24 Chapter 23: Feas (1/2)
After I dragged the carcasses of the Silverback Wolves back to my hideout in the underground cavern, I prepared to eat.
”Damn…this is poisonous, isn't it?”
I was aware, after reading in the encyclopedias, that demonic beasts were inedible. Their meat was poisonous. But I had no choice. If I didn't eat anything, I would starve to death. I might as well risk it and gamble on the astronomical chance that my body was resistant to poison.
There was the option of eating grass and the leaves from the trees. There were no fruits to pluck, no vegetable-like stuff, but I had tried consuming the grass and…quite frankly, it was completely useless in sating my hunger. It felt as if the grass disappeared from my stomach as soon as I swallowed it. I wasn't sure how it worked, but the gnawing hunger in my stomach told me that the grass, despite not being poisonous, wasn't adequate as food. The only option left was to hunt magical beasts and try eating them.
”Besides, this is my fault to begin with. If only I accepted the rations from Teacher Jiao. If only I wasn't stupid enough to think I didn't need them…I should have taken the rations…ugh! Then I wouldn't have to starve to death. Thanks to my shortsightedness and complacency, I put myself in this situation. I've no choice but to suffer for it.”
Taking a deep breath, I began to mentally steel myself for the torture that was to come. However, my hunger was driving me mad and I had no time to hesitate. Heaving deeply, I bent over and began digging into the Silverback Wolf's flesh. Tearing out the fur, I began yanking out strips of bloody flesh and shoving them into my mouth.
Desperate to sate the hunger in my stomach, I ravenously chewed, swallowed and devoured the entirety of the Silverback Wolf, frantically ripping at its meat with my bloodstained fingers. It was not a pretty sight, and I was pretty sure if anybody from Wu Ling Academy or even the cities on the surface of the Middle Continent was to stumble across me, they would be terrified by my inhuman appearance and behavior. Even my family would be taken aback by the inhuman state I was reduced to.
But I didn't care.
”Ugh…ack! Yuck! This tastes terrible!”
In the midst of chewing, I gagged and almost threw up. The Silverback Wolf's meat was tough, stringy and tasted awful. Cursing, I turned away to cough, but forced myself to hold it in. taking a deep breath, I resumed my consumption of the beast. Blood dribbled from my jaw, but I was too absorbed in eating to wipe it off.
This had been my first meal in a week. If I had accepted the rations from Teacher Jiao, perhaps I could survive off them a little longer, but without proper food I had been driven to the point of desperation where eating poisonous meat was my only course of survival.
My stomach, despite constantly crying out for food, rebelled instantly when I swallowed the meat. It was a natural physiological reaction. The body had gotten used to not ingesting anything for so long that it practically forgot how to digest food. Normally, one shouldn't be eating so much after starving for so long, but I clamped down on the nausea with sheer force of will and ordered it to digest the food I was consuming.
Without these nutrients, I would die.
I had no idea how long had passed, but I didn't care. I ate and ate and ate, until there was nothing left of the Silverback Wolf but its skeleton and fur. My hunger finally sated, I leaned back and relaxed while struggling to control the nausea and sick feeling that now permeated my digestive system. As I suspected, it was foolish of me to consume so much after not eating for so long. I felt like puking, but I swallowed consistently, forcing the food back down.
Like hell I was going to throw up and waste everything.
In a while, the nausea vanished. The food had finally settled down in my stomach and at long last I could rest.
Or so I thought, but…
”Ugh?! Argh!”
Intense pain shot through my body, stabbing my gut and expanding exponentially throughout. I collapsed onto the ground and curled into a feral position, clutching my stomach, writhing in excruciating agony.
The poison! The poison has finally taken effect!
Recalling what I had read in the encyclopedia, about how the demonic beast meat was deadly and poisonous to those humans foolish enough to consume them, I began crawling toward the Green Dragon Spring.
This was my solution. Since the Green Dragon Spring could heal any diseases or injuries, it would help me recover from the poison. I knew it would be painful, but given how quick the effects of the miraculous spring was, I would only need to suffer for a short period of time.
”Ugh…cough!”
I desperately plunged my face into the surface of the Green Dragon Spring and swallowed a mouthful of water, drinking until I was on the edge of drowning. The agony subsided for a moment, and my head cleared up enough for me to pull it back up to breathe clean air.
”Huff…huff…good thing I chose to eat here, or I would seriously have died.”
Panting, I grimaced at the mere memory of the pain…
”Ugh?! ARGH!”
The agony resumed abruptly, completely catching me off guard. The transient moment of tranquility was blown away by red-hot agony that seared through my gut once again, sinking its fiery claws into every part of my body. Once again, I collapsed onto the ground, thrashing about violently and uncontrollably.
”What's…what's happening?! Why isn't the Green Dragon Spring…kuh! …working?! Ugh! Argh! AAAAAAAAAH!”
I lashed out and caught another mouthful of water, trying to suck it in, hoping that drinking more of the spring would save me. The next thing I knew, the pain subsided just a little and I flopped helplessly on the ground, panting.
But just after a few seconds of restoration, the pain returned in full force. Then I was healed again, only for the agony to assault me once again.
W…what the hell? What the hell…is going on?! Ugh!
I floundered about helplessly, even rolling and splashing into the Green Dragon Spring. Was it just me, or was the Green Dragon Spring actually backfiring? If it was just one continuous suffering of agony, then perhaps I would get used to it eventually…my body becoming numb to the constant pain. But the on and off onset of attacks that assailed me made each fresh wave of agony even more unbearable than the previous one.
