Chapter 87- Black Residue

«Grrrrr!»

Rion woke up starving.

Not the usual morning hunger, but something deeper. His stomach twisted, clenching so hard it almost hurt. His throat was dry, his limbs weak, and a raw emptiness gnawed at his insides like he hadn't eaten in days.

He groaned, pressing a hand to his stomach. It growled so loudly he could feel the vibration in his ribs. His body was screaming for food, demanding it like air or water.

What the hell....

Swinging his legs over the bed, he nearly collapsed. His body felt strange—light, yet unsteady, like he was adjusting to new proportions. His arms moved faster than expected, his legs responding too quickly. It was like he'd lost a lot of weight overnight.

He frowned but shook his head—again, food first. He could figure out the rest later.

Still, he wasn't dumb enough to leave his room without taking precautions. Even with hunger clawing at him like a starving beast, he forced himself to grab his disguise face mask from the drawer beside the mirror.

Come on, you stupid thing....

He had designed the mask to be easy to wear by himself, but his fingers fumbled with the straps as his hunger made him shaky. After a few tries, he finally got the mask to clickinto place. He glanced in the mirror, adjusting it slightly to make sure it sat naturally.

His reflection stared back at him—a completely ordinary human face, one that wouldn't turn heads or raise suspicions. Satisfied, he threw on a long sleeved shirt before heading for the door.

The hunger was getting worse, though. It felt like his stomach was trying to eat itself. He clenched his teeth and forced himself to focus, making his way to the common dining area.

The walk to the cafeteria felt longer than usual, his stomach growling louder with every step. By the time he reached the doors, he was half-convinced he could eat an entire Swami Elephant by himself, bones and all. The scent of food hit him like a freight train—roasted meat, fresh bread, something fried. His stomach lurched, saliva flooding his mouth.

Keep it together...

He shoved through the doors and headed straight for the counter.

The moment he grabbed a tray, his hands moved on instinct, piling it high with food. Meat. More meat. Bread. Whatever looked dense, heavy, packed with energy. He barely paid attention to what he was grabbing, his body locked on one goal: eat.

"Whoa that guy is nuts..."

"Bro thinks he's at an all you can eat...."

As he was filling up his tray, he noticed the sheer number of eyes locked onto him. Retainers, mercenaries, waiters—hell, even the janitor had stopped sweeping to stare at him like he had just grown an extra head.

"…Y'all got a problem?" he said, his voice muffled slightly as he directed a cold stare at the lot of them.

No one answered.

With a shrug, Rion reached forward and grabbed a large milk carton form the counter before carrying his haul towards a corner table. He barely sat before he started eating.

The first bite of meat hit his tongue, but he didn't taste it. He was too hungry to care. His jaw worked on autopilot, tearing through the food at a relentless pace. Meat, bread, more meat. The hunger barely eased—each bite only made him more aware of how much he needed.

The food was warm, the textures blending in his mouth. He vaguely registered the grease coating his tongue, the chew of roasted flesh, the slight sweetness of the bread. But flavor didn't matter. Only fuel.

He continued devouring, barely pausing to breathe. The milk was gulped down between bites, washing the food down in heavy swallows. His body wasn't just craving food—it was demanding it, absorbing every bit like he was recovering from starvation.

By the time he'd worked through more than half of his stash, the hunger had eased somewhat—not gone, but significantly more bearable.

He slowed down, taking care to chew and swallow each bite more deliberately.

As he ate, his mind wandered back to the breakthrough. He could feel the changes in his body—his movements were smoother, his senses sharper.

His mind had also been upgraded, his thoughts flowing faster and clearer than before. But there was something else, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. He chewed thoughtfully on a piece of bread, trying to make sense of it all.

The strange, black residue he had washed off was bothering him. It wasn't normal. Not from what he'd read or heard from other cultivators, at least.

Not once had he come across anything about the body expelling dark stuff. Was it a side effect of his unique constitution? Or something else entirely?

He briefly considered whether he was dying. That would be unfortunate.

He shook his head, pushing the thought aside. If he was dying, he'd deal with it later. Right now, he had more important things to worry about. Like finishing the mountain of food in front of him.

By the time he scraped the last crumbs from his tray, he was better than before. His stomach, which was a pit of emptiness earlier, was now packed full, but even then, there was a lingering sense that he could eat more.

People were still watching. Some whispering. Others just staring.

He ignored them, grabbing a few high-energy snacks—compressed biscuits, military rations, anything that would keep him going—before heading back to his room. He had a feeling that his appetite might not be back to normal for a while.

Back in his room, the first thing Rion noticed was the mess left from his breakthrough. Clothes were strewn around in disarray, the floor had smudges of blackened residue, and there were faint imprints of where he had collapsed.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. If the housekeeping staff saw this, they'd probably assume he had some sort of nightmarish illness and burn the entire room down just to be safe.

