the karma
Karma is a type of energy that goes beyond the dimensions that human beings know
She is and she is nowhere
it exists and it doesn't exist
Humans have used it for so long that they have forgotten the time, the old and non-existent time that they didn't have it.
It was common knowledge that it took unshakable willpower to refine the body into karma.
For the pain of having his whole body torn apart and rebuilt in karma was agonizing and is compared to the torture of being burned alive
But all that pain had a generous reward, after refining your body in karma, not only did the refined part grow stronger and more resistant, but it withstood the punishment of time.
For example if someone were to refine their muscles in pure karma and completely finish refining every part of the muscles or refine an internal organ of the body
This person extended his life for years and could live for an abnormal time
He wouldn't live forever with just 1 organ baptized in karma, but if that person baptized his entire body in pure karma
She would easily live over 200 years and still have a young, strong body like a horse.
She would not be immortal nor would she be invincible since not only the body could be baptized by Karma but the Soul as well.
But that level was still on another level.
a divine plateau
But today in the Graham empire karmic refiners were as populous as ants.
They were mostly from the imperial army and the rest were mercenaries and adventurers as strong as a herd of bulls and as fast as cheetahs.
There are currently many types of karmic refiners
There are warriors, mages, alchemists, rune masters, arrangement masters, transmuters, transformers and an even wider range.
Karma is part of creation and it acts as a bridge where we can control creation in its purest form.
An alchemist-type karmic refiner uses the plants and herbs that have karma in their constitution to create remedies that cure incurable diseases or that would take time to be cured and use that remedy as a boost for the body to heal the wound or destroy the virus with more speed and ease
Transmuters use karma to change the constitution of an object whether it is inanimate or alive.
Using karma to change its biological and molecular structure, it can speed up the millennia process of turning a simple rock into pure diamond or gold.
Or change the human biology of another living thing or oneself and rebuild a broken bone or even rebuild a severed arm using the external or internal nutrients of the human body.
There is no limit to Karma
It's a mysterious and Divine energy
An ordinary human being can become a god using karma
But it was not an easy task, not even the time for it to happen is fast
It was a painful, difficult and time-consuming path
There are stages to getting to a superhuman level.
And these stages are called: Karmic refining
or for the religious: abandoning the mortal life for the immortal
This stage had many names but the methods were the same.
Always refine the external to protect the internal
The stages were:
1 - Skin refining
2 - Muscle refinement
3 - Bone refining
4 - Organ Refining
5 - Mental refining
6 - Animal refining
7 - Natural refining
8 - Material refining
9 - Spiritual refinement
10 - Divine Refinement
From the mental refinement, the body stops refining and the soul is refined
Everyone has to go through these stages and each stage is divided into:
1st step to 3rd step
And each step is divided into: beginning, middle, end and peak
Each stage is the same, but there are also differences.
One example is skin refining
When you get to this stage, depending on how the skin has been refined to step 3, each refiner is different.
Let's say 2 peak 3rd pass refiners are struggling
The first man took 3 years to reach the peak of step 3 and he spent all 3 years in hiding, refining his skin in a cave and practicing the sword daily.
The second man took 5 years to get to this stage, but he didn't get isolated just training and refining but he struggled every day, pushing his body to the limit and refining his body over extreme tiredness and pain, he kept repeating it every day for 5 years without stopping, without breaks or vacations, he struggled to extreme fatigue and refined his body along with all the pain and fatigue he felt
One day these men will fight, they will face each other and in the end
The man who took 5 years won with extreme ease
Why did the man who took 5 years win so easily over the man who took 3 years?
Simple, when you refine the body with Karma, there is a certain resistance on the part of our body
Our body tends to reject karma because of the extreme pain caused by Refining and then the whole body fights the karma and in the end, the purity of the karma is not so great as the body rejected the karma so much that it ended up polluting and then leaving the skin made of weaker karma
The man who took 3 years had skin as tough as pure gold.
The man who took 5 years had skin as tough as a diamond and few of his punches would break through the 3 year old's skin like a sharp sword cuts through paper.
That was the difference between the 2 men.
The path of becoming a karmic refiner was difficult and the more a person pushes their body to the limit and refines it with Karma, the stronger it will become and there is no "easier way"
Even non-fighters on the way to Refining did not escape this rule
Alchemists, Arrangement Masters, Rune Masters, and so on.
