Clive took a long breath. The air entered his lungs in a way that felt different from before. Heavier. Fuller. As if his lungs had changed shape after the blue energy from the core finally faded. There was still a faint pulse within his chest cavity, like the last sparks of cooling metal.
Ted stood the closest. His eyes widened a little, then narrowed, as if he were trying to read Clive's condition from the smallest twitch or change of expression.
"You're back? How do you feel?"
Zorilla crouched low on the right side, her body leaning forward to see Clive's face from a lower angle. Her breathing was fast, but controlled by force.
"Your heart stopped for several seconds," she said quietly. "I thought you died."
Dorde leaned against the stone wall. His body still showed remnants of injury, but his voice remained steady. Calm. As if he refused to show weakness.
"You fully conscious?"
Clive did not answer right away. He moved his fingers. The sensation was like moving something newly forged. Still hot, still elastic, still trying to settle into its proper shape. He clenched, loosened, clenched again.
Each motion sent small waves up his elbow and shoulder. It did not hurt. Only felt different.
"I'm conscious," he finally said. His voice was flat, steady. "And I succeeded."
Ted exhaled loudly, as if he had just realized he had been holding his breath for minutes.
"Good. You look like someone who fell into a ravine and was forced to climb back up without a rope."
Clive ignored the statement. He rubbed his left arm slowly. No pain. No bruises. No old cuts, nor the fresh ones he had before absorbing the core. All gone. His body felt dense, not in weight, but as if everything beneath his skin was more connected. More complete.
Zorilla sat on the floor, her back against the cold stone wall. Her breathing was fast, but her eyes stayed focused.
"Tell us. What happened inside? If Ted, Dorde, or I end up absorbing a core later, we have to know what's waiting."
Clive looked at each of them. The three appeared exhausted. Hollow-eyed. Bodies tense. But their focus had not faded in the slightest. They knew the risks. They knew coreforge was a thin line between power and death.
"There was a warning in the scroll," Clive said. His voice was low, restrained. "About the monster's remaining will."
Ted nodded subtly, showing he was listening.
"We know. But we did not know its form."
"Now I know."
Clive closed his eyes briefly. He felt a faint coldness behind his skull. A remnant of that foreign world.
When he opened his eyes, they were calm. Too calm for someone who had just returned from the brink of death.
"When the core melted, I stopped feeling the physical world. This room was gone. You were gone. My body was gone. Everything disappeared."
Zorilla shifted, leaning closer. "And where were you?"
"In a forest."
Clive exhaled slowly. "But not a normal forest. No wind. No sound. The trees were like bodies without souls. Nothing moved unless that thing breathed."
Dorde lowered his head a little. "Internal vision. A projection of will."
Clive continued.
"There was something there. That small creature. Or whatever was left of it. Its body was thin. Its eyes empty. Not empty like death. Worse. Like holes that wanted to pull you in if you stared too long."
Ted shifted his stance. "You fought it?"
"Yes."
Clive's right hand trembled slightly. A faint cold sensation ran through its joints.
"The battle wasn't about claws or blades. It was a fight of will. It tried to enter me. Looking for a crack. Trying to take my body from the inside."
Zorilla straightened, her breath quick. "Enter your mind?"
"Yes."
Clive tapped the left side of his temple with two fingers.
"The pressure felt like the side of my skull was being struck from within. For a moment, I felt myself losing direction. The pain pierced all the way to my neck."
Ted exhaled sharply. "So if we waver even a bit…"
"You die," Clive said.
The word entered the room like a solid object.
"Or worse. You come back, but not as yourselves. You return with the monster's will clinging to your core."
Silence filled the space. The torch on the wall flickered slightly, as if sensing the shift in air.
Dorde spoke first.
"How did you win?"
Clive looked at his palm. His skin seemed normal. But beneath it, something moved. A slow energy flowing like a heavy wheel turning deep within.
"I didn't let its will enter. I forced it back. Like holding a dam that was about to break. Then I cracked its form. Destroyed it from within."
Ted whistled softly, though his eyes never left Clive. "Sounds bad."
"It was bad," Clive answered flatly.
Zorilla leaned forward.
"What is the most dangerous part of that process?"
Clive answered without hesitation.
"Fear."
Ted frowned. "Fear?"
