Chapter 42 - 40: Dominator Body Unlocked

Chapter 42: Chapter 40: Dominator Body Unlocked

For Su Tan, the illustrations and incantations were not difficult to understand. The moment he equipped it, he learned it automatically. It was as if he had an innate ability to comprehend it; now, he only needed to put it into practice.

Although the quality of the Ten Thousand Dao Furnace’s Body Refinement Chapter had increased, the number of movements had decreased. There were only three—three bizarre and awkward postures. They somewhat resembled a human meditating, but not quite; they looked a bit like an animal crouching, but not entirely. Three parts human... Three parts beast... Three parts demon... And the final part... Profound! It exuded an archaic yet profoundly mysterious aura.

"I just need to follow these three movements, do them once a day, and hold each posture for half an hour?" Su Tan muttered to himself. An hour and a half of cultivation didn’t seem too long. Relying on the movements and incantations etched in his mind, he began to assume the first posture.

However, his subsequent experience made him treat these three movements with utmost seriousness. ’It feels like every movement requires twisting my joints backward. It’s simply impossible to complete...’ His mind had learned it, but whether his body could execute it... That was highly debatable!

He tried a few times. Twisting every joint in his body in the opposite direction was incredibly agonizing. Refusing to give up, Su Tan followed the illustrations in his mind and attempted the first posture again. It was a movement similar to yoga, though undeniably much harder.

"HISS!" He could hear the sound of his muscles and meridians stretching, on the verge of snapping.

"CRACK CRACK CRACK..." The closer he got to the standard posture, the more his bones and sinews were pulled and twisted together. This was simply not a Cultivation Technique meant for humans to practice. Of course, it definitely wasn’t meant for Demon Beasts either. The movements were just too bizarre.

Had he not synthesized it himself using the system, he would have thought it was just some weird drawing randomly sketched by a shady merchant. The physical contortion Su Tan managed had already reached its limit, yet his posture was still vastly different from the illustration in his mind. He was reluctant to yield. But if he pushed any further, he felt his muscles would tear, his meridians would snap, and his bones would shatter! His physical strength was also severely lacking!

"It’s just one movement, why is it so hard?" Su Tan panted heavily, his face drenched in sweat. His entire body collapsed onto the bed.

"Hehe... Now you know that humans shouldn’t touch a Demon Beast’s Cultivation Technique. Your physical body is way too weak!" The Little White Wolf looked up, taking in Su Tan’s wretched state, and couldn’t help but mock him from the sidelines. "I advise you to just give up that idea. You’re going to end up crippling yourself before you even manage to cultivate the Dominator Body."

Su Tan knew the little guy was actually worried about him. If an ordinary person had tried to push themselves this fast, they likely would have snapped their body in half. Thus, he couldn’t be bothered to respond to the Little White Wolf’s taunts.

"HUFF, HUFF, HUFF..."

After taking a brief rest, he went right back to cultivating.

Seeing that Su Tan was still at it, the Little White Wolf glanced over, placed a small paw over its mouth in a highly human-like gesture, shrugged, and yawned. "Let’s see what kind of tricks you can pull off!" It then laid down to rest.

One night later.

Su Tan actually made some gains. He surprisingly managed to assume the first posture. He truly did it. Although the movement wasn’t perfectly standard and he couldn’t hold it for long, he still pulled it off. This was only possible because the Cultivation Technique was deeply branded into his mind, making it feel as if he had created it himself. If it were anyone else, it would be absolutely impossible to achieve this in such a short amount of time.

"What kind of bizarre posture is that?" the Little White Wolf asked upon waking up, seeing a sweat-drenched Su Tan holding a strange pose.

"Body Refinement!" Su Tan replied.

"Just doing this movement counts as Body Refinement? You can cultivate the Dominator Body with this?"

"No!" Su Tan answered.

"I knew it..."

"I still need to add two more movements and progress step by step before I see any results!"

"Wishful thinking!"

Su Tan smiled but didn’t explain.

After washing up, eating, treating the Xu Family patriarch, and transferring life force to the Little White Wolf, he closed his door to cultivate once more.

As time passed, his first posture became increasingly standard. ’I can barely perform the first posture, but the second and third postures demand too much from my physical body. I can’t do them at all!’ Su Tan tried several times but failed to execute the subsequent movements. It seemed his personal capability had reached its limit, which left him deeply frustrated.

"It’s time to rely on the system!"

