An immaterial hand grasped a frozen heart and clenched hard.

  With every press it exerted, the thump of heartbeat rang, each beat growing louder and louder. Finally, Baiyun let out a sputtering cough and spasmed as he broke out of his state!

  He took heavy breaths and coughed, trying his best to suppress his erratic movements.

  Within his body, his stomach was decimated, his body wracked with white-hot pain as acid seeped into his organs; it was no wonder the shock was enough to send his body catatonic for a moment.

  But Baiyun remained calm.

  As a mantra of his past world once said: Soul over body.

  Deep within, the elixir tore through his flesh and dove down, as if it were trying its best to drill out of his body and onto the stone floor. But his soul strangled its flow and channelled the corrosive essence throughout his body instead.

  Baiyun trembled as thickened blood oozed from every pore of his body; his eyes turning pure-red as crimson tears streamed onto the ground.

  On his face was a silent scream, but his soul was uncaring as it smiled - the elixir was integrating into the servant's body far better than he thought! Every part of the body seemed to be tearing apart, with the exception of the dantian, vitals and inner meridians shielded by his soul.

  But a scream of pure agony broke the silence of the chamber. His body began to scream with all its might, flailing its limbs in every direction and slamming them into the hard stone floor!

  "ARGHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

  The bloodcurdling screams stunned Baiyun who stared upwards in a daze. This... What in the world was going on? He put a hand to his mouth and squeezed tightly, but the muffled cries were no less horrifying.

  "MFFFFF! Mffffffh!"

  It was a good thing the chamber was soundproofed or his breakthrough would have been interrupted by people rushing in.

  Baiyun quickly willed his body to shut its mouth and halt the flailing of its limbs, leaving it trembling with teeth gritted so hard they began to chip.

  His soul let out a sigh of relief. If too much of his blood splattered over the workshop walls from the commotion and he couldn't clean it up, Qinghe would have his head!

  He resumed his focus onto the breakthrough. Without external meridians to worry about, he had much less he needed to keep intact.

  To body cultivate was to remould the body and reshape it from scratch. The more through the destruction, the more potent the restructuring would be!

  Powerful restorative essences within the elixir began to activate as it melded with his blood. Baiyun began aided the essence and guided it as he rebuilt his flesh from scratch. With his extensive knowledge of anatomy, he was well aware of various inefficiencies of the human body.

  Muscle and tendons were rebuilt with far more efficient structures, their strength and flexibility far exceeding that of a mortal human's. There was not a hint of fear or uncertainty in the eyes of his soul.

  He might have been baffled by the unexpected screaming of his body, but he knew how much a body could withstand. Enhanced by the Rock Ginseng pill, the Vital Heart Brew and the innate durability of the servant's physique, it could withstand more than 10 times the damage a mortal body could without dying.

  Something frustrated him however.

  Without the 9th Heaven's law of death, body refining could be taken further, to the point of actual physical death. At that point, restructuring would be at its most potent!

  Perhaps the body screaming was a subconscious reaction caused by him protecting the nervous system and vitals, Baiyun mused to himself. The teachings of his past world stated that all upper consciousness stemmed from the soul, and that without the soul, a body was little more intelligent than a insect.

  But even a cockroach would writhe when bisected, even if nothing more than instinctive. Baiyun was satisfied by his quick theory that seemed to explain the situation, though there was something he found quite amusing. Without the law of death in his past life, how efficient must he have been to not have seen this phenomena before?

  The trembling of teeth grew more violent, and another scream was let out, before Baiyun snapped his jaws shut with soul even tighter. That sound was truly vexing...

  Tsk. If he had meridians like a normal cultivator, he could simply have soaked his body in diluted body elixir- wait! His bloodied eyes lit up as an idea shot into his mind.

  During the reign of the 8th Heavens, there was a law that prevented anyone from improving their talent. With the reign of the 9th, it was possible the law was discarded!

