---MASS RELEASE CHAP---
Pain shot all across his body at once, forcing him to immediately clench his jaw tight and grind his teeth as hard as he could.
His fists were squeezed into tight balls, giving his everything to fight back against the pain.
However... the pain was far too overwhelming. Comparing it to the terrible aching from before was like comparing a dragon to a lizard. There was no comparison.
This pain was otherworldly.
There was nowhere it didn’t exist. Every cell within his body was in excruciating torment.
"Ergh!" He grunted through his teeth, "Ack... ke... argh!" With all his might, he fought back, withstanding the brunt of the pain.
Focusing on breathing? What a damn joke. Fuck that shit. All Midas could do was try to not lose his consciousness with everything he had. He was teetering on the edge of wakefulness and passing out.
Gool was standing a few feet away from him, beside a tree.
He had a very worried look on his face.
’He’s been here all day...’ Gool said inwardly, ’What in the world is he going through?’ He walked forward, gazing at Midas’s distressed face.
Just then, however, Gool stopped and widened his eyes with awe. His mouth opened, gaping slightly with shock as he froze and observed the scene unfolding in front of him.
All the air around Midas was waving like a heatwave. His body began to unleash clouds of steam like a steam-cooker.
Out of the thousands of pores on Midas’s body, small drops of a mysterious black liquid oozed out. It all quickly accumulated into a thin layer of sludge that covered his entire body.
After a few more seconds of witnessing this scene with awe and amazement, Gool’s expression suddenly went from surprised to disgusted.
His nose scrunched, and his face turned sour. He leaned his head back into his neck, his eyes darting left and right as if to figure something out.
’W-what the fuck is this horrible stench!?’ He thought to himself, realizing the air around him was bombarded by a smell so putrid that it made goblin-shit smell like a bouquet of flowers.
His eyes teared up, and actual droplets of tears trickled down his face after just one small, accidental sniff.
"Ommb!" A glug of vomit nearly shot out of his mouth, but he forcefully sealed his lips to make sure that didn’t happen. Reluctantly swallowing the vomit, he immediately turned and rushed to the water before diving straight in.
Anything was better than smelling that horrible stench one more time.
Finally, the blackhole of pain sucking Midas’s lifeforce into the bottom of his stomach vanished. At the same instant, it was replaced by a comforting orb of heavenly warmth.
The divine warmth radiated through his body slowly. It felt like the complete opposite experience of the pain he felt only seconds earlier.
His expression calmed, his breathing becoming steadier.
The warm sensation was incredibly rich and abundant. It was like a waterfall coming from his core--reaching outwards in all directions.
Within each cell of his body, he felt rejuvenation and health. His arms gleamed with a slight glow as his tendons, bones, muscles, and ligaments were sealed with a newfound power.
As the steam stopped evaporating from his body and the air around him cooled, Midas felt his entire body had changed into something completely different from before.
The feeling was similar to breaking through into the Core and Vein tier, but to a far grander extent.
*Ding*
[Your body has suddenly gained a large amount of energy and purification.]
[Every individual cell within your body has been reinforced. Your strength climbs by twenty-five percent.]
[Your mental pain resistance has skyrocketed. Your endurance increases by forty percent.]
[Your body now regenerates at a faster pace. Minor cuts now heal much quicker.]
[Your mental fortitude has multiplied by many folds. Your pain tolerance his risen by five hundred percent.]
[All poisons, impurities, diseases, and weaknesses have been purified from your body. Your cells are now more efficient.]
Without a single second of hesitation, Midas said in his head: ’Open my Status window.’ He hadn’t even had time to breathe yet as these messages popped up in his head.
Excitement, suspense, satisfaction. All good emotions one could feel assailed him.
┏━━━Status━━━┓
Name: Midas Kyrios Stars
Bloodline: ????
Age: 18
Level: 16
Vitality: 13/13
Strength: 15 (+25%)
Stamina: 14/14
Speed: 14
Stats remaining: 0
Tier: Vein
[Skills]
> Status
>Eye Of Ace
[Techniques]
> Nine-Breath Circulation, First Breath
[Titles]
> None
[Blessings]
> None
[Evolutions]
> None
┗━━━━━━━━━┛
The panel appeared in his mind. He needed to see in person whether or not these effects were truly now his to claim.
And sure enough, the percentage beside his strength stat confirmed it to be true. He had ascended.
Finally, he opened his eyes and took in a deep breath through his mouth. His eyelids were wide, a smile slowly beginning to form on his face.
But then, his nose twitched...
The smell that entered his nostrils was nearly as bad as the pain he had just gone through, Gool would have argued.
His expression mirrored that of someone who just walked in on their parents during naughty time. Disgusted, horrified, appalled, and depressed all at once.
"H-help!" Gool’s voice suddenly rang out from the side.
Midas’s eyes darted, noticing a goblin swimming through the pond beside him while trying to escape large sabertooth salmon.
Midas stood, immediately cannon-balling into the water from his boulder.
’I’ll save Gool and also wash this stench off me. It’s too much to bear for even a fraction of a second longer.’ He thought.
As he did this, Gool noticed him jumping in.
’N-no!’ Gool grimaced, ’Don’t! You will kill me! I can’t bear that smell--’ He said to himself, but his thought was interrupted as Midas’s rear weighing down on him like a boulder out of nowhere.
The black sludge instantly washed off on its own, revealing Midas’s new, strengthened body underneath.
He swam forward, grabbing a salmon and ripping its jaws apart with ease.
[You have slain a Sabertooth Salmon!]