It was a beautiful day, the sun radiating warmth as a few scattered clouds drifted across the light blue sky in the First God's Sanctuary.
The air was fresh, and the gentle breeze carried a sense of false peace over the land. Near a small, solitary fortress that rose proudly from the wilderness, the scenery felt almost magical.
This was Steel Armor Shelter, the human-occupied stronghold that the original main character of Super Gene, Han Sen, inhabited and frequented for the first part of the book.
Max had decided to plant himself in the middle of the action, staking a claim for himself five years in advance, with much more than a little extra head start in the power scheme of this reality.
This shelter stood as a lone sentinel for many miles. The closest place to this remote shelter was 250 miles away, called Glory Shelter.
One of the small, one-man rooms in Steel Armor Shelter rested in silence. The surface on the limited number of amenities was covered in a thick layer of dust, and the air was heavy from not being disturbed in a long time as well.
Until it was.
With a bright golden flash, a large, one-foot-tall, black, metallic-looking gourd and a rack with at least thirty different spices collected on it appeared out of nowhere, resting on the bed. Another two flashes followed, and two ancient-looking scrolls joined the gourd and spice rack.
Next, air was suddenly circulated in the room, blowing the dust off the furniture and swirling it around the teleporter located in the corner of the room.
Teleportation served as the vital link between the Alliance—humanity's vast domain in the known universe—and God's Sanctuary, an enigmatic realm of strange creatures and extraordinary rules.
Every room within a human shelter was outfitted with a teleportation device, and entry into another's room was impossible without permission.
In the First God's Sanctuary, each individual's room functioned as both a private haven and a teleportation hub, offering unparalleled safety from outside interference.
Privacy was absolute—upon arrival at a human-controlled shelter like Steel Armor Shelter, each person was assigned a personal room that no one else could access.
The teleportation hub system allowed effortless travel between the Sanctuary and the Alliance, ensuring that any return from any planet brought you directly back to your own room.
These shelters primarily functioned as secure zones, shunned by most creatures, where humans could rest, recover, and store possessions free from the dangers of monster assaults or being 'PK'd' while sleeping.
While public areas such as bustling markets, pubs, training grounds, and fighting rings like the Martial Arts Contest Arena offered spaces for interaction, your personal room remained an entirely inviolable sanctuary.
The teleporter in this particular room had now suddenly shifted shape, turning into one side of the dark wooden door Max was so familiar with.
It opened, and—as per usual—the transition between realms wasn't a fade; it was just like it had always been—a severance of one reality and the start of another. There was no in-between.
One moment, Max was standing in the quiet, oppressive dark of the Void—the space between realities where time felt like a suggestion rather than a rule.
And the next?
He was in the far-flung future of a fictional Earth. Humanity had truly spread its wings and soared into space here, colonizing countless planets and waging wars against other species, esspecially hard against a human/oni like species called the 'Shura' out in the great star ocean—until they discovered teleportation and stumbled into the Sanctuaries.
Technology wouldn't work in the sanctuaries, but it had been discovered that eating the flesh of creatures here would change and enhance your genes, making you stronger and stronger!
As soon as Max cleared the threshold, the heavy, dark wooden doorframe lit up brightly once more, swirling runes and ancient markings pulsed with a faint, rhythmic amber glow. The wood looked as though it had been carved from the roots of Yggdrasil itself. Then, suddenly, it warped back into the shape of the teleporter, and the dust swirling around it settled.
The smell of the 'loading screen' and its darkness had been replaced instantly by the dry, stagnant scent of old stone and the sight of a steel- and blood-rich world that lived and died by the blade.
Max walked heavily, and yet extremely lightly on the floor, feeling the extra weight, and immediately enjoyed being so huge, and yet so agile.
He moved around a lot at first before doing anything else, getting the feeling for the reach and coordination of his new body. Luckily, it didn't take Max too long at all.
After a good stretch and cracking of his neck, he simply stood with his hands stretched out, feeling the familiar hum of his power doing its thing.
He reached out with his [Electromagnetic] abilities, testing the magnetic ley lines of this new world. It was different here—thicker than Earth's by a little—the metal in the walls, the alloy in the distant gates of the shelter, and the trace elements and deposits in the very ground vibrated under his mental touch.
