It was the first time in his life to have expended one thousand spirit stones in one go. Xuhan was naturally feeling rather overwhelmed.
Following the exchange rate between mortal world's currency and spirit stones, he could've used that amount of money to build a castle and live like a lascivious young master for a couple dozen years.

Right now, he was holding a block of crystallized spirit qi with body nurturing properties. It had cost 250 spirit stones per block, each of which was around half a pound in weight.

On the floor of his hut, complicated symbols had been drawn using a special sort of ink that could affect the coagulation of qi in the air.

It would save him the trouble of wasting his time to replenish his qi once his reserve ran out during the cycles.

Seeing that everything had been set in place, Xuhan started his first attempt at making a breakthrough to the second layer of physique transformation realm.

He had five more days left before the deadline came. The last few days, he had used up resources madly, his expenditure on a level that could frighten even inner court geniuses. Hundreds of spirit stones had vanished after every session.

Xuhan also realized that without using resources like this, his normal cultivation speed was pretty much stagnant. So, other than the sessions where he could burn resources to complete cycles, he didnt really need to cultivate anymore. The normal sessions wouldn't matter anyway.

Today was the day. Xuhan could avidly feel the changes in his body. During his long leisure hours every day when he didn't need to cultivate, he either hung around with his boss Mu Ran, or any senior disciple of his mountain peak and asked for guidance.

Thankfully, with his social skills, he had managed to form a friendly relationship with most of the disciples he was acquainted with. Even his master in name, elder Daheng, had become more mellow after being gifted with two free copies of his books and an expensive tea set.

From their advice and casual lessons, Xuhan had benefitted a lot. With his own good comprehension and the tenacity of an Asian student, Xuhan had pretty much gotten a very in depth overview regarding the lower layers of physique transformation realm.

The technique Xuhan wanted to cultivate first was the 'skeletal monarch' .
Although it was deemed as useless, he had managed to make up a rough sketch of how he could integrate it with the 'spiritual bones' technique.

The way of cultivating the 'skeletal monarch ' was quite fun. At each layer, the cultivator had to use his qi cycles to construct pieces of bones. With each passing cycle, they would have to join the bone with joints and construct another bone with the joint, thus slowly forming a complete skeleton after hundreds of cycles.

The interesting thing was, the scroll where the technique was recorded never explicitly mentioned any limits regarding what kind of a skeleton the practitioner could construct.

This had given Xuhan some semblance of hope. What if he managed to form a humongous dragon's skeleton...?

But sad reality told him otherwise. First of all, the skeleton would have to be perfect and identical to the living creature it mimicked. Xuhan was familiar with human skeletons, but a dragon? No one in the sect had even seen anything of that sort in their lives.
Only one of the old elders with unfathomable cultivation was known to have battled a flood dragon at the peak of soul reformation realm, which was the weakest and most distant cousin of the legendary dragon race. It was even considered to be a big ass snake by most.

Without medically accurate structures available to him and no time to lose, the only thing Xuhan could do was to buy a human skeleton structure from the treasury. It was an essential manual for any cultivator who practiced body strengthening techniques anyway. So it hadn't cost much. He had a faint suspicion that the bones he was using as a template were real. But oh well, nobody seemed to give a fuck about such 'small details'.

"One day, I'll hopefully be able to create a dragon skeleton. Even if it's a powerless pile of bones, just its appearance should be enough to settle any small scuffles. Heck, I could probably use that to fly around like a dragon riding epic boss..."

In the last few days, he had managed to construct a human skeleton after almost one thousand qi cycles.
Two hundred and six bones, roughly three hundred and sixty joints, nine hundred ligaments...most of which seemed unnecessary considering the skeletons didnt move using scientific methods.

This also made Xuhan understand why this technique had such a bad reputation. Even the slowest mainstream techniques didn't require this much time and accuracy. Unless one cultivated like Xuhan, using up resources like a bottomless abyss per session to speed up the process and even construct multiple bones many times with the added boost, it would be extremely difficult to keep up with the rest of their peers.

"Once this skeleton gains sentience, I'll be instantly promoted to the next layer," Xuhan muttered as he ran his hands over the adult sized male skeleton. It looked no different from the real thing, other than having a strangely smooth texture on its bones.

As a finishing touch, Xuhan had also made a few very minor changes to its body that wouldn't affect its overall appearance and wouldn't stray far from what was considered medically accurate, like lengthening and sharpening the teeth to a frightening degree, making the finger bones harder and sharper, adding some extra tiny joints for smoother movement, making the toes stronger and heels more flexible with the help of extra ligaments etcetera.

The scripture mentioned that once the practitioner's mastery over the technique went beyond the soul reformation realm, they would be able to fashion the skeletons any way they wanted, disregarding the previous limitations. But that was a destination far, far away.
Right now, these small changes were already toeing his limits.

"Let's hope this works out..."

