Over the next two years, Kanzaki exhausted every scrap of knowledge he had accumulated across a lifetime and tried countless methods, yet he remained powerless to halt the steady weakening of Jingliu's Core Esse.
In less than a year she would likely see her life force completely drained by that congenitally deficient organ and face death.
"This shouldn't be her end…"
Kanzaki's palms would not stop trembling. His breathing grew rapid and uneven.
"I promised her… I promised her. I promised her!"
"Lord Kanzaki, calm down!"
Seeing the first signs of mara stirring again, the two sisters hurried forward and seized his wrists, anxiously trying to soothe him.
"There must be a way. If even you fall apart, then Jingliu truly has no hope left."
"Huff… huff…"
Though his breathing remained heavy, the turbid chaos in Kanzaki's eyes slowly receded, and the crimson in his pupils faded.
"The biological knowledge I've mastered in this life cannot save her. I need to research a new method."
"If clinical trials are needed, let us be the test subjects," Hanya said without hesitation.
"…Mm." Kanzaki offered no thanks.
He knew they would not want them.
Over the following months Kanzaki tried no fewer than several hundred new approaches, searching for that single path that might prove feasible.
Reality, however, was cruel. Not a single method worked.
Through the shared perspective of the three, Jingliu watched herself lying on the sickbed—her long hair withered, her skin sallow, her entire body so thin she was little more than a skeleton.
Her Master sat at the edge of the bed, holding her hand tightly. The profound self-reproach on his face stabbed sharply into her tear ducts.
It's not your fault, Master… You have done so much—too much—for your disciple. How could I ever blame you?
After dozens more treatment methods failed, Jingliu's life slid to the very edge of withering away.
Kanzaki's face, usually composed and calm, now carried the determination of a man staking everything on a single throw.
Hanya spoke in a low, heavy voice. "Is the only path left truly to activate the Self-Actualization Aspect for Jingliu?"
Xueyi remained silent, subconsciously tightening her fists.
As those who had already activated the Self-Actualization Aspect, they knew full well why the Xianzhou classified the technique as forbidden.
Activating the Self-Actualization Aspect required an immense amount of the power of the Abundance to sustain the consumption, and it was irreversible.
In other words, one would live in the shadows for their entire life. If the truth ever leaked, the Ten-Lords Commission would never tolerate it.
The so-called irreversibility also included permanent modification of the physical body.
Anything that did not originally belong to oneself—once transplanted, devoured, or modified—would remain for a lifetime.
Back then, after Lord Kanzaki had helped them activate the Self-Actualization Aspect, they had also absorbed many traits of the Abominations.
To put it bluntly, they were now monsters wearing human skin, no longer fit to be called human.
"…I can only try the most primitive method," Kanzaki said after a deep breath.
Hearing this, Jingliu's nerves drew taut, terrified she might miss even the smallest detail.
"The most primitive?" Xueyi asked, puzzled.
"A Core Esse transplant," Kanzaki answered in a low voice.
The sisters were stunned for a moment. Then their expressions changed drastically.
Would this… work…?
They were long-life species blessed by the Abundance. As long as they did not die, any part of the body except the Core Esse could be restored—the only difference was the speed.
Even extracted wisdom teeth would grow back. Transplanting ordinary organs should have been trivial.
The reason the Xianzhou called congenital defects in long-life species a form of incompleteness was precisely because the Core Esse itself could not be transplanted.
How one was born was how one remained until falling into mara. There were no exceptions.
Someone born blind, for instance, would suffer original rejection from their body whether they received a corneal transplant or a neural visual prosthetic—only increasing their pain.
To this day, no healer had been able to break through that limitation.
Unless… the patient activated the Self-Actualization Aspect.
But looking at Lord Kanzaki's expression, it did not seem as though he intended to activate the Self-Actualization Aspect for Jingliu.
"What do you plan to do?"
"Exploit a loophole."
"Huh?"
"As long as one can endure it, the Self-Actualization Aspect can grant the ability to modify the physical body without limit, merging all external things into oneself."
Kanzaki gripped Jingliu's skeletal hand. His voice grew even softer.
"But since the Xianzhou obtained longevity and created the Self-Actualization Aspect, modification has always focused on adapting external things to oneself. No one has ever used reverse thinking to consider a different question—"
"Is modifying one's own organs to adapt to someone else also a viable path?"
The two sisters understood at once.
Kanzaki intended to modify his own body's biological data to match Jingliu's.
Theoretically, with the power of the Self-Actualization Aspect, this was not mere fantasy.
As long as one was willing and the specific conditions were met, the Self-Actualization Aspect could completely transform a person into another—flawless and identical.
There are no two identical leaves in the world, yet there can be two identical people.
And that was precisely the terrifying part of the Self-Actualization Aspect, one of the primary reasons it had been listed as a forbidden technique.
"…But if you do that, won't your biological data completely become Jingliu's?"
"There's no need for a total modification."
Kanzaki shook his head slightly, musing aloud.
"A localized modification will suffice. First I'll adjust the imaginary fluctuation energy frequency of the Core Esse to match Jingliu's and observe whether rejection occurs.
"If it rejects, I will then gradually change the DNA sequence, blood type, local chromosomes, and so on until they match hers.
"If the Core Esse's rejection reaction disappears, it will prove the method is feasible."
Hearing this, Hanya hesitated, starting to speak and then stopping, before finally being unable to hold back.
"In that case, you would essentially become a male version of Jingliu…"
"Theoretically, yes." Kanzaki nodded.
The atmosphere fell into a brief silence.
A moment later Xueyi raised the most critical follow-up question.
"Under normal circumstances, a Xianzhou native dies if they lose their Core Esse. If one has activated the Self-Actualization Aspect, what happens if they lose theirs?"
"They also die," Kanzaki said calmly.
"!!!"
Jingliu's expression changed immediately, but she quickly realized that if her Master would die upon losing his Core Esse, how could he have been fine afterward?
There must have been another turn of events.
At the time, the sisters did not know the future, and they immediately became anxious upon hearing this.
"Then you still…"
"My situation is not normal."
Kanzaki pointed to his chest.
"Even without a Core Esse, I still have this heart that is essentially a scourge of the Abundance. It can replace every function of the Core Esse.
"Jingliu doesn't have much time left. My mind is made up.
"After all, as her Master, I promised her. Her becoming like this also started because of me. I owe her."
"…You fool…"
The tears Jingliu had managed to stop now filled her eyes once more.
It was clearly always she who owed her Master. Always!
The plan began to be implemented.
Watching Kanzaki modify his own Core Esse step by step to match hers, even though Jingliu already knew the eventual outcome, her heart remained filled with unbearable tension.
Once the modification was complete, the intense rejection from within his body brought Kanzaki extremely terrifying pain.
The veins on his forehead bulged one after another. His face contorted in agony. Cold sweat covered his entire body.
Seeing this, Jingliu's heart ached terribly.
One must remember that her Master had once endured the iron fists of an Aurumaton for several hours without ever showing such a state.
One could only imagine how terrifying the pain brought by this rejection truly was.
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