaos without beginning or end, that could either become or unbecome, start or stop, freeze or melt. Or both extremes simultaneously.

Cha Ming realized in that moment that the destructive lightning and the reddish black wind were not true destruction. Energy and other things were being released or being carried off as a result of it. By destroying, it was creating. Likewise, the white winds of creation were not true creation. They took from their surroundings as a source, but in creating, they destroyed.

But when creation and destruction clashed, time and space stopped mattering. Large gaps in the void opened up and consumed everything in the immediate area, gradually converting it to something familiar: Grandmist.

It was this Grandmist that appeared within his body and went on a rampage, consuming what it could, but creating simultaneously. It existed but didn’t. It harmed and helped. And while Cha Ming had tempered his body in Grandmist long ago, the concentration was a little lacking compared to what was present in this room.

Cha Ming was pale and sweaty when the obelisk finally ejected him from the trial. In the end, the damage he suffered wasn’t great. He’d lost about ten percent of his divinity reserves over the course of the entire trial.

Since he’d easily cleared the first obelisk, he proceeded to the second, then the third, encountering orange elements then yellow elements before finally stopping to rest. He then challenged the green trial, which he passed with great difficulty, before getting forcefully ejected halfway through the blue trial.

***

Each of three main trials grounds, namely Body, Law, Soul, were divided into three parts that followed a rainbow-colored theme. The first through fourth stages for each part gave a static reward of 10, 50, 250, and 1000 points according to difficulty.

After the first few days, it was confirmed by the few top rankers that the sixth and seventh trials were indeed indigo and violet as expected. No one had yet seen the last two trials, so they could only speculate on the color arrangement.

Cha Ming tried the body tempering trial several times before moving onto the Strength Trial. Not because he saw no improvement, but because improvement would be far too slow, and it was more practical to train in many aspects.

Despite having passed the green trial for body tempering, he had to start at the beginning like everyone else. This time, the red obelisk brought him to an open-aired temple.

I must have gotten transported outside, Cha Ming realized. This is one of the restricted areas on the mountain. He’d wondered what was kept there, as even flying over these sealed zones was not permitted.

Flight was restricted here, forcing Cha Ming to walk on compacted gravel with bits and pieces of crystal and ancient stone mixed in. A few blades of grass poked through here and there but judging by the footsteps leading in and out of the trial ground’s circular boundary, their silent revolution had long since been noticed and kept in check.

Inside the circle was a temple, and between Cha Ming and the temple was a ten-meter-wide fissure. The only way to get to the temple was via a large stone bridge.

“Cross the bridge and enter the temple,” said as he took his first step forward. “All abilities and equipment, including divine abilities, are sealed. Should you suffer near-lethal damage, you will be saved, but your injuries will remain. Demonstrate strength!” These last words struck a chord inside Cha Ming’s body and caused his blood to boil.

He stepped towards the bridge, and as he did so, the bridge grew larger and the chasm wider. The temple was still the same size, and looking back, the small patch of gravel at the beginning also remained unchanged.

It took him several minutes to arrive at the bridge. When he stepped onto it, he felt a force exert itself on him. It wasn’t gravity. It wasn’t the elements. It was raw, crushing power that rolled into him like a wave, threatening to throw him back should he be unable to resist it. Cha Ming crouched low out of instinct, but he did not touch the ground. In this place, that was the same as admitting the defeat.

He stood there for a moment as wave after wave of mysterious energy ran over his body. The bridge was much more complex than he’d initially imagined. From far away, it seemed to be made of simple marble, but up close, he could see that it was covered in carvings of ancient diagrams.

Judging by its aura, it was also made of immortal-grade material – which was frightening because the bridge was covered in cracks.

Finally, he reached forward, and a screen of red energy came up to block his way. To continue, he would need to break it. If he took a step back, he would need to start from the beginning. He pressed against it, exerting more and more of his strength until finally, it shattered, and he took his first step on the bridge.

More details were revealed. Many of the cracks had been caused by large, circular footprints. The stone railings had been scarred by blades and tusks and horns and stained by virulent blood that, despite aeons going by, had not yet completely faded.

“What happened here?” Cha Ming wondered. His words provoked a response from the bridge. He saw a vision, and in that vision, there was a simple temple on an island floating in the void. The only way to access the temple was across the bridge, and only the worthy could cross it.

The bridge allowed passage to all, even the weakest mortals when sometimes immortals were denied. It was a Buddhist temple, and the bridge was a Buddhist bridge, one of twelve to have been built by a master artisan aeons ago.

For centuries, no one dared lay siege to one of the twelve monasteries, until one day, a brave spirit king decided to change that. He coveted the treasure that was kept in the temple.

He brought forth an army of domesticated Heaven Trampling Elephants to conquer it. These elephants had been specially raised in the Seven Hells for eighteen thousand years. The eighteen largest of them were given to his eighteen spirit generals to use as mounts.

An army came upon the temple, but to the spirit king’s surprise, no army came out to meet him. The monks in the temple simply pulled back and cleaned, cooked, did their laundry, mediated, and prayed.