  Baiyun began to grow extremely excited. If he had external meridians like a normal cultivator, he would probably already be Nascent Soul at the age of 8 and already on his path to ascension. The amount of time the servant physique wasted him was absurd.

  He began to put his focus in forming the spirit pathway of a meridian. It was his first time attempting such a feat, but he knew their structure like the back of his hand.

  As the beginnings of a meridian began to form, his excitement grew. A light appeared like a star atop of his skin and it began to blossom into a spiritual pore- Only for the very fabric of space to twist and contorted, ripping the meridian apart!

  The impact stunned Baiyun and sent his mind reeling, causing him to freeze for a second, letting the essences rush through his body unchecked.

  Not good!

  He snapped himself to clarity with a soul art and stabilised the situation in a frenzy, narrowly preventing irreparable damage from being done to his body. That was too close... the heavenly backlash would have killed him if he went unconscious!

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  Cold sweat dripped down his face. What was he thinking? That was insanely reckless of him, anything relating to heavenly laws had to be treated with the utmost caution!

  Thoughts regarding the situation began to flood into his mind but he put them aside for now; he needed to focus on body refinement. The trembles that shook his body began to abate as he worked through the late hours of the night, allowing him to finally relax his jaw and mend his teeth.

  His breathing began to stabilise and his skin returned to pristine condition, the scene no longer resembled that of murder, though a person with writhing flesh lying in a puddle of blood was no less unsettling.

  Baiyun had carefully calculated the total restorative force of the elixir, and it ran out just as the last of his internals were fully healed. There was still a lot of room to improve his body structure, but he had to work within the constraints of the elixir's restorative essence; his soul had little healing capabilities and could only accelerate the healing of minor injuries.

  Aside from the base effects of the Black Earth Elixir, the muscle restructuring was a 2nd layer of body refinement, giving him double the strength he should have received from the elixir! He could have gone further, but he avoided anything that would lead to major changes to his physique.

  It wasn't only to avoid suspicion, as he preferred to retain a human appearance. To him, anyone willing to deform their body into an abomination merely for power was insane.

  He frowned slightly however. The elixir had been fully integrated into every part of his body with the exception of the brain. With how he had kept it completely safe from the destructive essences of the elixir, it still remained perfectly mortal.

  Such a huge weakness was concerning. If his brain lacked durability, even if his body shrugged off a strong physical attack, it might be liquefied by the shockwaves!

  But all he could do with the new heavenly restrictions of death was to wait. As blood flowed through his body, his brain would naturally absorb essences from the rest of the body and strengthen gradually in a slow process that would take months.

  Hm. As this wouldn't affect him alone, Baiyun made a mental note that body cultivators after the 9th Heaven's inauguration should be especially vulnerable to head attacks.

  There was something more exciting to ponder however, something he considered more valuable than his newfound strength. He had discovered vital information!

  With the 8th Heaven's downfall, Baiyun assumed their laws would be erased. But his little experiment earlier proved that their laws were perfectly intact.

  It was an incredible revelation.

  Would that mean from the 1st Heaven to the 8th, the laws of every fallen heaven remained, compounding one upon the other? There was a good chance the law of talent preservation wasn't even passed by the 8th Heaven!

  Baiyun was briefly reminded of the mentions of the 1st and 2nd Heaven from the strange book back in the inn.

  The distortion that ripped his fake meridian apart was eerily similar to the phenomena during the mole's breakthrough... he was certainly it was heavenly intervention! Yet, they did not seem to have detected him.

  It must have been an automated process of sorts, much like how formations performed their tasks without input. Perhaps it was possible for him to break into Elixir Condensation without worrying about confrontation then, but he still wasn't certain.

  He took a deep breath. There was still much he needed to learn, not just of this mortal world, but the changes to the very universe.

  Baiyun tried to sit up from the pool of discoloured blood, but he realised his body was still unconscious. Whatever. He piloted it with his soul like a puppet and stood up, wiping himself off with rags.

