After four days had passed, the gold that Lin Mu had poured into this chest had spread from his sternum all the way to the ribs and fully covered them. In case of his spine, it was also mostly covered, but the gold had not been fully absorbed yet.
'At least I can move a bit…' Lin Mu thought and tried to relax his back a little bit. While his vertebrae couldn't all move properly, there was still some scope of movement for his neck where the gold had been fully absorbed.
"Just a little while more…" Lin Mu muttered to himself and continued to practice the True Gold Body Forging Arts.
Finally, after two more days, his spine had fully assimilated all the gold and Lin Mu could stand up again.
"Huh… I have my balance back… so the spine really was the issue." Lin Mu realized.
Still, Lin Mu was not done with the second stage and still had one part of his body left, the most essential part… his head.
Thankfully, this was not as dangerous as spine even if it was his head. Unlike his spine, in which the gold would cause intense pain and move to the gaps between, for his skull, the gold would only enter from the top and then spread automatically under the guidance of the True Gold Body Forging Arts.
But before he started with that, Lin Mu ate another Blood Spring Carp so that his condition was back to the peak. Only after he felt that everything was better did he start with his head.
Lin Mu took the short sword and made a '+' shaped cut on the top of his scalp before pulling it apart and revealing the skull. It was a gruesome sight for many and the weak hearted would simply fall unconscious from the visual shock.
Then, taking the remaining amount of the gold that was left in the cauldron Lin Mu poured it on his head.
~hiss~
The blood and moisture vaporized as the hot liquid gold spread over the top of his skull. Lin Mu sat down cross legged again and began to practice according to the mnemonic of the True Gold Body Forging Arts with all his heart.
Three days passed by as the gold spread from the top of his skull to the sides, then to the base of his neck, joining up with the rest of the spine. From his forehead, it came down and coated his eye sockets, making them burn as if lime had been sprinkled on his eyeballs.
Once the eye sockets were coated, the gold spread further to his cheekbones and the jaw, finally ending in his mandible. But once it was all done, Lin Mu felt a strange sense of harmony in his body.
~huu~
Opening his eyes, Lin Mu finished the final part of the second stage of the True Gold Body Forging Arts.
"The difference is massive…" Lin Mu said as he clenched his fist.
While his strength had not really increased, Lin Mu could feel a firm toughness that had taken root. Even now, Lin Mu could tell that his defense was at least three times better than before.
"Just at the second stage it is significantly better… wonder what changes the third stage will bring." Lin Mu thought to himself.
"Observe your body and stabilize yourself before you start the third stage." Xukong advised.
"Of course, senior." Lin Mu said, as he took the final blood spring carp that Little Shrubby had ready for him.
Once he was done eating, he checked every inch of his body with his spirit sense, getting an idea of the difference. Lin Mu could see the gold covering every inch of his bones and even entering a few milliliters into the bones.
'Perhaps the third stage is to make it deeper?' Lin Mu wondered.
Lin Mu observed his lungs and found that they had actually progressed in their refinement. He hadn't even realized and his lungs were already at the 15% mark for refinement.
Metal attribute spirit Qi could be felt stirring within some of the cells and making them more active than before.
'The first stage barely did 1% and now the second took me to 15%… will the third even be enough?' Lin Mu couldn't help but wonder.
But while he was checking his body, Lin Mu discovered something. It could be termed as a flaw or not in the True Gold Body Forging Arts.
The flaw being… his teeth were actually not coated with the gold like his bones. The gold had only spread over the jawbone and into the teeth sockets, but not over the teeth themselves.
"Though golden teeth might have been a bit too gaudy, now that I think about it." Lin Mu said to himself.
While this lessened his defense on his teeth, it was not like he couldn't regrow them if they broke. With his Xiantian physique, regrowing teeth wasn't a problem like mortals or even other cultivators.
Most cultivators would need special alchemical pills that could allow them to regrow teeth, but to Lin Mu all it took was some time and they would return. Thus, it wasn't much of a concern for him.
Besides, during the many times he had fought, he had only lost three teeth and all of them had returned a long time ago.
The flaw about his teeth was an unmentioned flaw of the True Gold Body Forging Arts. But in addition to this flaw, there was another flaw that was clearly mentioned in it. The flaw being none other than the eyes.
While the eyelids were strengthened like the rest of the skin, some of the attacks might still be able to breakthrough the defense of it. If that did happen, the cultivator would lose the eye.
But in exchange for that, whatever kind of a weapon that was used to poke the eye would be stopped by the strengthened bone of the eye socket and thus be prevented from reaching the brain.
