What Sol was doing was truly complete madness.

A normal cultivator refining their body would do one limb at a time while opening their acupoints and widening their meridians.

If they started on the arm, they would open the acupoints, circulate Aether Energy to widen the meridians to those acupoints, and then refine their skin, flesh, tendons, and bones.

As for internal organs? Normal cultivators didn’t even touch the acupoints in their torso, why would they even think to refine their organs and seek death?

The only thing they would do was drink some elixirs to strengthen their organs. And even then, those elixirs were mostly accessible to big Clans and Sects.

This was why there was a huge difference in strength between a normal cultivator and a cultivator from a big Clan and Sect.

However, these Young Masters and Young Ladies would be able to open one or two acupoints that weren’t close to their internal organs, but they left the refinement of their organs up to copious amounts of pills and elixirs.

This was the safest method after all.

However, Sol opted to flip everything on its head because he was the masochist that he was. Instead of doing things normally, he chose to refine the entire surface of his skin and flesh, the entirety of his bones and tendon, and the entirety of his internal organs, all at the same time.

At the very least he had the mind not to do all three categories at once and start with his skin and flesh, but that didn’t make things any better.

During the current refinement of his body, his bones and tendons were crushed repeatedly. Sol had to do everything in his power to avoid his skull being crushed along with his brain.

There was even a chance his internal organs might be affected at this stage.

Truly if not because of his Innate Dharma, Sol would have died dozens of times. Even more than that when he started to refine his internal organs.

If one had walked past the base of this mountain and stopped to listen for four days and four nights, they would have heard the faint screams of a ghost coming from inside the mountain.

It would send shivers down one’s spine and make one’s hair stand on end.

After four days and four nights, Sol’s hell was finally over.

Currently, inside the cave, he lay there with listless eyes, sunken cheeks, and dark circles.

With him as the center, a twelve-meter radius of the ground around him was stained in dried blood. Around the damp and slightly dark cave, the smell of blood was heavy.

Little Abdu glanced at Sol and seeing that he was relatively fine and was just mentally fatigued, he finally decided to go back to his cultivation.

Sol could feel the power coursing through his body, and even after the bracelets had returned around his wrists, they might as well not have been there.

His conjecture was right, he was able to absorb the second portion of his crescent moon bloodline, now his base physical strength went from the Quasi-Spiritual Realm to fully entering the Spiritual Realm.

Now the only thing left was to have his Aether Energy cultivation catch up.

However, he was so mentally fatigued that he just had to close his eyes and rest. If he tried to break into the Spiritual Realm now, he couldn’t guarantee that something wouldn’t go wrong.

Only after one day and two nights did he finally have the energy to sit up.

After a bit, he took out some food and scarfed it down.

The storage bag Yoon-Jae gave him was from Mar-Yue and it contained a large supply of food, enough to last for about half a year.

Considering that it had been five months since he entered seclusion, this portion of the ration would be depleted in a month.

However, this months’ worth of ration was quickly devoured by Sol in an instant. After refining his body for a second time, he was completely emaciated, and it felt like he hadn’t eaten it for several decades.

Even after devouring the months’ worth of ration, he still felt hungry. He still had some food like the Sand King’s meat in his storage ring, but Sol had to force himself to not eat that as well.

He didn’t know how much longer he would be here, so he had to be conservative with his remaining ration.

Even though cultivators could go without things such as food, water, and sleep, there was a limit. For Mortal Realm cultivators, their limit was a bit higher than regular mortals.

Despite Sol being in the Mortal Realm, since his body had reached the Spiritual Realm in terms of strength, he could go for a few weeks up to a month without needing sleep or food, just relying on his physical resilience and Aether Energy.

But of course, no one would do that if they didn’t have to, so he licked his lips and placed eating at the back of his mind.

Standing up, Sol clenched his fist, and the air distorted as a result.

Eyes shining with excitement, Sol grinned from ear to ear.

“Now I just have to break through into the Spiritual Realm. At that point, my Holy Power, Aether Energy Cultivation, and Fleshly Body would be in harmony. But…”

Sol’s words trailed off as he looked around at the mess he caused inside his cave as well as his current appearance.

“I should clean things up before I do anything else.”

Sol turned and headed toward his bathing area at the back of the cave to get some water. However, his head was suddenly yanked to the side.

“Owie! What was that?”

Sol groaned after having his hair pulled before he looked down. However, he was stunned to see that it was because he had stepped on his hair.

Sol blinked.

“Looks like my hair has grown even longer than before. And this was after it was completely gone while I was refining my skin.”

After thinking for a moment, Sol decided to just roll with it for now. He would shave it after he ended his seclusion.

Though, this meant he would have to work hard to scrub out the blood and grime that was caked into it.

After reaching the back of the cave with a single step, Sol collected water in one of his stone tubs and went back to clean up his blood.

Afterward, he filled up another tub and scrubbed his body and hair clean. When he was done with that initial cleaning, he filled up a third tub to relax in the warm water.

You could say his way of bathing had been influenced by the Barbarian Tribe. Back in his village and even in the Martial Alliance Academy, Sol would just jump into the bath and bathe once.

But after doing it the Barbarian Race’s way, he made it a habit since it was a better health practice.

After soaking in the warm water of his stone bathtub and thinking nothing in particular, or rather trying to, Sol got up and emptied the bath water.

As for where it went, he had made some modifications to have it exit a drain leading outside, which he had built some weeks ago.

After he did that, Sol set the tub upright and squeezed his hair dry. At the same time, he conjured a rune to dry off the water droplets on his body.

Flipping over his hand, Sol then took out a pair of pants and wore it.

However, while he was tightening the belt of his pants, Sol suddenly staggered a step back and his face contorted into a mixture of pain and confusion.

That was because a spear had suddenly pierced his stomach.

The spear was black and was decorated by intricate carvings that spiral across its entire body. At the end of it was a red tassel that was swaying as if it had just been flung.

A terrifying aura was also radiating from it, an aura Sol felt was even stronger than the Academy Leader. Sol had never felt Mar-Du release his aura, but he guessed this power dwarfed his just the same.

Sol instinctively covered his mouth as blood spurted from his lips. The blood flowed through his fingers and landed on the black spear and his… golden robes?

Sol’s face grimaced while his body was wracked with pain making him shake. He turned to Little Abdu who was several meters away.

“Little… Abdu.”

However, his call barely escaped his lips before his body lost all strength and landed on his back with a soft thud.

Sol’s gaze met the night sky up above which was filled with countless stars and constellations. It was absolutely majestic.

But of course, the big question is why was he seeing such an image rather than the cave ceiling?

Sol’s body felt cold, all the way down to his bones. He also felt death approach him, it closer than it was before while he was refining his body.

But the strange thing was, this death felt extremely familiar.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep