A patch on his shoulder tore open and stayed open for several seconds before healing. During those seconds, the spiritual energy kept pressing inward, widening the wound, and he could feel the exposed, raw layer beneath his skin burning as if it had been salted and set on fire.
Another patch along his ribs did the same. Then his forearms. Then his neck. Then along the sides of his torso, where the tearing sensation was so intense that his teeth cracked together hard enough to hurt.
Mo Chen tried to breathe through it.
He failed.
His breath came in choked, uneven gasps. His fingers dug into the ground hard enough to leave grooves in the dirt. His body trembled uncontrollably, not from weakness but from the sheer force of the pain moving through him.
Yet even then, he did not stop.
He was not brave.
He was not noble.
He was simply too stubborn to let this thing beat him after he had already decided to do it.
The energy kept moving.
Slowly, it began to spread beneath the surface of his skin instead of only attacking it. It seeped into the regenerated flesh, settling there like a foreign but accepted guest. Whenever this happened, the pain shifted from sharp tearing to a deep, throbbing burn, as though his flesh were being remade into something denser and harder.
At some point, Mo Chen realized that the pain had changed.
It was still unbearable, but it was no longer random. There was structure to it now.
It was as if the energy had stopped trying to simply break him and had started learning the shape of his body.
That thought almost made him laugh.
Almost.
Instead, he let out a low, strangled grunt and kept forcing the energy inward.
The cave around him seemed to fade. The outside world vanished. There was only him, the energy, and the endless feeling that his own flesh was being peeled away and stitched back together by a mad god with no concern for mercy.
A few hours passed like that.
Or maybe it was only one.
Time had long since stopped making sense.
Eventually, Mo Chen felt it.
His skin could no longer keep up.
The pain was still there. It had not lessened. But his mind had reached a point of exhaustion where it could no longer endure the process without beginning to fray at the edges.
His thoughts became sluggish.
His tongue felt thick in his mouth.
His muscles burned with the effort of remaining upright.
And then, very slowly, he stopped.
The spiritual energy withdrew on its own, drifting away from his body in scattered motes after realizing it could not be pushed further.
Mo Chen exhaled a shaky breath and let his body collapse backward.
And so he lay down and closed his eyes.
---
With a loud grunt, Mo Chen finally woke up.
He did not know how long he had slept, but when he opened his eyes, it was absolutely dark.
Looking around, he felt his vision foggy from exhaustion, but he did not go back to sleep. After all, his screams of pain must have lured something from the forest, so he needed to stay at least somewhat aware now that he was awake.
But the most important thing was checking his condition.
He quickly lit a small fire under the protection of the cave and started examining his body.
The first thing he noticed was a couple of patches of missing skin that were slowly healing at a visible pace.
"This will take almost a day to heal from…" he grimaced.
One must remember that the days in this world were much longer than normal.
The second thing he noted was that some of his skin was now extremely pale, like porcelain. When he touched it, it was silky smooth, smooth enough to make any woman jealous. But the most important thing was that it seemed sturdier than any sort of fabric he had touched, including metallic fibers.
He pressed his thumb against it, then pushed harder.
It did not yield easily.
Mo Chen's eyes narrowed.
"Interesting. It actually worked."
Anyone else would have felt excitement at this discovery, but he felt only a burning curiosity.
He touched another patch, then another, inspecting the strange changes with growing focus. The new skin had not fully spread across his body yet, but wherever it had taken hold, it felt denser, more resilient, and unnervingly smooth.
The last thing he noted was… he did not feel hungry at all.
"Perhaps the spiritual energy became a sort of nourishment instead of my own nutrients?"
He glanced at the remains of his food supply.
Usually, after a session of intense physical strain, he would have devoured whatever he had left. Yet now his stomach was strangely quiet. His body felt hollow in a different way, as though the energy had partially replaced the need for normal sustenance.
"All in all, this was a pretty valuable experience," he muttered, still studying his arm. "Though I will need a couple of weeks to transform my entire skin into this new one."
With a big grin on his face, Mo Chen quickly stood up to test whether his strength had increased, only for the air to tickle his dangling manhood.
"Why must everything I do cause me to be naked?"