Chương 33: This i Vow

Earth Takeshi sat motionless in his wheelchair, positioned perfectly to catch the first rays of the morning sun as they painted the sky in brilliant oranges and golds. His parents had grown increasingly worried over the past week. Their son, who had spent almost two decades trapped in his paralyzed body with only the movement of his eyes and limited speech, was now spending entire days just staring at the horizon with the most genuine smile they'd ever seen on his face.

They were using to him watching his favorite anime on repeat. Now he just sat there.

"Takeshi?" his mother whispered softly, approaching his chair with a cup of warm tea.

"Are you feeling alright? You've been... different since that meteor shower." He couldn't explain to her that for the first time in his life, he was truly, completely happy. That while his Earth body remained imprisoned in its broken state, his soul was free in ways he'd never dreamed possible. His eyes tracked to meet hers, and he managed to work his vocal cords enough to rasp out, "Never... better."

What he couldn't tell her was that right now, in another world entirely, he was stalking a qi beast through knee-deep snow, his powerful legs carrying him across terrain that would challenge even the strongest men on Earth. Takeshi's Earth body continued to hold the little smile his broken neck allowed him to. Cultivation World - Body Destroying Sect Zulu crouched behind a snow-covered boulder, his breath forming white clouds in the frigid mountain air as he studied his prey.

The Ice Eyed Wolf was a low-level qi beast, roughly equivalent to a level 3 Qi Refining cultivator, but its natural agility and razor-sharp claws made it dangerous for someone still adapting to body cultivation techniques. The wolf was magnificent—nearly the size of a small horse, with pristine white fur that seemed to shimmer with ice qi and ice blue eyes that held an intelligence far beyond any earthly animal.

Crystalline formations grew along its spine and legs, evidence of its ice-attributed qi channels that allowed it to move across snow and ice with supernatural grace. For most low-level qi cultivators, hunting such a beast would require careful preparation, and preferably a team. But Zulu wasn't most cultivators. His body was naturally blessed by the gods, let alone enhanced by body refinement.

Body refinement was about walking on the verge of life and death while breaking down the body and building it up over and over again.

"Pain is the path to power," he whispered, reciting the sect's fundamental teaching as he prepared to charge.

"Through suffering, the body transcends its limits." The week since his initiation had been a baptism by fire that would have broken most people. While other cultivation paths focused on gathering and refining qi, body cultivation was about systematically destroying and rebuilding every cell, every muscle fiber, every bone in the human form until it became something beyond mortal limitations.

His training had begun before dawn each day with what the sect called "Body Breaking"—a series of exercises designed to inflict precise damage on specific points in the body. Under the watchful eye of his mentor, Outer Disciple Kane, Zulu would perform movements that pushed his body past its breaking point. Push-ups until his arms collapsed, sit-ups until his abdominal muscles tore, squats until his legs gave out entirely.

"Your mortal flesh is weak," Kane had explained on the first day, his scarred face impassive as he watched Zulu struggle through his hundredth failed attempt at a one-handed push-up with weights on his back.

"We must tear it down completely before we can build something stronger in its place." The training implements used by the Body Destroying Sect were unlike anything in other cultivation traditions. Instead of meditation cushions, their facilities were filled with devices that looked more like torture equipment. Stone slabs covered in sharp protrusions for conditioning the skin, weighted chains designed to tear muscle fibers, and pools of specially treated qi-infused water that would wear away at the body.

But the most important tool was pain itself.

"Normal cultivators fear injury," Kane had continued that first day, demonstrating by striking a qi infused practice post with his bare fist hard enough to crack the stone. Blood seeped from his knuckles, but his expression never changed.

"Qi cultivators use qi to protect their bodies, to cushion impacts, to avoid damage. This makes them soft. It stops true progress of reforming the body. We embrace injury. We seek it out. Every wound makes us stronger." After each "Body Breaking" session, Zulu would move on to "Essence Infusion." This was the process that set body cultivators apart from every other path.

Instead of cycling qi through meridians like spiritual cultivators, body refiners consumed crushed spirit stones and beast cores directly, grinding the crystallized energy into their damaged tissues. The process was excruciating. Spirit stones contained raw, unrefined qi that burned like acid when applied to open wounds. Beast cores were even worse—the concentrated life force of dead creatures carried traces of their memories, their pain, their final moments.

When crushed and rubbed into injuries, they created a sensation like being burned, frozen, and electrocuted simultaneously. But it worked. Countless impurities would be introduced into their bodies, but then they would forge their bodies once again, and push the impurities out. Like steel being hammered to remove the impurities from the metal. Zulu had watched in amazement as cuts that should have taken weeks to heal closed within hours.

Muscles that had been pushed past their breaking point rebuilt themselves stronger than before. Bones that had been fractured under the weight of impossible training became denser, more resilient. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"The body is designed to adapt," Kane had explained during one particularly brutal session.

"When faced with damage, it doesn't just repair—it improves. But we need to supplement it with better materials to get rebuilt. Materials that aren't meant for the body. We have to grind them into the flesh using special cultivation techniques." By precisely damaging specific areas and then flooding them with concentrated qi essence and qi-infused materials, practitioners could force their bodies to evolve at the cellular level. Each healing cycle made them stronger, faster, more durable.

Now, crouched in the snow with his first real hunt about to begin, Zulu felt the truth of those words in every fiber of his being. His body still ached from the morning's training session—Kane had made him practice "Stone Skin Conditioning" by repeatedly striking iron spikes with his bare chest. But that pain was familiar now, even comforting. It meant he was growing stronger. The Ice Eyed Wolf raised its head, nostrils flaring as it caught his scent.

