When Tom came to, he could see only darkness.

"Is this some kind of a waiting room while one is dead?" Tom wondered, but as he tried to look around, he realized that he couldn't feel his body either.

After a while, he noticed that he hadn't actually gotten the message that he had died. Driven by this revelation, he immediately looked inwards and was shocked by what he saw. If his body had been damaged before, he didn't know what this was. There were burned lines traveling from his core to his arms and legs. It had traveled through his bones while empowering them. The bones looked bad, the energy had burned their surface and broken more than one of them while passing through.

His core was surprisingly full, and it still had a couple of cracks on its surface, reminding him just how close he had been to losing it. However, he had clearly gotten far enough, as he wasn't drowning in mana. The mana was still running through his body, straight to his core, facing no resistance at any point while passing through, acting as if his body was its playground.

He was genuinely surprised that he was still alive. Fortunately, all of his wounds had been cauterized as they happened, and that was probably the only thing keeping him alive, with the fact that he had focused on keeping his vital organs protected.

But at the same time, the damage was so extensive that he could only imagine how few areas in his body were actually getting any oxygen from his blood.

He had no idea how he was going to fix himself up. He had just used his go-to core up, and he had only one healing potion on him, but to use it, he would have to be able to reach it.

So he had only one option left. Use the very energy that had so nearly claimed his life. The problem was that he had no idea if it would work, as it was a completely different kind of energy than he had originally used to awaken his body. But at this point, he could only hope.

He gently approached his core with his willpower, and to his surprise, he saw how it was slowly but surely bringing the rogue electricity mana under his control. However, there was just too much mana inside the core. It was overflowing, the rogue mana surpassing the amount of mana under his control multifold.

He took some of this mana, then guided it towards his arm, placed it on his shoulder, and monitored it.

At first, the electricity mana was doing only damage to him, as it forced its way to the bone, wreaking havoc on its way.

His body didn't start healing even as there was mana available for it to use, unable to utilize it, forced to just watch as it defiled his body, making his whole healing plan take multiple steps backward.

But how was this different from when he had advanced his body for the first time with a core? He refused to accept that the mana couldn't be used for healing, as he had seen with his own eyes how the gecko had entered the cave wounded and exited fully healed.

He used his willpower and leveraged as much of it as he could on the mana, forcing it to stop destroying his body. Then he very slowly pushed the mana into the bone, not through it, or next to it. No, straight into it, forcing it to mix with its very structure.

But the electronic mana was more powerful. He could see how it started to overpower the existing structure. The mana started mixing whit the modified bone changing its very composition under Tom's constant pressure, turning it into something completely new, a mix between what it used to be and the electronic mana.

He had no idea how it would perform, but he wasn't that scared that the product would disappoint. The idea that the very mana that would empower his body would be mixed in its composition seemed more like a requirement than a hindrance. As if what he was looking at currently happened every time he boosted his body, then the whole power would be almost useless.

What would he do with the power that would destroy his own body more than his opponents?

The cost to force the transformation was astronomical, he had to use all the mana his core had converted during the time he had been unconscious just to modify a tiny portion of it, however long had been.

But he had managed to do it. And after it had been transformed, he was able to heal it with the electricity mana. Now he just had to do the same to the whole of his arm and a couple of vertebrae.

He got straight to work and started helping his core with taking control over the mana.

It was extremely slow work, he spend over ten hours working on his arm, taking breaks whenever his willpower ran out. However, during this constant pressure, he was enforcing on his mind, he could feel that getting control over the mana was getting easier.

At the start, he had tried to hurry himself up in case the gecko would come back and finish him up, but soon he had realized that either it had died or he had scared it away, so he took his time with the progress.

Last he started fixing one of his upper vertebrae, and the moment it connect, he got his feeling back to his upper body. Oh, how he regretted not anticipating this pain, it took control over his body, forcing him to stop what he was doing, and instead just suffer on the floor, before he finally started forcing his brain to lessen the pain he felt.

But now he could tell his arms differences more distinctively. He could tell that the empowering aspect was still very much there, it had fought the hardest against this forced fusion, not letting up in the slightest, forcing the electronic mana to give ground instead.

After he could finally move his arm, he blindly fished around for the healing potion until his hand touched it. It was a glass bottle in perfect condition, not minding at all the fact that it was getting crushed between his leg and the ground. He immediately drank it, pouring the last drops on his eyes.

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It was quite inspiring to watch after he had spent ten hours trying to fix his body, how a wave of energy spread from his stomach spreading to all parts of his body, and it started to slowly heal, the broken pieces slowly coming together. At the same time, the pain came, as more and more of his nerves started connecting and informing his brain that things were in extremely bad shape.

While he waited to heal, he tested his new and improved arms abilities and limits. Firstly he very carefully moved some mana to the arm, but not much, as it still very much damaged his body as it passed through it. When the mana entered the arm, he could feel how it got tougher, faster, and stronger. And at the same time, he could feel that it tolerated the electricity mana much better than before. However, it was far from immune, but he estimated that he could boost its power for a good while before the consequences caught up to him.

Then he continued modifying more of his body to accept the electricity mana. Not daring to push his body any further in its current fragile state.

After an hour, the potion finally stopped working its magic. His condition was much better but nowhere near healed.

