With the special state he was in, Sage had to work quickly. He released white flames from his mouth and used his Spirit Sense to guide them, combining the two together to create a blade of fire that spun back and sunk into his flesh. Thankfully, the pain demon technique kept him from feeling the pain or this would have been much harder. It took a strict will to overcome the mental block stopping him from inflicting harm upon himself, but once he was committed the chunks of his flesh started flying off rapidly. The flame of the first light countered the evil blood still flowing through his veins, helping it to inflict damage more easily upon his tough beast body.

Sage targeted all the parts of his body that hadn’t been damaged by the lightning tribulation. He decisively sliced them out and hurled them aside. The worm body he was in had little in the way of vital organs, as its simple physiology incorporated the important functions into other cells. Instead of a stomach, intestines, and bowels, the whole of his body had a single digestive track running through it. Instead of a heart, there were many dozens of valves through the outer walls of his worm body that circulated the blood around. The excision of nearly any part of this simplistic form could be accomplished without dying as nothing was extremely essential. More and more of his flesh was burned and sliced off.

Certain parts are being more affected than others by the lightning.

Everything that was destroyed by the tribulation lightning was regenerating in a more perfect form than before, but it was not uniform. Some places were more destroyed than others and they changed more than those places that were only lightly damaged. Seeing this, Sage redoubled his efforts. He’d already sliced out the majority of the flesh that wasn’t affected by the tribulation, but at this time he went even further. All of the unaffected parts as well as many parts that were only lightly damaged were not sliced out by him.

He’d already cut out almost half of his body the first time, but for this second pass he was left with only twenty percent of his body. The once healthy and vital looking worm was now a burned and charred mess. The once fat worm now looked like it had been run over by a truck and then hit with a flamethrower. In order to ensure not a shred of his unaffected flesh was left, he cut out plenty of the flesh that was only slightly damaged by the tribulation in the process. He wanted to leave behind only those parts which were receiving the greatest benefits from the tribulation, but the regenerative abilities of the Fat Grass Worm weren’t infallible. While he could be sliced into multiple pieces and regenerate, the parts of his body that were the most affected by the tribulation were not concentrated in one area. If too much of the tribulation’s energies were focused in a small area they ended up destroying his body. Instead, the most affected parts were small zones spread throughout his body, with zones of lesser affected flesh radiating out from them like a heat map with hotspots and cooler zones radiating out from them.

He removed every area that wasn’t affected by one of these zones, and then had to leave flesh to connect all those spots together. It was simple enough for the outer layers of flesh, but more internal portions were much trickier as he had to cut holes deep into his body in order to expel the unwanted portions from deeper down. Targeting those portions inside his body and trying to completely eradicate every trace would be much more difficult and there was no telling what effect leaving behind burnt particles could have. Working quickly, he turned his body into an utter mess.

The ‘alterations’ he did were completed a little too quickly, but that actually helped him. Parts of his body that started to regenerate appeared that weren’t affected by the tribulation’s energy and so he quickly sliced those out as well as more of the surrounding flesh. Meanwhile, the tribulation energy continued to spread and sink into him. Then, one of the ‘hotspots’ started to expand, spreading out into the parts of his body with lesser intensity. Once this started it was like a chain reaction, not just that one, but all of those zones of higher intensity spread outwards. All of the remaining power left behind in the wake of the tribulation lightning rippled through his body. The energy combined together and then equalized within him, starting to transform all of his cells at the same rate.

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The reaction didn’t stop there as he felt the energy spreading through not just his body, but seeping into his meridians and dantian. Inside his Spiritual Sea, the sky opened up. The clouds pulled back and bright light fell over the dark waters and illuminated the Infinite Immaterial Seat. The doors opened and his Nascent Soul flew out, the tree-like spirit transforming into a human shape. The light drew it up and out of the Spiritual Sea, growing larger and larger as it reached towards the sky. Then there was a flash and it left his body, the soul body turned back to observe the physical body that was pulsing with that strange energy from the tribulation. His body started to glow brightly, so much that it stopped looking solid and became somewhat translucent.

It started to lose its shape, becoming more loose and amorphous. At the same time the world around him stirred and the power of Law descended. That unusual energy flowed into the mass that used to be his body. This process went on for a few minutes until his body was no longer recognizable. A glowing sphere was all that was left and when the dense law power had finally faded from the air, the two parts were drawn together. Nascent Soul and Energy Body were drawn towards each other with irresistible force. When they met, the Nascent Soul did not disappear into the body, the body actually disappeared into the soul. Just as the Spiritual Sea and Core were absorbed into the soul, now the body was following the same trend.

Wait, I can feel something different. The Master Seal?

Sage suddenly realized what was going on. The Master Seal was reacting and he could tell that if he didn’t let it continue then he would lose its power. The body of a Saint was set when they ascended and while they never had to worry about losing limbs or becoming maimed, as an ‘immortal’ their appearance would never change. Eternal youth did not come without its side effects. Yet, the Master Seal was not just being thrown away, it was calling out to him and since he didn’t feel danger from it, he responded to it. The Seal spread outwards, flooding through the whole of his Nascent Soul and Body as they were in the process of combining. This third component did not add or disrupt the power that was there, but it did start to guide it. Sage’s Nascent Soul had two forms, that of the Tree of Life and also of his original human body, fitting to his deepest sense of identity as well as the Heavenly Material that was the basis of his Cultivation.

The human shape of his Nascent Soul faded away, transforming him back into the young Tree of Life which now had many shifting and changing symbols crawling over its trunk. Then, the spiritual tree shook and all its leaves fell away, each of them crumbling apart into motes of soul stuff before fading out of existence. Sage felt his soul weakening, but he also felt it changing. The every shifting symbols of the Master Seal spread through it and became part of a single whole just as his body was doing. From the bare branches of the Tree of Life many new leaves suddenly sprouted. Each of them were slightly different in shape and upon looking at one with his Spirit Sense he felt a narrow central leaf with two sharp wing-like leaves to the sides and realized it carried a presence he recognized. The cyan blue to its tips and brown color reminded him of a friend.

Tiankong Zhi Wang. The King of the Sky. That’s the Breach Hawk!

It took him only an instant to confirm his guess as he now knew what he was looking at. Each of the leaves of the Tree of Life now corresponded to one of the beasts in his bloodline. The Master Seal had stepped in to make itself part of his foundation as a Saint and not only did that mean he could continue to make use of its benefits, but he could feel it resonating with the laws that had infused his body. That same body which was now fully integrating itself with the rest of his being.

A few hours later, the process finally finished and that now burned and charred clearing was left with just a single tree standing at the center of it.