A soft hum could be heard as the artifact activated. The golden outlines outside the artifact glowed brightly as Whisker started freaking out a little.
"What's happening? I'm spinning," he shouted. The top of the artifact had shut completely with a lid that appeared from inside the artifact itself, so Alex had to use his spiritual sense to look inside.
Inside, Whisker was being moved around by forces that were not normal. Along with him, the garden rocks and pebbles were also moving around, spinning quickly.
"So that's how it works," Alex said as he saw the rocks hit Whisker while they moved. The rocks tumbled around the artifact and in doing so, they hit Whisker, tearing his body apart.
Or at least, that should have been the case, but Whisker was completely fine.
"Whisker! Hide your cultivation base," Alex said. "You need to be as mortal as you can for this."
Whisker freaked out even more and slowly did as he was told. When the aura around his body was gone, the rocks finally started causing damage. They hit him from all sides, bruising him, cutting him, causing him pain.
Alex nodded to himself and pulled out the book that the Mountain Crushing sect had left for whoever bought the artifact.
While Whisker went through body cultivation, he read through the book. There wasn't much for him to learn from the book that he could say was something he absolutely had to know.
They were mostly records of how long each person stayed inside and what sorts of results they had. It noted how long one had to stay in for the most efficient usage of the artifact.
As it ate a lot of Spirit stones, they had to know what was efficient and what was not. That was not really as important for Alex as he wouldn't be constantly switching the artifact around like they would in a sect.
There was other information in there to make whoever owned this artifact have an easier time. Alex only found 3 pieces of information that he was genuinely happy to learn beforehand.
First was a list of rocks and other hard materials that one could use at each body cultivation level. Normal garden rocks were apparently to be used for someone who had some physical strength and sturdiness.
If they were starting out for the first time, the manual advised that one should use wood instead, that too the normal kind.
"Oops," Alex said and checked on Whisker again. He didn't have to worry about him too. If he was in a lot of pain, Whisker could just use his cultivation base and he would be strong again.
The next point is that one should use small objects in the artifact. The smaller it was, the better it would work as the small objects would find better ways to reach places that a regular-sized rock or substance could not.
Alex decided to use very small pieces of items when he could.
The final piece of information said that the artifact worked even better when placed sideways instead of being made to stand up straight.
"Oh!" he was surprised to see that. He made the artifact fall sideways and laid it on its bulky end where it wobbled a bit as it spun everything on the inside.
The rest of the information was about precaution and how he couldn't use the item without anyone being nearby. Alex ignored them as they didn't apply for him. Even if he was terribly hurt, his body would heal itself.
Death was difficult from something like this unless he used some immortal materials, of which there were none in this world.
After finishing the book, he gave it to the elders to read. They would care more about the information than he did after all.
Then, all he could do was wait. He went back to the other items he had bought and tested them more thoroughly while he waited for Whisker to be done.
Whisker had stopped complaining a long time ago and was simply focusing on handling the pain. It felt a little bad letting him feel so much pain, but he had to. He wouldn't grow without it.
Besides, he had died multiple times already, so a little pain shouldn't be that problematic for him.
After 2 hours, Alex finally stopped the formation and waited for the objects inside to all come to a stop. Then, the top of the artifact opened on its own.
A weak Whisker crawled out of it, walking over the thousands of tiny pebbles, all of which were bloody. He was weak, extremely, and had lost a lot of blood.
He was so wounded that it was easier to point out which part of him was not. He crawled upto Alex, and Alex quickly grabbed him.
"You're fine," he said. "You did good."
He quickly checked the damage and was relieved that he wasn't too hurt. Then, he checked on the improvements to his body. That would have to be tested later on.
"We'll test you later," he said.
Whisker disappeared into his beast space. While Alex could feed him a healing pill, due to the Undying bloodline, Whisker could easily heal while he was inside his beast space by using up Alex's Qi.
"Now that we've tested how this artifact works, I think it's time I use it," Alex said. He looked toward the elders and said, "Unless either of you wants to use it too?"
"No, we are alright," Yao Ning said. "You use it first, your majesty,"
Alex nodded. "While I'm using it, find the items in that book to help facilitate your body cultivation later on."
"We will," the elders said.
"Then, please leave," Alex said. "I will start training now."
The elders nodded and left his room, leaving him with Pearl.
Pearl looked at the artifact and asked, "What will you use in it?"
Alex shrugged. "I thought of using the gold I got from the Golden Mountain at first," he said. "But I think there's a better choice here."