Max felt the tiny, subtle, rhythmic sense of his luck as well—[Domino] operating constantly at a high output—aligning the variables of the room around him, even outside of combat. He felt the faint, flickering 'echoes' of the immediate future—[Destiny]—whispering that, for the next few minutes, he was perfectly safe after concentrating for a few moments, looking into the near future.
Finally, he turned toward a polished sheet of bronze with a piece of glass in its center hanging on the far wall… a large mirror. Max stepped into the shaft of sunlight cast by the single window in his room and stopped. A slow, toothy grin spread across his face as he took in the man in the reflection.
'It's almost exactly like how the manhwa had shown it to be, super awesome! I wonder what the locals will say when they get a look at me?'
He had decided to go for a look that commanded respect—something primal, but also appealing to Max's inner nerd.
Max stood a solid 6'8", a broad-shouldered powerhouse of a man. He had modeled himself after the legendary Gourmet Hunter, Toriko, though he'd dialed the proportions back just enough to avoid having to stoop too low to pass through the average doorway.
He was at about 80-85% of that impossible bulk—his muscles dense and corded like steel cables beneath tanned skin. His hair was a shock of messy, vibrant blue that seemed to glow in the dim light. Three jagged scars ran down from his left ear to the bottom of his cheek, adding a thick layer of rugged ferocity to a face that was already handsome in a dangerous, predatory way.
Even at 'eighty-five percent,' he was a giant compared to the average human. His chest was thick, his neck like a pillar of marble, and his eyes held the terrifying clarity of someone who had survived the X-Mansion and the Brotherhood— not to mention what the rest of Marvel had to offer—and come out on top. (Okay, okay, it's not like he beat up Galactus or anything... Max knows his limits!)
He flexed a lunchbox-sized hand, watching the way the mirror reflected the rippling power in his ultra thick forearm.
"Not bad," Max murmured, his voice a deep, resonant bass that seemed to make the very stones of the room vibrate while thinking to himself, 'A bit less "butt-ugly" than in the last life, that's for damn sure!'
He walked to the window embedded in the stone wall and looked out. Steel Armor Shelter was a sprawling fortress of grey rock and Human grit. Down below, he could see the inhabitants—puny, desperate humans clad in things ranging from leather and rusted scrap metal to fantastical armor.
They moved with frantic energy, going about their day, unaware of what had just moved into their shelter.
Steel Armor Shelter seemed sturdy enough, but to Max, sensing the metallic impurities in every stone, armor being worn, and every sword in the square below, it felt like a house of cards he could fold with a thought.
It was quiet. Peaceful, in a way. He knew from his 'meta' knowledge that the man who would eventually flip this world on its head—Han Sen—wouldn't even be allowed entry into this Sanctuary for another five years.
Five years of a head start.
Five years to hunt, to eat, and to evolve his already powerful 5x peak human body—not to mention the Marvel-born abilities and stats—into something that would make certain self proclaimed gods of this place tremble one day.
His base form was already on par with someone who had obtained 100 ordinary geno points, 100 primitive, and 100 mutant, with perhaps a few sacred blood gen points scattered in there. And that was without him having ramped himself up at all with his [Electromagnetic] abilities. If Max did that, he could already fight creatures from the 2nd God's Sanctuary easily—maybe even the 3rd and 4th if pushed to the limit.
All that was before considering the gear he had lurking in his soul already, too. He was most certainly over-geared for his current surroundings.
Max's smirk widened, revealing teeth that were just a little too sharp. He felt the hunger—the Toriko-inspired craving for something legendary to feast upon... In reality, Max was just pretending to feel an inner food demon, but the earlier sandwich he had eaten had totally disappeared from his belly. It felt like he hadn't eaten in days.
He theorized that when his body grew to a much larger size, the food in his gut might have contributed to the change as energy. But Max still wondered where the extra mass truly came from. Maybe it was just the magic of the Jumpchain?
He filed it in the same category as Wolverine's and his own healing factor—when he healed from a massive wound, where did all the material and energy for the new flesh actually come from?
He had already decided not to worry about it. As long as it worked, he was happy.