Closing his eyes, Xuhan started running the cycle again. This time, he would have to be extra careful. The practitioner had no way of influencing how the personality of the skeleton turns out. One could only hope that it wouldn't be the personality of a teenager in their rebellious phase...

The qi inside his vessels moved like molten lava. Slowly, steadily, the cycle was forming. He could feel a deep pressure on his body and spirit, like something was being engraved on his very being.

Is this the "imprint" of a cultivation technique?
In elder Kong's words, a room and a foundation is being constructed?

The air around him distorted as if heated to an unnatural degree. The formation to gather and replenish his qi glowed in the dark. The block of crystallized qi was consumed in one fell swoop, something that could've instantly promoted a normal cultivator at his level, but it could only help him reach the peak of the first layer even after consuming many similar resources before this.

As time passed, Xuhan could feel his consciousness slowly slipping out like a piece of iron being attracted to a powerful magnet despite gravity's pull.

Moments later, his perception of the world was twisted like a crumpled paper. Try as he might, he could no longer open his eyes or even feel his body. The only thing he felt was a chilly rush through his very existence itself.

Without even trying, he imagined a plot of land that was his consciousness. Such a scene was planted throughly in his mind by elder Kong during his classes. It was moving, changing, evolving, like a gigantic, automatic machine revolving on its own.

Was this his sea of consciousness? How come there was no water in the sea? It was all cracked, flat soil.

Slowly, a tower drilled out of the flat ground, sending vibrations through the land that he could actually somehow feel reverberating in his mind. He was very close to the tower, and could see it in great detail.

A single room, illuminated by a magnificent light from above, its source unknown.

Xuhan could feel his consciousness being pulled toward the tower, a grand door opening up automatically, leading inside the room.

However, as soon as his feet stepped in, the door was shut with a boom.

Xuhan felt a strange deja vu. Wasn't his entrance to this sect also similar to this?

Inside the room, a snakelike form revolved in the air. Upon observation, Xuhan realized that it was the core qi diagram of the skeletal monarch technique. The cycle was made up of purple strands of liquefied qi. Twisting beautifully in the air, it looked very pleasing to the eye.

As it moved, Xuhan noticed a white form inside the cycle, surrounded by the liquefied qi all around.

It was an identical copy of the skeleton he constructed in the real world, albeit smaller in size.

Xuhan remembered the advice from his seniors and his master.

"Once you reach the peak of the first layer while practicing a technique, your dao base will reveal itself to your consciousness. It'll take the shape of whatever you imagine it to be instinctively. In your case, it should be something like a building since that's how elder Kong taught you to visualize your dao base.
Inside the building, you'll find a symbol of the technique you've cultivated. Once you see it, follow the instructions of the scripture to promote yourself to the second layer."

Remembering their words, Xuhan understood that now, his job was to make the skeleton gain sentience.

Xuhan imagined himself moving closed to the small skeleton and realized his consciousness was actually moving according to his will.

Forming imaginary hands, Xuhan slowly touched the skeleton.

A sucking sensation appeared all around him, making his consciousness distort and lose his visual ability. When the sensation vanished...

The room he was in had disappeared. Now he stood on a huge barren field. Everywhere he looked, the field stretched beyond his vision. A Crimson crystalline sun hung over his head on the sky, yet it radiated a strange chill rather than heat.

Looking up, Xuhan felt overwhelmed.
Countless icy shards containing crimson light of various shapes of living beings were falling from the sky, their source being the crimson sun itself.

The shards were still far above, but it wouldn't be long before they rained down on him.

Xuhan had heard of this phenomenon from one of the seniors whose distant ancestor had practiced this technique many years ago.

Each of those shards represented a personality. The shards all contained the same crimson light of the sun they originated from. The bigger the shard, the more they radiated the light, the more intense and stimulated their characters were.

Calming his heart, Xuhan observed the sky full of falling shards. Very soon, he could see human shaped lights inside some shards in the midst.

Moments later, the shards fell on the ground and instead of shattering, they sunk into the ground slowly, disappearing after some time. Xuhan avoided the falling shards, a task that wasn't particularly difficult since each and every shard maintained a good distance from the others.

Xuhan floated around the fallen shards, his eyes seeking out the human shaped lights inside certain shards that were neither too bright, nor too dull. That was the most optimal choice for a newbie. He didn't want a realistic person hiding inside the skeleton, or a buffoon who didn't even know how to speak.

Soon, Xuhan found a shard that fit his criteria well. Inching closer, he touched the shard after hesitating for a while. The moment his consciousness came in contact with the shard, it shook and melted into the air, leaving the human shaped light inside it.

The light twisted around his consciousness. Xuhan felt a faintly familiar sensation. His vision was distorted for a moment again. When it was restored, he was inside the only room of his dao base, his imaginary hands touching the small skeleton which now radiated the same crimson glow as the shards.

As Xuhan looked at the crimson coloured skeleton quietly, it suddenly moved its head, locking its gaze with him.