Six months have passed since the day of Zhu Furong's forced engagement with princess Ming Lan.

In these six months Zhu Furong has been constantly training his Physical Body. He now carries 800 kilograms of weight on his body and still moves like a normal person.

He finished his final classes with his tutors two months ago. The tutors have nothing left to teach him. Zhu Furong has graduated.

Same with his Martial Arts instructor, he has left too.

Now Zhu Furong has all the free time in the world. He obviously used this free time for Cultivation. He may not Cultivate any Spiritual Qi, but washing his body with the Spiritual Qi from time to time is still possible. It nourishes the Physical and Spiritual Bodies and strengthens them.

He can't always depend on Zhu Xingzuo's Chaos Qi, it may be the best Qi available to him but it's not cheap. The time and effort Zhu Xingzuo has spent on Cultivating the Chaos Qi is no joke. It's better to only use it for necessary moments.

Zhu Furong wants to rush things but he also understands that in Cultivation, speed is not what matters. What matters is a strong foundation. Without a proper base, the building will eventually fall.

The Body Transformation technique of the Demon Race that Zhu Furong is practicing is nothing but the construction of his foundation.

The larger and stronger a vessel is, the more water it can hold. Same for a creature's Physical Body and Qi. The stronger and larger its foundation is, the more Qi it can contain.

Body Transformation technique, second stage, Opening Acupoints.

There are 361 classical acupuncture points in a human body, pressing these points can have certain effects on the body.

Opening Acupoints as the name suggests is opening all the 361 acupuncture points rather than pressing them.

Cultivators usually don't know that they are absorbing the Spiritual Qi present in the air via the acupoints in their body. They just go with the flow not caring about the facts or reasons.

A creature's Physical Body automatically adapts to its needs, but there are differences between you doing it yourself and it happening on its own.

Most humans don't have all their 361 acupoints open. They don't know that they are not taking the full benefit of their Physical Body. By the time they notice, which usually is when they reach higher Cultivation Ranks, it's already too late.

Not rushing it and taking a slow but perfect step each time, has its own benefits. The two gods in that dark void said so and Zhu Furong understands it as well.

Again with the immense internal pressure from Zhu Xingzuo's Chaos Qi, one by one, Zhu Furong opened all his acupoints successfully. It took him a week to do so.

Now it's time to give his body some rest and let it adapt to the new condition.

Furong went back to doing physical exercises and still talking out some time to relax, playing music or painting.

One of these days, princess Ming Lan paid a visit and left after listening to Zhu Furong's music and flirting with him. She also got him to paint a portrait of her. She acted nicely to him even though Zhu Furong was being sarcastic and rude again. He wanted to make a bad impression on her so she will change her mind about their marriage.

Being engaged to the one and only princess of the dynasty is nothing but trouble.

For example, his two brothers again visited him the next morning to inquire about the princess's visit.

After her last bountiful visit, the princess got more bold and started visiting Zhu Furong more frequently. Zhu Furong tried his best to be the bad guy but it seems like the little girl doesn't care at all. On the contrary she started disciplining Zhu Furong for his dishonest behaviour.

"I know you act like this because you want to get rid of me, but it's no use. You are stuck with me forever in this life." Ming Lan sneered at Zhu Furong.

Zhu Furong rubbed his forehead with depression.

He noticed, as the time passes, the little princess is becoming more and more like his elder sister.

"Is the Elder Sister training her or what? What a pain... Oh god! Save me!" Zhu Furong cried begging alone in his room one of these days.

On his ninth birthday, princess Ming Lan gifted him the high grade Spirit Crystal that Zhu Xingzuo wanted badly. Zhu Xingzuo was on cloud nine that day. Zhu Furong also felt touched by the princess's generosity.

He was amazed though that no one else has found out about the real identity of this pinkish metal ore. There should be a few high rank Cultivators in the palace for sure.