"That creature feeds on fear. It uses it. If I panicked even a little, it would have slipped through that crack."
All three swallowed at almost the same time.
They knew the risks.
But hearing it from someone who had just lived through it changed everything.
The silence shattered when a loud sound echoed from the hallway.
The heavy iron door shifted. The grinding of metal against stone filled the corridor.
Someone entered.
A guard.
Large body. Broad shoulders. Blank expression. Empty eyes that did not even acknowledge them as people.
"Breakfast," he said flatly. "Follow me."
Ted tilted his head. "Sorry, what?"
The guard did not repeat himself. He turned and walked away.
Zorilla looked at the others. "We… have never gotten breakfast."
Dorde frowned but smiled faintly, eyes on the door. "My injury better be worth this."
Clive rose slowly.
His body was steady, his movements light but dense. Each step felt like it pressed deeper into the floor.
"Let's see."
They followed the guard through a corridor different from the usual route.
The stones were smoother.
The light softer.
The air warmer.
Until they reached a small dining room.
A simple space. But far better than anything they had ever received.
There was a long table of old wood.
Chairs.
Large bowls of steaming food.
Ted stared at it blankly, as if struck by reality.
"By every god under the sea…"
Zorilla pulled a chair and sat without waiting for permission.
"Please tell me this isn't a dream."
No one answered.
The guard left.
The door closed.
Silence lasted five seconds.
Then Ted grabbed a spoon.
The room instantly sounded like people who had not eaten in a week.
Zorilla followed.
Then Dorde.
Clive sat last.
He scooped rice.
Raised it to his mouth.
And when the rice touched his tongue, his new body reacted.
A faint spark traveled from his throat to his stomach, then spread through his entire body.
Not painful.
Not hot.
Just… intensely alive.
Zorilla glanced at him while chewing as fast as she could.
"If you eat slow, don't blame us if you only get leftovers."
Clive stared at her for a moment. Calm. Neutral. As if he did not understand the concept of competing for food.
Ted choked a little, pointing at Clive's bowl.
"You need to eat a lot. Your body was just reshaped. If you don't, that foundation energy might damage you from the inside."
Clive ate slowly but consistently.
Each bite he processed with a certain rhythm, as if he were measuring his body's capacity to absorb nutrients.
In a short time, their plates were clean.
Ted leaned back with a satisfied expression.
"I could die happy after eating like this."
Zorilla rubbed her stomach. "Whoever gave us this, I want to kiss their feet."
Dorde did not speak.
He looked at his hand.
His fingers trembled slightly, not from exhaustion, but because his body was reacting to the food. His wounds were closing.
Clive noticed.
"Your injury is improving?"
"Slowly. But faster than yesterday."
Clive nodded. "We will use this week well."
Ted opened one eye. "For what?"
"To recover," Clive answered. "And to let my body adjust to these changes."
Zorilla shrugged. "You can't control everything in just one night."
That week became a mechanical routine.
Wake up.
Eat.
Tend to Dorde's wounds.
Light training for Ted and Zorilla.
And Clive.
Clive began each morning by checking his body. He rose slowly, feeling his knee joints expand as pressure flowed from his ankles through his hips. The muscle in his left thigh felt denser than the previous day. There was new tension, not pain. Like a machine freshly tuned.
He tightened his grip. The skin of his palm stretched. The tendons on the back of his hand stood out.
His muscle reflexes worked faster than his memory could keep up with.
Clive rolled his shoulders. His deltoids tensed, then relaxed. He lowered himself slowly into a squat, bringing his weight down until his knees reached their limit before pain, then rose again without hesitation. The movement flowed too easily.
His body was not simply recovering. His body was changing.
Ted watched him while doing slow push-ups.
"You look like you're inspecting a new piece of equipment," he said.
Clive did not answer. He focused on his breath. His lungs expanded larger than he thought they could. The air felt denser, like it carried a faint weight before sliding in. The sensation settled behind his sternum, like a rotating flicker of heat.
He pressed his fingers against his ribs.No pain. No stiffness. Only a heavier, steadier rhythm.
By midday, while Ted and Zorilla practiced basic footwork, Clive moved alone in a quiet stretch of hallway. He increased his walking pace. His steps made no sound. His soles touched the floor lightly, yet he felt power bounce back through his calves like small jolts. He measured the distance from one hairline crack to the next. Three steps, four steps, then a jump.
