Coming Back to Life

About thirty years ago, James entered the realm of Huajin in martial arts for the second time, purging the corruption of the vampires and achieving perfect control over his current physical strength. Based on his own system of martial arts cultivation, the next step was the so-called "Dan-forming" stage, but upon reaching this point, James was in no rush.

He focused on managing and building the industrial empire of the Howlett Family, completing the manufacturing and application of gasoline internal combustion engines more than a decade ahead of schedule. Driven by this technology, he vaulted to become the world's top industrial oligarch, and in an era before antitrust laws even existed, he left the entire Western industrial capital world struggling to breathe.

James had long ago screened and recruited several capital giants from Europe and the United States, binding them to his chariot rather than attempting to swallow the entire capitalist world solely on his own family's strength. As for underhanded methods, he faced them with complete indifference.

On the other hand, he devoted himself to researching the history and culture of various ancient peoples, traveling extensively and studying at various European academies for many years. He re-examined his own cultivation, seeking training models that might be compatible with mutants or other extraordinary species.

For several years, he consciously used the influence of the Howlett Family and his own travels to collect individuals with human mutations. Most were merely congenital or acquired physical deformities, and only a very few showed signs similar to mutants, though their abilities were extremely low, such as flexible long tongues or mildly corrosive bodily fluids.

It wasn't until he met Azazel that this adopted child became his best experimental subject for teaching, and progress went quite smoothly.

Comparing his own mutant abilities with Azazel's, he discovered that mutants follow two paths in the improvement of their powers and their own bodies. For abilities like those of Wolverine or Sabretooth, which are inherently melee-oriented, practicing martial arts can both improve the control of mutant powers and significantly enhance destructive lethality.

However, for Azazel or others with various magical and bizarre mutant abilities, the essence of their power lies in the ability itself rather than physical destructive force. If this type of mutant wants to improve control over their abilities, they do not necessarily need to practice martial arts, but rather need to practice pure control over their own body, consciousness, and spirit.

Therefore, James reached a certain height in physical cultivation, allowing him to look down from a high vantage point to see the essence, and he re-developed a set of cultivation methods specialized for self-control.

Integrating martial arts, meditation, breathing techniques, and yoga chakras, this method of physical and spiritual cultivation was divided into three stages, similar to the process from Mingjin to Huajin in martial arts. However, the goal of cultivating the body without cultivating "jin" was to start by controlling one's own flesh, thereby further controlling the spirit, consciousness, and emotions, and improving the cognition and mastery of one's own mutant abilities.

For many years, Azazel's practice matched James's expectations for this training method almost perfectly.

Upon reaching the first stage, mutant abilities would no longer easily spiral out of control. The second stage allowed for free mastery of power and mature application of one's mutant abilities. The third stage should allow for the maximum development and perfect use of one's current mutant superpower, potentially even exceeding current limits to a certain extent.

Azazel had currently reached the second stage, having achieved fine and mature control over his teleportation ability in terms of frequency, distance, precision, and the mass he could carry. He was no longer like he was when he first started practicing as a child, when he could only estimate the destination of his teleportation.

He had not yet reached the third stage, so James did not have a very objective and precise sample for reference; however, those years of traveling and studying in Europe had given him, to some extent, a mindset for academic research.

Within James's entire system of thinking regarding mutant ability cultivation, these three stages were only the first level. As for the next level, he needed to complete the final hurdle today before he could begin to explore it.

According to the Taoist worldview and philosophy of life, when martial arts cultivation reaches this stage, it is called "Dan-forming." As the saying goes, "Once the golden elixir is swallowed into the belly, my fate is determined by me, not by heaven." In reality, this stage occurs when physical cultivation reaches the point of perfect mastery over the body's blood and qi, compressing all the so-called "jin," blood-qi, and essence into a single point. This point is then used to stimulate the body to further improvement, like a second puberty, a complete rebirth.

But the problem lies in where this so-called point is.

It varies from person to person, from cultivation method to cultivation method, and even from time to time and place to place. James didn't know where it was either; after all, he had never reached this realm in his previous life, and neither his teachers nor his fellow disciples had ever produced a master at this level.

Therefore, he could only experiment bit by bit, based on his knowledge of martial arts and his understanding of the human body.

For anyone else, this would be a suicidal act of betting their life on a one-in-ten-thousand chance of survival. For James, however, it was exceptionally easy, which allowed him to accumulate a vast amount of experience regarding internal damage from human body cultivation.

Every time the blood and qi condensed incorrectly, his internal organs would quickly fail and necrotize, in a variety of ways. Yet, his healing factor would restore him to his original state in an instant.

So for many years, James would sit cross-legged every day like a routine exercise, circulate his energy to condense it, and then vomit blood, his intestines and stomach rotting away, only to return to normal moments later to try another point.

He had tested almost every acupuncture point, qi meridian node, internal organ, bone, blood vessel, and other bodily tissue. Every failure was recorded, noting what kind of physical reaction occurred at that location and what beneficial help might arise from correct and cautious stimulation.

One day, these experiences and research would become a treasure for human physical evolution and exploration.

Of course, he had succeeded during these many years of cultivation experiments. But when James first found the correct location for condensation, he had a change of heart and stopped, choosing not to continue.

"Who says a person's body can only form one 'golden elixir'?"

Harboring this doubt, James decided to continue his experiments. He intended to practice on every part of his body to see if a person could have a second, third, or even more Dan-forming nodes.

This is why it took a full ten years for James to finally decide to enter this brand-new realm today.

Azazel stared at his old man without blinking. After a moment of deathly silence, the bones and muscles of James's body began to twitch rhythmically. Starting from his cervical spine and moving all the way down to his coccyx, nine egg-sized, crimson, and faintly pulsing points appeared, scattered along the protrusions of James's spine.

His body shook more and more violently, his bones rattled beneath his skin, and his flesh began to crack and slough off. New skin grew rapidly, and he vomited blood clots and turbid fluids from his mouth from time to time, his teeth falling out and regrowing once again. The entire scene was like watching someone being flayed and deboned layer by layer, only to watch them grow back—it was truly hair-raising.

His rapidly healing mutant ability allowed this process of rebirth, which should have lasted over a hundred days, to be completed in a very short time.

James's physique began to shrink. Even while sitting cross-legged, his frame, which had been excessively tall and thick, began to wither away bit by bit, a process accompanied by the teeth-grinding sound of bones shifting.

After another moment, all the changes—the withered bones, the raw flesh, and the vivid transformations—came to an end.

James stood up. His skin was as delicate as jade, seemingly devoid of pores. His hair, beard, and body hair had all fallen out and regrown; if one were to observe each new strand closely, they would find it four or five times thicker than normal hair, while his body hair and skin pores had vanished without a trace.

His face was as majestic and refined as a sculpture, with a hint of something otherworldly. His skeleton had become extremely thick and broad, yet his muscles no longer bulged. The texture of his skin was like a brand-new tissue structure, with lines slightly different from the muscle distribution of ordinary humans, yet filled with an uncanny sense of power.

James looked at the various bodily tissues and filth shed from his body, glanced at Azazel, who looked mentally traumatized and hopeless, and said lightly.

"Kid, is your old man looking sharp?"