They used the karma they had on their bodies and practiced their spells manipulating karma as a conductor
For example: for a runemaster, he had to use his fingers or an external material bathed in karma to draw a rune.
He then uses his body as a conduit, using his karma to attract external karma, refine, purify and then use that karma as an element multiplier, adder, diminisher, trap, and so on.
The things you can do with karma are endless.
It was up to the runemaster which rune to make
But the most important thing was its Refining
Using the 2 men as an example again
If the 3-year-old were to draw a multiplier type rune and use it on his sword
Durability, weight, sharpness and damage would increase by 2 to 5x depending on how much karma was used in the rune
If the 5 year old did the same, his sword would be 6 to 10x depending on the amount of Karma
This rule may seem to give more benefits to the common people than the noble people, as the nobles were not workers and always seemed lazy and always had everything from the beginning of life.
But unfortunately it wasn't like that
Every refining manual was seized from every commoner or non-governmental organization belonging to the Graham Empire or neighboring Empires.
Those who wanted to become refiners had to ally themselves with the Imperial army and remain in it until the end of their lives and it was no different
It was to choose to be a slave to the Graham empire or another empire
Or find something else to work with, give up the dream of exploring the world and become the strongest
Escape was not an option, it is strictly forbidden for any citizen of the empire to leave the borders, those who tried their luck died
Hunter knew this very well and thought it was like that in other realms, but luckily it wasn't
In the neighboring kingdom to Graham, the Empire of [Bradford]
Adventurers had been using this realm to explore Graham and trade illegally on Graham's Black Market.
Being a fertile land with a unique and extremely rich fauna and flora, many non-fighting karmic refiners came to explore and find materials illegally as the prices given by the empire were exorbitant for an ordinary person to buy.
The risk was very high, but all the risk was worth it as the materials were of high karmic purity
Karma has not only affected humans, it has affected all of nature.
Animals and plants had access to karma
And Graham's plants were of high karmic purity
A great example of a plant that Graham had was the [angel's tear]
A small flower the size of a thumb, it was used to make a healing paste that when passed over a wound, the wound heals instantly depending on the animal that injured the user.
The [angel's tear] of the Graham empire was worth 15x a normal [angel's tear] in healing property and time it takes to complete healing
She was so famous and precious that a high-level alchemist discovered that she could remove the impurities of refined karma from the refiner's skin permanently, even though this purification was in almost unrecognizable amounts, but it was still possible.
It was something that exploded across the continent of Heru at the time
An extremely common material in the world, a healing material that many used in the day, in a certain region of the continent had the power of purification of permanent Karma
after that day
Graham shut down even further, the arrangement masters, runic masters, alchemists, and graham powers built in record time an ultra-powerful formation that broke the coffers of the empire.
The formation covered Graham from the ocean where the [Kord River] flowed, a gigantic river that rose in Graham, bathed halfway across the Heru continent and flowed into the [Acerius ocean]
All of Graham became closed off, but that wasn't enough as adventurers from across the continent came to Graham in search of his ultra powerful healing herbs
The empire they went through to get to graham, the Bradford empire, didn't mind the passage of adventurers to Graham as long as the adventurers paid 25% tax on coins or earnings made in graham.
But the herb hunt was not for amateurs.
Where there is opportunity there is also danger
This danger is called [karmic demons]
Demons, as they are commonly called, are carnivorous animals that are born knowing how to use Karma
While the herbs in graham were precious and powerful than normal, the demons were too, the demons in graham had a greater strength than their stage said.
As an example of the 2 men
Beasts could also refine their body in karma, but unlike the human who used a breathing method using the body's pores.
The demons had to eat the herbs with karma that multiply their strength to astronomical levels, the beasts in graham are mostly refiners from the Organ Refining stage and above, it is impossible to see beasts below that level in graham because when they are pregnant, females eat as many herbs as possible so that the fetus will grow strong and already be a strong refiner
Humans could also do this but only female organ refiners in step 3 which took heavy training equal to the 5 year old male
That's why there are so many refiners in Graham and most were organ refiners too, Graham's defense and army were invincible within the territory.
They lived in hell and were forged in hell
His strength as an empire is daunting on the Heru continent.
They are the guarantee that the beasts will not go out and decimate Heru
It was for this assurance that the tyrant Adrian was still there and it was common knowledge
But what was not spoken to the public
It was that the biggest fear Graham emitted was not the beasts but the army, an army forged in hell.
It has an infernal strength
But that could change and an era of chaos was descending on Heru