  He smelled the metallic stench of blood and filth in the air and frowned. His instincts screamed at him to start cleaning the room immediately, but there was a bigger priority. With how much blood he had lost, he needed to rehydrate immediately.

  Baiyun took out bottles of vital heart brew and chugged down as much as he could. He began to mop the room clean of his dirty blood, stopping to drink more brew whenever he sensed more room in his stomach.

  It was a good thing the stone wasn't absorbent, or cleaning would have been impossible. He wiped the shelves and walls clean as well, inspecting the room to make sure no trace was left.

  With that done, it was time to test the fruits of his newfound strength. He took out a stool from his bag and placed it on the ground, before slamming his fist down on it with all his might!

  BANG!

  The stool exploded into wooden shrapnel that cluttered the room once more. Baiyun held up his hand and nodded in satisfaction, noting it was slightly bruised.

  Next, to test his durability.

  He sat back down and slowly increased the magnitude of his soul. Back in the prison, the mere act of breaking a piece of Undying Basalt in his mouth had wrecked his body. Seeing how far he had come since then would be perfect for reference.

  Baiyun replicated the same force that wrecked him back then, not flinching in the slightest.

  2 times, 10 times!

  At such pressure, his past self would have been reduced into his state after consuming the Black Earth Elixir, but without restorative essence to save his life.

  But his body merely trembled and remained unharmed.

  15 times, 20 times, 30 times!

  The blood in his body began to run rampant and his muscles spasmed. Every muscle of his face twitched, contorting into an absolutely hideous expression. But Baiyun knew he could still go further.

  50 times, 75 times, 100 times!

  With the force more than tripled, he toppled back onto the ground. Internals wounds began to appear and he quickly deactivated the pressure before he could sustain further damage.

  Baiyun laughed loudly to himself.

  30 times seemed to be about the stable range, and he could sustain 100 times for about 3 seconds before sustaining major injuries. He was no longer a helpless weakling and had attained a basic level of strength at long last, and could now use more of his soul's power.

  His jump in durability might seem absurd, but it was only natural. Baiyun had gone straight from a mortal body to consuming a Foundational grade elixir! It was no wonder it ripped through his frail body like a shredder.

  With his soul's power further unshackled, he could now effectively mask the state of his body from any potential nosy elders. Even if they marched up to him and infused their qi sense into him, all they would sense was an ordinary servant with no cultivation.

  There was no need to worry about anyone sensing the changes within his body anymore.

  It was at that moment where he felt his body began to stir, seemingly because of the soul pressure. Baiyun nodded to himself, pleased that he would be able to control his body once more without having to puppet.

  But as he moved his arms and legs, he realised his whole body was trembling and slow to move, as if he were mired in sludge. His teeth chattered before clenching, nearly biting his tongue. He frowned to himself as he got up and walked around the room on shaky feet.

  What was going on? Did the breakthrough fry his brain somehow?

  Baiyun mused to himself as he searched his body for abnormalities, but it appeared to have been perfectly healed.

  Perhaps he had pushed his body a little too far and ought to let it rest. He placed down bedding and laid down, closing his eyes.

  The night was restless as his body twitched, tossing and turning every now and then.

  ...

  Morning soon came.

  He got up and stared at his hand as he willed it to open and close. His frown matched the subtle creasing skin of his palm.

  The trembles seemed to have subsided but his movements were still sluggish and unresponsive. It was almost as if he was back to his earlier years of reincarnation, where soul and body had yet to meld.

  It was a truly unpleasant feeling that he despised; what was once his body now felt like a wooden puppet again.

  !

  Baiyun widened his eyes as something suddenly entered the range of his divine thread orbiting the workshop!

  He ducked instinctively, his movements a second slower than usual - just as a tremor shook the workshop. A deafening clatter echoed as the shelves shook from the impact and slammed against the stone walls, fragments of the shattered stool flying off the ground and into the air.

  Baiyun's eyes narrowed as he perceived the threat. A giant spirit bird had crashed onto the workshop!