Chapter 568: Breakthrough in the Arctic Sovereign Body Strengthening Manual

Third Person’s POV

Gradually, Ethan began feeling the connection between his soul and physical body strengthening once more.

The numbness slowly receded while his senses sharpened little by little.

And finally, with a sudden motion of consciousness, Ethan exited his soul space and returned fully toward his body.

The instant he sensed his physical form once again, his consciousness froze completely.

Then, the overwhelming shock exploded within him because what he saw inside his own body nearly drove him mad with disbelief and overwhelming delight.

Almost his entire skeleton had transformed completely from its original pale white color into a strange bluish white shade that radiated an unnatural icy sheen from within.

Faint ice blue vein like patterns could now be seen spreading across his bones that intertwined together like ancient frost inscriptions that were carved naturally into the deepest structure of his body.

The sight was both beautiful and otherworldly.

Even Ethan himself felt slightly disturbed as his soul carefully observed the transformed skeleton inside his body.

An overwhelming coldness radiated from those bones, and at the same time, it seemed thicker while also possessing a heavy hardness hidden within them that made them seem indestructible.

His skeletal structure no longer resembled that of a normal human.

Instead, it looked more like the skeleton of some ancient icy lifeform born within frozen lands untouched by mortals.

For a brief moment, a strange feeling surfaced within Ethan’s mind, and it almost felt as if he were no longer a human.

As if somewhere during this long unconscious slumber, he had unknowingly transformed into some unknown species of ice creature.

That bizarre thought made his consciousness tremble faintly, but the feeling quickly subsided when another realization surfaced within his mind.

An overwhelming wave of delight and disbelief erupted inside him.

He had broken through and had successfully advanced into the third stage of the Arctic Sovereign Body Strengthening Manual.

According to the ancient records within the manual, the moment one’s entire skeleton completed this type of qualitative metamorphosis and transformed into an icy structure, it signified that the person had officially stepped into the third stage of the manual.

And the third stage of this manual was equivalent to the Crystal Formation Realm of the Divine Ascension Path, followed by the mages of this world.

The realization nearly made Ethan lose control from excitement.

He had originally believed that achieving this stage would take him many more years of suffering, tempering, and near suicidal body refinement.

Yet somehow, when he had remained unconscious, he had already completed the breakthrough.

However, once the initial joy and shock inside him had gradually settled, confusion quickly replaced them.

Because Ethan remembered very clearly what conditions were required for this skeletal transformation.

According to the Arctic Sovereign Body Strengthening Manual, the refinement of the skeleton required an absurd amount of dense and pure ice mana.

But that alone was not enough.

The cultivator’s original skeleton also needed to be crushed repeatedly bit by bit during the refinement process so that the dense icy mana could seep thoroughly into every pore, every crack, every fragment, and every microscopic particle of the bones.

And only then could the old skeleton shed its mortal nature and evolve into a stronger and more transcendent form.

That process was supposed to be unimaginably painful and a torment capable of driving ordinary people insane, yet Ethan remembered feeling no pain or going through any suffering or any sensation of discomfort.

To him, it simply felt as if he had gone unconscious one moment and awakened the next with a completely transformed body.

Naturally, this made him deeply confused as he simply could not understand how his skeletal structure had transformed so completely without him feeling even the slightest thing.

What Ethan did not know was that the reason behind his breakthrough was the Frost Soul Orchid.

The grade four miraculous herb had completely bypassed the brutal requirement of physically crushing his bones.

Its pure and wondrous icy essence had seeped naturally into every tiny pore and particle of his skeleton over the course of the entire year he remained sealed beneath the Twin Fang Mountains.

Combined with the terrifyingly dense icy mana naturally present within that ancient underground chamber, the transformation had slowly completed itself while Ethan remained unconscious and trapped beneath the effects of the dormant dark curse.

The process had been so gradual and thorough that his body had adapted naturally without rejecting the transformation violently.

But Ethan obviously knew none of this.

Unable to understand the mystery behind his sudden breakthrough, no matter how much he thought about it, he eventually suppressed those doubts temporarily and pushed them into the back of his mind.

After calming himself slightly, Ethan continued examining the condition of his body carefully.

His soul sense moved away from his transformed skeleton and slowly travelled through his mana veins that had also undergone massive qualitative changes due to the overwhelming icy essence that had flowed through them for an entire year.

Finally, his soul sense arrived toward the center of his chest, where his dark mana dimension existed.

Initially, Ethan remained relatively calm as he merely wished to inspect the condition of his mana dimension and understand whether the curse and his long unconscious state had affected his power negatively.

But the moment his soul sense entered the dark mana dimension, Ethan froze completely.

Because instead of seeing the familiar dark mana sea and storm-filled skies that usually existed there, he saw something entirely different.

Floating silently within the endless void was a gigantic dark crystal.

The crystal was so massive that it seemed to cover the entire sky itself.

It floated motionlessly between heaven and earth like some ancient celestial object suspended within a dead world.

Meanwhile, everything else inside the mana dimension had vanished completely.

The endless dark clouds were gone, and the violent sea of dark mana below had disappeared entirely.

Even the atmosphere itself had changed.

What remained now was only a gray and lifeless sky along with that enormous elliptical dark crystal floating silently in the center of the dimension like the heart of a dead universe.