The attendant gave an abrupt nod and scrambled out the moment the king finished speaking.
He'd worked long enough with the king to know when his presence was no longer wanted.
Once alone, Ario took a deep breath and allowed his thoughts to recede into his mind.
After another moment, he brought his grizzled left palm closer to his face. He turned the back of the palm to reveal an intricate blood red tattoo with blue hints which formed the outline of a snarling dragon.
The dragon covered the entirety of the back of his palm.
Looking down at it, Ario spoke. "Are my nephew and niece alive?"
Silence reigned for a few seconds before resplendent light was released from Ario's hand. The light was stronger than the sun's rays and gave the dragon a more realistic depth. As though it were about to leap out of his hand.
A presence subsequently enveloped the whole room, making an invisible pressure descend on Ario.
"Hngh" The King released a muffled grunt under the weight of the invisible power. The toll of the affair twisted Ario's firm expression into a gnarly grimace.
This continued for some time before the brightness gradually dimmed.
At last, a deep, but distorted voice filled the room. It was drawn and layered, like that of multiple people speaking at once.
A distinct voice in the cacophony made Ario narrow his eyes.
"No."
___________________
After their escape from the base, they had regrouped with Kai at an isolated shore.
Raz had prepared a boat in advance to carry them all out of the capital.
While the capital was still in disarray, the perpetrators idly cruised through silent waters and towards a remote island at the fringes of the nation.
The moment they'd boarded the vessel, Victoria pulled Eric to a corner and began drilling him on everything that had happened and how he'd actuated his plans.
Eric delivered a rehearsed rundown of how he'd managed to destroy an entire base and set the capital ablaze within two days.
Also of how he'd undertaken the procedure with the immortal core and entered death battles immediately after.
It was a gruelling recount for the siblings. One filled with screams and sobs.
Luckily the ship, despite it's mediocre size, offered some form of noise cancellation through the thrum of its engines.
"You're hiding something," Victoria said, her voice heavy with exhaustion. "I can see it in your eyes."
She lay down on a narrow bunk in the boat's cabin.
The fatigue finally caught up to her as she muttered. "Why won't you tell me where you got your information?"
During their conversation, Eric decided against telling Victoria about his regression, nor the system in his head.
He realised, when the opportunities presented themselves to reveal the matter, but his mouth remained shut, that it wasn't so much a lack of trust with his sister.
The hard truth was that Eric wasn't ready to truly talk about, nor confront what he'd been through those ten years.
"Soon sister..." He whispered, watching her fall into sleep. "Soon."
Eric then tried his best to leave Victoria's room as quietly as he could.
Once alone in his own makeshift room, he settled into a chair and summoned the system.
[IMMORTAL CORE: PRESENT]
[TEMPORAL SOUL: IMBALANCED]
[CRANIAL MERIDIAN PATH: CLEARED]
[ABILITIES]
- [PARTIAL MEMORY RECALL: Host's past memories can be actively recalled if not suppressed.]
- [COGNITIVE PROCESSING: Information processing increased to peak human speeds.]
- [SENSORY PERCEPTION: Senses are acutely sharpened. Host can passively observe the world's Qi]
- [ENHANCED PHYSIQUE: Physique enhanced to peak human strength]
[NOTE: HOST HAS REACHED THE LIMIT OF BASE HUMAN ABILITY.]
[MAIN QUEST: RECEIVE IMMORTAL CORE - COMPLETED]
[REWARD: HUMAN-FORM CULTIVATION INITIATION ART - AWAITING COLLECTION]
[SECONDARY QUEST: SECURE HEAVEN'S LOOM - COMPLETED]
[REWARD: FIVE FOUNDATIONAL FORMATIONS SET - AWAITING COLLECTION]
[NOTE: ARTIFACT CRITICAL FOR LONG-TERM HOST STABILITY.]
[ALL QUESTS COMPLETED]
[RECEIVE REWARDS?]
Eric glanced through the slight changes in the notifications. The note below his list of abilities was what grasped his attention the most.
He couldn't stop himself from looking at his still frail and thin frame brimming with hidden energy.
'Would be cool if I developed muscles though.' Eric mused.
His eyes then moved to the last lines of the message.
It was finally time for him to receive his rewards
"Receive" He called out.
Immediately after he spoke, his thoughts ground to a halt. He heard a sound reminiscent of a clap of thunder emanate within his head, making his mind go blank.
Then, when reason returned to him, a flood of alien knowledge, diagrams of energy pathways, and breathing techniques overwhelmed his mind in a volume Eric struggled to endure.
He felt his synapses firing as neural pathways and memory fragments he never experienced created themselves withing his brain.
The onset of a migraine descended amidst the slow seconds of his assimilation with the foreign information.
His head became so hot he had to spill a canteen of water over himself not to go mad with the heat.
If not for his enhanced physique, Eric feared if the 'rewards', would have melted his brain.
Finally, the process ended.
Tucked into an accessible part of his memory lay what he understood as a cultivation technique.
When he'd first seen the system's use and mention of such terms, Eric had done quick preliminary searches of the key words used like meridian, qi and cultivation.
This led him into a rabbit hole of Taoist practices focused on spiritual and physical refinement.
Meditation and internal alchemy were believed to lead to longevity and spiritual transcendence.
There he discovered Qi was some sort of internal vital energy living beings possessed, meridians were the pathways through which Qi was meant to flow in a person, and a dantian was the store for Qi within humans.
All these were necessary for one to embark on the journey of cultivation. A spiritual, philosophical and physical undertaking, aimed at the ultimate goal of attaining immortality.
Essentially, one got stronger until their body could withstand then transcend death itself.
It was a great bastardisation of the principle's core tenets, but Eric greatly doubted the system would be focused on his spiritual enlightenment.
Eric wasn't embarrassed to admit the entire affair greatly thrilled him. He had begun looking forward to the system's rewards and what they would entail.
Asides the additional benefit of prolonged life. This would be an invaluable boon in his war against his uncle and Panacea.
Ultimately getting the system's knowledge, Eric couldn't believe the similarities between what he'd read and the information now presented to him.
He concluded he would still need to take his time to peruse them. But as he skimmed the surface of his new knowledge, one fundamental, disturbing truth became immediately clear.
"Humans can't cultivate?"