"Right. Better clean this up before they start treating me like a biohazard."

It didn't take long to scrub the place down. He tossed ruined clothes aside to be burned later, wiped down every surface, and ensured there was no trace of the weird black gunk left. The efficiency with which he cleaned the room surprised even himself. The changes in his body were becoming more apparent—his movements were faster, more precise. He finished in record time, collapsing onto the bed with a satisfied sigh.

But he couldn't rest for long. The itch to test his new abilities was too strong to ignore. He got up, stretching his limbs before launching into a series of foundational exercises: punching, kicking, jumping, running.

The movements were familiar, ingrained in his muscle memory from countless hours of practice. But now, they felt… different. Since he'd put in the time to build this body from its once scrawny form, he was particularly attuned to any subtle changes.

His punches snapped out faster, his kicks carried more force, and when he jumped, he felt lighter, soaring higher than before. When he landed, his knees bent smoothly to absorb the impact, his joints barely strained. His stamina and endurance had also improved, the slight fatigue that usually set in after a few minutes nowhere to be found.

Feeling the thrill of the improvements, he dropped into a fighting stance, moving into a series of fluid jabs and hooks. The air seemed to cut through more sharply with each movement, and he instinctively adjusted his form, tightening his core as he shifted into a series of rapid combinations.

He quickly noticed why. It wasn't just his physical traits that had improved. His mind had actually gained a more significant boost.

He put his newfound mental clarity to the test by running a few quick calculations—tasks that previously required focus, like recalling precise details from books he'd read or breaking down combat strategies on the fly.

The difference was immediate.

What once took him seconds to process now clicked into place effortlessly. His memory recall was sharper, and his logical reasoning flowed seamlessly, like skimming an open book rather than assembling scattered pieces of a puzzle.

He noticed it even in his own movements. Before, analyzing his form required deliberate effort—now, it felt almost second nature. He instinctively recognized what adjustments to make before he even completed a motion. His mind was sharper, his thoughts more fluid, and details that would normally slip away now stayed firmly in place.

"Not bad," he muttered, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I'm getting stronger."

He'd read countless accounts of breakthroughs, both from adepts and strykers. Each breakthrough resulted in some form of bodily enhancement—stronger muscles, more resilient organs, refined energy flow, although the range of enhancement differed per person.

A thought formed in his mind, one he hadn't considered before.

Could the breakthrough process be something like artificial aging? Killing off weaker cells, discarding the waste, and then origin energy repairing and strengthening what remained?

It was a wild guess, but it made some sense. If that were the case, then it explained the origin of the hunger and black residue. Following this theory, it would be discarded waste—the remnants of old cells that had been forcibly purged from his body.

However, this raised an important question: why had none of the accounts he'd studied mentioned anything similar? The absence of such a detail suggested that his breakthrough was unique—at least, as far as he knew.

Without comparable experiences to reference, he had no choice but to navigate this uncertainty on his own. Whether this anomaly would prove to be an advantage or a hidden drawback in the long run was something he'd have to determine for himself.

Pushing those thoughts aside for now, Rion turned his attention to the most important aspect of his training, his origin ability.

He willed his Resonance to manifest, feeling the blue electricity arc around his body.

Immediately, he noticed a difference. The activation process was smoother. Where before it felt like trying to run a high-performance application on a budget processor, now it was as if he had upgraded to a system with more processing power. Still not the best, but much more efficient.

Oh. That's a bummer.....

Unfortunately, the core of his ability remained unchanged. He didn't suddenly gain an extra layer of enhancements, and his [Overclock] mode didn't magically boost his power output.

The only real upgrade was its duration.

With a full energy reserve, his normal mode lasted well over a full minute now. [Overclock], which had previously lasted around twenty-two seconds, now stretched closer to a little over thirty seconds.

Not groundbreaking, but definitely an improvement.

Another aspect that saw a definite improvement was his origin technique usage. Each activation of a origin technique induced mental strain on him, which was compounded if he used more than one at the same time.

But the recent breakthrough had lessened the strain of each ability, prolonging the time he could maintain them before mental fatigue set in. Though, despite his progress, his limit was still three techniques at a time.

Oh well, beats languishing in the Early-stage.....

He wrapped up his workout, feeling a sense of satisfaction that he hadn't felt in a long time. The breakthrough had been worth it, despite the pain and the weird hunger. He grabbed a towel, wiping the sweat from his face before sitting down at his desk.

His laptop was waiting for him, the design suite already open. If his cognitive functions had improved as much as he suspected, then his designing speed and problem-solving abilities should have increased as well.

As he was about to see how much of a boost his mental abilities had gotten, his phone buzzed, pulling him out of his thoughts. He glanced at the screen and saw a follow-up message from the Normos Family supplier: Delivery confirmed. Expect arrival within the hour. Be ready to receive.

He cracked his knuckles, a grin spreading across his face. "Perfect timing," he muttered to himself.