Leon opened his eyes to nothingness.
Around him stretched a soft grey void that went as far as he could see. There was no up, no down, and no air moving against his skin. He tried looking down, expecting to see his hands, and found none.
Everything's fine. I'm probably not dead. This is completely fine.
The Heavenly Tribulation's last volley flashed through his mind. He remembered his heart stopping and Stormflow kicking it back into rhythm. He remembered falling, and Lily's voice, and then... darkness.
...Oh, shit. Did I really die again?
Before dread could start setting in, something tugged at his attention, beckoning him to gaze at it. He turned around and his eyes widened in shock. He was facing the wrong direction this entire time.
A colossal version of Leon hung upright before his eyes, floating as if it was suspended in water. He could see through the skin. Thick, shimmering mist permeated his body, sometimes revealing dark splotches that reminded him of sludge. Underneath also ran a network that looked like blood vessels and a heart composed of shining, flowing energy.
Energy Veins and Energy Heart. He recognized both immediately, one from his earliest days in this world and one from his most recent pull. Except now he could actually see them, mapped out across a gigantic version of himself.
The veins ran in golden threads through every limb, branching and rebranching until the smallest ones reached into the tissue under the skin. The heart sat behind the sternum and pulsed with a steady rhythm, each beat pushing a visible wave of light through the entire network.
If I were a cultivator, I guess those spots of black sludge would be the impurities, Energy Veins would be my meridians, and the Energy Heart would be my dantian. But what is that mist?
[Heavenly Tribulation completed and Preliminary Stage of Body Tempering completed.]
[Judgment upheld: the subject endured Legendary rank strikes beyond normal parameters without external aid.]
[Readjusting reward.]
[Final Stage of Body Tempering will now commence.]
Thunderous energy came from everywhere in the void at once. The memory of the tribulation flashed through Leon's mind, and he braced for the pain out of reflex. But there was no pain. Tribulation energy entered the colossal body instead, gently filling the golden veins from the outside in, and where it touched, things began to change. Change he also felt.
A wave of golden light swept across his entire body, seeping into every cell. From his skin, muscles, bones, and organs, nothing was left untouched. Through all of it, the Energy Veins transformed. Channels that had been thin swelled in thickness and widened. New branches split off from old ones, threading into areas the network hadn't previously reached. The Energy Heart pumped harder, pushing far more energy through the system than it did seconds ago.
Leon watched the golden network expand in real time and his own body becoming more of itself.
Eventually, the light died down. But as soon as he thought it was over, transparent spheres spawned out of nowhere. They spread across the body at the collarbones, the heart, the spine, the knees, the fists, the abdomen, the upper back, and the crown of the skull. Each one was dark, a dense knot where the veins now converged but didn't open, sealed tight with light leaking around the edges.
Okay... I haven't seen this before.
The first sphere opened, and warmth flooded outward through his chest. His body settled, and something about it became harder to imagine tiring. His veins drank the released energy greedily, carrying it to every limb and organ.
Gate of Healing.
The name arrived without a source, pressing into his awareness the same way Brand of Tzeentch had delivered its insights during the tribulation.
The second gate opened at the spine, and power cascaded down through the skeletal system. Every bone that had just been strengthened in the previous stage resonated with it.
Gate of Limit.
The third gate was located at the knees. Power flooded his legs to the point that the veins there burned white.
Gate of Wonder.
The fourth was at the fists. Power filled his body, concentrating into his hands and forearms until the veins there burned white as well.
Gate of Pain.
The fifth gate opened somewhere deep in the abdomen, and every sense of his sharpened at once.
Gate of Opening.
The sixth opened across the upper back, and something fundamental shifted in how his body held itself together.
Gate of View.
The seventh gate sat in the heart, and it did not cooperate.
Energy pressed against it from every direction. The newly widened veins fed pressure and the heart beat faster, harder, pumping energy into a door that stayed shut. Leon could feel the whole system straining. The body that had just been rebuilt started to shudder under the force of its own improvement.
But within moments, the seventh gate blew open, and raw power poured out of it.
The Energy Heart's rhythm doubled, then quadrupled. Every vein in the body blazed gold, and the light was so intense that it bled through the skin and turned the colossal figure into a silhouette of itself. The mist that remained unaffected by the previous stages of tempering thickened and grew in quantity, turning into a dense, shimmering fog that filled the body to the brim.
Gate of Life.
Seven gates burned with dense energy and only one remained. The eighth sphere sat at the crown of the skull, far darker than the others had been, and the tribulation energy was already converging on it with great ferocity.
The Gate of Death opened like a dam breaking. Everything multiplied.
HIs entire body brimmed with power unlike anything he'd ever experienced. The energy flooding his system, already an order of magnitude beyond what it had carried before, compressed and increased again. And again. And again. The golden network, widened and branched and improved through both stages of the tempering, lit up end to end, and the heart shone with the brilliance of a star.
[Body Tempering completed.]
[All impurities cleansed.]
[Eight Inner Hidden Gates granted and opened.]
[Base permanent effects: Tremendous improvement to physical capabilities, life force, perception, memory, and recovery.]
[Two randomly selected traits and all energy capacity-related traits have received a rank up.]
[One randomly selected trait received a double rank up.]
[Ancestry enhanced and partially unlocked.]
