His vision suddenly shifted, and he found himself staring at his own body, which appeared to be asleep. He glanced around the dark room for a moment, able to see every detail clearly, before stepping out into the larger room and taking in the chaos scattered everywhere. He sighed and muttered, "We might have gone a bit overboard."
Bark!
Creak!
A variety of sounds reached his ears, coming from all directions. "Thinking about it, it’s been a while since I last went out." He gave a command to Noctis, and his body transformed into a black liquid that slid across the floor toward the door. As a result, his perspective shifted, allowing him to see part of the ceiling and a bit of what lay ahead.
Once outside, he was greeted by the familiar sight of the narrow alley: tightly packed houses and a ground covered in melting snow, creating sticky white puddles filled with footprints. ’It seems the snow has stopped.’ He glanced up at the slightly clearer sky.
’I think I’ll return to work once the puddles dry up.’
After ensuring the alley was free of any human presence, Noctis reformed his human body. To avoid drawing attention, he quietly leaped onto one of the shorter rooftops.
Thanks to the shadow body’s malleable nature, which could shift from solid to liquid to gaseous, he was able to make his body extremely light, producing no sound as he moved, as if he weren’t even there.
With ease, he climbed the tightly packed houses until he reached the highest roof in the poor district. He raised his head and carefully observed the surrounding city. He noticed the stark contrast between the dark, dimly lit poor district, illuminated only by a few torches, and the brightly lit inner city, whose light reflected in his crimson eyes.
Even from a distance, he could see the large torches and scattered lanterns everywhere. Vaguely, he could make out human figures strolling through the wide alleys. The inner city was bustling with life, and thanks to his sharp hearing, he could hear their distant murmurs.
He turned his gaze to the tall bell tower, illuminated at its peak like a beacon in the center of the city. After a moment of hesitation, he dashed swiftly like a dark ghost, continuing to climb rooftops without descending into the lit alleys, until he reached a tall building in the city center. He sat relaxed on the isolated peak and quietly observed everything.
His eyes moved from place to place, calmly watching the alleys around him. Despite the cold weather and the late hour, the area was thriving. Guards were stationed at corners, and popular restaurants were filled with customers. Occasionally, some drunkards or luxurious carriages carrying people returning home would pass by.
He observed everything as a lone spectator. "The city looks different at night," he thought silently, noting the unfamiliar and strange atmosphere. Despite being an adult, he had never left the house late at night due to his physical condition and his love for solitude. Even in his teenage years, when he was at full strength, he never stayed out late because of his father’s strict nature. So, it could be said that this was the first time he had seen the city at this hour.
A cold night breeze blew from the distant horizon, but it didn’t affect him. So, he remained seated, watching the illuminated city without any external disturbance. Thanks to his heightened hearing and sharp vision, which could see into the darkest corners, nothing was hidden from him. He caught snippets of conversations and observed human faces, pondering the complexity of life. Time passed slowly, and he became so engrossed in his observations that he forgot himself.
Suddenly, his vision darkened before he opened his eyes and looked at the familiar, dark ceiling.
Sigh!
"My limit doesn’t exceed an hour and a half."
Yawn!
"It seems Noctis is still sitting on top of that building." He spoke in a soft, tired voice and, without hesitation, ordered Noctis to return. After waiting wearily for a few minutes, he felt the shadow’s presence beside him, and his body relaxed, allowing him to succumb to sleep.
...
Sollivan suddenly opened his drowsy eyes and looked at the cold brown ceiling, from which a faint crackling sound emanated. Lazily and warmly, he stretched his arms slightly. After a brief moment of hesitation and enjoying the warmth of the bed, he ordered Noctis to merge with his wheelchair and approach him at a suitable distance.
He pulled his warm hands out from under the blanket, slightly annoyed by the cold air around him. He grabbed the armrest and pulled himself up, struggling a bit before fully sitting on the wheelchair.
He ordered Noctis to push the wheelchair and headed to take care of his needs and clean himself before preparing a simple breakfast, which was slightly richer than usual. After eating, he sat behind the cluttered table and observed the room with mild annoyance.
But he didn’t dwell on it and pulled out four small ceramic bottles made of white porcelain.
He arranged the bottles in a row in front of him and stared at them blankly. After several minutes of stillness, he reached out and picked up one of the bottles, which made a faint clinking sound as its contents shifted.
He opened the bottle and poured its contents into his hand, revealing two red pills the size of a thumbnail. He hesitated for a moment. ’Vitality-enhancing pills would have been very useful if my vitality hadn’t been so severely damaged.’
When he was injured in the past, not only was his spine shattered and his main vein destroyed, but his vitality was also severely damaged to the point that the person who treated him clearly told him he wouldn’t live past thirty.
