None of them argued over the books.
The piles were too many, the titles too strange, and the contents too overwhelming.
Zhiyu chose a thin but dense-looking book titled Tampering Self, Tampering Soul.
The name alone felt uncomfortably relevant to him.
For the month, that book became his world.
The first section, Tampering Self, did not involve power or techniques in the way he expected.
It focused on awareness—breathing, posture, muscle tension, emotional response, and instinct.
It described the body as something that had to be understood before it could be controlled.
The exercises were simple on the surface: sitting still, regulating breath, observing thoughts without reacting, controlling small involuntary movements.
He practiced them every day.
At first, it felt pointless. Sitting in silence while hungry, tired, and sore was harder than physical training.
His thoughts wandered constantly.
His breathing went out of rhythm. His muscles twitched when they were supposed to relax.
'This feels like meditation with extra steps,' he thought more than once.
Still, he kept going. He forced himself to follow the instructions exactly, noticing how his body reacted to pain, to fatigue, to irritation.
Slowly, he gained better control over his breathing and posture. He could calm his heartbeat faster after training.
He could endure discomfort without immediately tensing up.
The second section, Tampering Soul, was where the book became difficult.
It stated clearly that once a person understood and controlled themselves, they could begin separating awareness from the body and extend it toward the soul.
Not removing it, not forcing it, but recognizing it as something distinct. Only then could one temper or guide the soul.
Zhiyu read that part over and over.
He followed the steps carefully. He tried sensing inward, focusing on the presence he knew was there—the centipede's soul, the system panel, the strange looseness between his body and soul.
He attempted every described method: visualization, controlled breathing, rhythmic thought patterns.
Nothing happened.
No response. No feedback. No progress.
A month passed like that.
He closed the book one day and stared at the dim wall.
'So I spent a whole month doing… nothing?' he thought. 'That's impressively inefficient... Haaah...'
He knew changing techniques now would mean abandoning everything he had invested so far.
Time, effort, focus. In this place, wasting a month was dangerous.
But staying on a path that led nowhere was worse.
He ran his fingers over the book's worn edge, feeling conflicted.
'Either this book doesn't suit me,' he thought, 'or I'm missing something obvious. And if it's the second one, switching now just means I'll be bad at two techniques instead of one.'
He exhaled slowly.
Zhiyu didn't put the book away yet, but for the first time since he started reading it, he seriously considered choosing another path.
...
Back in his own room... his cell, Zhiyu lay on the cold floor with his back against the wall.
The place was barely large enough to stretch his legs, but compared to before, it felt private.
A small lamp sat beside him, its light weak and uneven, just enough to read without straining his eyes.
A few books were scattered near his arm, the only ones he had kept after narrowing down his interests.
He stared at the page without really reading anymore and let out a long sigh.
Then it hit him.
!!
The pain did not come from the outside. There was no wound, no impact, no warning.
It erupted from inside his body, deep and sudden, like something had gone wrong at the core. Zhiyu stiffened as his breath caught in his throat.
It felt as if his organs were being shifted out of place.
"Aaarrghh!!"
His stomach clenched violently, then his chest followed, a crushing pressure spreading inward instead of outward.
His ribs felt tight, like they were being pulled closer together, and his spine burned with a dull, grinding sensation.
It was not sharp pain, but heavy and invasive, as if his body was being rearranged.
'What the hell—' he tried to think, but the thought broke apart halfway.
His heartbeat became erratic. One moment it slammed hard against his chest, the next it felt distant and weak.
His bones ached as if something was pressing along them from the inside, testing their shape.
His muscles locked up, not from strain but from confusion, as though they no longer knew where they were supposed to be.
Zhiyu curled slightly on the floor, fingers digging into the stone. His breathing turned shallow and uneven.
Every inhale felt wrong, like his lungs were sitting at the wrong angle. His vision blurred, the dim light of the lamp smearing into streaks.
'This feels… bad. Really bad!,' he thought faintly.
'This is… inside.'
It felt like dying.
Not the slow, familiar kind he remembered from the hospital, but something more violent and disorienting.
As if his body was trying to become something else and failing midway.
His head throbbed, pressure building behind his eyes, and a low sound escaped his throat before he realized he was making it.
