The process was agonizing and dragged on endlessly.
Tang San's clothes were soaked through with sweat. Beads the size of soybeans rolled down his temples and struck the ground, where they evaporated instantly.
His face alternated between pale and flushed. He had bitten his lips bloody, yet he never cried out.
An unknown length of time passed.
The light around Tang San gradually faded. At last, he had absorbed all that raging life energy.
He slowly opened his eyes. A flash of deep blue crossed his pupils, like starlight reflected in the depths of the sea.
"Is it over?"
Tang San looked down at his hands. He was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he froze.
His hands.
The callused hands with their prominent knuckles now had smooth, fair skin.
They even had a faint, lustrous sheen, like fine white jade.
"What..."
Tang San instinctively touched his face.
His skin felt smooth and delicate. Every small scar left by years of training had vanished.
He stood and found that his eyes were noticeably higher than before.
"I've grown taller?!"
Tang San looked toward the Blue Silver King. He had once needed to tilt his head up to see the middle of its main stem; now it was level with him.
Stunned, he hurried to a clear stream nearby and bent over it.
An unfamiliar face looked back at him from the water.
The features were still his, yet they had changed beyond recognition.
The lines of his face had softened, their sharp edges giving way to a gentle, jade-like handsomeness.
His nose was straight, his lips full, and his eyes and brows carried a natural, quiet elegance.
Most striking of all was his hair.
His once-black hair had turned entirely deep blue.
It was the purest blue of