Nate was sitting on the couch closest to the front door of the house waiting for Angie to arrive. While he waited, he had been watching the dungeon screens and inspecting all the traps he had upgraded the night before.

They were working just fine, actually; they were working perfectly. During the half-hour he had been watching, no beast had made it more than a few rooms away from the portal. It was a little boring on one hand, but also not enough on the other.

He had already seen what the human cultivators were capable of. The group from before hadn’t made a reappearance, but he had little doubt they would. Just like he had little belief that the current dungeon would be able to hold them back.

The difference in strength between the two was simply too much.

Sure, the current trap models might hurt them, possibly even kill one of them, but that was all. It wasn’t the overwhelming show of force like it was with the beasts that came through.

He glanced at the resource counter and bit the corner of his lip, thinking. Upgrading the dungeon core would probably be the best way to fix that particular problem. After a night spent upgrading everything though, they were back down to half of what they needed to accomplish that.

Since there wasn’t anything; he could or wanted to do for the moment, he simply watched while he waited. He had enough time to finish the last of his homework, and even prepare a simple dinner from the frozen items his parents had bought the other day.

When he had finished all of that, it was past dusk, but not yet fully dark. His parents hadn’t returned from their test outside the city, and he was struggling to keep the worry at bay.

They had told Nate that the test would take all day, but a part of him had still thought they would be back by now. After losing them once, his mind had become prone to imagining the worst scenarios at the drop of a hat.

Finally, as the clock ticked closer to eight in the evening, Angelica arrived with a package in hand and George in tow.

“He wanted to make sure that the medicine worked properly,” She explained after coming up to the door with a silver briefcase in hand. “Do you mind if we come inside? The elixir will take a few minutes to work.”

Nate stepped to the side and fully opened the door. “Sorry, I’m alone right now. Mom and dad still haven’t returned from their test. It has me a little on edge. I don’t know how long these things usually take, so my mind is coming up with one thing after another.”

“Sounds like you could use a distraction then,” Angie told him, not belittling his current problem as she walked inside.

“That would be nice, yes.”

“As for how long they normally take…” George looked into the sky and thought for a moment. “They probably won’t be back until midnight. The test includes some night portions to it as well, that they may not have known about.”

The knot in Nate’s stomach unclenched some as he realized that this was still perfectly normal for now.

Everyone settled into the various chairs around the main room while Angie opened the briefcase. Inside was a heavily padded interior with rows of minutely labeled potions.

She grinned at them. “When we had to make the order for your elixir, we also decided to buy a few others that are hard to get here at the same time.”

Nate shook his head at the casual display of wealth and glimpse into a world he hardly understood. Economics on the scale her family operated at was not something his mind could actively fathom. There were too many little missing details.

He had known she was rich, even before this, but this was another example of just how far above him she really was. Part of him found it frustrating, and another didn’t even seem to care. There was nothing going on between them outside of a burgeoning friendship, and who knew if it would even continue after this deal was finished?

Angie carefully selected a large glass vial with a metal mesh all around to the outside of it and handed it to him. “This is it; this is the elixir. Drink it all down in one gulp and then you have to just ride out the pain. If you want, you can try and steer the energy some, but it isn’t needed.”

“The money?” He asked shakily.

She waved away his concern, and pressed the vial closer to him. “My parent’s said yours had already covered it.”

Nate took it from her with shaking hands, his fingers pressing against the cork and stopping. He was about to do something that would change everything for him, something that would fix him. It was a choice he had never been given in his past life on Old Earth.

Taking a deep breath, he popped the cork and poured the contents into his mouth.

George put his hand on him and closed his eyes as he began keeping track of the changes going on inside Nate.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Meanwhile, a rush of scorching energy that began in his chest slowly spread throughout his body. Torn and ruptured meridians were healed as it went. The healing energy served to also strengthen and widen the thinner meridians that had been storing the small amount of qi he had managed to keep and further cultivate.

The entire time, he was feeling nothing but pain as the elixir scoured the inside of his body. It felt as though he had poured acid inside his mouth and that it was having its way with his internals.

The disabled meridians throughout his body were being brought back into being at an accelerated rate. At the same time, he could feel the remains of his core being shunted to the side and reconstructed. It wasn’t a full core, and it wasn’t in the right place, but it now seemed like he had a backup core of sorts that he could use.

He wasn’t entirely sure what to call it, outside of that. It was no longer in his lower dantian but had migrated to a space beside his heart. There was one large, newly created artery-like meridian that connected it to his dantian, but that was all.

