With the sudden departure of Valessia, the Eastern Mansion's Palace Barracks returned to its quietness, as though nothing had happened.
Marcus was unaware of the little commotion that had happened in the barracks, and even if he was aware, he wouldn't dare show himself to the public. He was in Logan's library, a place covered with the power Runes.
He had been so focused on the book he was reading that when Logan came to tell him that he was stepping out for a bit, he didn't hear a word he said.
Unlike the books about Runes, these books about the human anatomy, despite being from the perspective of an Awakened, it wasn't enough to push his mental stats up as fast as the books of Runes did.
Though he was absorbing a lot of knowledge and had even reached the point of being able to see a few Minor Acupoints in his body, the knowledge barely pushed his mental stats up by a few points.
Even his [Deep Thought] attribute remained inactive. As though such knowledge wasn't worthy enough for it to activate.
Reaching the final page, Marcus closed the book and fell into thought.
According to the author, Awakeners sacrificed some of their Major Acupoints during the awakening process. This perhaps, explained why they couldn't form complete Cores—though the writer admitted it wasn't certain.
"Cores…" Marcus muttered.
They weren't just containers for Wilder Force. If that were the case, people would have built artificial ones long ago. No—Cores were more than vessels.
In a sense, they were alive, intricate as Runes, forged from the union between the world and the individual.
"If so, then everyone should have been born with a complete core…" he muttered.
Picking up a few other books written by other authors who were awakened, he gathered a few other possible reasons from their perspective. However, in the end, he didn't take any other words as the clear and clean truth, but rather, a guide to the truth.
Marcus was aware that he would have to start research on his own if he wanted to get satisfactory results.
But that would mean I would have to get a test subject… or use myself as one.
I lack the funds to source one. And as for testing the theories on myself, that might not be the wisest thing to do.
He thought about it a few more times. I am capable of healing myself using [Blood Bane], but that will require me to kill for it to work… or would it?
Thinking about it, he had never tried absorbing blood outside of battle. Well, not that he had had the chance to do much as an Awakened. After all, it hasn't even been a full week since he became one.
After a while, he looked at the ink on Logan's table. The blood of several beasts.
Approaching the vile, Marcus used a finger to touch the surface of the liquid, and then with a thought, he activated [Blood Bane].
A second went by and nothing happened. And then suddenly, thin threads of black miasma flowed from the ink and into his body.
A lance of agony shot through his spine.
Marcus froze.
Inside him, the miasma churned, shifting shapes. First a mutated tiger, then an armored elephant, then a massive dragon-fish with burning eyes. The blood wasn't from one creature, but many. And their residual will-beasts—beasts hundreds of levels above him—clashed violently within him.
Not just against each other, but against him.
His limbs trembled, as his vision blurred.
As they continued to wreak havoc in his body, Marcus felt his consciousness fading until it reached a certain point.
A certain pair of red pupils appeared in the void where the beasts were fighting, and under the sight of these pupils, everything went silent. The wills within the beasts' blood all shook in utter fear.
They became docile and bowed towards the eyes.
A Spiritual energy burst forth from the eyes enveloping the phantoms of these beasts. Their forms exploded into energy, then back to blood, before turning into the miasma they came in as. The energy forced the miasma out of Marcus's body through the same finger, and then everything went back to normal.
Falling to his knees, Marcus took in slow and steady breaths.
What he had just done was reckless, dangerous beyond reasoning. But fear never took root. Instead, a strange sense of satisfaction bloomed within him.
His veins pulsed violently, especially around his temples, and his skin flushed an unnatural shade. Yet as the residual energy from the expelled blood lingered, [Blood Bane] stirred again—consuming the remnants, knitting torn flesh, and easing the internal strain.
Soon the pain dulled and his body stabilized.
But something else had changed.
Amid the chaos within him—while wills clashed and blood boiled—he saw things he hadn't noticed the first time he peered into his own body.
The foreign energies, wild and radioactive like burning sunlight, lit up corners in himself that had once remained in shadow. And in that blinding illumination, Marcus discovered more than fifty-five Major Acupoints... and over a hundred and eighty Minor Acupoints. None that matched those recorded in the Cultivation Art Nexus had given him.
These acupoints were different—larger, more potent, and deeply hidden in him, as if they belonged to an entirely different realm of being.
But that wasn't all.
When those red pupils opened within the void, it felt like they were his eyes—like his soul had peeled open.
He didn't just see acupoints, he saw beneath them.
There, tucked in the depths, were streams of wilder Force—trapped, buried, and pulsing like rivers behind sealed gates.
And further still, floating in the infinite darkness, he saw a glimpse of a miniature phantom of himself. It hovered, bound by nearly invisible threads to each sealed stream. They were not connected by muscle, bone, or even acupoints, but something far deeper.
Something beyond his senses.
Marcus slowly stood up. As he moved, a faint crooked smile curved up his lips.