At the same time, his vision returned. He slowly opened his eyes, and he could see the cave's roof above him. He slowly started moving his head, trying to recognize where he was, and how far away his original ambush location was. As there his backpack waited for him with more healing potions.

__

As his body was far from healed. His current situation was more like he had placed a bandage on a compound fracture. Sure it may stop it from getting infected, but it did nothing to the fact that he couldn't use it.

He turned his head to the side, and there was a gecko's head staring at him, just centimeters away, nearly taking his life by giving him a heart attack.

Tom panicky tried to jump away, but the only response he got was moving his body centimeters to the side, and ridiculous amounts of pain.

Then he immediately used his hand to cover his face, determined to make the gecko pay if it wanted to have even a taste of his body, but to his surprise, the gecko just stared at him, clearly confused.

They stayed like that for good while, both just looking at each other and waiting for the other to make the first move.

Then it did something Tom wouldn't have expected in a million years. It sent a bit of electricity mana into his body, it was the tiniest possible jolt, and he could just barely even register it.

He stared at it, even more confused. Then he focused on his surroundings, determined to catch whatever tricks it was planning to do to him.

And after they continued their staring match for a while longer, he saw how a tender tendril of mana carefully snaked out of its body and approached him.

He stared at it in confusion as it finally touched him, doing no damage at all, only alerting him to its presence.

"Are you trying to communicate with me?" Tom asked. As an answer, the gecko did the exact same thing, but the power behind the jolt had increased.

Tom had no idea what it wanted, so he just did the only thing he could think of, and he mimicked its actions. He guided some of his energy out of his core and made it touch the gecko.

It seemed to be somehow enough for it, as it stopped staring at him so intensely and gave him some room. As it backed away, Tom could see how it had a nasty scar on its neck, confirming to him that it was indeed the same gecko. "Why didn't it attack me..." Tom wondered. "Is it that we have the same type of cores..." He wasn't sure, but he gladly accepted it. He was in no shape to fight, nor did he really wish to challenge the gecko on a level playing field, as just one of its tail whips had been enough to almost take him out.

He turned his focus back to the matter at hand, even more, motivated to get healed as soon as possible, as he had no idea if the gecko would suddenly decide that he looked particularly tasty.

He couldn't see his backpack, but it couldn't be that far away as the mana concentration was almost the same as in the spot where he had set up his ambush.

He continued to heal his limbs, wanting to get to his backpack as fast as possible.

Another two hours later, he had healed the most critical damage in his leg that the potion hadn't managed to heal, allowing him some more movement.

Then he started crawling, using his one working arm and leg, pushing himself forward. The gecko stopped whatever it was doing some distance away and started following right behind him.

He kept pushing until he passed a bend just two meters away from his original position. He had to fight for each and every meter, digging deep to make his leg work just enough to be of any use.

And there he saw a glorious sight, his backpack ten meters away, just waiting for him against the cave's wall.

He continued forwards, battling for each centimeter, going straight toward the backpack. As he crawled forwards, the gecko seemed to finally understand something, as it passed him and walked to his backpack.

Tom immediately got excited and motioned for it to bring it to him by waving his hand. But he didn't actually have to do anything, as the gecko was already biting onto it and dragging it towards him.

He was elated, and the gecko's status immediately rose in his mind, saving him much suffering with one simple action.

Soon enough, the backpack was within his reach, and he immediately started digging around until he found another healing potion and immediately drank it.

At the same time, he looked at the gecko conflicted. In his mind, the gecko had helped him even if their start had been a bit rocky. He dug around the back a bit more and took out his last remaining core.

The moment it came out, the gecko was immediately drawn to it, almost jumping on it immediately, but by some unknown gecko honor system, it didn't. Tom didn't tease the gecko at all and threw the core for it, rewarding it for helping him with the only object he thought it might find useful, and just maybe it would keep it from eating him while he healed.

It immediately bit down on the core and swallowed it whole, and then it just lied down then and there, stopped moving, and wholly ignored Tom right next to it, not caring at all that he was there.

Tom tried to shrug and failed miserably, and continued on his healing progress, determined to get his ability to move back.

Half an hour later, it was clear to him that one healing potion wouldn't be enough, so he took another one, leaving him with only one extra, dramatically draining his resources.

Another hour later, he was finally healed. He had made good progress on transforming his body with the electricity mana, getting his thigh bone done.

As he finally stood up after multiple hours of suffering and trying to survive, he was relieved. He had walked right between life and death and came out on top. Driving his cultivation to new heights.

Then he said status.

___________________

Name: Tom Palmer

Awakened mind 6

Awakened body 5

Awakened core 3

__________________

He was surprised to see that the core had shot straight up to a rank 3, but then again, he had done it with quite an unconventional method. He was also pleasantly surprised that his mind had climbed up another rank, thanks to once again abusing his willpower beyond its limits. Then again, he had been doing it a lot lately.

However, he would have expected his body's rank to climb, but he reasoned that maybe he hadn't transformed enough of it into the new mixture for it to affect anything.

He shot one last look at the gecko, just laying there next to the cave's wall, doing whatever monsters did after they consumed cores. Then he logged out, having reached his limit long ago, only wanting to get some long-deserved sleep.