When that intense pain, enough to melt steel and tear the soul apart, slowly receded from every corner of his body like an ebbing tide, Colin's consciousness gradually surfaced from that chaotic, dark abyss of endless suffering.
He remained curled on the cold stone floor, gasping for air like a drowning man just pulled from the depths. Every breath carried the crushing exhaustion of surviving a catastrophe, but what he inhaled into his lungs was no longer the burning, metallic scent of blood—it was a cool, fresh sweetness carrying the pure fragrance of life.
The sweat had already soaked a large area of the stone beneath him, and now, the astonishing, radiant heat pouring from his body was evaporating the moisture into a thin, swirling layer of white mist.
He could hear the beating of his own heart.
It was no longer that frantic, ragged drumming from before, which had felt as though it would burst his ribs at any second. It was a steady, thunderous thumping, regular and powerful like the heartbeat of a prehistoric leviathan:
Thump! Thump! Thump!
With every single contraction, a massive surge of blood filled with explosive vitality was pumped to his limbs and bones.
Slowly, tentatively, he forced open his eyelids, which were stuck together from overexertion.
The entire world seemed fundamentally altered. The dim light filtering into the room appeared blindingly bright, and he could clearly see every microscopic speck of dust floating lazily through the air. The rough, jagged texture of the stone bricks on the wall, the microscopic moss creeping from the dampness on the floor—everything was presented to his retinas in an unprecedented, high-definition state.
His hearing had also become exceptionally sharp. He could easily pick up the faint, rhythmic rustling of leather and armor plates on the outer wall as a sentry far across the courtyard subconsciously rubbed his arms against the cold, and the discordant, whistling wail of the wind blowing through the battlements of the furthest arrow tower.
This was a feeling of total rebirth. A complete metamorphosis, a shedding of the old flesh for something unyielding.
The Weight of Rebirth
Colin tried to prop his body up with his arms. This movement, which he had repeated countless times and was more than familiar with, now delivered a completely foreign experience. He had only intended to push up his upper torso, but the seemingly infinite strength detonating within his triceps caused his entire body to spring upward! If he hadn't reacted with a predator's instinct and stabilized himself with his other hand, he would have "jumped" straight off the ground and hit the ceiling.
He stared blankly at his palms. Those hands were still his, covered in the familiar, thick callouses from years of wielding a heavy sword. But now, he could clearly feel that beneath the skin, every bundle of muscle fiber had been twisted into incredibly tough steel cables, vibrating with latent, explosive power.
He slowly stood up. His body felt so weightless it was as if he could float away at any moment.
The bone-deep fatigue from three consecutive days and nights without sleep had been violently swept away. In its place was an unprecedented strength and vitality, as if he could punch clean through a granite fortress wall with a single blow!
He felt as if his internal organs were wrapped in a tough, invisible energy membrane, making them incredibly stable. His lung capacity was at least twice as large as before; every breath felt like a deep, spiritual exchange of energy. His mind was clearer than it had ever been; the various stray thoughts and paranoid anxieties caused by exhaustion had vanished, leaving only an icy, snow-like calm.
Is this... what it feels like when Strength, Agility, and Constitution all increase by 20 points simultaneously?
An uncontrollable surge of shock and wild joy welled up in Colin's heart. But immediately following that, a fierce wave of weakness—or rather, a profound "emptiness"—clawed its way out from the depths of every cell in his body. It was a purely biological, instinctual craving.
It was his body's desperate demand after undergoing such a violent, rebirth-like reconstruction. Like a high-performance machine that had just been fitted with a brand-new, oversized engine, it urgently needed the highest quality fuel to complete its final break-in and adaptation. He needed a healing potion to soothe and nourish this frame that was both familiar and strange, having just undergone a "violent modification."
"System, exchange for one healing potion."
He thought the command silently, and a potion bottle similar in appearance to the ones he had previously crafted—but emitting a soft, ethereal emerald-green luminescence—appeared out of thin air in his hand. The liquid inside moved like a living thing, radiating a refreshing aura of life.
Everything was as usual. Except...
[15 Kill Points consumed.]
That cold, emotionless system notification sounded in his mind like a sudden clap of thunder.
The Leaped Efficiency
Colin's hand, which had just grasped the neck of the bottle, jerked to a violent halt, freezing in mid-air. The expression on his face locked down as well. He stared blankly at the glass, then "looked" at the text log in his mind, his brain momentarily stalling out.
15 points?
He confirmed repeatedly that he hadn't misheard. It wasn't 30 points.
Holding the potion that radiated life energy, Colin was completely dazed. He had previously been ecstatic that each attribute point only cost 3 Kill Points, assuming it was a system glitch or some kind of one-time hidden discount. But now, even the price of the healing potion had been slashed exactly in half! From thirty points down to fifteen!
This wasn't a bug. This wasn't an accident.
A sudden realization, even stronger than the physical power he had just gained, instantly washed over his brain! He quickly connected all the clues.
The Accumulation Problem: The difficulty of obtaining Kill Points was becoming higher and higher as his own base strength increased. This was a constant, frustrating reality.
The Core Investment: The cost of increasing fundamental attributes had dropped from 5 points to 3 points, becoming significantly cheaper.
The Daily Consumption: The cost of exchanging for system consumables had dropped from 30 points to 15 points, also becoming cheaper!
It wasn't that the price system was falling into chaos, but that the entire exchange logic of the system had entered a brand-new phase along with the breakthrough in his own raw statistics!
"So that's how it is..." Colin muttered to himself, his eyes flashing with the light of profound realization.
He had previously thought the system was using inflated prices to limit and pressure him. Now he understood that this wasn't a limitation at all, but a "leap in efficiency"!
When his core attributes—Strength, Agility, and Constitution—crossed a certain key threshold, it was equivalent to completing a player's "first class advancement," officially stepping out of the starting zone and into a wider, more dangerous world. And the system had undergone a comprehensive "version update" accordingly!
Obtaining Kill Points from low-level fodder was harder because minor prey could no longer provide meaningful "experience points." Conversely, the reduction in all exchange prices was a disguised encouragement for him—to challenge stronger enemies! To hunt down greater threats! Because every investment he made now would yield a much greater return than in the past!
"Saving" was no longer meaningful; the real key to survival lay in "increasing revenue"! It lay in hunting those stronger "Elite Mobs" and "Bosses" that could provide massive, unadulterated amounts of Kill Points!
For example... that silver-haired Countess who was marching toward his gates!
The Final Panel
Having figured all this out, there was no longer a hint of hesitation or anxious calculation in Colin's heart, only a sense of absolute clarity and heroic spirit, like the sun breaking through a storm!
He unscrewed the cap and drank the healing potion—which now seemed highly cost-effective—in one clean gulp. A pure, warm current filled with concentrated life energy instantly surged from his throat into his stomach, then transformed into billions of tiny streams flowing to every corner of his body, nourishing the muscles, bones, and internal organs that had just survived that brutal reorganization.
The "emptiness" caused by the violent modification was instantly filled to the brim. An unprecedented feeling of harmonious, self-consistent power arose spontaneously.
Colin slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air. The moment it left his lips, the pressure was so immense it formed a visible white arrow of compressed air that flew several meters across the room before slowly dissipating into the dark.
He opened the panel one final time to confirm the data.
Strength: 76
Agility: 69
Constitution: 68
Remaining Kill Points: 142.6
Colin understood in his heart that although the rules had shifted beneath his feet, he had won this gamble. This sudden surge of great power and this transformative change gave him unprecedented confidence.
The beast was ready.