chapter 5: 12 forging of death – 2

After one month-

A lone silhouette could be seen amid the darkness of the darkness within the cave, the roar getting louder and louder, but the process still going on.

Long Tao was sitting, revolving for the 15th time as he groaned from the pain, but determination and perseverance concur all the obstacles.

As the rotation started, the same phenomena of reforming occurred again and again. Although the scripture mentioned that this method was that of a self-torture to forge the body with hell's Qi, it didn't say about the pain.

Long Tao experienced a spike in pain after every successive rotation.

It was because each time the body was forged, it was perfected more and more.

Hence, breaking it up would result in a much more disturbing experience.

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It was the routine of his since the day he started cultivating in the 12 forgings of death art. Days continued to pass, and Long Tao slowly improved his cultivation.

He was soon in the 5th level of Hell forge art, after completing 16 rotations.

His body felt like it did when he was at the 8th level of foundation forging before the attack.

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Long Tao was contemplating what to do in the period of this break; he suddenly remembered the 'Heavenly pestle art' that he decided upon to cultivate it.

How can one grind his/her soul with something created by their soul?

If the soul power of a person is going to be the foundation of the pestle, no doubt it is difficult to form.

The mysteriousness of this art was even more profound than the '12 forging art'. Because also if the 12 forgings were torturous and painful to cultivate, at the end one uses hell and heaven Qi to practice it.

As Long Tao was prying more into the art, a sudden blast of memories occurred in his brain.

'Soul replenisher mantra', a chant which could help one to recover his soul power. The occurrence of the past few months has left Long Tao in a massive surprise as to pry his actual identity and the source of all these heavenly arts. But only when one is capable enough can one decipher the proceedings of this world, because 'strength is foremost of all'.

As he started to read through it, his understanding of the art began to rise. According to his knowledge, he came to understand that the pestle to be formed needs to be made with the help of soul power.

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The Diagram of the pestle was present in Long Tao's mind, and according to the text, there were multiple types of grinders one could make.

The most ordinary one being that of a single layer on each side, and as one goes on increasing the number of decks, the pestle becomes more and more tyrannical.

Attached to the side was the fact that each addition of deck while creating the pestle would result in more brutal grinding.

It would mean, each grind will be more painful and demanding. Consequently, the benefits were also quite ample for a higher number of layers. Also, the number of layers can only be determined at the starting of the cultivation of the Heavenly Pestle art, and once formed, no one is going to be able to change the structure.

One should mark the fact that the omnipotence soul art was a fierce soul cultivation manual, and was already heaven-defying.

But even with the cultivation of such a technique, there were different tier of cultivated souls.

It depended upon the talent, soul size, and capability of the individual, to ascertain as to which level they are going to reach in the art. As, a cultivator Long Tao decided to give his best, as from the memories of his past life and all the fantasy he has read until now, only those who cultivated with an overall balance in all aspects were capable enough to lay a solid foundation and become a hegemon.

Long Tao took a deep breath, calmed himself down, closed his eyes, and started chanting the mantra while visualizing the Diagram of the heavenly pestle.

Initially, there was nothing present in his soul, but gradually one could see a formless aura slowly emerging from his soul world. According to the scripture, this was the soul Qi of the cultivator, and this was the formless energy condensation state of one's soul.

As Long Tao remembered the Diagram of the heavenly pestle, slowly the axle was being formed, the Qi materialized into forming the outer boundary of the shaft of the grinder.

More and more aura of Long Tao was being consumed as the soul Qi present in the world began to deplete.

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Finally, after the depletion of an unknown amount of soul Qi, a large Colourless rod-shaped axle could be seen in Long Tao's soul. Now, the initial creation was over.

It was the time to form the layers, of the grinding slab.

After a whole day, one could see a total of two sets of decks being formed on either side of the pestle created by the soul Ki.

One could say the creation of the Heavenly grinder was nearly over at the moment, but Long Tao looked at the Giant pestle formed with a bit of reluctance in his eyes.

He wanted to create a higher number of decks because if he wanted to be able to surpass all, the foundation step would determine his growth in the soul arts.

He reluctantly started to form another outline; one could easily see from the initial creation of the decks around that Long Tao's soul Qi was scarce to build another set of layers. But stubbornly persisting, Long Tao didn't want to give up and create a higher number of decks. One could see that the talent of Long Tao in the path of soul art is not that great, but Long Tao didn't want to give up.

Halfway through the creation, the process halted and wasn't able to proceed further, and Long Tao's soul qi was consumed.

When he finally wasn't able to form more decks a was about to give up to fate, a sudden memory of his spiked back as he remembered 'Soul replenishing art'. His gut feeling pointed out that this might be the only solution to his problem. He probed his memories, and a set of chant runes branded themselves in the mind of Long Tao.

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A mantra came into being, and as Long Tao began chanting it, soul Qi gradually started forming in his world. He became happy and thought of building more and more decks, but as he glanced towards the pestle created, he was shocked to find that the final materialization was gradually occurring. It only meant that once started the art can't be halted.

It meant that if Long Tao wanted to form a higher number of layers, he has to run both the arts simultaneously. He started the process. Gradually the third set of the floor came into being, and fourth was beginning to form.

Long Tao unknowingly started infusing more and more Qi into forming, while simultaneously pushing the mantra of replenishing to the gather more soul Ki. The process continued, and after some time, Long Tao Gradually found that the replenish rate couldn't keep up with the formation rate, and hence the burden ion his mind started increasing.

He tried to persist, but after some time, his consciousness gradually broke due to overexertion as he started to blackout. Long Tao's figure had already been exerted from the soul world of his.

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One could see a magnificent site within his soul world. A bewildering nine deck pestle stood there. Its aura was giving a sense of desolation, magnificence, power, destruction, and absolution. One couldn't even begin to imagine how excruciating the training of grinding oneself is going to be within this pestle. Inside the cave, the body of a young man seems to lie, as the nightfall occurred.