Previously, acquiring corpse refining blood was relatively easy. Whether it was an early-stage or mid-stage Golden Corpse, these two levels of Golden Corpses were still quite numerous in the Cultivation World.
But when it came to late-stage Golden Corpses, only Great Cultivators had the possibility of cultivating them. However, the number of Great Cultivators willing to allocate resources for cultivating a late-stage Golden Corpse was extremely low.
The main reason is that the failure rate for late-stage Golden Corpses is too high, resulting in significant waste. If there wasnât a large amount of previous accumulation in corpse refining and a heavy reliance on the combat power of the corpse, using precious resources for a late-stage Golden Corpse would be impossible.
Li Shiming didnât know where Central State Commerce obtained these late-stage Golden Corpse blood samples, but it seemed that Central State Commerce had its own channels.
In any case, with these late-stage Golden Corpse blood samples, the difficulty of his ritual to refine a late-stage Golden Corpse was significantly reduced, making the extra expenditure worthwhile.
In fact, corpse refining resources were a secondary concern. If he failed this time, he would find it difficult to acquire five Great Cultivator corpses from superpowers in a short time.
Great Cultivators from superpowers are not like cabbages; plus, he selected the best among them. Failure would mean immeasurable losses.
The golden blood of the late-stage Golden Corpse was mixed with some materials, and finally, Li Shimingâs own essence blood needed to be added.
With a slight movement of his mind, the Fourth-Grade Sword Foundation appeared in his hand. He gently swept the sword blade across his finger.
An embarrassing incident occurred; a friction sound was produced between the Fourth-Grade Sword Foundation and his finger, but no wound appeared.
The strength of his physical body was on par with a Body Refining Great Cultivatorâs level, a physical body that could roughly compare with the toughness of a top-level Fourth Grade Magical Treasure.
The Fourth-Grade Sword Foundation was only about this quality, still lacking the ability to break his own defense.
There was no choice; he endowed the Fourth-Grade Sword Foundation with âChaos Sword Intentâ, and this time, he cut his finger with extreme caution.
He worried that if he exerted too much force, the âChaos Sword Intentâ might cut off a segment of his finger.
Finally, with the help of âChaos Sword Intentâ, the Fourth-Grade Sword Foundation cut open a wound on his finger.
He forced some essence blood out from the wound. As soon as he expelled about half of the required essence blood, the wound healed on its own without waiting for him to treat it.
There was no choice; once again, he used the Fourth-Grade Sword Foundation with âChaos Sword Intentâ to cut his finger, taking four consecutive attempts to collect the required amount of essence blood.
After this trial, he finally understood the robustness of his physical body.
He had heard before that when the physical body was strong to a certain level, wounds would heal with exceptional speed.
But this was cut by âChaos Sword Intentâ. To make the âChaos Sword Intentâ effective on himself, he set this part of the âChaos Sword Intentâ to be effective against any target.
Although his wound was small, just a slit, the âChaos Sword Intentâ on the wound obstructed its healing.
Since he didnât deliberately remove the âChaos Sword Intentâ, the âChaos Sword Intentâ on the wound was completely eliminated and healed relying on the self-healing ability of his powerful physical body.
This recovery ability, combined with the performance of âInnate Yi Woodâ divine skill, as long as he was not instantly killed, he had the ability to continuously recover from injuries.
Even though he didnât obtain a treasure like the âInnate Jianmu Tree Heartâ like his clone Li Yuanba, his realm was at the Great Cultivator Realm, and the performance of his âInnate Yi Woodâ divine skill was not inferior to Li Yuanbaâs âInnate Yi Woodâ divine skill by much.
Li Shiming stored the refined Corpse Refining Talisman Ink in the machine room space; his consciousness scanned the Great Cultivatorâs entire body, IBMz15 built a model and analyzed various data of the Great Cultivatorâs corpse.
If calculated by the Cultivation Worldâs quality, the Great Cultivator corpse could roughly be considered materials of Fourth-Grade Upper Stage Quality; he selected the best five Great Cultivator corpses, their quality still not exceeding Fourth-Grade Upper Stage.
After IBMz15 analyzed the data, it even proposed a scheme that was somewhat unexpected to him.
