Chapter 33 – The First Step
The light of the dying sun spilled through the jagged window of the ruin, casting fractured beams across the dusty floor. In their glow, Seth sat cross-legged, still as stone, his eyes closed, his breaths slow but heavy.
His awareness had turned inward. Past his veins, past his bones, until he reached the quiet center of his being.
There, within the depths of his body, his core awaited him—its surface battered by the energy of full saturation that swirled like a storm with no direction, crashing endlessly against its walls.
Seth sighed, bracing himself. He knew what was coming. He knew the cycle. Pain, relief, pain again.
Summoning every ounce of will, he seized the unruly energy and forced it together, compacting the wild tides into a single crashing wave.
Then—
BAM!
He slammed it against his core.
The core shuddered violently. Pain lanced through him, sharp and searing, and his body trembled where he sat. But unlike before, the core didn't crack.
Ever since reaching the fifth level, it had grown tougher, like tempered steel. Each breakthrough had only made it harder to breach.
Grinding his teeth, Seth did it again. And again. Each strike was met with failure.
On the sixth attempt, at last—
Crack!
A thin fracture appeared. Pain surged through him—only to vanish as the saturation energy rushed to heal the damage, sealing the wound shut almost instantly.
The pain that came with it was sharper than ever before. His vision turned white, his muscles convulsed. Yet when the crack closed, a flood of bliss rushed in, easing every nerve, soothing the agony.
Seth gasped. A shiver ran through him. His body teetered between torment and rapture, each cycle cutting deeper than the last.
Again and again, he hammered his core. Pain. Bliss. Pain. Bliss.
Minutes stretched like an eternity. By the time the final strike landed, Seth's jaw was sore from clenching, his throat raw from unvoiced cries.
And then—
BOOM.
Something inside him broke. The barrier stopping his advance shattered open.
Seth collapsed backward onto the floor, chest heaving, every limb drained of strength. For a moment he could only lie there, gasping, his body slick with cold sweat.
"…Finally," he whispered, voice trembling with awe. "A Novice."
But then the change began.
He saw it.
At first, he thought his vision was blurred. But no—the air itself was alive. Tiny particles shimmered all around him, motes of color drifting lazily through the ruin. Red, green, silver, violet. There colors myriad—they painted the space with a faint radiance.
They weren't just light. From them he got a peculiar feeling he couldn't explain.
Seth's lips parted in wonder as the motes drifted closer, brushing against his skin, then seeping inside.
"Ah—!"
A moan escaped him, unbidden. His head tilted back as an indescribable warmth coursed through him. The particles sank deep, merging with his bones, his blood, his very soul.
Strength welled up within him, deeper than muscles, sharper than mind. Something had unlocked. A hidden sense, a dormant limb now awake.
When at last the flood slowed, Seth clenched his fist and nearly reeled. His body felt different—no, it was different. Denser. Stronger. At least twice what he'd been only moments ago.
And considering he had already possessed the stats far higher than than most, the realization left him breathless.
He sent his senses inward again—and froze.
His core was no longer the same. Where once it was broad and fragile, now it was smaller, compact, radiating strength.
And at its center…
A cloud of energy swirled lazily, pure and alive. Unlike saturation, which was wild and untamed, this energy was his. It pulsed in harmony with him, obedient to his will.
It hummed with potential. With possibility.
It reminded him of the energy that he felt from the novice ranked beasts.
Curiosity flared. Seth remembered the lizard that had cloaked itself in a barrier, untouchable by his blade.
He wondered—could he do that too?
Flexing his will, he urged the energy outward.
Instantly, it responded, flowing through his veins, rushing into his arm. His fist glowed faintly, wrapped in a translucent sheen.
Seth lifted it—and punched.
BOOM!
The wall ahead disintegrated with a deafening crack, stone and dust exploding outward as if it had been nothing but paper.
Seth stared at his hand, not the wall. The glow of the energy still lingered faintly on his skin.
He should have been shocked by the destruction—but he wasn't. With 25 points in Physique, he had been able to crush the wall just as easily.
No, what made his breath hitch was the fact that he had placed no strength in that punch. The wall had fallen to the energy alone.
He chuckled softly, shaking his head in disbelief. "If this is the Novice rank… then was that lizard just weak? Or am I too strong?"
The thought lingered. Dangerous. Tempting.
He experimented a little longer, coaxing the energy through his body, dispersing it, reforming it. Each time it drained, the cloud within his core replenished itself rapidly, until it was as it was before.
At last, satisfied, he let the glow fade and sat in silence.
With a deep breath, he summoned his system screen. It was time to see in numbers what his body already knew—just how far he had leapt.