A statue of a body sitting in a lotus position could be seen. The statue was so realistic that it made one question himself; The peaceful atmosphere continued for some time. Only one person knew the chaos taking place in this silence.
Time passed, but the eyebrows of the statue changed with it. They knitted together, and his face was also not as relaxed as before.
Inside the statue, two smaller special balls could be seen. An invisible power descended there. The two white balls started to slowly come close to each other; their surfaces touched each other as they started to revolve together, creating a wheel. They slowly started to melt and merge into each other, and a slightly larger spherical ball appeared in place of the two balls.
Some energy has been lost in the process. At first, Rishi thought it was because he was inexperienced and not doing it properly, but with time, he figured out that there was no mistake on his end. He continued, but to no avail; the results were still the same. He was disappointed and frustrated as he continued.
He was even questioning himself in between: Is it even worth it? What if it all turns into a failure? In between the troubled thoughts, he continued, not to reach somewhere but to see the end. He had lost hope after combining two hundred cores; he could notice no change in the core created by merging two old cores.
He still continued, as this was how he was; he didn't start things easily, but once he started something, he kept giving his all till the end. This was why, despite failing multiple times, he continued learning about magic runes; there was a faint belief somewhere hidden inside him that was waiting for a miracle. He named the original cores O cores.
As time passed, he got better at the process. He activated his 'Extreme Focus' skill and started to merge five old cores into one. The result was still the same: the new core only carried ten percent more ice energy. This was a huge waste; He steeled his heart and continued.
As time passed, a layer of ice surrounded him, preventing the ice energy from dissipating into the environment. After merging ten old cores to create one, he realized that the structure of the new core was more refined because it contained fifteen percent more ice energy.
After a day, only a hundred cores remained; these were all formed by merging ten old cores. He named these hundred cores A Cores; he merged five A Cores, which took a lot more time and effort, and what appeared was a more refined version of A Core, but the result was a failure in his eyes due to the wastage of resources.
He named these new cores B cores; He changed all his A-cores to B-cores. He now had twenty cores with a well-refined structure; they were shining white like pearls. He continued the process, and as he got closer, the beat of his heart increased.
He calmed himself down and merged two B cores. The result was a new core that looked almost identical to the B cores; the only change was a bright light. He changed all B cores into C cores, and his heart felt pain when he looked at their size, which was only slightly larger than the C-type cores.
As he got closer, the process became harder. He needed to use all his focus just to merge two cores. He merged all ten C-type cores to create five D-type cores. He then gathered all his focus and calmed his mind before using the technique and starting to merge the five cores at once.
This was a very slow process; slowly but surely, the cores came closer and merged. A bright white light illuminated his inside, and what appeared next was a mirage. A white orb shining in a light blue glow appeared; It had a diameter of one centimeter and was approximately three times the size of the original cores.
After looking at it, he finally sighed; This could be seen as a satisfactory result in his eyes. He could see how well refined its structure was; it was comparable to his Shadow Core before gaining 'Shadow Spirit.' Which was huge, as only he knew how much effort he had put to refine his shadow core to that level.
His eyes opened, and he noticed he was covered in a layer of ice. He only moved his head, but multiple cracks appeared on the layer, and as he stood up, the ice shattered like dust. He raised his eyebrows; something was not right. He punched the wall lightly, and "BOOM," a hole was created there; Multiple cracks appeared on the wall.
"How can it happen? I needed a medium-strength punch to get this result earlier." He looked at his hands and said, "What happened to me? There was never a mention of physical strength increase in the body cultivation technique."
He thought for a while before his eyes lit up: "Could it be because of the changes I made so that massive amount of ice energy didn't go to waste after all?" A smile appeared on his face; his strength had increased by roughly three times. It would not have been a big deal for other Beast Tamers, but he was already at least ten times stronger than average; this had made his physical strength stronger to the degree that even he couldn't imagine.
"I feel like I can defeat an advanced-stage ice golem with only my physical strength. With the body transformation art, I might even be able to face a low-level elite-stage ice golem." He stretched a little and tested his strength before sitting down again.
He now needed to comprehend the body transformation art. He was excited about it; He started to comprehend the technique. It was not very complex, but it still took him some time to understand its concept.
He needed to use a large amount of ice energy to temporarily transform his body parts into ice. In this form, his strength, magic power, agility, physical defense, magic defense, and regeneration multiplied, making him a monster for a short period of time.
The maximum time was five minutes for a common beast tamer who had mastered this technique, but he believed he could increase this time to three or four times very easily. With a smile on his face, he started to comprehend it while also thinking of ways to improve it.