Normally, the refining of corpses involved drawing Refining Corpse Runes on the body surface, but through the analysis of IBMz15, the bones of the corpse were found to be the strongest carriers of Refining Corpse Runes.
Without much consideration, Li Shiming began his first attempt.
In the machine room space, his consciousness could penetrate everything, reaching the inside of the Great Cultivatorâs physical body. After his verification, the quality of a Great Cultivatorâs bones was just a line away from Fourth-Grade Top Quality.
This was normal, knowing that many Devil Cultivators would use cultivator corpses to refine magical treasures.
Additionally, the refined corpseâs defensive power could reflect the quality of the cultivatorâs physical body. Without corresponding quality, even if a large number of materials were added during refining, it couldnât achieve strong defensive power.
According to IBMz15âs plan, Li Shiming began drawing Refining Corpse Runes on the skin of the Great Cultivatorâs body.
He used a precision of 0.1 nanometers, drawing one billion Refining Corpse Runes on the skin of the Great Cultivatorâs body while maintaining the bodyâs energy balance.
But this wasnât the end; he pierced the Great Cultivatorâs body with the âTraceless Illusion Swordâ, creating an opening and sent the Corpse Refining Talisman Ink to the bones with his Divine Sense, then started drawing Refining Corpse Runes on the bones.
This time he attempted to use the highest precision, realizing his control in the machine room space reached 0.05 nanometers. He also felt that although his spirit had greatly improved, the more precise his control became, the smaller the improvement margin was.
In the following time, he employed one hundred and eighty brains; leaving a few spare brains, the vast majority of them participated in the rune drawing work.
The 206 bones of the Great Cultivatorâs body were each inscribed with Refining Corpse Runes.
This task seemed simple, but the actual difficulty was enormous. In the Cultivation World, even if a cultivator could achieve micron-level rune drawing, it was impossible to perform operations like his.
Because aside from the hardest drawing, energy balance was even more challenging.
The Great Cultivatorâs body was an integral unit; during the process of drawing Refining Corpse Runes, the energy balance of the runes in the Great Cultivatorâs body needed to be maintained throughout.
Otherwise, during the corpse refining process, an unbalanced energy structure could cause the Great Cultivatorâs body to explode directly.
This theory also applies to Artifact Refining and Alchemy; energy balance is the guarantee of all success.
Consider that to inscribe hundreds of millions of Refining Corpse Runes on the Great Cultivatorâs body while ensuring the absolute energy balance of these runes, the amount of calculation required was enormous. Without the assistance of IBMz15, relying solely on human computation was utterly impossible.
The Great Cultivatorâs body had a total of four billion Refining Corpse Runes inscribed on it, with bones bearing three billion runes.
Four billion Refining Corpse Runes reached the bodyâs limit; any more would not be meaningful, and too much would cause the Great Cultivatorâs body to collapse.
The same operation was performed on the other four Great Cultivator bodies.
He then took out five Heavenly Person Cave Heaven Golden Corpse Cores and placed them inside the bodies of the five Great Cultivators.
Since acquiring control over the Heavenly Person Cave Heaven, he could dig out the Heavenly Person Cave Heaven Golden Corpse Core from the Golden Corpse bodies in the Cave Heaven anytime. After all, these Golden Corpses would automatically regenerate, so he didnât need to worry about a reduction in numbers.
After completing all the preparations, Li Shiming placed the five Great Cultivator bodies in the Corpse Refining Array.
He took a deep breath to ease his tension; success depended on the next steps. If he failed, he would not attempt corpse refining again for a century.
He then took out a large number of Spirit Stones and three Vein-locking Plates, each containing a spirit vein of Great Cultivator Level quality, intended to provide energy for the Corpse Refining Array.
Due to the limitations of the Dongqi Continent, he could not perform corpse refining within a Grotto Heaven. The Heaven and Earth Rules in a Grotto Heaven were somewhat different, affecting the quality of the refined corpse, and might even result in huge defects.
Besides, even if he succeeded in refining a late-stage Golden Corpse in a Grotto Heaven, once outside, it still had to withstand the Heavenly Tribulation. A flawed late-stage Golden Corpse would have even less ability to endure Heavenly Thunder.
This was specifically noted in the âProhibited Book of Xuan Yin Yakshaâ; previous studies suggested that corpse refining in a Grotto Heaven was not advisable.