But after spending a fortune and taking numerous medications, he managed to regain a bit of vitality. However, his lifespan didn’t increase significantly, and he might only live until his mid or late thirties.
’Damn it!’ He frowned and clenched his teeth in frustration as he remembered his suffering. He tightened his grip on the pills, and if not for his weakness, he might have crushed them in his anger.
After a few seconds, he began to regain his composure. He opened his hand and looked at the pills with calmness and determination. His confusion and anger disappeared, replaced by a strong resolve. He pushed aside his fears and stopped caring about the distant future. Without further delay, he placed one of the pills in his mouth.
As soon as the pill touched his saliva, its hardness lessened. He bit into it firmly and swallowed the soft fragments. As soon as the pill reached his stomach, a mild warmth spread through him, giving him a pleasant sensation. He slowly closed his eyes and began breathing in a strange rhythm, with some breaths long and others short and almost interrupted, and the same for his exhalations.
However, after about ten minutes, a faint frown appeared on his face. He opened his eyes, his breathing returned to normal, and he sighed in disappointment.
’The pill’s contents were wasted. I don’t know how much my body benefited from it.’ He lamented slightly.
’If only I had a bit of energy, I could monitor my physical condition and regulate the digestion process to ensure the pill’s benefits aren’t wasted.’
One of the basic abilities Arcanes masters gain upon starting cultivation is the internal echo technique, which allows them to see the internal details of their bodies and even intervene as their strength grows.
He looked at the second pill in his hand and thought for a moment about what to do, then glanced at the remaining bottles.
Knock!
Suddenly, he heard a faint knocking sound that interrupted his thoughts. He wasn’t annoyed, and without setting the pill aside, he went to the door and opened it to find Devlin, his face slightly flushed, standing happily.
"Master Sollivan, good morning. Am I late?"
"No, come in and clean up the mess." Without paying him further attention, he returned to his spot. He stared at the pill intently, and suddenly, a vague idea formed in his mind. He raised his eyebrows and thought more deeply.
Clatter!
Noise!
The loud clattering of dishes disrupted his clarity of mind. He raised his head angrily and looked at Devlin, who was engrossed in his work, but he couldn’t punish or scold him. All he did was grumble silently. ’Hah, I shouldn’t have made him come early.’
His hesitant thoughts lingered for a moment before he swallowed the pill in his hand, closed his eyes, and followed the same breathing pattern as before. His body and mind calmed, and he tried to imagine the potential energy flow that would help distribute the pill’s effectiveness throughout his body, but his thoughts were just ineffective fantasies.
Clatter!
Every time he felt he had grasped something useful, the noise of Devlin’s cleaning interrupted him.
Time passed quietly, and after fifteen minutes, he opened his eyes and sighed in great disappointment. ’At this rate, I won’t be able to strengthen my body even if I get better resources.’
His complaint wasn’t just fleeting disappointment and fears, but his inability to direct the energy of the vitality pills could expose him to serious physical harm if he consumed more than he could handle.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a very long time. Despite his annoyance, he felt a bit of relaxation and vitality. After all, the pills’ effectiveness wasn’t entirely wasted; he had partially benefited from them. He enjoyed the pleasant warmth until it faded, and only Devlin’s voice woke him from his relaxation.
"Master Sollivan, I’m done. I’ll leave now."
Without opening his eyes, he raised his hand and gestured for him to go.
A sharp cold entered through the suddenly opened door, making his body shiver slightly. His relaxation disappeared, and he opened his eyes with mild annoyance. He looked at the quietly closed door, and when he found the room had returned to its usual calm, he said lazily, "Appear."
He looked at the shadow that suddenly appeared beside him and remembered he hadn’t offered it any blood in the past two days. "Blood?!" Suddenly, a realization struck him, making him frown in suspicion.
"Thinking about it, couldn’t I use my blood to scan my body internally?"
He had nothing to lose, so he closed his eyes again. This time, he didn’t hesitate to follow a different breathing technique that helped isolate his senses and clear his mind. Before losing connection with the world, he ordered Noctis sternly.
"Guard me."
After that, he no longer heard anything from his surroundings, and even the darkness he saw with his eyes closed became darker. His mind became very clear. Without any delay, he stimulated his primordial blood, which had been dormant since his return.
A beautiful warmth spread through his entire body, from the tip of his numb finger to the top of his head, as if his whole body was immersed in a hot spring. However, his calm feeling lasted only a short while before he felt a vague pressure imposing itself on him. His chest tightened slightly, and the warmth in his body decreased significantly.
He frowned with mild annoyance, and even Noctis involuntarily took a step back out of fear of the world’s restraints, which had suddenly strengthened.