He soon got his answer when he asked the princess indirectly. It seems the princess never took out this metal ore from her Space Ring. From the day she found out about Zhu Furong's identity, she kept it safe for him. And now was the perfect time and moment to give it to him.

Though she asked him why he needs such a peculiar metal ore which according to the All Metals store, is filled with dense Spiritual Qi, if any accidents were to happen, it would be quite deadly. She was worried.

It's not a secret in the capital or maybe in the whole state of the Ming Dynasty, that Zhu Furong can't Cultivate. So why does he need such a metal ore?

Zhu Furong dodged her questions by just stating that he likes the look of the metal ore and wants it for decoration.

Ming Lan rolled her eyes, finding it ridiculous.

But she is still considerate not to take out the metal ore in everyone's presence, she gifted it in the disguise of a Space Ring. Everyone thought the princess gifted him a Space Ring but in fact it was the high grade Spirit Crystal.

"By the way, how did you escape my bodyguards that day, if you can't Cultivate? What are you hiding?" Ming Lan whispered to Zhu Furong with her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Zhu Furong poked her forehead. "I just walked in the crowd without any disguise. Of course your bodyguards can't find me, they were looking for the man in black robe, not the Young Master of the Zhu Family."

"That's true." Ming Lan nodded, believing in Zhu Furong.

'Phew! What a sharp girl. I almost gave it away.' Zhu Furong breathed in relief.

The birthday passed without any accidents but the news of the princess's visit and the gift reached the ears of Zhu Furong's two elder brothers.

The two elder brothers of Zhu Furong burned with jealousy.

Space Ring is not a cheap commodity in the Lower Realm, as it is too rare and hence too expensive. Even the rich royal family may not have more than ten of these. And to give one such ring to Zhu Furong...

The two elder brothers of Zhu Furong tried their best to snatch the Space Ring from Zhu Furong but were later stopped by an angry Zhu Bohai who scolded the shit out of the two brothers.

The two brothers stepped back with anger and humiliation. They will look for revenge for sure, but not on Zhu Bohai, but Zhu Furong.

Few weeks later, Zhu Furong successfully completed the first level of the third stage of Body Transformation technique.

The third stage of Body Transformation technique is Opening Dantians.

Every creature has three dantians in their body, Upper Dantian, Middle Dantian and Lower Dantian.

Each dantian works differently for specific types of creatures.

For humans, their main dantian is the Lower Dantian where they store the Essence Qi.

For demons, their main dantian is the Middle Dantian where they store the Demon Qi.

For spirits, their main dantian is the Upper Dantian, also known as the Divine Sea. It holds the Nascent Soul inside it and can only be nourished with pure Spiritual Qi.

The Monster Race is the odd one out, as they don't rely on any dantians for Cultivation, but forms their own Monster Core which acts as the source of energy. Though they have to use the lower dantian in early stages of their life before they can form a perfect Monster Core.

Every creature in some way uses all the three dantians, but their focus is only their main dantian.

That's why humans have strong Qi strength, but moderate Soul Energy. They also use their Middle Dantian unknowingly just to circulate the Spiritual Qi while purifying it and converting it into Essence Qi.

Similarly the Demon Race, though they have weaker Soul Energy compared to humans as they focus more on the Physical Body aspect. Their main dantian is the middle One, so the lower one is used for circulating Spiritual Qi while purifying and converting.

This time both the Spirit Race and the Monster Race are the odd ones out. One focuses only on Soul Energy and hence has both weak Physical Body and less amount of Qi in their body, while the other only uses their Monster Core and hence have both weak Soul Energy and less amount of Qi. Though the twist is the Monster Race is born with a tough and strong Physical Body, so that's their plus point.

Dantians are usually open, so the main purpose of the Opening Dantians stage is to perfectly connect the meridian channels with each dantian. It will make Zhu Furong capable of using a hundred percent of all three dantians.

For a multi-race creature like him, it's a huge bonus.

