'Ah, whatever. (Accept)'
[Body reconstruction in 3 seconds]
[3]
[2]
[1]
Looking at the countdown, his anticipation of what was to come grew stronger with each count.
After the countdown finished, the message announcing the start of the body reconstruction surfaced.
[Initiating Body Reconstruction…]
When the body reconstruction started, he first felt funny, it was a little ticklish, making him almost chuckle.
However, it did not take long before he started feeling itchy. Then followed a very intense pain.
The skin on his body started undulating; a black jelly fluid slowly appeared on different parts of his body as it left from within.
It seemed as though the black jelly substance emanated from inside, judging from some protrusions caused by the undulations.
He felt as if his body was repeatedly squeezing and twisting from the inside, as if his body was undergoing a melding process reminiscent of the working process of moist soft clay.
The black jelly substance on his body slowly kept increasing.
The scene of it leaving his body was like seeing pus squeezed out. Except for the fact that the substance was jelly and pitch black.
He felt the pain on his body was too much. However, he still did his best to endure. Wanting to witness the whole body-reconstruction.
As if the pain throughout his skin was not enough, a piercing and tearing headache assaulted him. He felt like his brain was torn, and the torn parts turned around inside his head and welded back together
The pain was excruciating.
He started clutching his head, squeezing it even, as if trying to massage his brain through his skull.
In his pain, he squirmed uncontrollably, frantically kicking things around as he writhed in pain on the ground.
It did not help him however and he started screaming in agony.
*aaaahhh~*
It was a high-pitched scream telling of how much pain he was going through.
Even a highly apathetic person hearing him would probably empathize with him when hearing the shriek of pain that he let out.
A bystander might as well feel some of his pain just from hearing him cry in pain.
The pain in his head was so intense that for a moment he felt like the pain around his body was gone.
This did not last for long however, all over his body his bones started breaking down.
His hands that were pressing on his skull went limp.
Just in time, since the bones of his hands melted down around the same time as his skull, it prevented him from squeezing and crushing his brain.
His entire body went limp with the melting of the rest of his bones, leaving only his muscles to twitch, as he could not writhe anymore.
Lying there in a flake of the black substance and twitching the way he did, he looked miserable.
The reconstruction of his respiratory system started, he started vomiting blood mixed with the slimy/jelly black substance.
There was a sound that sounded like a mixture of gagging and gurgling.
Even his vocal cords started reforming and he even lost his voice. The earlier scream sounding now more like a squealing pant or a wheeze of pain at this point.
He looked even more miserable with tears falling from his eyes while not able to scream his pain out despite everything he did.
During all this, due to the pain assaulting him, he did not have a thought to spare for anything.
Not even being able to question whether he had done the right choice by hastening things or even regret his decision of accepting the body reconstruction at all.
This level of pain was far above what he had ever felt. He had never even thought he would go through this kind of pain in his entire life.
Therefore, he quickly got to the limit of what he could endure. His body stopped moving, the body reconstruction gradually slowed down. His breathing stopped.
Altair had passed out.
Even in his passed-out state, the System did not stop the body reconstruction.
After working on his tissues and the few non-vital organs, it was time for the lungs.
When the reconstruction of the lungs started, his breathing stopped.
For a few seconds he was not breathing at all.
After the lungs was the heart.
By this time, his breathing resumed but it was much lower and almost unnoticeable.
The reconstruction of the heart started from the base, and continued upwards. All the muscles of the heart underwent destruction and reworking.
All the tubes remained unaffected at first.
After the muscles, it was the turn of the tubes. All arteries and veins also underwent reconstruction.
While these arteries and veins were reconstructing, the pumping of blood slowed down, to the point that it went from the normal 11 kilometers per hour, which peaked around 30 kilometers per hour during body reconstruction, to now slowing down to 5 kilometers per hour of circulation speed.
Without the heart muscles contracting to pump blood, the speed was merely due to inertia of the already moving blood.
Eventually, even the heart reconstruction was complete and the speed of blood circulation went back up.
The body reconstruction continued for a couple of minutes more before it stopped.
