"Child, you seemed lost." A benevolent voice said to a young man with tattered clothes and his face filled with bruises and scars sitting on a clean staircase, panting.
The young man looked behind and saw a smiling old priest, and then he noticed the building behind him. It was a temple.
"I'll leave." Said the young man in his weak yet cold voice as he tried to stand, but failed. Because of his exhausted state, he grumbled because of the pain he felt from the wounds.
"I didn't mean to chase you away. You're in the temple of god, and he would never chase away pitiful." The priest replied as he moved toward the young man to support him.
But the young man didn't let the old priest approach him, and with great difficulty, stood up. "I'm not pitiful, nor do I believe in any god."
Finished saying, the young man tried to walk away, but just as he took a step he lost his balance and fell to the ground, groaning in pain.
Suddenly, he felt a skinny yet firm hand struggle to l him up.
"Young man, we all are pitiful to be born in this world of trials." The priest softly said as he lifted the young man.
"You didn't need to be a believer until you find it in your heart, nor did I ask you to believe." The priest smiled as he strongly held the young man. "I just want to help you. There's no other reason. Now, let's go inside. It's going to be a rainy night."
The young man looked at the Priest with a hint of disbelief and shame, but he didn't reject the help anymore as he slowly walked toward the temple entrance with a slight warmth in his stone-cold heart…
---
'Rumbled…'
The sound of thunder rumbling rang in the rainy mountain ranges as the dark clouds covered the sky…
At this moment,
'Aghhh…'
Suddenly, a powerful groan reverberated in the silent cavern as Jacob's fingers start twitching.
With dizziness, Jacob pulled himself off the dirty floor.
'I… I'm still… alive?' He was bewildered as see the same surrounding.
A complicated glint flashed past his eyes. 'Why do I dream of that Senile Old Man? I even saw his annoying smiling face clearly, which I had almost forgotten in all these years.'
A melancholic sigh escaped his mouth as he mumbled, "It's been a long time, hasn't it… Pops?"
However, before Jacob could indulge in the past, his stomach rumbled loudly.
Jacob's expression was horrified because he felt a sudden hunger of the same level as he felt the very first time, or even worse.
Without having any time to think, he quickly dashed toward the bags, which were filled with slabs of rare meats.
Although he doesn't know how long he has been unconscious, he heard the rare meat won't go rotten for five or six days even if you didn't preserve it.
The meat was really fine, but even if it wasn't, Jacob wouldn't care about it since he was feeling goosebumps as his hunger kept rising without any sign of stopping. If he didn't eat anything, he might really die!
Without caring about if it was uncooked, he started eating it raw, and to his surprise, his teeth were biting this hard meat like it was tofu. He understood he had again because strong, far stronger than he was before.
So, he ate even faster.
As he consumed the meat, it instantly turned into warm yet cold energy as he visually felt this energy spreading in his whole body at an alarming rate. His digestive system was working twenty times faster than before he ate the entire tiger bull.
Furthermore, as he ate, he didn't see any kind of change in his muscle mass like the last time. He wasn't even masculine anymore, but skinny.
In fifteen minutes, Jacob had consumed all the rare meat he had bought with him here, and to his horror, it was only enough to help him not go crazy. But he had this feeling that it won't last long before it would return.
But for now, he wasn't hungry enough to not even think straight. As for how long it lasted, he didn't want to find out and was ready to hunt anything out there!
However, first, he had some doubts which can be only answered by a certain book.
"Cursed Immortality!" He menacingly uttered.
Jacob first glanced at his progress, and his eyes contracted when he saw the percentage.
_______
…
-Second Level: Turn Immortal Mark into Cursed Mark
-Completion: 30.01%
…
_______
"How the fuck did this happen? Explain!" Jacob couldn't help but gnashed his teeth.
He didn't take the gnome's heart essence before the mutant's for exactly this reason. He didn't want to cross two limits at the same time, but somehow it happened.
Furthermore, he was misguided about this as well. Immortika only told him a matured mutant would probably provide a 10% increase in his completion rate. But it provided over 12%, and now he was suffering the consequences.
If he had a vast reserve of rare meat, he didn't mind. But he didn't, and he was still in the uncommon region, which put him into a very perilous situation.
And it was all because that damn book told him it would be fine and he would even awake an ability which he literally died awakening, and he knew he had failed!
Immortika wrote, "What are you yelling about? I never told you the exact percentage the mutant heart will provide. Besides, you should've thought that you also had a mutant heart.
"This means the final result of this injection was also random. But I had to say it went pretty well for you. Not only you got a huge percentage because of your mutant heart, but you also successfully awakened an innate ability."
Jacob, who was about to lose his temper because of Immortika's nonchalant bullshit, was instantly startled when he read the last part.
"I awake an innate ability?" Jacob quickly asked, completely forgetting about his previous resentment, "But you said… wait, why did you speak at that time but not now?"
It was also what he was most mad about. Immortika had told him the strict rules of their communication, but those rules also seemed to be a façade.
"Hehehe… I'm still bound by the rules, but do you know all the rules?" Immortika questioned.
Jacob frowned. He really didn't know all the rules because he only knew what Immortika revealed.
pαпdα`noνɐ1`сoМ "Don't become suspicious of me. I'm bound to you. Do you think I'll harm you and then wait in some damn place for hundreds or thousands of years again until some other inheritor appeared?
"Let me tell you, I could speak at that time because just like you can summon me, I can also summon myself as well. However, unlike you, the time limit is only one minute and the cooldown period is one year.
"I can freely speak in your mind if I summon myself, and you don't need to about this since this was irrelevant to you. Now that you know, what can you do about it? ahahahah…"
Jacob felt more at ease when he heard this, but his expression darkened when he saw that mocking laugh. He knew this detail was irrelevant to him, and he had no use for such information besides knowing that this annoying book had such a capability.
Not wanting to continue this topic after getting a satisfactory answer, he quickly returned to the main topic, "What about that innate ability you spoke of? What is it!"
"Since this question is related to your progress, I'll answer it. Hehehe… do you know how your heart mutated?" It didn't answer but posse a question instead.
Jacob rolled his eyes at the first line, but he didn't really know about the answer to the latter. "Why are you playing riddles? Just tell me."
"Remember that little gray bug which never left your heart that day?"
Jacob's eyes narrowed with a hint of fear. How could he forget about the Bloodstorming Bug that bastard used to test his heart that day?
"It was because of Bloodstorming Bug?" He questioned in astonishment.
"Hehe, exactly. That bug died after taking a few bites off your heart because you were already on the verge of creating the immortal mark at that time, and its carcass was left there before it melted into your heart when the immortal mark was formed."
Jacob suddenly had a terrible feeling about this. "Don't tell me?"
"Hahaha… you awaken that bug's Fluid Acceleration ability, which is extremely hard to control. You can say your heart is now an accelerator that can accelerate your blood at an extremely high speed.
"Although this ability is quite useful for many reasons, as long as you can control it. But it's much more difficult said than done. To control it, you have to learn how to control your heart rate, which can now increase infinitely as you grow stronger and stronger!
"Because if you can't, your heart will blow up your entire body before blowing itself!"