Before he could think about what all those meant, the void dissolved.
OOO
As Leon gained consciousness in the physical world, he immediately began understanding just how incredible his perception had become. He didn't open his eyes just yet, wanting to immerse himself with the scope of his improved perception.
Even his seismic sense benefitted. Despite the soft bed he was on and the hospital gown he wore, they barely made a difference to his new level of sensitivity. He could still "see" through seismic sense with near-perfect clarity.
The most stark difference of all was his energy, something he could now perceive and trace with startling ease. His veins were raging rivers and his heart had become a miniature star. The second energy type contained inside him couldn't escape his senses either. After eliminating all other likelihoods, he deduced its source to be his newly unlocked Ancestry.
Speaking of...
Leon couldn't suppress his curiosity any longer. He opened his eyes and regretted it immediately, because everything was too much. Thankfully, it only took a few seconds to adjust.
Aside from opening his eyes, he didn't move any other part of his body. He couldn't. Not without waking up the bundle of feathers pressed against his breast.
Nyx lied on his chest with her beak buried against his collarbone, asleep. He could barely feel her weight. Next to the bed, Lily sat on a chair, arms crossed. The exceed was also unconscious.
They were out cold. Lily was a light sleeper, and he normally would have already noticed him gaining consciousness from the change in his breathing.
How long was he out for?
He wanted to know. But getting the answer could come later. He had a Mythical Trait to check out.
[Son of ### and ###]
|Mythical Trait|
Race Change (###) - Your father is ###. Your mother is ###. As a ### hybrid, you possess ### and the ### expected from a ###. ### and ###. Being the grandson of Zeus, you are capable of Divine Magic, wielding divine energy to control large aspects of reality and nature, though this requires years of rigorous practice. Weather, wind, and lightning-related abilities and spells are greatly enhanced and easier to master.
Leon blinked, utterly speechless. A race change? That meant he wasn't human anymore, or at the very least, not purely human. And on top of being the son of Gaia, he was now the grandson of Zeus as well.
Being Gaia's child technically made him the uncle of Zeus because Zeus was the son of Kronos, who was also the son of Gaia. But being Zeus' grandson meant Leon was simultaneously his own great-granduncle and great-grandnephew.
...That was a confusing headache he didn't plan on revisiting anytime soon.
More importantly, there was the Divine Magic mentioned in the description. It sounded powerful. Incredibly powerful. Anything that allowed him to control large aspects of reality and nature was practically in the domain of... well... gods. Add that to the boost to weather, wind, and lightning-related stuff, and Leon could understand why the trait was ranked Mythical.
These effects were too broken. And to think the trait was only partially unlocked. Leon couldn't even begin to guess what the first half of the description contained.
Who were his parents? That was what he really wanted to know. Since it said "hybrid," that meant one of them was clearly a god or demigod related to Zeus. But that was the only hint he got.
For the next minute, his mind raced as he contemplated how he could learn to wield Divine Magic. He'd be learning without a teacher, but with the Brand of Tzeentch, it shouldn't take too long. Though by "years", it could mean decades or centuries. If that was the case, using Divine Magic to banish Viltrumites to the shadow realm would remain a pipe dream for a while.
But Leon recalled Ancestry and his body weren't the only things that benefited from the tempering. He willed the gacha to show him the other traits that changed.
[Astral Heart | (Previously Energy Heart)]
|Legendary Trait|
Your heart is a radiant core of condensed energy that burns with the intensity of a star. Your maximum energy reserves dwarf what was once considered your limit, and your natural regeneration compounds with your energy recovery. It cannot be stopped by conventional means, and will restart itself if forcibly interrupted.
-x-
[Radiant Veins | (Previously Energy Veins)]
|Epic Trait|
A vast network of veins runs through every inch of your body, branching from your skin, organs, bones, and marrow. Energy circulates freely through this network with zero loss, dramatically increasing your reserves, accelerating your regeneration, and sharpening the speed at which abilities and spells activate.
-x-
[Adamantine Fist | (Previously Iron Fist)]
|Elite Trait|
Your fists are like adamantine, unbreakable and incredibly powerful. Your fists are incredibly durable, and the power behind all unarmed strikes is greatly enhanced. All fist-based abilities are easier to use and are more powerful.
-x-
[Overhaul | (Previously Tune Up)]
|Elite Trait|
Your body has been overhauled from the inside out. All health complications, past and present, are erased. Your body is optimized to the peak of its genetic potential. Physical growth from training is accelerated. Toxins, diseases, and parasites are neutralized on contact with your system. Your organs run at perfect efficiency, you absorb the full nutritional value of everything you consume, and your natural recovery is significantly enhanced. If something in your body is wrong, it fixes itself. If something is inefficient, it improves. Your body doesn't settle for good enough.
-x-
[Heir of the Void | (Previously Void Child)]
|Elite Trait|
You are an heir of the void, possessing an acute awareness of the space around you. You can sense spatial distortions, dimensional breaches, and portals opening within several kilometers of your position. Your body instinctively resists unwanted spatial manipulation, making you significantly harder to forcibly teleport, banish, or trap in pocket dimensions. All space-based abilities are considerably more potent, you master them faster, and they cost less energy to use.
Leon's jaw hung wide open. He'd been rendered speechless for the second time.
What the fuck?