Chapter 248: Enter Jin Tao (1/2)

Chapter 248: Enter Jin Tao

Jin Tao sat within the verti-car, looking out of place. It wasn’t that he was unused to the car, of course. He was uncomfortable in his own skin.

For the last month he’d been tossing and turning, coming in and out of consciousness until finally waking up the night before. He still hadn’t been able to shake that feeling, the sense of being somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

Everything that had happened since entering the Avenue has felt like a dream, every day stretching by like a year. It had been an eternity of pain, where his body struggled to absorb and persist against the poison of the Fantascia Genetica. He’d been ripped apart, and put back together.

He’d survived it mainly by virtue of his dogged willpower. He’d refused to let his body get the better of him. That wasn’t to say the painful experience hadn’t permanently burned itself in to his memory. When he final came around, he understood that it hadn’t been a nightmare.

Now it seemed the obvious, caught as he was in this fugue state it felt like time was flying by. The pain in his body was subsiding, replaced by strange sensations. He’d have flashes of cold, then searing heat. Sometimes his whole body would itch, and then that excruciating pain would come back. They would come in short-lived waves that tumbled over one another. It was like he was living in some strange illusion. He didn’t feel at all like himself.

At last, when he’d been let out of the life support pod and his feet touched the ground again, he could almost feel the earth’s vitality coursing up through his limbs. It was a sensation that was difficult to explain.

There were several things that were difficult to explain.

Not the least of these were the changes in his body. For starters, he was a good deal taller than he had been before taking the decoction. In the space of a month he seemed to have stretched at least two inches. His skinny frame had filled out. His muscles hadn’t grown larger, necessarily, but there was certainly more definition. He felt more… elastic, more malleable.

More than his looks, his personality had also undergone some changes – a normal reaction to the experiences and environment he’d been in for the last month. He’d grown up.

He unconsciously clenched his hands in to fists. His body, suddenly and ferociously, filled with wild power. It rose up from within him until it threatened to spill free, like a tsunami – a landslide, especially when compared with how limited his energy had been before. As his Discipline flooded him, threads of thin golden hair sprouted from his skin, and he stretched to over two meters. The dumb mutt from before released an aura of majesty.

Are these arms even mine? This power…

He allowed his newfound power to course through him for a good few minutes, before gradually allowing it to abate.

After awakening, he’d been subjected to a number of tests from Mika and Lin Guoguo. Though he’d been kept up most of the night from them, he didn’t feel tired. But that discomfort persisted, from last night until this very moment. There was still so much he didn’t understand.

Mika had told him all of this was normal. Any acquisition of power, especially so quickly, took time to get used to. He was told next he would be delivered to the Master, who would help him adapt to the changes and continue his training.

So it was that he found himself in the expensive verti-car, barreling through the skies towards who knows where. He had time to reflect upon his situation, and he was overjoyed.

He was ecstatic with his decision, one he knew to be right without question. Had it not been for the Professor, and his own hard work, he’d be nothing – just as he was before.

Now, though… now things were different. He had more power. He might need some time to feel comfortable in his own skin again, but the strength that filled him was a beautiful sensation in and of itself.

By the time he reached the training field, it was early morning. At some point during the journey – Jin Tao couldn’t remember – Mika and Lin Guoguo had donned a pair of silver masks. They walked with Jin Tao in to the training facility.

Someone was already there when they entered, and looked to have been waiting for some time. He led them from that point without any superfluous discussion.

The guide brought him to a group of familiar faces.

And of course he did. Wasn’t that the hateful pig-boy, Tang Xiao? And his sister beside him. He really couldn’t figure out how he could be so fat, while his little sister might as well have been a model.

There was also Zhou Qianlin, the school beauty, patron goddess of the broken hearted. Gu Yingying and Yan Ningya, talented female students in the mecha combat department, were also among them. Behind them, wasn’t that her brother Yan Zhanchen? He and his sister – along with Tang Xiao and his sister, Tang Mi – were praised as the strongest fighting duo in the NEU. Any time they teamed up in DreamNet, they racked up impressive scores.

Gathered around were others, and all of them were equally talented members of his school’s mecha combat division. Familiar figured, familiar names… they ran through his head as he looked them over.

It was strange though, he thought. Why did they all look so miserable?

Nearly every one of them was pale, with their faces pained and drawn. Some had black eyes, others looked like they’d been nearly drowned. A good number of them appeared to twitch uncontrollably, like they had the jitters.

What’s wrong with all these blessed ones? He thought. They look like mashed potatoes.

He managed, eventually, to draw his eyes away from the pathetic looking bunch. He spied five more people, situated in front of them. Three of them had golden masks, and two others hid behind silver, like Mika and Lin Guoguo.

Though they all wore masks, his eyes were instantly drawn to the man in the center. A nagging, familiar feeling tickled at the back of his mind.