A black bound book appeared in John's hands. He opened the book to the first page, and was greeted with the familiar diagram that helped him start his Immortal Asura Body journey.
"It seems like it was so long ago..but it was less than a year. So much has happened recently."
He reminisced for a short while regarding his cultivation journey so far. Less than a year ago, he was unable to cultivate at all. However, his destiny changed when he found the mysterious sphere, which turned out to be a body dantian.
After that, he fought with bandits, robbed a Duke, fended off assassins, won a tournament, entered a pocket realm, and more. John felt as if last year was a dream.
He quickly snapped out of his reminiscing trance.
"There's time in the future for reminiscing. Right now, I need to focus on raising my strength."
John once more turned his attention to the book, and reached out to turn the page. Last time when he tried to open the book past the first page, he was unable to. John didn't know if his theory was right, but he was hopeful that he would be able to find out more about the Immortal Asura Body after advancing to the Qi Condensation Realm.
His fingertips brushed the side of the second page, and much to his delight, John found he was able to turn to the second page.
"It worked!"
John laughed in joy as he turned to the second page. Unlike the first page, which just depicted diagrams, the second page contained both writing and diagrams, and was much more detailed than the first page.
"Lets see...it has two parts. Let's start with the first."
The page was broken down into two sections. Both sections had written descriptions as well as diagrams depicting the internal structure of the body, including meridians, nerves, and muscles. John turned to the first words and started reading them.
"All bodies contain natural limiters, which are placed by the heavens themselves. These limiters protect every person from their own natural potential. These limits include blocked meridians pathways, deadened nerves, and unactivated muscles. However, by cultivating the body, one is able to unlock these limiters. There are many limiters, and one can be unlocked in each major realm. The first limiter is the Limit of Speed."
The wording stopped, and John glanced down to the anatomical diagram of a human body below. Just like the first time he looked at the book, the diagram seemed to draw him in, and John could soon see the various muscles, nerves, and meridian pathways that were focused on the Limit of Speed, and were mainly located in his legs.
"I need to first use my body Qi to forcefully clear these blocked meridian pathways. Once that's done, I need to use the new circulation pathways of Qi to activate the deadened nerves and unactivated muscles that existed in those blocked regions."
John studied the diagram for several hours before he finally felt confident enough to follow it perfectly. He calmed his mind and took a deep breath before sending out a powerful burst of body Qi out from his dantian and into his meridian pathways.
The Qi flowed to the blocked meridian channels and crashed against the obstructions, but it was only able to clear the obstructions slightly.
"Hmm? That wasn't enough? Again!"
John continuously sent out powerful bursts of body Qi to the obstructed meridians, and soon his meridian pathways felt like they were about to explode from how much powerful Qi was flowing through them. Normally body Qi would be sent to his muscles, bones, and other parts of his body during fighting to be used outwards, but right now John was sending all that Qi to explode against the obstructions within his meridians instead.
Not only was this process painful, but it was also dangerous. If he used too much power and caused his meridians to shatter, he would become a cripple. Delicate balance was required, and John could see why only body cultivators could achieve this.
"Without my strengthened body, sending this much Qi to crash against the obstructions would have caused my body to explode from within."
John clenched his teeth in pain as the power continued to flow throughout his body, but didn't stop the process. After several painful hours of repeating this process, John finally cleared the first blocked meridian pathway.
John breathed out heavily and caught his breath. He restored his body Qi using some of the blood essence reserves before once more starting the clearing process. The meridian clearing process continued for nearly a day before John finally broke through the last obstructed meridian pathway.
What John didn't know was that without powerful enough body Qi, some cultivators were never able to clear these obstructions and were forever stuck at this stage. Some exploded from within during the process, and some were too scared to even attempt it.
John rested for some time before testing out the results of his progress.
Powerful body Qi was sent to his blocked meridians, and John found that the Qi was instantly absorbed by the nearby nerves and muscles. These nerves and muscles had been starved of body Qi and had become useless, but they now began to brim with the same power as the rest of his body.
"Amazing!"
John hadn't even been aware of these nerves and muscles before that were now greedily absorbing his body Qi and rapidly growing in strength.
"Not only are my starved muscles growing in strength, but the body Qi in my legs now flows much smoother, resulting in me being able to unleash much greater power than before."
John channeled body Qi into his legs once more, and was amazed at the results. However, the new meridian channels also added an extra burden on his body, once more making John realize why only body cultivators were able to unlock these limits.
"Unfortunately this room is too small to test out my true speed. I'll have to go outside once I'm done to truly see how much I've improved. There's a second part to this page. I should study that first before I leave."
John turned his eyes down to the page again, and started reading the description. His eyes began to widen slightly as he continued to read the descriptions of the page and the diagram below.
"This second part is the true essence of the Immortal Asura Body..."
John started to study the second part of the diagram, and spent quite some time becoming accustomed with the new way to cultivate the Immortal Asura Body.
"My human blood essence reserves are low, so I can't really cultivate the Immortal Asura Body right now. I should focus on the battle aspect it mentions."
Up to now, the Immortal Asura Body had been a body cultivation technique alone, and John had blindly used his body and body Qi to empower his attacks before he learned the Supreme Battle Art.
However, this page revealed to John that the Immortal Asura Body was not just a body cultivation technique, but also a body transformation battle art. John was overjoyed, as he would be able to further augment his body with the body transformation art, and then utilize its great power with the Supreme Battle Art to achieve his maximum power state.
John began to follow the principles of the Immortal Asura Body's transformation art, and felt his body begin to slightly transform. Power began to well up inside his body, and John had never felt as powerful as he did at this moment.
"Amazing! And this is just the beginning of the transformation technique, as I'm sure there are more stages."
However, John was surprised to find that the rate of body Qi consumption to power this technique was immense, and his body dantian Qi reserves were quickly drying up.
"This consumption rate is at least ten times greater than when I use the Supreme Battle Art."
Just as John was thinking about this, Elder Ragur quickly opened the door to his meditation chamber in a hurry.
"John, are you alri…."
Elder Ragur's words quickly cut off as he stared directly at John. Two blood red eyes stared back at him.