Chapter 148 - Calm Days - III
The day passed with a deceptive calm. Glenn, now with color back in his cheeks and his eyes less heavy, felt his muscles more responsive and the pain gradually fading. His bandages had been changed, his once pale skin was regaining life, and according to the latest prognosis from the head healer, he would be discharged in two days something that had seemed impossible when he first opened his eyes.
But not everything was as it had been.
There was a difference, a distinct shift he couldn’t ignore.
Before the dungeon, cultivating spatial energy had been like trying to grasp fog with his hands. Even saturating his prana core was a slow and frustrating process. Worse still was his mana core: barren, empty, showing no progress in the past six months.
Now... now it was different.
He didn’t know if the change had come from prolonged exposure to the corrupted dungeon a place flooded with chaotic spatial energy or if it was directly connected to the black ring on his finger. The artifact, once a plain and rough band, now gleamed with golden, enigmatic inscriptions and was encircled by a finely detailed serpent. A symbol, perhaps... or a silent curse.
The truth was, ever since waking up, he could feel space energy like never before. As if reality had torn open in his perception, allowing him to touch something previously unreachable.
That dawn, with sleep light and body at rest, Glenn chose to cultivate.
Even lying down, breathing slowly, he could feel the pulse of energy resonate through his body like gentle waves in the sea. He closed his eyes... and dove in.
Inside him, his internal world revealed itself as a silent abyss.
Glenn floated in the void. Beneath him, a black infinity deep as the eye of a black hole pulsed with a suffocating density. It was as if the gravity of a thousand worlds had condensed there, dragging everything with inevitable slowness.