He couldn't tell how long it lasted. Seconds felt like minutes.
Minutes felt endless.
The pain surged again, deeper this time, and his thoughts scattered completely. Zhiyu's grip on consciousness loosened as his body convulsed once, then went slack.
The lamp flickered beside him.
And the room fell quiet.
...
He woke up suddenly, gasping.
His clothes were soaked through. Sweat clung to his skin and pooled beneath him, cold against his back.
For a moment, he just lay there, staring at the dim ceiling, trying to remember how he ended up like this.
'…What happened?' he thought.
Before he could piece it together, a sound reached him from outside his cell.
His hearing had changed.
Not sharper in a pleasant way, but overwhelming.
Every small noise felt amplified, pressed directly into his ears. It almost hurt. Zhiyu winced and pressed his palm against the side of his head.
'That's not normal,' he thought. 'How does a soul even do this to a body? That doesn't make sense.'
He took a few slow breaths, forcing himself to calm down.
The pain dulled slightly, though the sensitivity remained. Carefully, he pushed himself up and stood.
When he took a step forward, his body moved strangely smoothly. His foot touched the ground without the usual scrape or thud. He stopped, then stepped again, slower this time.
Barely any sound.
He frowned.
'Okay. That's… new.'
He shifted his weight, walked a few more steps, almost waddling as he tested his balance.
His movements felt quieter, lighter, as if his body had learned something he never taught it.
A sudden discomfort in his mouth made him pause. His jaw felt tight, crowded. He raised a hand and touched his teeth.
His fingers brushed against fangs.
They were longer than before. Not dramatically, but enough that he noticed them immediately. His breath hitched, and he pulled his hand away.
'No. No, no,' he thought. 'I'm just imagining things. I have to be.'
He swallowed hard, his throat dry. His chest rose and fell unevenly as he tried to steady himself.
His reflection wasn't there to confirm anything, which somehow made it worse.
Something had changed. That much was undeniable.
He stood there in the dim light, heart still racing, trying to make sense of his body and failing.
Whatever happened during that pain wasn't just temporary.
And that realization unsettled him more than the pain itself.
After some time, he forced himself to slow down and observe instead of panic. When he focused, he realized it was not hearing in the usual sense. It was vibration.
The air itself carried information, and his body picked it up before his ears did. The sensation traveled through his hair, his skin, and into his head, arriving all at once.
It was similar to sound, but more direct and far more intense.
'So it's not my ears,' he thought.
The discomfort made more sense that way. His body was processing too much at once, and his brain had not adapted yet.
He steadied himself and instinctively called up the panel.
[ Name: Zhao Zhiyu ]
[ Cultivation Base: Semi-Immortal ]
[ Strength: 9 ]
[ Agility: 9 ]
[ Endurance: 12 ]
[ Vitality: 10 ]
[ Perception: 7 ]
[ Willpower: 11 ]
[ Condition: Weak | Dizzy ]
[ Soul Status: Unintegrated ]
[ Body Compatibility: Incomplete ]
[ Passive Abilities ]
[ Poison Resistance: Minor Achievement ]
[ Notes: Soul and body are not fully synchronized. ]
[ Techniques ]
[ Tampering Self, Tampering Soul Technique: Entry Level ]
He stared at it longer than he meant to.
'Semi-Immortal…?' he thought. 'That sounds like a big deal. Also sounds extremely unstable.'
Then his eyes moved to the technique section.
'Wait,' he thought. 'I actually learned it?'
The realization hit him slowly. He had not gained nothing during that month. The technique had worked, just not in the way he expected.
Whatever happened earlier... whatever twisted his body from the inside, was likely the missing step.
Either the transformation itself, or the moment his status changed.
'So I wasn't wasting my time,' he thought. 'I just didn't notice...'
His gaze shifted again.
Poison Resistance: Minor Achievement.
He let out a quiet breath.
'So there are levels,' he thought. 'Entry level, next is Minor achievement? I can't be too sure since I didn't saw the progress of the poison resistance...'
He closed the panel slowly.
'If this system didn't exist,' he thought, 'I'd probably be convinced I finally lost it.'
He sat back down, still dizzy, still weak, but calmer than before.