. . .
A few hours later, Altair woke up.
He felt completely refreshed physically. Although he still thought he felt some pain.
He was scared of moving. Afraid to discover that he had not survived the reconstruction.
'That was a stupid thing to do.' Altair thought, reflecting on his hastiness in accepting the body reconstruction.
He still had some lingering fear.
What if he tried standing up and discovered that his body was still laying on the ground while his spirit stood up?
He also thought of how painful it was to go through body reconstruction.
'Was the pain part of the reason for the warning?'
He stayed laying on the ground for a moment, completely dazed and lost in thoughts.
After some time just lying there, he came back to his senses.
"*Ugh*. How long has it been?" He uttered with a tired tone after an uncomfortable grunt.
However, immediately after inhaling back in from talking, he let out a disgusted grunt before asking himself.
"*Ugh!*. What is that smell?" He finally noticed the smell around him.
'A bath. I need a bath.' He told himself.
He ran to the bathroom, slipping and almost falling while going.
Once in the bathroom, he opened the shower to the highest pressure.
He then switched the tap to warm water and rapidly removed his clothes, tearing his shirt's buttons in his haste, and throwing the clothes to the side, on the floor.
After a few seconds under the water as well as abusing his scented liquid soap, the smell became bearable with the spread of the soap's smell in the bathroom.
As he left the shower, he started checking his body for any changes while walking towards the mirror in the bathroom.
*ppffp*
He spluttered the water from his lips and passed his hand over his face to sweep some of the falling water.
"I don't see much change." Altair muttered.
'My muscles seem more outlined. I think I've become thinner as well… but, there's nothing else…'
He was still a brown-skin-tone male human, with short (~8 cm) deep-black hair.
'Good, I'm still black. It would be really problematic to explain how I suddenly changed my skin color if that was no longer the case.'
His face was still average looking.
Having a small face with small squinty/eastern eyes, small boneless nose, and almost sharp cheeks on a slightly curved but mostly square face.
The face sharpened at the sides of his small flat chin, which was still beardless but was now as smooth as his forehead.
Overall, he toned up slightly and his body attained better balance but he had become much thinner.
He appeared to be just muscles on bones with a very thin layer of skin that now outlined his muscles very clearly.
< >
The biggest change he soon realized was in his vision, which had now improved greatly.
He now had excellent eyesight and this realization brought a complicated expression on his face.
'So, this is how people with good eyesight see the world.' He thought not knowing really how to feel.
More so, when he thought of the difficult times he went through due to his severe myopia.
It was so bad that he qualified as legally blind even though he could see.
He could still remember a doctor telling him that it was too late to try fixing his eyesight when he went for his latest consultation.
Apparently, he missed the best bracket for treatment that was before the age of five.
Now, his brain had mostly adapted to the low level of vision and a drastic change to his vision would negatively affect his brain.
Having resigned himself to this fact for a long time, he had stopped consulting ophthalmologists altogether.
He took some time to test his new vision. He was shocked as this was like a bug to him.
Tears unconsciously fell from his eyes. 'If only my eyesight had always been this good…' He inwardly thought as he closed his eyes seeing so many other ways his life would have gone.
He could not be bothered with the system at this moment because emotions overwhelmed him.
.
After some time, he eventually calmed down.
After all, even though he was very emotional about his eyesight improving, he still had to check what other changes the body reconstruction had brought him.
Seeing that there were no other physical changes after some more observation, his attention was back to the system and he proceeded to check his status.
'(Status)'
STATUS
[NAME: AKROATÍS SOFÓS ALTAIR ROHAN]
[LEVEL : 1 ]
[RACE : HUMAN ]
[TITLE(S) : PLAYER▾▻ ]
[CLASS : NONE ]
[HEALTH : 100 ]
[MANA : 160 ]
[STRENGTH : 10 ]
[AGILITY : 10 ]
[VITALITY : 10 ]
[INTELLIGENCE : 16 ]
[SENSE : 10 ]
[POINTS : 0 ]
. . .
. .
.
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