After connecting the first dantian,which is the lower one, within six months Zhu Furong successfully connected all the meridians and the three dantians. The Eight Extraordinary Meridians seemed to perform better than the 12 Major Meridians in this case. Now Zhu Furong understood the benefits of opening the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

Within eight months of time, Zhu Furong has successfully Cultivated the first three stages of Body Transformation technique.

Now he again lets his body adapt to its new condition so he can later proceed with the most important stage of the Body Transformation technique. Body Cleansing.

In the Human Race Cultivation methods, the Body Cleansing is the first stage of Open Ascension rank. It is a necessary stage to prepare the body for ascension to the Upper Realm.

During the ascension, a person will go through Heavenly Tribulations which will cause some subtle changes in the physique of the said person so they can tolerate the heavy density of the Spiritual Qi present in the Upper Realm compared to the Lower Ream.

Body Cleansing helps in making the body adapt to these changes faster. It's also the stage where the Human Race unknowingly opens their acupoints.

But as we said before, there is a difference between known and unknown.

Zhu Furong who has opened his acupoints before going through Body Cleansing will definitely have the best of the best results.

Body Cleansing is the process of removal of all the filth and impurities out of the body. It's not painful nor is it difficult to do so, but the conditions required to even start the Body Cleansing process is quite difficult to achieve.

The three stages, Opening Meridians, Opening Acupoints and Opening Dantians are the must to have a perfect Body Cleansing.

Normal people who don't know about this, can only depend on the Heavenly Tribulations during their ascension and thus can only have near a half pure body. Later as they rank up in Cultivation, their body gets purer and purer, but it can never reach hundred percent purity.

Zhu Furong has gone through a part of Body Cleansing before, when he started the Meridians Opening stage, but that was negligible to what is about to happen.

...

It is late at night. Everyone in the Zhu manor is fast asleep. At least the main members of the family are.

Zhu Furong is sitting cross-legged, naked on a boulder he placed at the center of the fish pond.

Poor fishes, they are going to die choking on dirt today it seems. So sad...

Ah wait! There are no fishes in the pond? Hmm... It seems our protagonist is quite considerate and has moved all the fish to a vat inside the storage room at the corner of the courtyard. Good.

So, a fair and beautiful, smooth skinned, naked Zhu Furong is sitting cross-legged-

...Sorry it went creepy back there. Let's try again.

With Zhu Furong sitting cross-legged at the centre of the pond, the pond has almost gone black with the dirt leaking out of Zhu Furong's body. Zhu Xingzuo is constantly channeling Spiritual Qi mixed with his Chaos Qi through every nook and corners of Zhu Furong's body.

Pitch black, sticky and stinky dirt, with blood mixed with it, keeps flowing out of each and every pores on Zhu Furong's skin. The 361 acupoints are dishing out the most and at an astonishing speed like flowing water.

This disgusting process of impurity removal went on for over half of the night.

The 20 by 20 feet fish pond has turned into murky muddy water, smelling like a gutter by the time the filth stopped coming out of Zhu Furong's body.

…

Crack! Crack!

Suddenly two purple strokes of lightning dashed through the skies.

Crack! Crack! Crack!...

More and more lightning arcs started to form in the sky. It got louder and louder. People all over the Dafan capital woke up from their deep sleep with shock and fear.

They looked towards the skies and were shocked to see dense dark clouds covering the whole skies. These types of clouds are only seen when a Cultivator is going through ascension.

The eye of the thunder cloud seemed to be forming just above the Zhu manor.

Great General Zhu looked surprised but also worried at the same time.

'What is going on? This is Heavenly Tribulation, isn't it? Which master is going through ascension? And that too in my manor of all places. Does he want us to die?' Great General Zhu thought. He then ordered everyone in the house to stay inside their rooms and not to come out till ordered.

He sent some of the Cultivators from his secret Special Force team to monitor the situation inside and around the Zhu manor.

After dispatching the group of men, Great General Zhu himself went to look after Zhu Furong. Among all the members of the Zhu Family, Zhu Furong is the only one incapable of Cultivating. He needs his protection. So, the Great General Zhu thought.

