Chapter 3: Fatal Painforged Rebirth

Sam woke up after a few minutes only to see a resolute look on his father's face. Arnold turned towards Jason and asked him "How long can he live if he doesn't cultivate?" Jason answered painfully "I can't say for sure but with the current state of his body, not more than 10 more years."

Jason wanted to say something more but Arnold's face suddenly changed as he started muttering "With the current state..." and a crazed light grew in his eyes. Jason and Arnold had known each other for more than 50 years but what happened the last time he had seen this look still scared him.

Arnold looked at him and said "With the current state of his body, Damien will die in 10 years. But what if he could improve his body? What if, his body becomes so strong that even that darned disease can't do anything to him?" Jason was shocked at the craziness of his friend.

He said "You know that's impossible. Nothing on this planet can make a person's body....." he was about to finish his sentence when he remembered a hellish memory he wished he could erase. "You aren't thinking of giving Damien 'that' are you? You know that it's forbidden and for good reason. It nearly killed us, you madman, and now, you want to give it to my grandson? Absolutely not!"

"He is my grandson too damn it! Do you think I want to do this, huh? I don't but I don't have any other choice. I won't let my grandson die without giving him a chance to live." said Arnold with enough pain and anger in his voice that Jason saw some reason in his words.

Sam looked confused and couldn't hold it in anymore so he asked them "What are you guys talking about? What is 'that' and what about it is so dangerous that it was forbidden?" Arnold looked at his son and sighed "Do you remember the history lesson I gave you when you were little? Even that wasn't the complete truth.

You see, when the meteor released the radiation, it disintegrated. Inside the meteor was a book with the name, 'Fatal Painforged Rebirth'. It was a body tempering manual. On the first page, a simple introduction to the technique was written.

'This body tempering technique requires the destruction of the body to initiate the technique. The more thorough the destruction, the better the effects. The forging highlights the removal of impurities from the body and the rebirth refers to the rebuilding of a new purer body. It requires an impossible amount of pain tolerance. The risk of death is 100% if the practitioner gives in to the pain. It has no limits.'

Father thought that it exaggerated the difficulty of the technique and tried it out. It didn't work for him as he was already too old to practice the technique. Only people under 16 years old can start practising this technique. Once they returned home they showed the technique to us; me, Jason, Bree, and Leo. We were fearless and tried to practice the technique. I can still remember the soul-crushing pain even after all these years.

That's why, when we became the Heads of our respective clans we made the technique a forbidden tome. But it's a perfect fit for Damien. You heard what Jason said. That disease's goal is to destroy Damien's body and it's doing a very good job. Instead of letting it do what it wants, we should make use of it. The pain will train and hone his willpower. Once he wakes up I will personally teach him the technique.

Damien stayed in a coma for about 6 months. Once he woke up, it took him another 2 months to recover his health. Arnold decided to be the one to break the bad news to his grandson. One day he called Damien to his room and asked him to sit on the bed. He had thought about how he would shatter his grandson's dreams and decided to be straightforward.

"Damien, you cannot cultivate. Ever. You are sick with an untreatable disease and cultivation will only make it worse." He waited a little bit so that Damien could process the news he had just received. He then continued speaking " There is a way for you to become stronger, even stronger than me. But it requires for you to experience intense pain and if you aren't careful even death. So what about it, do you want to become strong?

Damien agreed without hesitation. To him, no pain could be greater than what he had experienced at that moment. Arnold gave him a book that looked like it would crumble with a touch. The words Fatal Painforged Rebirth were written on the cover. Despite how it looked Damien could feel that even if he used all his strength he wouldn't be able to destroy it.

He opened the book and read its introduction. Just as he was about to turn the page he saw some tiny muffled words at the bottom of the cover. He couldn't read them so he asked Arnold if he could. Arnold was confused as he didn't remember anything about any muffled words. He took the book back from Damien and saw that there were tiny muffled words written on the bottom of the page.

With his extraordinary vision, he could easily read them, 'The younger one starts practising this technique, the easier it is for them to strengthen themselves.' He was too shocked to say anything. He told what he had read to Damien and asked "Are you sure you want to practice this technique? If you don't want to..." Damien interrupted him by saying "I want to" with certainty in his eyes.

Damien opened the book and opened the second page. It stated the 9 stages of the technique. They were:

1. Skin Refinement

2. Muscle Refinement

3. Tendon Refinement

4. Bone Forging

5. Bone marrow Refinement

6. Organ refinement

7. Meridian Formation

8. Meridian refinement

9. Unity

After completing these nine stages one will attain a pure body, free from any impurities.

His body was already being destroyed by the disease so he only had to start the technique. His skin started itching so badly that he almost stopped, but he grit his teeth and held on because he knew that if he stopped now, he would die.

His hair also started falling and regrowing. When the itching stopped, a cocoon of dead skin and old hair had formed around him. He broke the cocoon and emerged like a butterfly. His skin looked glossy and gave a faint glow. He could feel that ordinary weapons couldn't penetrate his new skin.

Arnold looked at him in shock. He had thought that Damien would at least scream the first time he practised this technique but Damien had proved him wrong. He took Damien to test his new strength. He was shocked to find that ordinary bullets couldn't penetrate his skin at all.

This was already the standard for a Tier 1 Enhancer. He then sparred with Damien so that he could quickly get familiar with his strength. He looked at Damien and asked, "You have already reached the standard of a Tier 1 Enhancer. Do you want to register yourself at the Association now or do you want to wait for some time?"

Damien thought about it for a while and wanted to register himself as an Awakened as soon as possible. Even after all that he had been through, he was still a kid and wanted to show off a little bit. He told him about his decision to his family. His father made some calls and told him that they would go to the association after two weeks.