In the Dungeon, deep beneath the Gu Clan.
It was dimly lit. Except for the dying flame torch in the corner of the holding cell, there were no windows, no peeping holes for the light to pass.
The air inside was stagnant and heavy with the scent of rusted iron bars and the tang of blood.
And right there in the middle of the holding cell, in that absolute silence, Gu Fan lay on the cold, uneven stone floor.
The casual blow from Gu Chen had sent Gu Fan on the verge of death, just a step short.
Gu Fan could feel the rough edges of his sternum grinding together with every shallow breath.
If it was his novel, this could be another way for the Novel's extra to have his life ended.
A nameless, pathetic death in the dark holding cell, unnoticed by the world. His corpse would be dragged out in the morning, tossed into a ravine only to be eaten by wild dogs.
Another fitting end for "Trash Gu Fan."
But he already had a saviour in Gu Ling. Thanks to her meticulous cultivation, by the time he was about to die, his body had already gone through his first transformation from being a broken puppet.
Gu Fan had broken through the 1st Stage of Body Tempering Realm.
[DING!]
[Target: Gu Ling (Deep Meditation)]
[Status: Critical Juncture - Spirit Qi Assimilation]
[Absorption Rate: 150 Spirit Qi units/minute]
[Parasitic Link: Stable]
[Multiplier: 10x]
[Incoming Flux: 1500 Spirit Qi units/minute]
Gu Fan stared at the numbers hovering in the void. A bloody grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, cracking the dried gore on his lips.
"She is working hard..." Gu Fan grinned. He was no longer struggling to mouth words.
While up above, in the luxurious Spirit Spring Pavilion, Gu Ling was likely sitting on a jade cushion, surrounded by aromatic incense, carefully absorbing the ambient Spirit Qi
Down in the dungeon, a dam had broken.
The comfortable numbness from his initial healing had vanished as his evolution truly commenced, and now his absorption of the Spirit Qi was into an overdrive.
BOOM!
Gu Fan's back arched off the stone floor, his spine popping audibly. His eyes bulged, capillaries bursting instantly, turning the whites of his eyes into pools of red.
The Spirit Qi wasn't entering through his meridians, it was flooding directly into his core through the invisible parasitic tether.
It was raw, unrefined, and terrifyingly massive for someone with blocked meridians.
If Gu Ling was drinking water from a glass, Gu Fan had a fire hose forced down his throat.
[Warning: Meridian Blockage at 100%.]
[Cannot store Spirit Qi. Diverting to forced cellular reconstruction and deep marrow purging.]
"AHHH!" Gu Fan cried out as his shriek echoed through the dungeon, scaring the shit out of anyone who could be in the dungeon.
Every cell in his body began to vibrate. The massive influx of Qi, having nowhere to go because of his blocked meridians, began to rampage through his flesh.
It tore through his muscles like a wild beast. It drilled into his bones, pushing out the toxic impurities deep down.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Gu Fan thrashed, his fingernails clawing at the stone floor, scratching until they tore off, leaving bloody streaks on the granite.
"Too... much..." Gu Fan gritted through his teeth. His mind screamed, teetering on the edge of madness.
Right now, he could feel her. Through the faint golden thread of the link, he could feel Gu Ling's state.
And at this moment, she was struggling as well.
The Minor Spirit Gathering Array was potent for a 9th Stage Body Tempering realm expert. She was shivering, gritting her teeth, trying to refine the cold energy into her Frost Veins.
She felt like she was walking through a blizzard naked, on the verge of her breakthrough. Just one more push and she might jump over the threshold.
[System Notification]
[Bone marrow purification initiating...]
[Impurity density: 98%. Purging...]
"GAAAAAAAAH!"
A guttural, inhuman sound tore itself from Gu Fan's throat again. It felt like someone had inserted a red-hot iron rod into his spine and was twisting it.
His body temperature spiked. Visible steam began to rise from his skin, filling the cold dungeon cell with a thick fog. His body started to sweat, and it was grey, oily, and smelled like a rotten fish.
The pain was so overbearing that Gu Fan slammed his head against the floor, again and again, trying to knock himself unconscious, but the influx of vitality kept his brain hyper-aware, forcing him to feel every micro-tear, every fracture, every agonizing moment of his evolution.
He was being put through a meat grinder and reassembled on the other side.
[System Notification]
[Target Gu Ling status: Stabilizing.]
[Target has drawn maximum output from the Mana Gathering Array.]
[Input Spiking...]
"Come on! Stop it already!" Gu Fan gagged, his body convulsing.
But Gu Ling did not. For Gu Ling, the surge was a gentle boost, but for Gu Fan's weak body, it was a bomb.
Gu Fan's chest expanded outward. The skin over his sternum split, weeping blood mixed with a strange, black substance.
He rolled onto his stomach, his fingers digging into the gaps between the stone slabs. He retched.
His stomach convulsed violently, contracting like a fist.
HURK!
A thick, viscous sludge erupted from his mouth.
It wasn't red. It wasn't blood. It was black tar.
It hit the floor with a heavy splat, sizzling as if it were acidic.
The smell was horrendous like a mixture of rotten fish, sulphur, and sewage.
And then it felt like floodgates had opened. He vomited again. And again.
BLEURGH!
BLEURGH!
What felt like gallons of the black filth poured out of him. It was the accumulated toxins of years of blocked meridians and suffering.
The stagnant blood from countless beatings, the blocked Qi that had rotted in his meridians and the toxins that had accumulated in his muscles for years... It was all being purged.
From the trash of the Gu Clan, the "Novel's Extra" that was meant to die and serve as the catalyst for Gu Chen's meteoric rise to Divine Poison sovereign, Gu Fan was being reborn as the "Extra" who refused to die.
** ** ** ** **