•••

As soon as Astrallis entered the blood pond, an absurd pain began to permeate his body. The blood seemingly began to inspect his body. As if finding something pleasing, the blood started to split itself in half, the first half became orange coloured blood while the second half became blue coloured blood. Each half of the blood was tear-drop shaped.

“Yin Yang symbol,” Astrallis shouted in shock.

The liquid moved him towards the centre of the Yin Yang symbol when he reached the core of the pond a brilliant ethereal tree tattoo appeared upon his chest. The base of the tree was at his navel, and red leaves spiralled around his neck.

Astrallis himself was unaware of this change to his body, as he had activated the Three Manifestations Cultivation Technique and entered into his soul-space, to try and counteract the agonising pain of the blood boiling him.

Within his soul-space, Astrallis was shocked to find a small tree growing in the heart of his Soul-Being. ‘This… This is the Sanguinary Felicity Tree, according to grandmother, one can only form a Sanguinary Felicity Tree within themselves if one has been accepted by the technique. That means I must have been accepted to cultivate this body-art when I first touched grandma’s tree.’

‘Grandmother also said that my extra Yin energy was placed inside me by the Astral God. He seemed to know that I was a descendant of Grandmother’s, and only with the right amount of Yin energy would I gain access to her Sanguinary Felicity Body-Art, an amount a male normally wouldn’t have.’

Soon Astrallis felt a pain like never before, he inspected his body with his spiritual-sense and was shocked to see that his skin was peeling off.

‘Why? Why is this happening? Grandmother told me that the initial awakening of the Sanguinary Felicity Tree is not a painful experience, but rather a feeling of ultimate euphoria.’

Roots from the Sanguinary Felicity Tree, now forming in his heart, in reality, began to manifest around his body, forcefully stabbing themselves into his flesh.

An inhuman scream echoed throughout the beautiful cavern.

Astrallis activated his ‘Heliacal Rising from the East’ and emerald wings of an angel, with a wingspan of four-meters, formed behind his back. Before he could beat his wings, even more, roots protruded from his body and stabbed through his wings, the origins pinning themselves to the walls in the cavern.

Soon maniacal laughter, filled with agony, spread throughout the surroundings, “I thought forming corporeal wings was a boon to me, but now they have caused me to be trapped in this hell.”

A figure with emerald wings, with only red bleeding flesh on its body, hung from the centre of the cave, thrashing around uncontrollably; just causing more pain for it.

Grey roots with veins of red in them, began to enclose the body of Astrallis. Every time Astrallis attempted to use Dharma Qi to heal his body the roots would twist and tear off the new skin and flesh.

Succumbing to his fate, and realising all resistance was futile. He began to practice his Shakyamuni Manifestations, soon a feeling of calm came over his being; although the agonising pain did not abate one bit, the power of his will increased manifold.

With the increase of will, his mind, that was on the verge of breaking from the pain, reaffirmed itself and he began to assess itself.

He inspected himself with his spiritual-sense and finally noticed that the roots that had penetrated his body formed from his heart, and within the centre of his heart was a small Sanguinary Felicity Tree. Surprisingly his tree was different than his grandmothers, apart from the trunk of his tree, which was an obsidian black, the limbs were thorny, while instead of leaves like his grandmother’s, there were blood-red roses on the limbs.

Soon the roots lowered his enclosed body into the blood pool.

The Yin and Yang blood surged into Astrallis’ inundated body, moving directly towards his navel, every meridian and pathway the blood ran through was destroyed; an intolerable pain spread throughout his body, starting at the navel.

His tissues and flesh melted inside the burning Yin Yang blood, leaving him with only his skeleton, brain, Astral Meridians, Five Viscera and Six Bowels. The excess Yin energy within his Five Viscera was absorbed and transferred into the blood pool, as compensation the Yang blood in the pool began to cover Astralis’ crystalline skeletal structure.

His crystal skeleton began to grow in size, the frame fit for a five-foot person morphed into a six-foot frame. The bones became more robust and sturdier.

The roots coming out of his heart began to greedily absorb the Yang energy in the blood-pool, then the roots proceeded to wrap themselves around Astralis’ skeletal frame. The roots amalgamated into flesh and tissue around his body, then layered themselves upon his skeleton, layer after layer the roots re-formed into his frame, creating a perfect structure for him to cultivate the Sanguinary Felicity Body-Art.

Throughout this ordeal, Astrallis himself had become numb to the pain because of the rotation of the Shakyamuni Manifestations, if it wasn’t for this technique he inevitably would have already lost his mind. To see your body melt before your very eyes are enough to make even the most clear-headed person insane.

He inspected his body with the mindset of a spectator, in an objective manner he said, ‘It seems all my excess Yin has been depleted, there is finally balance between my Yin and Yang. My skeleton has grown in size, and the new flesh forming is full of muscle culture and strength. Although I’m more interested in these two long bones protruding from my back, there is a joint between the bones, it seems they are able to fold.’

‘My body’s new tissue and flesh are leagues superior to my past self. When the body-art is first activated, the body will grow substantially, regardless of the age of the person, for one is only able to fully cultivate the art if their body has matured earlier. Although, she did tell me that only females could cultivate this art, so I’m sure to have some unusual results compared to females.’

‘Also, fuck this pain.’

A change on more than just the physical level was occurring within Astrallis; his emotions were transforming too.

•••

Carefree laughter echoed throughout the hall of the dome-like structure in the sky, “The bloodline of both the War Immortal and the Blood God, little Enyo, the more I look at you, the more perfect you are. Your disposition to is excellent!”

The Religion Master Anemone inspected the devastatingly beautiful girl in front of her, “To be able to activate the Sanguinary Felicity Body-Art before you’ve even entered the secret realm, I’m sure my grandson will be happy to have someone who can compete against him in this generation.”

Although the Saintess of Ichor, Enyo, generally had a fiery temper, being praised by her idol she couldn’t help revealing an embarrassed smile that would make even gods melt.

Enyo had idolised the religion master after hearing about all her achievements, especially in battle. Enyo remembered how her Senior-Sisters once said while drunk, how the Religion Master single-handedly fended off multiple sect-masters of other top sects, and even fatally wounding a few. Her battle-intent soared to heavens when she found out about that.

Enyo stood around five-foot-seven inches, with blazing red hair, and a budding figure soon to cause the downfall of empires, “Thank you, Religion Master. You praise is too high,”

“Nonsense, little Enyo, to reach the Sky-Realm at the age of eight is a monstrous achievement, even my heaven-defying grandson can’t compare to you in that regard,”

“It’s all because of my War Immortal bloodline, it had allowed me to advance my cultivation with haste, without fear of repercussions,” Enyo replied quickly afraid of the Religion Master misunderstanding.

“Stop with the excuses, you may even be the future Religion Master, a humble attitude won’t get you anywhere.” Anemone patted the red-haired girl on the back.

Enyo dipped her head to the ground in embarrassment, her eyes shining with pride and happiness, while the elders laughed uproariously.

“Alright, it’s time for you, children, to go into the trial.”

With that, the child-participants were teleported to the starting point of the trial.

“Now, I want to see my beautiful granddaughters.”

“Meow, Sea-plant, how do you even know that they are beautiful, you’ve never even seen them.” Bataar chimed in from the side.

Alas, it was the last chime he did for a while.

•••