[System Alert]
New compound detected.
Comncing assimilation.
Converted into Essence Compound.
Status: Fusion State.
The notification didn't vanish right away.
Xavier blinked once, then again, expecting it to collapse like every other ti. But it didn't. A thin progress ring appeared beneath the alert, rotating slowly, as if the system itself was still figuring out what it had just swallowed.
"What?" Xavier muttered, voice still rough. "
The surgeon glanced up from her console. "Talking to yourself already? That's either confidence or brain damage."
The alert shifted.
[Assimilation ongoing]
Essence stabilization in progress.
Host paraters updating.
A sharp pressure blood behind his eyes, not pain, more like information trying to force its way through a space that wasn't ready. Xavier sucked in a breath through the working side of his nose and clenched his fingers against the chair.
"Hey!" the surgeon snapped, finally catching on. "Don't you dare black out again. Tell what you're feeling!"
"Pressure," he said. "Like my body's arguing with itself."
"That's not dical," she shot back. "Be specific."
"Like it's deciding what I'm allowed to keep."
Her hands paused over the controls. "That's… not supposed to happen."
The ring completed its rotation.
[Essence integration complete]
New passive state detected.
Biological recovery rate increased.
Neural resilience adjusted.
Compatibility: irreversible.
Xavier let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The pressure eased, leaving behind a strange clarity, like the static in his head had been turned down a notch. He flexed his jaw again. This ti it moved cleanly. He drew air through the previously blocked side of his nose. It worked.
The surgeon stared at him, then at her readings, then back at him. "Your vitals just normalized faster than they should have," she said slowly. "That shouldn't be possible."
She just shook her head and muttered, "You're not a patient anymore. You're a problem."
Xavier leaned back, testing his face one more ti, then smiled properly for the first ti since Jupiter. "Story of my life."
Whatever that extra step had been, whatever the system had fused into him beyond the repair, one thing was clear. This wasn't just a fix. It was an upgrade he hadn't asked for, and the consequences were going to show up whether he liked it or not.
Another notification slid into Xavier's vision, steady this ti, not flickering like the last one.
[System Update]
Axiom Vitae Residuum — Fusion Complete
Status: Fused.
He focused on it and the details expanded, line after line,. Xavier read slowly, jaw working as sensation continued to creep back into his face in small, irritating waves.
The Axiom wasn't just "active." It had rewritten baseline assumptions about his body.
New Trait Acquired: Absolute Regeneration
The explanation followed, long and uncomfortably thorough. His body would now rebuild itself from catastrophic damage without external aid. Limbs severed, organs ruptured, tissue erased down to bone or nothing at all would regenerate automatically as long as his brain and heart remained intact.
The Axiom circulated through his blood, embedded into cellular function, acting as a persistent correction layer rather than a one-ti repair.
Then ca the part that mattered.
Every regenerated structure would enter a paralysis phase after reconstruction. Neural control would lag behind physical restoration, leaving the rebuilt limb or organ temporarily unresponsive. The duration wasn't fixed. Fingers might take minutes. An arm could take hours. Major trauma could lock an entire side of his body for most of a day.
And if the sa regenerated area was destroyed again before full neural synchronization completed, the system would not intervene a second ti. The damage would beco permanent.
"So I'm functionally immortal," he muttered, "with a cooldown tir."
The surgeon, who obviously couldn't see the notification, shot him a look. "You're talking to yourself again."
Xavier leaned back in the chair and let the noise in his head settle. The scans were still running behind him, the surgeon still pretending she wasn't watching him out of the corner of her eye, but his focus had already turned inward.
His body was an empty shell that starved for data. It didn't just heal or adapt, it learned. Anything fed into it as data eventually stopped being foreign. The Axiom hadn't overwritten him. It had been copied, digested, and rewritten into sothing that was now his by default, like his body had decided, yeah, this belongs here now.
That realization made him smile and worry at the sa ti.
He had hit the jackpot, no doubt about it. A compound people treated like a myth had fused into his blood permanently, and instead of rejecting it or frying his nervous system, his body had simply absorbed it like it was always ant to.
The problem with jackpots, though, was that they tended to drain luck dry. Xavier had survived missiles, prisons, Bull, Jupiter, and now this. It felt like the universe was keeping score, and he didn't like the idea of the bill arriving all at once.
His thoughts drifted further, less cautious and more dangerous.
If the Axiom could do this, then other compounds could too. Skills. Physical enhancents. Neural accelerants. Combat instincts. Anything that could be reduced to structure, pattern, or data might be sothing his body could take in and make permanent. The idea sat in his chest like a loaded weapon. He already had a system that rewarded justice, but justice points weren't exactly raining down on him. He had one left, and earning more ant getting his hands dirty in ways that always ca with consequences.
And even this hadn't been easy. The Axiom wasn't listed or advertised. It wasn't ant to be found. He'd stumbled into it through a rchant who shouldn't have existed, selling sothing that shouldn't have been for sale, and had done it at exactly the right mont. That wasn't planned. That was luck.
Luck he couldn't rely on again.
Still, the thought refused to die. If this was possible once, it was possible again. Sowhere out there were more compounds like this, buried behind paywalls, favors, blood, or entire wars. If he wanted to break the ceiling instead of just punching it, he'd have to keep looking, keep prying, keep gambling, and he might just get lucky once again.
'And there is also the rchant. Whoever they were, they didn't just sell a product. They had changed the trajectory of my life. If I ever get a chance to contact that rchant again, I will show them my gratitude in a way they will never imagine.'
Xavier then opened his quest nu and checked the ongoing quest.
[Destroy AIL]
User Comments
0 comments from readers