One Last System

'System's Limiter Failure.'

For a geek like me, this certainly sounded like some kind of great feature unlocking due to the extreme circumstances. But as a certain villain from a certain blockbuster said, the reality is often disappointing.

First, I learned the true meaning of the word pain.

If I felt as if my insides were burning before, then now every last cell of my body acted as if it was dipped in the acid.

The pain was so great that my brain simply failed to keep processing it. It simply stopped at the last registered level of pain, keeping me in the limbo of this extreme torture.

I finally opened my eyes. On its own, it should be a blessing. Outside of the disgusting mountain of fat mounting my hips... and three-quarters of my entire chained body, the images of what was going on inside the room were pretty nice.

There were some fellow male cultivators from my sect, enjoying the embrace of the beauties not from this world. There were even some female disciples from my sect currently giving themselves to an entire harem of hunks that were so handsome I was this close to questioning my own sexual orientation.

But it was all a single frame, a still image. The second my threshold of pain tolerance was breached, not cracked open, not teased apart, but breached as if with a battering ram, my entire mind took a hard reset.

If I could invoke any sense of humor, I could only compare it to the anecdote of one's body making a screenshot if one were to fart and sneeze at the same time.

Then, this still image of an insane orgy faded away as something within me continued to do its work.

Even though my normal senses were as good as dead, I was still aware of the movement of the energies within my flesh.

Yes, aware. I couldn't feel it; I couldn't sense it either. Yet... I could still somehow perceive it.

And then I saw it. A structure so complex that I couldn't even peer through the limits of just how complex it was. Unable to understand even its tiniest part, I couldn't hope to even imagine what was it for, where did it come from...

Any and all of those essential questions became meaningless in the face of the complexity of this structure.

I couldn't understand it. But I could perceive what it was doing.

At first, I felt all the seventy-five bonus points of my mana density, presently still slightly outside of my own strength, assimilating directly into my own mana.

While usable, this foreign power remained outside of my truest sense of self. Now, though, it joined the flow, fanning the flames of my mana.

The second it happened, something changed.

It felt as if some kind of setting, an inherent attribute of my mana, had changed. As if a world-ordained requirement was fulfilled, allowing my energy to enter its next stage of natural evolution and development.

In a moment of clarity, I recalled what I heard about the stage that awaited me after the breakthrough. Core establishment level was supposed to be all about condensing one's mana to the point it turned into a semi-physical entity within one's body. In this way, one could reach a new level of cultivation, from that point on focused on further developing that core.

My mana didn't construct a core. This kind of process was far too complicated for the violent energies surging through my system right now.

Under the weight of its own flow, density, and volume, my mana collapsed on itself. Yet, once the process of collapsing was over, I could see clear as a day that a strange entity remained right at the bottom of my stomach.

'Is it... the core?' I thought before my mind was once again swept by the flurry of pain and violent currents of mana.

This time, it was this complex structure inside me that was at fault. Once the mana collapsed, the entity it left behind suddenly started to attract more and more of the energy. And as it was the closest and currently shattered source, this structure could only follow the laws of the world.

In a flash, my entire body filled with mana to the brim, only for all of it to get sucked inside this entity in my stomach. Then it happened again and ended just like before.

Before long, this process of filling my flesh up only for my strange core to suck it all up turned as natural as my breathing itself. At this moment, I couldn't help but realize that this structure...

Had a seemingly endless amount of energy inside it!

Beat after beat, a strange balance was achieved, allowing me to gather my thoughts once again.

'Just what the fuck is going on?!' I screamed out, unable to open my mouth at all. This voice was limited just to the insides of my guts.

For the second time, I opened my eyes. This time though, it happened for real, instead of my vision somehow penetrating my eyelids.

Just like I saw before, the room was full of people having a happy orgy all over the place. Girls were giving themselves to foreign males. Male disciples of the sect were riding jade beauties I had never seen before.

And right in front of me, the disgusting mountain of fat continued to enjoy herself, riding me down as if there was no tomorrow.

I couldn't spark even a shadow of emotion anymore. They were all deeply etched into my current state. Just like one couldn't turn water any more moist, I couldn't get any more hateful, furious, or humiliated.

All those emotions reached their absolute peak.

But what was the strangest part of all of it was that there wasn't a single sign-on my body of the disaster happening inside my flesh.

My body was tensed up, raising up despite not having a single point of support below. Even with all the weight of this monster on me, I still appeared to levitate, held only by the chains at my joints.

My core continued to pulse, clearly not yet stable. But what was worrying was how the energy released by that strange structure... suddenly ended.

The source dried up. The fun was over.

Now, only my own mana was left in my body.

This time, however, the core didn't suck it all up. Yet, it still had some effect on my mana.

For a mere moment, I could swear I could see the truest form of this energy. It was something so mind-boggling that just a single look was enough to send me on the verge of going insane.

It was as if the energy was both made from small particles, was a surface in a constant flux of shape and a wave at the same time.

Out of what I saw, I managed to take out only a single notion.

The energy that was calm before, under the influence of the waves spreading from my core, turned agitated.

And this time, it wasn't the energy inside my system that was attracted to this event.

This time, the energy from all around me, the spare energy that no one in the sect could tap into, started to converge into me as if reversing its natural flow.

It was a weird feeling. As if the time stopped... but somehow started to go on reverse.

For a few moments, I was stuck in time while this outer mana continued to fill my body, breaking the constraints of the spacetime continuum.

And once every last cell of my body was fully reinvigorated with this strange energy, my own mana finally managed to settle down.

For the first time since everything started, my body relaxed.

And I regained control over my own flesh.