I shrieked and yelled, tears flowing from my eyes as I sobbed and begged for the pain to stop. I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to descend into oblivion. Anything…anything, as long as the pain stopped. As long as I received an eternal bliss of nothingness, as long as I no longer suffered, I didn't care what happened.
Splash!
Waves were sent bursting through the pool as I thrashed about in the Green Dragon Spring, spraying the ground and wetting it. Droplets of water misted about me and I struggled in the depths, but I wasn't concerned about drowning. Right now I was in too much pain to even consider the danger of drowning. I didn't even realize that I was gulping down vast amounts of mystical water, which sought to repair my body, only for it to break down from the poison once again.
At that time, I wasn't aware of it, but at that moment my body was undergoing drastic changes. A biological process named overcompensation, where my physiological deficiencies inspired exaggerated physical corrections. An accelerated growth process where my muscles and skeleton thickened, strengthened and developed.
”Ugh…eh?!”
As I thrashed about, I was vaguely aware of red lines emerging all over my body. The same demonic red lines that infected all the demonic beasts in this level. While still engulfed in a red haze of pain, I struggled to raise my hand through the water to stare at the countless red lines that bulged out of my pale flesh like veins.
Not only that…my arm…looked a little bigger than before. I didn't remember my arm being of that size…nor did I remember such well-developed muscles, which were slowly growing and becoming firmer as pain continued to rack my body.
Later analysis would have me concluding that I was undergoing a process similar to muscle training, where I destroyed my muscles from strenuous use so that my body would develop stronger and more muscles in order to adapt to the strain I was subjecting them to. My skeleton was undergoing an identical process.
”Huff…huff…argh!”
But the process had been accelerated to a few hundred times, thanks to me ingesting the healing waters of the Green Dragon Spring. It turned out that my solution to use it to heal me of the poison that was demon's meat had backfired completely, and now I was currently suffering a fate several dozen times worse than death.
As I had read in the encyclopedia, demonic and magical beasts were imbued with demonic or qi cores that provided them energy to reinforce their already outstanding physical attributes with qi techniques or allowed them to cast elemental techniques and qi blasts. Currently, I had consumed the Silverback Wolf's core along with the meat, and the demonic qi from the core was now deeply permeating my muscles and bones.
Physiologically and phenomenally, this sort of qi circulation and usage was different from how humans used qi. Consequently, my body was being transformed right now, as was my qi and qi circulatory system. Normally, this sort of transformation was undoubtedly lethal to a human. As the encyclopedias had so explicitly explained, the poison from demon meat would break down the human body on a cellular level, utterly destroying the body from the inside out. There were historical accounts of reckless martial artists or arrogant alchemists who attempted to consume demon meat, but every single one of them died without fail, their bodies disintegrating at the cellular level.
The same went for me. If I had just eaten the demonic meat, I would have collapsed and died. However, I had accounted for that and relied on the Green Dragon Spring to keep me alive. After all, it was supposed to be a miraculous treasure that healed all wounds and diseases. Surely poison was nothing compared to its restorative powers?
In theory, anyway. But as I learned from putting it into practical use, it had totally backfired and now I was being put through an experience that was worse than death. I screamed again as red-hot agony lanced through me for the infinite time.
On the other hand, with each restoration, my body was strengthened considerably. As it underwent the long, painful process of repeated destruction and recuperation, new, stronger muscles and skeletons replaced my old, broken ones, and my body was growing more powerful than before at an incredible rate.
It reminded me of the Overhaul Metamorphosis thing (Hwan Gol Tae Tae) that Yi Shioon underwent in a murim manhwa. My body was constantly transformed by the demonic qi that now infused it, which melded and merged with my innate qi system and forcibly changed the constitution of my body. In this way, terms and concepts like Star Constitutions no longer applied to me.
After all, once this was done, I had become an existence that was barely human. There was no way of measuring me using human terms and concepts.
And eventually, the agony ended. After what seemed like an eternity, I no longer felt any pain. I floated on the surface of the spring, unmoving and immobile, staring blankly at the ceiling. The spasms had stopped wrecking my body. The crimson lines continued to bulge visibly against my pale skin, but they no longer pulsed painfully or eerily.
”Ugh…”
My right hand twitched. Taking in a deep breath, I slowly opened my eyes. My glasses had sank to the bottom of the spring during all that thrashing, but I no longer needed them…for my sight was no longer blurry but clear, sharp and clean. Shaking my head to clear away the last vestiges of phantom pain that continued to linger and haunt me, I slowly swam my way back to the shore.
”Thank You, God…thank You…the pain is finally gone.”
Muttering under my breath, my sanity somewhat snapped from the intense experience, I hauled myself to my feet and staggered ashore.
”Phew…”
Regaining my balance, I stretched myself. The horrible ordeal had left me utterly drained and exhausted. On the other hand, my hunger and pain were all completely gone. In fact, my body felt light and robust.
”I knew it…”
I glanced down at my arms. Like I suspected, the growth I saw during the ordeal wasn't a hallucination. My muscles and body had really developed a lot during that period of unbearable pain. It also seemed that I had grown somewhat taller.
Not only did my body change physically, I also felt strange sensations swirling inside my qi circulatory system. Fiery yang qi clashed with frosty yin qi in weird whirlpools of power, their collisions producing sparks of incredible power that I could tapped in them. Hell, my qi felt conflicted, and I was a lot more sensitive to the natural essence in the air around me than before. Furthermore, it was a lot easier for me to convert and filter the essence into innate qi.
But there was something ominous and fearsome about the qi flowing through my body.
Is this…demonic qi?