The technique to upgrade his flesh was also one of the 108 heretical techniques he created, and, like the previous spiritual technique that rapidly upgraded his spirit, this one could reforge his flesh with minimal resources.
This was what made these techniques powerful and considered forbidden: they could achieve significant changes with minimal resources, breaking all the natural rules of reality, and naturally uplifting the user far above the rat race of competition suffered by all living beings who quested for immortality.
Rowan’s flesh began to rapidly transform from mortal to immortal, using only the resources derived from his mortal body. The method used was truly mystical, making the body a self-contained cauldron.
This process was not supposed to be quick, as it involved lifelong, sequential cultivation that requires discipline, meditation, and internal energy work. The user would have to be intensely focused on their path to achieve immortality using their body’s resources alone. As payment for their dedication, they would reach the pinnacle of life without consuming any resources.
At first, this process would be slow, but as the body kept transforming, the resources available for this technique to utilize would only grow, which was ridiculous when it was considered from an outsider’s perspective. It would be like a mortal lifting himself up in the air with their own bootstraps.
Rowan, the creator of these techniques, knew of several shortcuts he could take, as the concepts of levels he had placed inside it during its creation were to break down the core concepts of this technique into bite-sized pieces for the user to consume and comprehend.
With two of these heretical techniques working hand in hand, Rowan became a fourth-dimensional immortal in three minutes. At the tenth-minute mark, he reached the sixth-dimensional level, and in an hour, he became an Old One. He had not completed the techniques because, according to the way he created them, only a single person would master a technique, and then it would be lost forever until that person perished.
However, the reason he had used the techniques had been satisfied, and he could open his mind to see the realm he had been transported into.
Truly, knowledge and the ability to utilize said knowledge were what set the elites apart from the crowd. If Rowan had access to these sorts of techniques in the past, so many of his challenges in life would have been easily avoided, but it also meant that he would have lost many opportunities for growth.
He was only able to create such a technique in the present because of the many sufferings he had undergone in the past. How could a bird know the struggles of climbing a mountain to see the sky when it has always had wings?
Rowan’s eyes snapped open, glowing with an eerie blue light that could see the depths of souls and open paths to other dimensions.
Directly in front of him was the floating head of a boy that seemed to be made out of white smoke, who was intently gazing at Rowan quite intensely. Realizing that the subject of his perusal was staring at him, the head vanished with a chuckle a moment before Rowan’s palm snapped shut over its position.
Rowan had not been able to tell that someone had been close to him all this while, and if he had not reached the level of an Old One, he would not have been able to discern the presence of this being.
Still, as shocking as it was to be observed so closely, it was nothing before the sight that opened itself before Rowan, and he paused for a moment, a solemn aura emerging from his body at what he was looking at.
Then he observed a subtle vibration in the air that was slowly growing stronger, and he could not see any reason why these changes were happening. And then he looked up to see that the shroud of darkness covering this infinite realm was descending lower.
Rowan gasped and leapt into the air, noticing that there was a strong pull on the ground that wanted to force him to stay put, but doing so would be a bad idea. The wave of infinite darkness falling from the sky was not a mystical phenomenon; they were just bones, yet these bones were numerous beyond counting, and if Rowan was to remain on the ground, he would be buried, and it was unknown if he would ever be able to resurface if more bones kept pouring from the sky.
This was not a fate he wanted for this Incarnation, to be buried under an endless field of bones for all eternity.
Muttering an incantation under his breath, Rowan began to layer shields around him, even as he pushed against the pull from the bones of the ground. His blue eyes pulsed with radiance as his body began to bleed, as Rowan roared and pushed himself higher into the sky.
He shot out a pillar of flame to tear into the descending bones above him, and he readied himself for a struggle for survival, as an infinite number of bones crashed down on him, silencing his cries of struggle.
It was impossible to put a word to the sound that erupted from these bones falling to the ground, and everything was covered in darkness, but then in the depths of this commotion, there were flashes of light... Rowan was still fighting.

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