Derrick opened his inventory.
What were ten pills before, now only nine were left.
He pulled out the second one and popped it in his mouth without thinking twice. The familiar sensation returned as he closed his eyes and leaned back on the surface of tub.
[Assimilating pure medicinal energy...]
His muscles twitched. Sweat instantly beaded across his skin, dripping down into the gel-like liquid below, which absorbed it without a trace.
By the time the second pill’s energy settled into his bones, Derrick was already reaching for the third. He did not even notice the injuries all over his body were healing at visible rate.
Cracked skin was knitting itself back together. The bruises were disappearing. The damages to the bones were being repaired before enforcing the bones to become stronger.
His vision was becoming hazy and his mind felt at trance. A smile tugged at his lips as he swallowed the third pill.
’Don’t stop the momentum.’
He had lost himself in the feeling of euphoria.
Now that his injuries were completely healed, the energy from the pill was completely focused on improving his confusion.
His veins burned instead of tingling, and for a moment his vision blurred, the bathroom’s blue light bleeding into streaks across his eyes.
[Warning: Energy saturation increasing. Recommend pause before next dose.]
Derrick ignored it.
His fingers were already wrapped around the fourth pill.
’If I stop now, I’ll lose the momentum. I can feel it... I’m right on the edge of something.’ The feeling came from deep within his body. He could feel something inside his body was hungry for that last pill.
He swallowed the fourth pill.
Derrick was not a reckless fool. Even before he completed the mission and received the pills, he had learned everything he can about breaking through the pdfs saved on his pc or internet.
He learned everything that was available to him on the Physical Enhancement Drug and the Physical Strengthening Realm itself.
To breakthrough the Low stage of Physical Strengthening Realm, to take the very first step on the path of becoming a super abled being, one needed to consume ten unranked Physical Enhancement Drugs/pills.
Once you take those ten pils after your body has reached the peak of its mortal capabilities, the energy from the pill with be infused in the part of consumer’s body.
It will continue to enhance the bones, bone marrow, blood, skin and every fiber of every muscle themselves until it reached the limit and broke evolved beyond their limits.
Their bones will become hard as stone and the skin, hard as steel. If one could bend metal before, they would be able to crush it with their hands.
And that was how someone will be marked as they have broken through Physical Enhancement Realm.
10 unranked Pill.
If that was how it was supposed to happen, so why...
Why was Derrick feeling it all happen at once inside his body.
The fourth pill was unlike any other. It was as if he had swallowed a ball of fire.
The moment it touched his stomach, an explosion of heat detonated outward, so intense that Derrick’s back arched involuntarily against the tub, a strangled gasp tearing from his throat. "Ugh..."
’W-What is this—’
His eyes flew open.
Throb!
Blood vessels burst across the whites of his eyes in an instant, red spreading through them like ink dropped in water.
He couldn’t blink. Couldn’t look away from the ceiling above him.
"AAAGH—!"
The scream tore out of him before he could stop it, raw and guttural, bouncing off the tiled walls. Fortunately, the walls of the bathroom were preventing sound from escaping on his command.
Had he deactivated that effect, Rebecca and Cassie would have rushed hearing his heart wrenching screams.
Veins surged to the surface of his skin, thick as cords, dark blue-black against his flesh.
They crawled up his neck, across his temples, branching out. You could see them pulsing, like they were being pumped with lots of blood, in time with the frantic hammering of his heart.
Thump!
Ba-Dump!
Ba-DUMP!
Each beat felt like a sledgehammer against his ribs from the inside. It echoed in the room whenever Derrick was not screaming or clutching the edges of the tub in agony.
Crr..
As his hold grew tighter, the material of the tub gave away and crumbled to pieces in his hands.
His muscles seized.
Every single one, all at once.
His arms locked rigid, his legs kicked out involuntarily, sending the gel-liquid sloshing over the rim in waves.
Even if Derrick wanted to move his body, he could not. Everything was happening without his will.
His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together, a sharp creak audible even over his own ragged breathing.
’It hurts— it hurts— it HURTS—
Only 15 minutes had passed since the whole thing started but to Derrick, they felt like hours.
The agony only grew worse with time and it peaked when the heat reached his head.
His skin rippled, like something was moving just beneath the surface, muscle fiber tearing and reknitting themselves instantly, denser, tighter, harder than before.
A sound like knuckles cracking started coming out from join in his body. Whether it was his spine, his ribs, his shoulders, all of them, one after another made the horrifying sound.
Crack. Crack-crack. CRACK.
Steam began to rise off his skin, hissing where sweat met heat, fogging the mirror across the room.
Black goo started oozing out of the pores of his skin along with drops of dark blood, mixing with the blue gelatin liquid in the tub, turning it purple-black.
His mind started to get foggy but the voice of the system kept him from loosing consciousness. It told him what was going on his body when he was clueless.
[Physical attributes reaching critical threshold...]
[Breakthrough conditions met.]
Finally the pain faded and clarity returned to his sight and mind.
Thump!
Ba-Dump!
He could feel it. It his heart. In his bones, in his head and... in his blood.
Derrick did not need to read the next notification what had happened.
With just only 4 Unranked Physical Enhancement Drugs... he had broken through.
He had...
[Congratulations! You have reached the Physical Strengthening Realm!]
Derrick’s mind went blank.