The reason Su Tan had delayed using the system until now was that he wanted to test his own potential. Deep in his bones, he possessed a fiercely independent and unyielding spirit.

"Placing items in the Inventory directly applies their effects to my body. My defense has already reached Top Grade, but I haven’t equipped anything for attack power. If I equip strength-boosting items up to Top Grade as well, will my physical body meet the requirements?" As for agility... usually, when strength and physical toughness increased, agility would naturally improve alongside them. Su Tan felt this idea had real potential.

Actually, he didn’t need to go through all this trouble. He could have simply found lots of armor and weapons to directly increase his Defense Power and attack power. However, equipping items came with limitations. Currently, his authority wasn’t high enough to equip higher-tier gear; he could only equip level-one Top Grade items. As for when his level limit would be raised to level two, he had no idea.

In other words, his Defense Power had pretty much hit the ceiling. Without increasing his authority, equipping more items wouldn’t yield much of an increase in Defense Power. On the other hand, there was still plenty of room to improve with strength-based equipment. Su Tan chose not to follow the system’s intended progression of meticulously filling his Inventory and upgrading item qualities until his authority naturally reached level two.

Instead, he wanted to see if he could increase his Defense Power and strength through his own cultivation, effectively bypassing the equipment limit without having to actually equip anything new. If he could, things would become much more interesting.

Imagine if he cultivated an extra 100 points of strength outside the system’s parameters. No matter what level the system reached in the future, his total strength would always be the system’s defined strength ’n’ plus an additional 100... Su Tan really enjoyed rebelling against the system, or rather, toying with it. He didn’t know why he had this mindset, but he just found it highly amusing. Perhaps some deep-seated inferiority complex was acting up.

"You think you’re so great, system? I can generate a bit more strength than your parameters allow! How frustrating is that?"

If he ever had the fortune of meeting another system host in the future, perhaps this advantage would make all the difference. Although Su Tan felt the chances of that were incredibly slim, if not entirely impossible, he still needed to maintain a healthy sense of vigilance. With this in mind, he began equipping the weapons, armor, and other items gifted by the Xu Family. His first goal was to maximize all his attributes.

"DING! Do you wish to occupy slot 1 of the Inventory to equip one Profound Iron Sword..."

"Equipping one Profound Iron Sword. Attack Power +20..."

"DING! Do you wish to equip one set of Profound Iron Armor?"

"Equipping one set of Profound Iron Armor. Automatically integrating into the Emperor Armor slot. Defense Power +10..."

Su Tan equipped a massive amount of armor and weapons. Just as he expected, the stat boosts were incredibly high at first, but yielded diminishing returns as he went on. By the time he had placed all the equipment into his Inventory, his Defense Power, strength, and agility had vastly increased.

"Let’s try it again now." Su Tan attempted to assume the first posture of the Ten Thousand Dao Furnace’s Body Refinement Chapter once more. Surprisingly, he accomplished it with ease. Unlike the agonizing pain he felt before, a comfortable, warm current flowed through his entire body. His posture was absolutely perfect.

The second posture... was also accomplished with ease. As was the third!

With his physical body strengthened, he performed all three movements flawlessly. The moment he completed them, a domineering wave of vitality surged through his body!

"Dominator Body? I’ve unlocked the Overlord Body Bloodline!" Su Tan exclaimed in pleasant surprise.

RUMBLE!

That vitality flowed fiercely, like floodwaters bursting a dam—domineering and fierce!

SWISH, SWISH, SWISH! Not just internally, but externally as well, a domineering aura now flowed around Su Tan. He looked like an overlord stepping out of ancient times to suppress all eternity.

The Little White Wolf was jolted awake from its deep sleep by Su Tan’s aura.

POOF!

It sprang up with a start and assumed a defensive posture. The fur all over its body stood on end, and its large, ink-crystal-like eyes widened in shock.

"Such a domineering aura... The aura of the Dominator Body?! Who is it..." The Little White Wolf subconsciously searched left and right before realizing the aura was coming from the human right in front of it. First, it stared in sheer disbelief. Then, its expression shifted to shock and horror. Finally, its jaw practically dropped to the floor.

"You, you, you... Dominator Body... How do you have the Overlord Body Bloodline?!" it stammered. "Could it be... you... you actually... cultivated the Dominator Body?!

The little guy frantically shook its head. "No, no, no... Impossible, that’s impossible! Bloodlines are ordained by the heavens! How could they possibly be cultivated? Impossible... absolutely impossible!"