Mira felt her ethereal soul form being dragged to another location, but she wasn't too worried about where she was going. Actually, she was looking forward to reaching her destination. There are only two places that she can think of, that could possibly be her destination. Either she's going to the next test this wretched place has to offer or she's going back to her body.
If she is going towards the next test then all she has to do is complete it before going back to her body. That's why she's looking forward to her destination since it doesn't really matter where she's going, she just wants to be back in her body.
And just like she thought, her ethereal form soon landed in front of her still mangled body. Actually, now that she got a good look at it, this body was basically dead. The heart stopped beating and it was already cold and a bit shriveled. Though Mira can tell that she actually hasn't been away from her body for too long. Maybe a day or two.
But that freaked Mira out quite a bit. How can she experience thousands of years within the span of a day or two?! Were those really her own experiences and she was merely tapping into the long-lost memories of her reincarnations? Or is the time dilation in that room just that high? Wouldn't that make it like a 1: 3.65M where every day in the outside world is 3.65 million days in there? What kind of bullshit is that? Even gods shouldn't be able to pull off something that outrageous!
Mira didn't get much time to ponder this as her ethereal form was forced back inside her body. Strangely, Mira didn't feel much discomfort now that she was back inside her body. Well, except for the pain of having most of her body smashed into meat paste. What she meant by a lack of discomfort was her brain. It seemed her brain had been well-preserved even after the body died. She hadn't lost any of her memories, motor functions, or anything like that.
That wasn't the end of things though as Mira felt her body squirm without her doing anything. If one looked closely at Mira's body, they'd see her skin, bones, organs, blood, marrow, and everything else in her body literally turn into worm-like things and start squirming and positioning themselves in their respective positions inside Mira's body.
Quite frankly, it looked and felt disgusting. It looked like worms were digging under her skin and crawling around drying to devour her. Surprisingly, this wasn't too far off from the truth except the worms wiggling in her body are… well… her own body.
As Mira watched her body reform, she felt like she was going under some fucked up version of nirvana. Although she didn't know what someone undergoing Nirvana looked like, she was sure it didn't look like this. Not only that, but Mira could only feel a slight amount of Qi entering her body in order to strengthen it. Most of these worm-like things in her body were being absorbed into one another and Qi was only being used to enlarge them a bit to reach their optimal state.
It didn't take long for Mira's internal organs to start forming and placing themselves in Mira's body. However, Mira could tell that her organs weren't being placed in the same place as they were before.
Her heart was settling in the middle of her chest rather than on the left side. Her digestive tract wasn't nearly as long as before and her stomach was enlarged. Her dantian was also widened by about 30% and strengthened as well. While this wouldn't be of much help right now, it'll definitely make her much stronger when she enters the Core Formation Realm.
The rest of her organs were organized inside Mira's body, making her more balanced than she was before.
Once all of her organs were finished, flesh and bones started forming and placing themselves accordingly.
There weren't really any differences here except Mira felt like her body was much stronger than before. However, there was a slight problem. She seemed to be a bit smaller than how she was previously.
Mira pushed that thought aside as muscle, blood, and skin started forming. Her blood felt heavy and had a bunch of tiny black runes forming on each cell. Mira was startled upon seeing those small black runes that gave Mira the feeling of death. She searched her body to see if she just didn't notice those black runes before, and sure enough, there were tons of tiny black runes all over her body.
They weren't noticeable to the naked eye and would even be hard for one to notice if someone used their soul sense, but Mira knew her body well enough that she could tell.
She wasn't sure what was going on, but she didn't feel any different than before these appeared.
Mira decided to push these to the back of her mind as she waited for her body to finish restructuring and rebuilding…
Around an hour later, Mira stopped feeling those weird worm-like entities crawling around her body, rebuilding it.
She tried moving her fingers and toes and almost yelled out in excitement! She finally had her body back!
She took a few minutes to get used to the sensation of moving around limbs again and tried standing up.
When she stood up and looked down at her body, she noticed something odd. The ground seemed much closer than it was before all this shit. Not only that, but her once growing boobs had now disappeared! She was flatter than a washboard now!
She looked at her arms and legs and noticed that her clothes were way too big for her!
She hurriedly summoned a slab of ice in front of her to look at her reflection and was stunned.
"The fuck?! Why do I look like a fucking child! FUCK! Even my voice sounds like that of a child! Goddammit! I never should've come to this place! Is this some sort of sick joke that this shitty place decided to play? Ugh!"
Mira huffed in anger as she looked at her new body. She had the body of a fucking 9-10-year-old child! She was around 133 centimeters (~52.5 inches) tall. However, her face still looked more mature than that of a 9-year-old child. It still had the same level of maturity that her face had before.
One thing Mira noticed about her face was that it looked exceptionally colder and more dangerous than before. One might even say that her face was more beautiful than before, which Mira found slightly surprising considering how beautiful she looked before.
Her eyes were still blood red, but now there was a small black run in the middle of her pupils which gave her a deadly chilling look.
Her hair was also a bit different, though not by much. Just the roots of her hair were as black as night and it transitioned well into her silvery-blue hair making her look even more deadly and beautiful than before.
Her skin was snow-white, but she noticed her fingernails change colors. Instead of natural pinkish color, they were now a deep black which contrasted well with her snow-white skin.
Although Mira couldn't really complain about her looks, in fact, Mira was more than happy to become more beautiful. It's just… Why did her body have to regress?! She liked her previous body's size as it was pretty much perfect for her!
Mira grumbled in her mind before checking to see how much stronger she got after going through that weird rebirth.
She threw a casual punch at the ice slab in front of her and it instantly exploded into a million pieces!
Mira was slightly surprised by this but not overly so. She could've shattered it with a casual punch even before this rebirth, but she would've had to exert a bit more strength than that.
She made a few more ice slabs and continued punching them. After a few minutes, she determined that her body was around 15-20% stronger than before which was a pleasant surprise to Mira.
Not only that, but Mira also felt like her body had been 'perfected'. She's not quite sure how to put it, but she feels like her body has reached a state of perfection. This has nothing to do with body tempering or anything like that, but more like she had evolved as a human.
Normally, humans are born without any cultivation so they are born with things that a mortal human body needs in order to survive. But these things start losing value as one progresses further down the path of cultivation. Food and water become useless, even breathing becomes unnecessary at a certain point. Most likely, once one gets to a high enough stage, even one's heart and brain become pointless.
However, that doesn't mean that humans shed these useless organs as they progress further in their cultivation. On the contrary, they stay in place and can even become fatal weaknesses to a cultivator!
Normally, it's almost impossible for a human to shed off these unnecessities, but Mira's different. After going through that rebirth, she had shedded off the unneeded parts of her body or at the very least, they were reprogrammed a bit to make them more useful.
Mira didn't exactly know what she lost and what she gained and she doesn't really have the time to focus on that right now since she's sure that she's going to be sent to another test soon.
After she finished examining her body, Mira came to the conclusion that the trade-offs were worth it. Not only did her strength rise, but also her body was perfected for her current Realm and all she lost was her more mature body.
Now that she thought about it, she never had a mature body to begin with so it's not like she's taking a huge loss here anyways.
"Sigh… I'm just not looking forward to meeting Maria and Celaine again. I'm sure Maria is going to pester me nonstop after seeing my current appearance. Sigh…"
Mira let out a few deep sighs just thinking about Maria's reaction, but her thoughts were interrupted as she felt her body being forcefully teleported somewhere. She let out a fight smile full of fighting spirit, ready to test out her new body.
"Bring it on!"