Despite all this, Sollivan didn’t stop. The pressure he felt wasn’t unbearable, and he wanted to see the experiment through to the end. After several minutes, he finally opened his eyes and exhaled in great disappointment.
’No use. The sensation my primordial blood provides is just a general feeling and nothing like internal echo.’ He smiled bitterly and sighed.
"It seems primordial blood isn’t as amazing as I thought. The embellished praise from the tribal people really made me arrogant."
His ability to stimulate his blood was just a simple and not very useful ability, something any Kornavar could do regardless of their blood quality. But from what he understood from his readings, stimulating blood before awakening it slightly benefits the body, increasing its fitness and flexibility. However, Sollivan hadn’t paid much attention to it until now.
As he complained sarcastically, he felt something slightly vague that surprised him. He turned and looked at Noctis, asking, "Do you feel this too? After stimulating my blood for a long time, the discomfort accompanying the world’s restraints has started to lessen."
His eyes remained fixed on the red gems in Noctis’s face before receiving a wave of thoughts that slightly surprised him. "You too? Are you saying the pressure you feel has lessened after spending a few days in this world? But your strength hasn’t returned to its peak?"
Without waiting long, a wave of thoughts answered his question. "That’s good too, as the feeling of restraint isn’t very comfortable."
After the strange discussion between them ended, Sollivan thought, ’I’ll keep my blood stimulated until this feeling completely disappears.’
Without stopping the stimulation of his blood, he relaxed his body and stretched lazily and tiredly. The breathing technique he used earlier wasn’t without side effects, as it caused significant fatigue once its effects wore off.
He slowly reached out and picked up one of the bottles in front of him. He opened it and took one of the pills inside, which was no larger than a pea. He looked at it with slight disappointment before casually tossing it into his mouth.
The basic pills he had bought weren’t very powerful or useful for people at higher levels of body strengthening, or what they called trainees. But for him, they were decent. Although each pill cost only half a silver coin, their benefits were still significant for humans who had just started strengthening their bodies. They also acted as a simple antibiotic and tonic that relieved fatigue.
He took another pill and placed it in his mouth like a piece of candy. Then, he picked up a historical book he had partially read before and began reading it quietly.
Time passed slowly, and as Sollivan immersed himself in reading, he felt a great warmth in his stomach. He raised his eyebrows in confusion and quickly set the book aside. He touched his warm stomach with a stunned expression and wondered, "What is this?"
In fact, he was aware of the nature of the warmth spreading from his stomach, as he had experienced it dozens, if not hundreds, of times. It was known that when someone took a powerful medicinal pill, it would emit a refreshing vitality warmth in the stomach, indicating that it had been digested and was starting to release its medicinal effects within the body. But at this moment, Sollivan hadn’t taken anything other than two low-quality pills that could barely be considered strengthening pills.
He raised his hand and scratched his chin in astonishment, unable to speak for a long time until the warmth he felt disappeared. Immediately after, he felt a vague refreshment and slight lightness in his body.
’It can’t be!’ His astonishment grew, and if not for his disability, he would have stood up in shock. After a long silence and processing, he wondered blankly, "What changed?" And as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized.
"My blood?! Could it be that stimulating my blood increased my ability to absorb the pills’ effectiveness?! But that’s impossible, as the warmth from my basic pills equaled that of vitality-enhancing pills."
No matter how wild his imagination was, he couldn’t connect the amount of warmth to the two basic pills. Even in the past, when he was a strong, healthy teenager, he had never felt such vitality from basic pills. Yes, he took into account his physical injury, past experience, and general knowledge. Even after abandoning some common sense, he still couldn’t believe it.
Without hesitation, he picked up the bottle of pills and took out three small pills. The bottle of basic pills contained twenty pills in total, worth ten silver coins. So, he didn’t hesitate to eat them all to confirm his suspicions.
He quickly swallowed the three pills and waited in silence. After confirming several times that his blood was still stimulated and the accompanying warmth hadn’t faded.
Tap!
He tapped the armrest of his wheelchair with his index finger, unable to hide his tension. He counted the time anxiously, and as soon as about eleven minutes had passed, he felt the warmth spread through his stomach again. His eyes widened in astonishment, and even though he had expected it, he couldn’t contain his shock.
He raised his hand and grabbed his head before curling his lips into the widest smile of his life. His astonishment and shock disappeared, and all that remained was overwhelming joy, making his body tremble with excitement. He wanted to stand up, jump, and scream.
He didn’t calm himself and let the joy take over. And in his overwhelming emotions, Noctis was also affected. He emerged from his shadow and stood beside him in astonishment, unable to react.