Chapter 147 (1/2)

Azalea stared at Grandpa Vremya. She had seen him do strange things, but she wasn’t quite sure what he was doing now. He seemed to be sitting inside a cauldron which was resting over a massive firepit. A strong blaze was going underneath, and the surface of the cauldron was bright red from the heat. Azalea stood on her tiptoes to get a clearer view of what was going on inside. Other than Grandpa Vremya, there was nothing else. He was even naked, and his interspatial items had been placed on the wooden table inside the room. She wondered if it was a fire hazard to have such a strong blaze going in the middle of a room, but the Grandpa Vremya she knew would’ve taken the necessary precautions to keep it from burning down. Even though she knew Grandpa Vremya, she didn’t know what the hell he was doing. “What are you doing?”

“Forging my body,” Grandpa Vremya said. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not necessarily,” Azalea said. “At first, I thought you were taking a hot bath but got distracted and didn’t notice the water had evaporated. But now, I guess I can see you refining yourself. Is this useful?”

“If it wasn’t useful, would I be doing it?” Grandpa Vremya asked and snorted, keeping his eyes shut. “There are two ways to pass the tribulation of the body. The standard way is to accumulate enough spiritual energy to activate it. The second way is to temper your body to the point that the tribulation is unnecessary in the first place.”

“Unnecessary?” Azalea asked. Her cultivation technique was the standard one that the Moon Lotus Sect provided, but it was modified by Grandpa Vremya a bit. She just had to follow his guidance to advance in strength, but that also meant she didn’t understand why some things were as they were. Since she wasn’t even close to becoming a false immortal, obviously, she would know even less about the tribulations. However, now seemed like a good time as any to learn since she could tell Grandpa Vremya was in one of his teaching moods. She noticed he always felt like teaching when doing something painful as if he were searching for a way to distract himself.

“A false immortal has to face three tribulations before becoming an immortal,” Grandpa Vremya said. “That is the common belief. However, it isn’t true. One simply needs a body capable of withstanding the distortion that accompanies breaking through the barrier to a higher dimension, a mind capable of understanding the changes happening and able to react accordingly, and a spirit tough enough to endure the pressure brought by higher-dimension beings. As long as these three conditions are met, anyone can become an immortal at any time, even someone who just established their foundation can become immortal if they’re somehow capable of fulfilling those requirements. The three tribulations are simply ways to achieve those requirements.”

Azalea tilted her head. She knew better than to ask Grandpa Vremya how he knew this, but she still really wanted to know. So far, Grandpa Vremya had never been wrong with his words about cultivation, and she didn’t think he’d be wrong now. “So, you’re creating a body capable of breaking through dimensions? By dimensions, do you mean like a multiverse type of dimension, or like flat objects are two-dimensional kind of dimension?”

“The latter,” Grandpa Vremya said. “Imagine what would happen if your body turned two-dimensional. In order to survive, you’d need to overhaul nearly everything: your organs, your nervous system, your foundation. It’s the same for entering a higher dimension. Only with a strong enough body can you withstand the destructive force of converting yourself into a higher-dimensional being. Every one of your cells should be able to survive by themselves if they were cut off from each other—at least temporarily.”

Azalea glanced once more at the red cauldron. “And heating yourself up will prepare you for that.”

“I’m not just heating myself up,” Grandpa Vremya said. “The cauldron looks empty, but it’s filled with spiritual energy. I’m separating each individual cell using the heat generated by the fire, and I’m keeping them alive with my spiritual energy. Then, after reforging them, I’m fusing them back into my body. By the time the process is done, my body will be as strong as someone who passed their tribulation of the body.”

“Right,” Azalea said and checked her bracelet. “According to this website, there are around thirty to forty trillion cells in the human body. How long is this process going to take?”

Grandpa Vremya shrugged. “It shouldn’t take too long,” he said. “A year or two at most provided there aren’t too many distractions. It’s also an excellent way of training my mind. The more cells I reforge at once, the more strenuous it is on my mind. Although it isn’t comparable to passing the tribulation of the mind, it’s still quite beneficial.”