To the spirit king, this was an open provocation. How dare these monks act so arrogantly? He directed the eighteen spirit generals trample the bridge and lay waste to the monastery.

He discovered, to his horror, that they were not alone. The Heaven Trampling Elephants were met by six armies of defenders, one for each realm of reincarnation: Hell, Hungry Ghost, Beast, Demon, Human, and Heaven.

A single army would have been enough to block him, but six, mirroring the strength he threw at it? The Spirit King was defeated, as were his spirit generals; their souls were purified and sent back to the cycle of reincarnation.

The vision faded, but Cha Ming was left shaken and without much courage to cross the bridge. But he remembered that this was a trial, and there would be no risk of death.

He took in a deep breath and walked until he reached another barrier, the first true barrier in the trial. He pulled back his fist and struck it, only to realize that a mirror image had appeared in the form of a hellish reflection, and it was that image that was striking back.

Cha Ming immediately realized what was going on. One hellish soldier for one challenger. It attacks with a certain amount of strength, and I must exceed it to proceed.

Alas, he’d only used a fraction of his strength, so he was thrown backwards by the punch, then immediately appeared where he’d started the trial.

I can go forward, but never backward. I can only advance by demonstrating strength. Cha Ming inspected his body and saw that a small portion of his divinity had been depleted. It was not recovering. Once he ran out, he would need to exit the trial and return later.

I need to be fearless. I need to show resolve. Cha Ming focused as he approached the bridge a second time. This time, he ignored the scars on the bridge and ignored the vision.

There was only one thing to do in this situation: attack with all his might! There would be no holding back!

The matched the hellish reflection’s fist with his own, and the collision filled his entire body with a fierce restrictive energy that locked down a portion of his strength. He would need to resist the remaining five reflections with increasing limitations on his strength.

Despite his best efforts to ignore external stimuli, Cha Ming couldn’t help but hear could hear the phantom cries of heaven trampling elephants and their riders as he stepped forward. He saw shadows of spirit generals and their minions flooding forth after the first deadly wave of defenders.

Another light screen appeared shortly after. This time, it was a ghostly reflection that attacked him with a deadly spear strike.

Cha Ming did not have access to a weapon here, and even his divine abilities were locked down. He had two choices: Dodge or face his opponent.

He chose strength. He pulled back his fist and attacked the spirit general’s lance directly. His skin was pierced through, but the spear shattered on his muscles and bones.

Cha Ming felt the impact throughout his body. Thousands of tiny energy hooks broke through the layer of protective energy on his fist, further reducing his strength. Everything became more difficult. Moving. Flexing. Mobilizing his energy. Everything.

The next trial was the beast trial, and what he faced was a charging elephant. Not a Heaven Trampling Elephant – just an elephant, with strength proportional to the trial’s requirements.

There was no dodging. There was no retreating despite its massive size. The only way to approach this was head-on collision, so he reached inside himself and pulled, fighting against the restrictions that had invaded his body with all he had.

The elephant let out an angry rumble as Cha Ming’s fist struck its massive head and shattered the reflection. This time, he almost took a step back. Almost. Only his stubbornness kept him moving forward.

A demonic version of the elephant appeared next. It was a greatly weakened Heaven Trampling Elephant. Every step it took caused Cha Ming’s body to grow numb and the back of his neck to tingle with fear.

But he did not back down. He blocked the elephant’s charge with his fist, and this time, he bled for it, though he did not step back.

Next came the human guardian. He was a demigod, and he rapidly grew one size large to make better use of his massive physique. Cha Ming took its cue and expanded as well. This was not a divine ability, and simple growth was allowed.

The recoil made Cha Ming’s divine blood churn. His internal organs were damaged, and his bones were cracked. Even so, he took not a single step backwards, and the demigod projection shattered just like the others.

This only left one last realm of reincarnation: Heaven. His opponent was an angel with jade wings a golden blade. By now, his divine muscles were completely locked down with tiny energy hooks, his joints were locking up, and he could barely stand.

Fighting the angel would be difficult, he knew, but he had to try anyway. He reached inward and found untapped strength he never knew he had and challenged the angel’s sword.

It cut through flesh. It cut through bone. His fist shattered, as did his forearm. But his attack blew the angel backwards and shattered the last pane of red light.

Wounded, limping, and in pain, he staggered toward the temple, which was now just a few tens of meters away. His strength recovered as he walked along a simple stone pathway. The shackles ins his body vanished.

By the time he entered the temple proper, all the hooks and chains in his muscles were gone. His divinity was free to circulate. His divine energy stores were down to forty percent.

Cha Ming reviewed his performance in the trial and discovered the reason why he’d performed so poorly. Every time I strike, my strength scatters. Every time my strength scatters, a portion of energy invades my body. I can improve my performance in two ways – first by converging my energy so that it doesn’t scatter when I strike, and second by better mobilizing my energy.

Demigods were like humans in that they did not have access to all their strength. The Strength Trial was about making the most with what you had.