Ice-blue eyes locked onto his position with predatory intelligence. For a moment, predator and hunter sized each other up across the frozen wasteland. Then Zulu charged. His legs, conditioned through impossible training, carried him across the snow faster than any mortal could move. The wolf reacted instantly, its own supernatural agility allowing it to leap aside just as Zulu's fist passed through the space where its head had been. The beast's counterattack came immediately.

Razor claws wreathed in ice qi slashed toward his exposed ribs. Zulu twisted, but not fast enough. The claws raked across his side, parting skin and muscle in four parallel lines. Blood sprayed across the white snow, steaming in the frigid air. But instead of retreating, Zulu smiled.

"Teach me the path of pain," he said to the wolf, whose eyes widened slightly at this person glee. The fight that followed was less a battle than a dance of mutual destruction. The Ice Eyed Wolf was faster, its ice qi allowing it to create slippery patches that sent Zulu sprawling, its claws finding flesh again and again. But Zulu was relentless. Every wound only seemed to make him more determined, every cut driving him to press his attack with greater ferocity.

"This is what I was meant for," he thought as the wolf's fangs sank into his shoulder, ice qi flooding the wound and numbing his entire arm.

"Not sitting in a chair, watching life pass by. This. Fighting. Feeling. This PAIN" He grabbed the wolf's head with his good arm, ignoring the way its teeth ground against his shoulder bone. With a roar that echoed across the mountainside, he drove his knee upward into the creature's skull. The impact sent shockwaves through both their bodies—the wolf's head snapped back with a wet crack, while Zulu's kneecap felt like it might have fractured.

The Ice Eyed Wolf collapsed into the snow, its ice blue eyes already glazing over as life fled its broken form. Zulu knelt beside the cooling corpse, his body a map of cuts, punctures, and bruises. His shoulder was mangled where the wolf's fangs had found their mark, his ribs ached from multiple claw strikes, and he was fairly certain his left knee was damaged. But he was alive. He was victorious. He was free.

With practiced movements learned from Kane's demonstrations, Zulu began the process of extracting the beast's core. His fingers, strengthened through hours of "Iron Grip Training," tore through fur and flesh until he found what he was looking for. The core was beautiful—a sphere of crystallized qi about the size of a marble, swirling with pale blue energy that seemed to contain the essence of the beast.

Ice attribute cores were particularly valuable for body cultivators, as they helped condition the body's ability to withstand extreme temperatures.

"Body Breaking, then Essence Infusion," he murmured, reciting the fundamental cycle of body cultivation. Without hesitation, Zulu placed the core on a flat stone and began striking it with his fist. Each impact crushed shards of crystallized qi, while waves of ice-cold energy washed over his hands. When the core was finally reduced to a fine powder, he began the most crucial part of the process. Essence infusion was an art form that separated true body cultivators from mere masochists.

The crushed core had to be applied to specific injury sites in precise ways. He pressed multiple pressure points on his body in the patterns he had been taught. These hidden techniques ensured the body was rebuilt well. Zulu started with his shoulder wound—the deepest and most dangerous injury. He pressed handfuls of the powdered core directly into the puncture marks left by the wolf's fangs, grinding the crystallized qi into torn muscle and damaged bone. The sensation was indescribable.

It felt like liquid fire and frozen lightning simultaneously flooding through his body. The ice-attributed qi burned as it merged with his blood, while the concentrated life force of the dead beast fought against his own vital energy. A few memories flashed through his mind—the wolf's final hunt, its territorial battles, the taste of warm blood on fresh snow. But underneath the agony was something else: healing.

He could feel his shoulder rebuilding itself at the cellular level, muscle fibers knitting back together stronger than before, bone density increasing and each cell becoming stronger.

"Pain is the path," he gasped with an expression that expressed enjoyment rather than the pain. Applying more of the crushed core to his other wounds. Each application brought fresh waves of agony, but also visible improvement. Cuts closed, bruises faded, and the constant ache of damaged tissue gave way to the peculiar sensation of rapid regeneration. When the process was complete, Zulu sat back in the snow and marveled at his transformed body.

Where the wolf's claws had raked across his ribs, the skin was now changed to something better, its was stronger and more resistant to cutting. His shoulder, despite being nearly torn apart minutes earlier, felt more powerful and more flexible than before. Even his fractured knee had healed with improved bone density. This was the miracle of body cultivation. Each injury became an opportunity for advancement.

Every battle, every training session, every moment of carefully inflicted damage pushed the body beyond its previous limitations. It was cultivation through controlled self-destruction, advancement through absolute mastery of pain. As he made his way back to the sect compound, Zulu reflected on the week that had transformed him from a broken husk as Takeshi into something approaching superhuman as Zulu.

The other initiates who had survived the entrance exam—only thirty-nine out of five hundred—had become his brothers in suffering. Together, they endured training that would have killed normal people, pushed their bodies past every conceivable limit, and emerged stronger each day. But for Zulu, every moment was a gift. Every training session, every injury, every perfectly or imperfectly executed technique was proof that he was finally, truly alive.

He left behind his broken body on Earth and was building the body of someone truly powerful here. The setting sun painted the snowy peaks in shades of gold and crimson as he reached the sect gates. Tomorrow would bring new training, new injuries, new opportunities to transcend his flesh. Takeshi was sitting crying at the opportunity he had. He would make his body unbreakable. Never again would he accept a weak body. He would build Zulu a body that not even a black hole could destroy.

"This I vow," Takeshi gurgled to himself as his earthly body drooled over itself.