Corpse refining an extraordinary yet creepy skill, when a person dies the soul leaves the body once the negative emotions attached to it are cleared over the period of time or with the intervention of someone or something. As for the corpse it starts to decay after 24 hours to the initial period of its time of death. This is where the Corpse refining skill comes to the picture. Since it is a corpse it can't get energy by breathing or eating or drinking like normal people do and start to rot away able to sustain without energy. The integumentary, skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive systems in a body stop to function after death as their main energy source life is destroyed, since they have no energy they start to rot. So in order for the corpse not to rot one has to provide with energy it requires to sustain the same bodily conditions after death. To provide this energy we use corpse refining skill, it's nothing but to create new self sustaining systems for the corpse using existing systems and runes.

In corpse refining we are going to change the energy source of the body systems from life energy to energy present between heaven and earth using the runes. Onces the body systems get a new energy source they will start to self sustain by themselves stopping the decay of the body. To obtain the best result of the corpse refining the corpse used should be fresh within the 24 hours of its time of death. But the energy present between heaven and earth has many energies mixed in them like elemental energies, dark energies, negative energies, emotion energies etc so they are vigorous and full of vitality making them very aggressive and strong compared to life energy. Using energy present between heaven and earth as an energy source for a normal body is burdensome and damaging, the corpse can explode unable to properly process the energy, other than replacing the energy source of the body systems using runes we have to also strengthen the body systems with the runes so that they can handle the energy present between heaven and earth without exploding.

To inscribe runes on the corpse the refinier needs to use their own spiritual strength. The runes are inscribed on every part of the body skin, muscle, internal organs, bones. The spiritual strength can easily get to corpse muscles, internal organs, bones without the need to cut open the corpse.

Once the body systems are strengthened and their energy sources are replaced using the runes the corpse becomes completely like a live body without soul and its brain also awakens giving birth to an persona with same level of intelligence to a new born child. Due to the lack of the soul and life energy this new persona's development is very slow compared to new born children, it would require about 1000 years to have intelligence comparable to an adult human. But if the corpse being used for corpse refining has any negative energy or resentment attached to it, the persona of the corpse can feed on these energies and develop its self conscious in extraordinary speed but the new persona will start to consider the memories of the previous soul of the body as its own and try to act according to the negative energies and thoughts of the previous soul, becoming evil monster with only goal to avenge the previous soul of the corpse no matter the cost.

The new persona awakened in the brain of the corpse is in no way related to the old soul of the corpse but once it is tainted by the negative or emotional energies left behind by the previous soul it will start to consider itself as the old soul reborn. For example consider a computer, when it's Os crashes we replace it by installing new Os, it's up to us to keep our old memory in the ram.( ps : if understand this sentence please let me know)

Even if the new persona of the refined corpse is not tainted by the negative or the emotional energy left by the previous host they tend to be easily influenced by negative and dark energies as they do not have souls and therefore they are not bound and influenced by the 7 virtues that every human is bound with. These persona's of refined corpses are broken imitations of the humans they do not know how to tell good or evil apart, they do not hesitate to do anything as long as they desire it they do it, therefore they basically turn into evil monsters even if they are not tainted by the negative energies left behind by the predecessors.

Therefore once the corpse refining is done the first thing that the refiner does is to place a slave inscription in place of the corpse's soul. Once the slave inscription takes place of the soul in the refined corpse it also the slave inscription plays two roles firstly it allows the refiner to control the refined corpse and secondly it plays as the bounds and limitations placed on the persona. But over the period onces the consciousness of the Persona gets stronger than the slave inscription it will devour the slave inscription and attack its master.

In the case of Hive Mother, Sukehime had not totally destroyed her soul. She only broke Hive mother's soul into pieces but the broken pieces were still in Hive mother's body leaving her in vegitative state. So basically Hive Mother cannot be considered dead and her body was still able to maintain self sustained bodily functions. So Sukehime used peak level corpse refining to refine Hive mother's body. According to experienced corpse refiners, to get the perfect result of corpse refining fresh corpse is the most important, what is fresher body than a live one. Many corpse refiners prefer to refine live bodies to achieve perfection.

Going through the Corpse refining skill a bold idea came to James mind, what if he refined his own body to increase his physical strength. Since the corpse refining is basically to strengthen the physical strength of the corpse by inscribing runes to the corpse, why can't he inscribe runes to his own body to physically strengthen himself?

Even though James was not narcissistic enough to think that he was the first to think of inscribing runes to his own body to increase physical strength, but he was curious and desperate enough to try and inscribe runes to his own body, so without thinking twice James decided to go through this process. Then James started to plan what all rune inscriptions to inscribe as the runes for corpses and live person are different. It did not take much time for James to come up with rune inscriptions for his body, thanks to his new maxed out skills basic rune mastery and basic corpse refining.

James cleared his mind to have a tranquil and peaceful mind, then he began to control his spiritual strength to inscribe runes and inscriptions on his body parts especially bones, skin, organs, muscles. But just when he was about to start inscribing his first rune he felt like the time was stagnant, wind stopped, he could no longer feel his body. James knew this feeling because he had experienced this before this is the feeling being one with the world. He had tried to achieve this state once before but he was not able to but now he did not even try to but entered this state unknowingly James was surprised but excited this way he could more efficiently inscribe runes on his body as this time like last time instead of seeing a globe of light he was able to see every part of his body muscles bones, organ, skin etc. making it easier for james to inscribe runes to his body.

Then without any delay James began the inscribing process he started with bones as it was the frame and the backbone of the complete body structure. When James began inscribing runes unknown inspiration began to enlighten him to draw completely different runes than what he had actually decided on, it was like someone or something out there was guiding him to draw these runes. Even though James did not know what this was, he still had a feeling that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and he could not lose it. The unknown inspiration was none other than the hard and still mountain under James, the smooth and chilly wind that brushed past him, the sound of the water current from the underground river, the one guiding James to draw new runes was none other than the world itself it was telling James more like teaching james the rules and laws hidden in the stillness of the mountain and boundlessness of wind and the ever moving nature of the river which can crush through any obstacle in its way.

Many refiners have thought of using the runes to refine and strengthen the normal human body, in fact some even believe that the corpse refining technique is derived from a far more powerful technique used to refine live human body. And in actuality many have done experiments one this and met with a very unfortunate end. As the burden and pain of inscribing runes onto an individual's body is not something that individual's body and soul can bare. Even James, if he imitates the corpse refining on himself without the help of the the state one with the world would have ended up with the same result as these refiners that a normal human is unable to bare the pain of inscribing rune in their one flesh or any other part of their body.

After slowly inscribing these runes James came to know how wrong he would have been if he had imitated a corpse refining on himself instead of following the guidance of the world, thanks to the state of being one with the world James was saved from grave pain. Pretty soon James had inscribed every part of his body from head to toe and from skin to bone under the guidance of the world. As soon as James was done with inscribing the runes on his body his consciousness returned to his body the time and wind started to flow. When James consciousness returned to his body he did not feel any pain from the runes inscribed on his body. Instead he had this feeling of hunger, not from his stomach but from every part of his body the runes on them hastily started to gather and absorb the energy present in heaven and earth. As the energy runs, those body parts become more energetic, stronger, healthier and livelier. Slowly the lean body of James started to bulk, his skin started to seem healthier, fairer and smoother but the rune markings on his skin were not visible but when James thought of the rune marking various runes started to become visible to James's eyes like tattoos. It seemed that James could control the runes inscribed with his thoughts.