Chapter 85 (2)
A small object materialized in the air above Elijah's chest, a pill no larger than his thumbnail, colored a deep amber that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light of the room.
It fell gently onto his chest, landing on the bandages that covered his broken ribs, and he reached for it with a hand that shook from the effort of moving.
The pill was warm against his fingers, warmer than it should have been, and he could feel the Ki radiating from it in slow, steady pulses that matched the rhythm of his own heartbeat.
It was a strange sensation, holding something that was both completely mundane and utterly extraordinary, and for a moment he simply looked at it while the weight of everything that had happened settled around him.
The silence stretched between him and the system, and in that silence Elijah found words that he had not known he needed to say.
"System," he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. "Thank you. For being harsh with me. For stopping me from making a choice I would have regretted."
The screen flickered, and when the text appeared, there was no mockery in it.
[It is the system's job, Little King. Nothing more and nothing less. The King made a promise, and the system ensures that promise is kept. Gratitude is unnecessary, though it is noted.]
Elijah chuckled, a soft sound that still sent a spike of pain through his ribs but felt worth it anyway.
The system would never admit that it cared, would never acknowledge that there was anything personal in the way it pushed him and guided him and occasionally tormented him.
But he knew now, in a way that he had not known before, that the system was not his enemy.
It was his partner, harsh and demanding and infuriating, but faithful to the promise he had made on the night when everything changed.
He lifted the pill to his lips and swallowed it.
The effect was immediate and overwhelming, a sensation that started in his stomach and spread outward like fire through dry grass, reaching into every corner of his broken body and setting it ablaze with something that was not quite pain and not quite pleasure but a strange and terrible combination of both.
His muscles seized and his bones ached and his skin felt like it was being stretched over a frame that was suddenly too small for it, and he could feel his body changing, growing, tempering itself in response to the power that was flooding through his veins.
The pain was significant, a deep and pervasive ache that seemed to occupy every cell of his being, but it was nothing compared to the pain the system had inflicted on him when he had tried to reach for his phone.
That pain had been absolute, had been designed to break him, had been the kind of pain that existed only to teach a lesson that could not be learned any other way.
This pain was simply the pain of growth, the pain of a body being pushed past its limits and forged into something stronger, and he had felt that kind of pain before in every training session and every fight and every moment when he had refused to stay down even when staying down would have been easier.
He gritted his teeth and endured it, his hands clenching the sheets beneath him and his breath coming in short, controlled bursts that helped him ride the waves of sensation as they crashed through him.
The seconds stretched into minutes, and the minutes blurred together, and he lost track of time entirely as the pill did its work.
When the pain finally began to fade, receding like a tide pulling back from the shore, Elijah opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling with a clarity that had been missing since before the fight with Jack.
His body felt different, lighter and stronger and more solid than it had been before, and when he took a deep breath his lungs expanded fully without the grinding protest of broken ribs.
He sat up slowly, expecting the familiar scream of pain from his injuries, and felt nothing but the smooth movement of muscles and bones that had been restored to wholeness.
The bandages were still wrapped around his chest, but they felt loose now, no longer needed, and he pulled them off with hands that did not shake.
A screen flashed in the corner of his vision.
[Body Tempering Complete]
[All physical stats have reached current physical limit of 50]
[Healing complete: All injuries resolved]
[Status Updated]
Name: Elijah Ashford
Cultivation: Beginner Knight Stage (Peak Stage)
Level: 5 (24% EXP)
Base Stats:
Strength: 50 (Physical Limit Reached)
Agility: 50 (Physical Limit Reached)
Endurance: 50 (Physical Limit Reached)
Defense: 50 (Physical Limit Reached)
Intelligence: 37
Charm: 30
Willpower: 35
Free Stat Points: 0
System Points: 1,700
[Note: Further physical stat growth requires breaking through to Advanced Knight Stage]
Elijah stared at the numbers for a long moment, at the perfect symmetry of his physical stats sitting at their absolute limit, and a thought occurred to him that made something twist in his chest that was equal parts frustration and dark amusement.
"I should have taken this before I fought Jack," he said, his voice flat.
The system's response came immediately, and there was no sympathy in it.
[You would have lost either way, Little King. The gap between you and Jack Reyes was not merely a gap in stats.Reaching your physical limit would have extended the fight by perhaps a minute, but the outcome would have been the same. The Little King needed to lose that fight in order to understand what he was facing.]
Elijah wanted to argue, wanted to point out that every advantage mattered in a fight and that reaching his physical limit might have been the difference between victory and defeat, but he knew in his heart that the system was right.
Jack had been holding back at the end, had pulled his punches when he could have ended the fight decisively, and even with his stats maxed out Elijah would have been facing a man who was simply better.