Chapter 101: Chapter 101: Path Two But what about his body? He looked down at his arm. As expected, the bruise from the snake’s tail whip... which should have been a deep purple welt by now... was already yellowing, fading fast, the pain fading into a dull, distant itch. And it wasn’t just this bruise He remembered the night before... the brutal beating Vurok had given him. By all medical logic, He should have been bedridden for weeks with internal bleeding. Yet, he had woken up 80% healed. "Why?" Sol whispered, flexing his hand. "Is this the standard biology of this world? Do all humans here heal like wolverines?" He shook his head. No. Lyra had been terrified for him. Taru had expected him to be crippled. This healing factor was unique to him. "Did the dimensional transfer mutate me?" he wondered. "Or is my body... hungry?" He paused on the path, a sudden connection firing in his hyper-active brain. "I’ve been ignoring this," Sol whispered, stopping on the path. "Ever since I woke up, I’ve been dismissing the obvious." He had noticed his unusual strength... hoisting the heavy water jar, dragging the snake. He had noticed his outrageously good memory... recalling specific chemical compositions and botanical details he had merely glanced at on the internet years ago in his past life. "I thought it was just a side effect of the transmigration," he mused. "Or maybe just that people in this primitive world were naturally stronger." But now, with his mind sharpened by the snake’s essence, he dug deeper. He forced himself to access the memories of the original Sol... the ones he had intentionally suppressed because they were filled with grief and humiliation. He replayed the insults. "Waste." "Cripple." "A pretty face on a broken frame." The tribe didn’t just mock the previous Sol because he was an orphan or because he was depressed after his parents’ death. That was common enough here. No, they mocked him because he was physically defective. The original Sol had been weak since birth. He got winded walking to the river. He couldn’t draw a hunter’s bow. He was handsome, yes, but fragile... a liability in a world that demanded strength. "So, that’s why Veyra mocked him so much and that ice cold village chief’s daughter looked at him in disgust." Sol looked at his hands... and felt that he could crush a predator’s skull using his bare hands, as for whether it was just his imagination or true, he needed to find out later. "This body was garbage," Sol realized with a jolt. "Genetically weak. So how the hell am I healing 80% of a severe beating in one night? How am I outrunning vipers?" It wasn’t just "new soul, new strength." That didn’t make biological sense. Something was fueling this transformation. Something was rewriting the rules of this body. He searched his memory, trying to find the source of this anomaly. And then, in the memories, he really found something. It wasn’t a memory of the previous Sol. It was a fragment from the darkness... from the void between his death on Earth and his awakening in the hut. He hadn’t seen anything. He had been unconscious. But he remembered a sensation. It felt as if he were lying on a cold slab, and something... foreign... had been injected into his very marrow. It wasn’t a needle; it was more like a liquid fire being poured into his veins, rewriting his DNA, reconstructing his entire body. And there was a smell. It wasn’t the smell of blood or medicine. It was a scent that defied description... It was a faint, haunting fragrance that seemed to cling to his skin and fill his lungs. It was delicate but overpowering, like wild orchids blooming in fresh snow. It was a scent of absolute purity that didn’t belong in this muddy, bloody world. "That smell..." Sol whispered, his eyes widening. "I thought it was just a hallucination. But it wasn’t. It was the residue." "Someone... or something... changed me," Sol realized, a chill running down his spine. "Before I woke up. Something modified this vessel." Even though he tried hard to recall, he still didn’t find anything else. "Okay, let’s suppose it’s true and If the Mind feeds on Death," Sol murmured, touching his chest where the Ash-Grey energy lived, "then what is the Body feeding on?" He thought back to the moments he had just woken up in this world. The intimacy with Lyra. The feeling of being sandwiched between her soft curves, the warmth radiating from her skin into his. Even just the touch of her hands washing the blood off his back. He remembered feeling a distinct, throbbing heat during those moments. At the time, he thought it was just arousal, or simple comfort. But looking back... the pain had diminished during the contact, not just after sleep. "Every time I get close to them," Sol realized, stopping on the path. "Every time there’s intimacy... even without the final act... my body feels hot. Energized. Stronger." The women of this tribe... Lyra, Nia, Evara... they were evolved to survive in this hellscape. Their vitality was overflowing, completely off the charts compared to modern humans. And somehow, Sol’s body, perhaps altered by whatever force brought him here, or maybe it was the result of cosmic adventure, anyways no matter what, his body was unconsciously leeching off that excess life force. "Hypothesis: My body acts like a sponge for Vitality. Through intimacy, I absorb their excess life force... their ’Primal Resonance’... to repair and strengthen my own tissues." This was Path two. The Path of the Body. He didn’t know why this was happening. He didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse. But he knew one thing: he needed both to survive in this hellish world. He grinned, a wolfish expression in the shadows of the giant trees. He would hunt beasts to sharpen his Mind and fuck women to forge his Body. And the strange body would hold it all together. A/N: Okay, enough of boring Chapter, from now on it’s all about revenge, action, adventure, and some very mind boggling fantasy stuff, so get ready. And yeah, I remember it is smut, so lock the door and pick your tissues, for next few Chapters. And don’t forget to send some gifts to get more Smut.