He landed without wobbling.
Zorilla watched from afar.
"You did not make a sound," she said.
Clive tested it again. This time he put more force into the push. A thin breeze brushed past his face. When he landed, the floor cracked slightly. A faint line, barely noticeable.
Clive stared at the crack for a long moment.Stone floors did not normally react like that.
His ears caught Ted's breathing from fourteen paces away. The sound was steady, slightly raspy. Ted's heartbeat thumped faintly behind him, different from Zorilla's quicker, sharper rhythm.
Clive closed his eyes briefly.
This new body made things that were once silent now unbearably clear.
After lunch, he tested his grip strength. He picked up a small stone from the corner of the hall. He squeezed slowly, feeling the surface crumble into tiny fragments. The force he used was not even half of what he estimated he could exert.
Ted saw the dust of crushed stone in Clive's hand.
"Please don't kill us if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed," Ted said flatly.
Clive set the dust aside and ignored the comment.
Toward late afternoon, he tested the toughness of his skin. He took a dull training knife and dragged the blade gently along his arm. His skin tightened. The knife left a long white mark but did not break through. When he pressed a little harder, the mark faded within seconds, as if the skin stitched itself closed.
He felt a subtle vibration within the muscle of his arm, like accelerated healing.
Night came.
Their bodies recovered faster than before. Ted yawned loudly, yet his shoulders no longer slumped. Zorilla could finish two rounds of the corridor without gasping. Dorde slept more soundly, and the shoulder he previously could not lift now rose to head level.
On the third day, Dorde moved his arm without a trace of pain.On the fifth, Ted practiced his personal attack sequence and began finding a new rhythm.Zorilla extended her running time by three extra laps before stopping.
Clive watched them all, but his focus remained on himself.He still did not fully understand his new body.
On the sixth night, he sat alone near the wall. Torchlight shimmered on his palm. He raised his hand toward the light and studied it quietly.
The bones in his fingers were more defined. The muscles were thicker. His skin looked cleaner, tighter. But the strangest sensation was not the strength. It was something moving slowly beneath the surface. Not blood. Not normal heat.
The core's energy moved like a massive iron wheel turning at a slow, grinding pace. He could feel it deep in his sternum, sending small currents into his arms, then shoulders, then back to the center. It did not hurt. It was not even uncomfortable.
It was simply foreign.
Clive closed his hand slowly. Each joint felt like a freshly installed mechanical hinge. No sound. No friction. Everything precise and solid.
He kept staring.Until footsteps approached.
"You are not sleeping?" Dorde asked.
"Not yet."
"Your body too active?"
"Possibly."
Dorde sat beside him. His breathing was calm, but his voice remained low.
"The others are already asleep. We might start full training tomorrow."
Clive did not answer.
Dorde watched him for a few seconds."Anything different?"
Clive looked at his palm again.
"Everything."
Dorde nodded slowly. "I suspected as much."
Clive lowered his hand.
"My body has not fully settled," he said.
Dorde stood. "Do not stay up too late."
He walked back toward the sleeping area.
Clive remained seated.
He closed his eyes, listening to the flow of that energy. The more he focused, the more he felt something shifting behind his sternum. Like a pulse that was not a heartbeat. Like a foreign beat trying to find rhythm inside a human body.
He opened his eyes suddenly.
His breathing stayed calm.His heartbeat steady.But something stirred at the bottom of his awareness.
A faint whisper.Not words.More like a primitive echo.Cold. Sharp.Waiting.
Clive lifted his hand again.
The torchlight flickered, casting uneven lines across his skin. He rotated his wrist slowly, pressing his thumb into his palm. The sensation lingered, sitting just behind his sternum.
He knew what it was.
The core had not fully dimmed.The remnant will of that small creature had not vanished.
He stared blankly at the wall.
His body might be stronger, more efficient, more refined.But he was no longer alone inside it.
The energy shifted again.
Clive felt every muscle tense for a fraction of a second.A reflexive response to an unseen threat.
He swallowed slowly.
Tomorrow they would begin full training.And if his instincts were right, his new body would reveal something he had yet to understand.
Clive breathed in softly.
He knew one thing for certain.
This change was not over.
And something was waiting to awaken.