There are also the wives of his sons who are not Cultivators, but Great General Zhu doesn't give a damn about it. He only cares for the two stars of his, Zhu Ling and Zhu Furong.

He rushed to Zhu Furong's courtyard and arrived in front of his room. He opened the door and found no one inside.

Worried, he started looking around the house and arrived at the shocking scene in the courtyard.

With his mouth wide open Great General Zhu witnessed something he will never forget in his whole life. He saw a figure covered in something black, sitting on a boulder at the centre of the fish pond. The whole place stinks but he doesn't care. He is just curious about what is going on and who is this figure?

'It can't be Zhu Furong, is he?' Zhu Bohai thought and took a step forward only to be stopped by a frightening scene...

The dark clouds in the skies are darker than they have ever been in the Lower Realm. The purple coloured lighting arcs are densely packed.

Suddenly the whole place fell into silence...

Boom!

A thick lightning bolt thick as a bucket fell from the skies straight on the head of Zhu Furong scaring the shit out of Zhu Bohai.

Zhu Bohai yelped and tried to dash out to save the person who may be his grandson Zhu Furong, but he realized he was stuck to the ground with his legs shaking. He couldn't move.

With his eyes moist with tears he looked forward with hope and felt relieved to see the figure still sitting cross-legged on the boulder. Though now charred and with the sticky mud dried over his body.

Zhu Bohai breathed a sigh of relief. But then...

Boom! Bam! Boom! Bam!...

One by one lightning bolts kept falling on the black muddy figure without stopping.

The surrounding foliage started to burn and the boulder under Zhu Furong shattered to pieces with a bang. The water in the pond instantly dried up and all that was left was a black pit.

Zhu Furong is now sitting cross-legged in a pit.

Zhu Bohai broke into tears with helplessness and grief.

'What is this lightning, what is going on? Why is this happening?' Zhu Bohai couldn't understand anything and could just think of reasons and ask questions.

The Heavens seems to be a lifelong enemy of Zhu Furong.

It couldn't do anything to him before when he got his unique body which goes against the Heavens. But that was because the Heavens didn't notice it in that dark void where there is no life.

But now as Zhu Furong has done something unexpected, something which also goes against the Heavens, the Heavens must have taken notice of him and it is ready to erase him.

"Big Brother this is looking bad. We have to do something else you will die for sure. Big Brother hurry, think of something." Zhu Xingzuo rushed Zhu Furong in desperation. His future is tied to Zhu Furong's success in Cultivation and also they are bonded via bloodline. He can also fell Zhu Furong's fear.

Zhu Furong didn't answer. His senses have almost gone numb due to the heavy thunder strikes. His strong Physical Body constructed of Snow Demon species flesh and bones has almost become a skeleton by now. If things go on like this, he will turn into dust soon.

Even though scared and half unconscious, Zhu Furong gritted his teeth and tried his best to remain sane. He was waiting for the right moment. He is not going to let the Heavens have its way with him like the past life.

His whole body is covered in constant lighting bolts falling from the sky, not letting Zhu Bohai who is standing far away in front of him see even a glimpse of Zhu Furong's body.

Suddenly the lighting stopped falling and the skies returned to silence again. But it only gave the feeling of death looming over one's head.

With horror in his eyes Zhu Bohai saw the skeleton frame sitting at the same position as the earlier dirty man.

"Nooo." Zhu Bohai shouted with despair.

Crack!

Boom!

Suddenly the sky returned to life and another purple lightning bolt the size of a water tank shot towards the sitting skeleton.

This is the final hit.

"Ha!" Suddenly the skeleton body stood up with a clack. It raised its arm towards the skies.

In front of the shocked eyes of Zhu Bohai, suddenly a pitch black nine layered, tall pagoda emerged out of nowhere above the head of the skeleton.

Bam!

The lighting bolt hit the pagoda hard. The lighting bolt scattered. The pagoda vanished. The skeleton fell down flat in the pit.

