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Chapter 15 — Beyond Human Limits
The moment I entered my room, I locked the door and dropped onto the bed.
For a few seconds I just stared at the ceiling. Then I started laughing — not because anything was funny, but because I'd finally realized how stupid I'd been.
For months, I'd been using Transfiguration like a child playing with a powerful tool without understanding how it worked. Stronger muscles, denser bones, sharper vision. That was the extent of my imagination. After the library, I understood how shallow that approach had been.
The biological research in Bloom's archives surpassed anything from Earth — entire fields of science I'd never heard of, species from different worlds, organisms that evolved under completely alien conditions. The more I'd read, the more terrifying Transfiguration seemed.
I wasn't limited to improving what already existed. If I understood biology well enough, I could redesign myself entirely.
The thought reminded me of a cartoon I watched as a kid — a boy who could transform into different alien species, each with unique abilities. Back then I thought it was an amazing fantasy. Sitting in my room now, I wasn't so sure it was just that anymore.
Maybe I couldn't become an alien. But creating a superior version of myself? That seemed entirely possible. And I intended to find out just how possible.
I started with the safest target: my lungs.
The library had given me a solid enough understanding of respiratory systems. Slowly, carefully, I activated Transfiguration. The sensation was strange — invisible fingers reshaping flesh inside my chest. I increased the density of the tiny air sacs responsible for oxygen exchange, expanded their surface area, and reinforced the surrounding tissue. Nothing extreme, nothing reckless. Small improvements.
When the process finished, I took a deep breath. My chest expanded, air rushed in — more than before. Not dramatically, not enough to make me superhuman, but enough to notice. I inhaled again, then again.
A smile spread across my face. Success.
Next came the liver and kidneys. Not directly related to combat, but they played a huge role in keeping the body efficient. The modifications were simple — improved filtration, better waste processing, faster toxin removal. A few minutes later I felt oddly refreshed, like I'd just woken up from a full night's sleep.
Interesting. Very interesting.
Then I noticed something unexpected: my Universal Energy absorption had increased. Slightly, almost imperceptibly — but it was definitely there. I frowned. What was the connection between oxygen efficiency and energy absorption? Coincidence, or something deeper?
The answer didn't matter right now. What mattered was the possibility. If improving oxygen processing increased absorption even a little, there had to be other ways to push it further. And if I could find them, my growth speed would accelerate dramatically.
I considered modifying my heart next. That idea lasted exactly three seconds before I abandoned it. One mistake inside the heart and I'd be dead on the floor of my room. There was a difference between ambitious and suicidal. The heart could wait until I knew a lot more.
Several hours passed, each experiment sharpening my control a little more. Gradually, my confidence grew — and pointed me toward the next target.
My brain.
The moment the thought surfaced, the excitement vanished. Fear replaced it. A muscle could heal. A bone could regenerate. But the brain was different. One mistake could destroy everything that made me who I was — memories, thoughts, personality, consciousness itself.
I sat motionless for a few minutes, thinking it through. Then I made my decision. If I wanted to become stronger, I couldn't avoid risk forever. I just needed to be smart about it.
During my research, I'd come across creatures with specialized sensory structures that processed raw information before passing it to the brain, dramatically improving reaction time. The brain receives already-organized data rather than doing all the work itself. What if I could build something similar? Not true organs — just biological structures capable of reducing the cognitive load.
The theory sounded simple. The execution was not.
The first attempt failed. Pain exploded inside my skull and I collapsed to the floor, vision blurring, the room spinning. For several terrifying seconds I couldn't identify the objects around me — the bed looked familiar, the desk looked familiar, but my brain refused to connect names to shapes. Panic surged. I reversed the modification instantly. The symptoms vanished.
I stayed on the floor for a while, sweat soaking through my clothes. That had been too close.
The second attempt failed. The third failed. The fourth left me vomiting into a trash bin. After every failure, I stopped, reviewed exactly what had gone wrong, then adjusted and tried again. Hour after hour, slowly untangling the problem.
Finally — success.
I opened my eyes. At first, nothing seemed different. Then I noticed the dust — tiny particles floating through the air, the angle of light from the window, the precise distance between every object in the room. The information just appeared, effortlessly, without any conscious effort to calculate it. My brain wasn't working harder. Some of the processing was happening automatically now.
The effect wasn't dramatic. The world hadn't slowed down. I hadn't become a genius. But my thoughts flowed more smoothly, more efficiently. And in combat, even a small improvement could mean the difference between surviving and not.
A grin slowly spread across my face. That alone had made the whole day worthwhile.
I wasn't finished. Next came neural pathways — the communication network between brain and body. I'd always wondered how elite athletes could perform movements that looked impossible, how martial artists reacted before they seemed to consciously register a threat. Years of training had optimized their neural systems. I used Transfiguration to skip the years.
The changes completed surprisingly quickly. Testing them was considerably more entertaining.
I flipped into a handstand. Easy. One-arm balance. Still easy. Two fingers. My body stayed perfectly stable. A laugh slipped out. I twisted, rotated, shifted positions — every movement fluid, natural, precise. For the first time I felt completely connected to my own body, like every muscle responded without any gap between thought and action.
Then another idea struck me: healing.
I'd never attempted true biological reconstruction before, mostly because Bloom might notice unusual energy usage. In my private room, that concern disappeared. I deliberately damaged a small section of muscle — pain shot through my arm — then activated Transfiguration. The tissue regenerated, restored perfectly. No surprise there.
But then I tried something else. While rebuilding the muscle, I improved it — stronger fibers, better structure, greater density. The enhancement stayed. Permanent.
I stared at my arm. Then damaged another section. Repeated the process. Again. Again. Again. Each cycle strengthened my body incrementally. The improvements weren't free — they consumed a considerable amount of Universal Energy — but the principle worked. I'd effectively discovered a new training method, one limited only by my energy reserves.
Yet even that wasn't the experiment I was most excited about. One final idea had been sitting in the back of my head all day — the craziest one.
During meditation, both mind and body entered a special state that allowed Universal Energy absorption. Every operative relied on it. But what if the mind wasn't necessary? What if I could force my body into that state directly — passively, automatically, without conscious effort?
The experiment was far harder than expected. Hours passed, failure following failure. The human body was unimaginably complex, and many times I nearly gave up. Curiosity kept pushing me forward.
Then something happened.
A faint presence surrounding me — invisible, yet undeniably real. Universal Energy, sensed without entering meditation. My heart started racing. I immediately attempted absorption.
Nothing happened. I tried again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again.
Frustration built. I was so close — I could feel it — but I couldn't take the final step.
Then I tried one last thing. Instead of forcing my body to absorb the energy, I reached with my mind. The energy responded immediately, moving slowly, painfully slowly, but moving.
Success. A genuine success.
I sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking, analyzing, and planning. The efficiency was terrible — far worse than normal meditation. But that wasn't the point. What mattered was that it worked. If I could refine the process, make my body maintain that state continuously, I could absorb Universal Energy while walking, while training, while talking — possibly even while sleeping.
For the first time since arriving at Bloom, I felt like I'd discovered a path that was entirely mine.
My watch vibrated.
I looked down. A notification blinked on the screen.
*NEW ASSIGNMENT RECEIVED*
I opened it. My eyebrows rose — this wasn't an individual mission. It was a team mission.
A small smile appeared. That was unexpected. Hopefully I'd be working with someone I knew, because if Bloom was assigning teams now, the next mission was probably going to be significantly more dangerous than anything before.
Somehow, that only made me more excited.