Regardless of how inexperienced Nate might have been in certain things, he knew right away that it was better to keep that particular change a secret. The elixir had been a healing agent, not something that was supposed to induce changes of this nature in a person.

George opened his eyes, a surprised gleam flashing across them before closing them again to supervise the last of the healing.

So far, everything had gone relatively smoothly. It was a specialized elixir meant to heal specific injuries, and it was very good at what it did. No one expected there to be any problems, but it never hurt to be careful.

The entire process took slightly longer than they had been expecting and was nearing the thirty-minute mark when the last of the elixir energy vanished.

Nate opened his eyes and spit out some blood. The healing process had caused havoc with his internals while they were fixing the damage, reopening the old wounds in the process. His skin was pale and clammy as he wiped the blood away from his mouth, leaving a garish streak of red in its wake.

“That was fun,” He mumbled hoarsely, unable to put more effort into speaking for the moment.

Angie grinned and laughed. “I told you there would be some pain.”

“You didn’t say it would last so long though!” He shot back angrily.

“I had no idea how long it would last.” She retorted. Her eyes softened a moment later as she studied the vague shaking of the muscles in his legs and arms. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

He gingerly cracked his neck, the action taking more effort than it should have. “I’m exhausted, but I feel fine. It was painful, don’t get me wrong, however, it did what it was supposed to. All my meridians have been repaired, with some of them even being strengthened. The remains of my core have also been removed, so as soon as I cultivate enough energy again, there is nothing stopping me from forming a proper core.”

George nodded along with everything he said.

The two stuck around for a few more minutes, chatting with him before deciding it was time for them to leave.

The older gentleman approached Nate at that time and tapped the area next to his heart. “It would be best if you kept this particular oddity a secret. Tell no one, except your parents.” He breathed out in a bare whisper.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Nate. Lindsay and I will need you to run interference from Jace for us at school.” She winked at him and walked out.

He saw them out and then locked the door behind them, before collapsing weakly onto the couch. Everything hurt at the moment. Each of his strained muscles screamed at him, protesting an abuse they had suffered from the inside.

Normally, he’d say he would be incredibly sore in the morning, but with that bracelet of healing on his wrist, he’d be as good as new by then.

Nate pulled up his information screen from the wrist computer and looked at the changes listed. Under Realm, it no longer mentioned him as having a damaged core and meridians. Instead, it now merely said zero percent awakened and also said there was a backup core available.

The only other major change was that his stats had finally returned to normal as well.

Nathaniel Holmes

Age: 17 years

Realm: Unawakened Mortal (0% Awakened, Backup Core Available)

Core: Grade ??

Strength: 7

Speed: 6

Constitution: 6

Energy: 5.6

Meditative Art: ??

Energy Skills: None

Attack:

Support:

Companion Beast: None

Dungeon Creation - Current limit 1

Dungeon Interface

Dungeon - 1

Avatar

Equip

Don Avatar

Items

Storage

Finally, he had gotten to the point where cultivating would start making a difference in his body again. He could truly start on his journey as a cultivator now. It had taken him a few more months than he would have liked, but it had happened, and that was all that mattered.

This time, he wouldn’t let anyone ruin his core awakening when it was time. Not that he really expected to get that unlucky again. That said, the company he was keeping these days did come with a certain amount of attention and danger.

It wasn’t that either Angelica or Lindsay were world-topping beauties. They were pretty, but most cultivators were. No, it was more an attention derived from the power and position of their families. People always wanted more.

The McFadden’s were an excellent example of that. Angie had no interest in Jace, yet he continued to pursue her because of the benefits she could bring to his family. There may have been a small amount of lust mixed in, but that was all.

To them, marriage was a business arrangement, and he was someone in the way. If they could remove him from the board by preventing his awakening a second time…

Well, that sounded to him exactly like something they would try to do.

He would be prepared, and he would be far stronger this time. He’d make sure of it. Besides, he wouldn’t be doing the process at a school where the guards could be bought off this time. His parents would be there as well, they had already let him know they would be keeping watch the next time.

Things would be different this time, and all of that began with him.

Nate glanced at the clock. He was determined to stay up until his parents got back. That meant he couldn’t properly enter the dungeon until then. He could watch it through the screens and maybe play around with the traps if he really wanted to. But no, he had a better use for his time now.

The dungeon was at a point where as long as it wasn’t destroyed; he didn’t really need to monitor it anymore. That left him with more time to properly cultivate.

Which is exactly what he was going to do. Now that his meridians had been fully healed, it was time to find out how good, bad, or mediocre his talent really was.