Chapter 306: Misty ridge-1

Li Meng went through the list and found the information to be fairly detailed. The merchant organisation seems to have assumed him to be the subordinate of some powerful faction and didn't mess with their product.

"The number of powers are more than I initially assumed to be there. I guess water-mist village is a fairly coveted region for water Elementalist. I see some powerful forces like the water-ridge manor to have set their bases up here. There is the Samyang valley and the flower-pool sect too."

"And there are some top-level organisation belonging to sects like Shenluo pavilion and Thunder academy. But I won't be able to access that of now because of Thunder Child. My power is still in the growing phase. I won't be able to defend against a Qi Emperor of the beginner level."

"You need to wait for some more time. Maybe the 8th level of Qi king bring some changes and enhance your power. You also need to concentrate on body cultivation. It is one of the reasons why you aren't able to jump levels as easily as before."

"The channel tempering art is extremely complex. Fundamentally there are just too many channels in the human bodies, to begin with. What more strange is that the manual which the founder gave me contains the art for humans only. My blood and body have been tempered with beast blood as well as Hell-Heaven aura."

"I assume that my body must have gone through some drastic changes. I honestly have no idea how many channels I contain."

"I guess I do have a path, but it's extremely unorthodox. I might be the first practitioner to have followed this path."

"What do you want to do?"

The Keeper was intrigued.

"I want to inspect the interior system of one of my avatars. When I say inspect, I mean open it up from toe to head and inspect every piece of it." The Keeper was flabbergasted by the suggestion. He immediately started emitting blood lust and dissatisfaction from his body.

"I am trying to cope with your insanity, but this is not allowed. The avatars are a part of your soul itself. If you try something like that, you would end up losing a vital part of your soul as well as a powerful clone."

"I understand your concern, which is why I want to discuss it with you. I won't be able to come with a proper way to cultivate the channel tempering art if you don't help me up. I need to understand my own body and it requires some sacrifice to be made. But the price is too high if we decide to just kill one of my avatars. Which is why I want to follow a different path."

Li Meng had fragments of memories that had him experimenting on various creatures. Most of them were carried out in a specified vessel with the organism being constantly healed.

"I want your help to come up with a system of research instruments that would help me carry the whole operation out without killing the avatar. We will experiment with it while keeping it alive."

"You understand that would mean you torturing your avatar, and every single of those feelings would also be going back to  your brain." Any avatar of lI Meng was connected to him by both body and soul. He would feel every bit of pain and experience the torture the avatar would feel.

"I know, but that is the price to be paid. That is the only way to create a system of cultivation that is just for me. The path of domination requires sacrifices like this."

The Keeper asked the hall master of pill hall and battle area to come to the main hall where he and Long Tao were present. He narrated the whole situation to the two of them and both of them were left looking aghast. 

"You are essentially just trying to destroy your self boy. The Origin avatar art is not something we understand and hence we don't know off its implications." The Pill hall master said. " Think about the possible complication which could arise if your soul strength were to act in the opposite way of what you want it to do."

"Your soul strength might take permanent damage and in the worst-case scenario you might not only lose a part of your soul but heavily damage the rest of your souls too."

" I suggest you go with a more traditional method of understanding your body through training. You will never reach the level of metamorphosis if you aren't able to complete temper every last of your channels."

"But how much time would that take. I am sure the creator of body cultivation didn't come up with the idea by just practising. It is impossible to manipulate something like this without a clear understanding of your target. He must have followed a procedure which is similar to mine."

"I know that there are a lot of possible complication that could lead to some disastrous losses, but I think if we prepare well for the whole operation, we might be able to succeed in my plan. If I managed to understand the anatomy of my own body properly, I might just be able to create a body cultivation path just for me."

"What are the requirements?"

"If I want to succeed in operation, my avatar needs to be conscious throughout the process, while healing himself up."

"Are you kidding? The pressure would be so much that I couldn't even guarantee that you would be capable of experimenting, much less heal yourself at the same time. We could use a healing formation for that."

"A healing formation would be able to heal him at a very rapid pace. I am trying to experiment to understand my anatomy. If I couldn't even get a glimpse inside, just how am I going to succeed. The only way to go is for the host himself to control the whole process."

"I am 90% confident that you wouldn't be able to continue experimenting if you divert your mind in healing. I do have a way which would help you, but the risk is extremely high." The Keeper said.

"From our investigation into the avatar art, we know that the bodies have both soul and body link to other avatars as well as your main body. But what if we disconnect the links for some time. It is an independent entity and would be able to survive, and you can use another avatar to heal it with the help of formations."

"Due to the disconnection, the avatar wouldn't be able to function, yet it still has a part of your soul and blood essence, hence it will survive, but as an independent entity." The other hall master was amazed by the suggestion. It was similar to be the way people used their puppets and disconnect from them if the situation seems impossible to recover from.

"Wouldn't it mean Long Tao abandoning an avatar?" The Pill hall master asked.

"I agree with that conclusion, but the origin avatar art is quite different. The link is extremely strong and might be easily recoverable."

"But what if I fail to reconnect?"

"You will lose an avatar of your permanently. You can devour its soul and blood essence to gain back the power though, but the cultivation would be completely lost." The Keeper said. " at least this way you wouldn't end up losing any blood essence and soul power. Just the qi Base."

"The price is still too high. We are talking about destroying one-tenth of our investment completely, along with a chance to understand world essence better. This not only cost us our past, but our future is at risk too."

"I have a suggestion." The Pill hall master said. " What if we use a backup-cum-reconnector source in the avatar. Think of it as a security instalment that would prevent the avatar from being completely disconnected. We can't manipulate the links between the avatars and your body, but we can connect your souls with an additional pathway. If we broke one link, there would be one to spare."

"The only difference would be that we are in complete control over that other link. As soon as one of the links is destroyed, the other would automatically start to function, and we could block the other pathway with the use of formation."

Long tao's eyes began to sparkle by this suggestion. It was a great option. " there is one problem though. I don't think the other links would be able to remain blocked, for the whole duration of this experiment. If we forcefully block it, the link might overload on one side and get destroyed."

"That is the problem I was going to refer to.  And the solution to that is the creation of multiple links. Each time one link gets overloaded, we open it up and destroy it after it stabilizes."

"That would require a huge man-force. I would need half of the avatars to concentrate on this process alone."

"A price to pay after all. For the first time, you might not be able to climb through the levels like you wanted to."

"hahaha." Long Tao laughed out loud. " It's a price I am willing to pay. We need to gather some powerful healing herbs first, and I managed to go through the information that the manager provided."

........................…..

In the room-

"We have our first target. One of the missing herbs is the frost lily. It generally grows in the regions where the water element energy is extremely condensed. There is a region in the water-mist village that is said to be the only source of this herb." Li meng said.

"where is it?" The Keeper asked.

"Misty-Ridge"