The clouds scattered. The clear starry sky looked beautiful than ever and the bright full moon calmed everyone's heart.

Zhu Bohai still stared at the lying bones without moving an inch. He froze just like a statue.

Fwooooshh...Fwooooshh... Wind started blowing in the courtyard. It blew fast and faster. With the wind flowed pure Spiritual Qi, unlike the impure ones present everywhere.

Whoever breathed this air felt refreshed to the bones. For now this fortune only favoured Zhu Bohai and a man clad in black ninja robes hiding near one of the corners of the wall. He too has sadness looming in his eyes.

It seems like Zhu Bohai is not alone who has witnessed the shocking scene tonight.

The man in black is the head of Zhu Bohai 's secret Special Force and is Zhu Bohai's close brother. They are bonded by brotherhood.

The Spiritual Qi may be pure, but none of the two men watching has any interest in absorbing it. They gazed with attention to the direction of the Spiritual Qi wind moving. It's moving towards the laying skeleton as its centre.

The whole skeleton soon got covered in a cocoon of dense pure blue Qi. It's the colour of Spiritual Qi.

As said before the Qis have their own colours.

Essence Qi is green, Demon Qi is black, Monster Qi is red and Spiritual Qi is blue. It's quite amazing if you consider Spiritual Qi is in fact the combination of the other three Qis. Then how is its colour blue? Hmm...

Well anyway.

With their mouths wide open, both the old men in the courtyard saw the skeleton heal at a jaw-dropping speed inside the cocoon of Spiritual Qi.

The cracked bones repaired themselves. From the tiny pieces of flesh stuck on the bones grew new flesh, muscles and skin. It only took about a minute. Then the pure Spiritual Qi dispersed.

But what appeared next was even more shocking.

They saw a naked semi-transparent figure of a boy about the age of ten and height of 148cm lying on its back peacefully inside the pit. It looked like the boy was sleeping.

The boy's whole body is shining like stars, it's like it is reflecting the stars in the night sky. A thin halo of gentle light is covering the whole body.

After about half an hour the halo of light vanished and the body became solid. But still the body seemed quite weird to the two old men. Not in a bad way but in a good way.

The body of the laying boy gave the feeling of purity, it is like it's not allowed to be touched. Even a single touch by anyone will leave a dirt mark on it.

So pure, so holy.

It's the Heavenly Innate Body!

The only physique in the universe with hundred percent purity.

Of course even the Heavens itself will be jealous.

The two old men don't know about it. After all no one has ever seen a Heavenly Innate Body. Let alone see, it's so rare that about 99.9 percent of people have never even heard of such a physique.

It's a miracle. Zhu Furong has done something, no one can even imagine in their dreams. His master Demon God and Spirit God must be proud of him.

With slow steps Zhu Bohai arrived near the laying boy. He sighed looking at the face. It's indeed Zhu Furong as he had guessed. He sighed. But his lips also curved into a smile. He is relieved to see his grandson safe and sound. And from the looks of it, he is far better than before.

'This boy is quite mysterious.' He thought and then he looked around for a moment. To his surprise...

The ground is now covered in newly born soft grass. The plants and trees in the whole courtyard seem like they have been reborn anew.

It's the effect of the pure Spiritual Qi from moments ago. There's not a mark of destruction left behind by the lighting strikes. It's all covered in the new flora.

Without saying any word Zhu Bohai picked Zhu Furong up in his arms. He hinted towards the corner where the black man was standing. Then he carried Zhu Furong to his room. He laid down Zhu Furong on the bed. Covered him with the blanket.

"We will talk when you wake up. Have a good sleep for now." Zhu Bohai caressed Zhu Furong's head gently before leaving.

Rather than sleeping, Zhu Furong is unconscious. He is in a vegetative state. Due to the strain from the Heavenly Tribulation and using the Nine-Layers Pagoda with his insufficient Soul Energy, he is utterly exhausted.