Ethan Cross's jaw worked with mechanical precision as he devoured priceless medicinal herbs by the handful, his teeth reducing nature's rarest treasures to pulp in seconds. The centuries-old mountain ginseng roots - each worth a common man's yearly salary - crunched between his molars like stale crackers. Glossy ganoderma mushrooms, carefully cultivated for decades in remote mountain temples, dissolved into bioactive paste the moment they touched his tongue. Saffron threads, more valuable than gold by weight, vanished down his throat in crimson strands brighter than fresh arterial blood.
His entire digestive system had become an alchemical refinery under Gluttony's influence. The cordyceps fungi, normally requiring months of careful preparation to unlock their medicinal properties, were pulverized into instantly-absorbed dust by his enhanced molars. His esophagus, lined with supernatural absorption nodes, extracted nearly 90% of the nutrients before the remnants even reached his stomach. What little remained was annihilated by stomach acids strong enough to dissolve steel.
[System Alert!]
[Ingestion Report]
Total Mass Consumed: 12.7kg premium TCM ingredients
Medicinal Value: Equivalent to 3,842% daily human requirement
Metabolic Stress: Critical (Would kill 100 baseline humans)
By all rights, Ethan's abdominal cavity should have distended like a python that swallowed a goat. Yet his torso remained sculpted and flat, every ounce of bioactive compounds forcibly absorbed by his screaming cells. Only the lobster-red hue of his skin and the twin trails of steaming nosebleed down his chin betrayed the metabolic holocaust occurring within.
"A normal man would stroke out after three ginseng roots," he mused, licking the iron-rich blood from his lips with a black-stained tongue. "I just ate an entire traditional medicine encyclopedia." The aftertaste of a hundred conflicting herbs created a symphony of flavors - bitter, sweet, metallic, and something unnervingly electric.
[Physical Enhancement Complete!]
[Attribute Increases]
Strength +1 (Now 4.1 - Benchpress 420kg)
Agility +1 (Now 4.1 - 40m sprint in 3.2s)
Constitution +1 (Now 4.1 - Skin density equivalent to Kevlar)
A seismic shiver ran through his reinforced sinews as the system updated his parameters. He could feel his myofibrils rearranging at the molecular level, his bones soaking up minerals like sponges, his nerve conduction velocities approaching those of a jungle cat.
Ethan Cross - Status Overview
Strength: 4.1 (Can deadlift small vehicles)
Speed: 4.1 (Blurs to unaided vision at full sprint)
Constitution: 4.1 (Can withstand low-caliber gunfire)
Spirit: 5.1 (Basic resistance to mental intrusion)
Abilities:
Strawskin Manifestation (D)
Bloodprice Curse (D)
Gluttony (D)
Combat Rating: D+ (City Block Threat)
To test his new limits, Ethan snapped a straight punch at empty air. The motion began with perfect Guo-style boxing form - weight rooted through his dan tian, power spiraling up from his heels through his whipcord spine.
The results were anything but traditional.
First came the supersonic crack as his fist broke the sound barrier. Then the real devastation - his knuckles never touched the concrete wall three meters away, yet the sheer concussive force of displaced air cratered the surface with a deafening BOOM. Dust exploded outward as a perfect knuckle imprint sank two inches deep into reinforced concrete, the edges still smoking from friction heat.
"Guo-style 'Thunder Fist' masters train fifty years to achieve half this impact," Ethan observed, flexing his steaming hand. Tiny arcs of static danced between his fingers from the released kinetic energy. "Now Lady Eight Feet won't require suicidal tactics." His lips peeled back in a predator's grin. "I'll peel that aristocratic bitch apart barehanded."
Yet Gluttony's aftermath lingered - a cellular-level hunger no amount of herbs could sate. His very DNA screamed for more fuel, more power, more everything. With an act of will that made his temples throb, he deactivated the ability. Instantly, the gnawing void in his marrow receded, leaving only the lethargic satisfaction of a metabolic hangover.
[New System Module Unlocked: Mission Terminal]
[Daily Quest Available]
Objective: Eliminate 10 Class-D Entities in South District
Reward: Spatial Ring (1m³ capacity) - Store items in extradimensional space
Failure Penalty: None (For now...)
Ethan's lips curled in dark amusement. "A loot box for monster hunting?" He rolled his newly-enhanced shoulders, feeling the dense muscle fibers slide like steel cables beneath his skin. "How... conventional." With a mental flick, he accepted the challenge. The system's cold presence settled deeper into his consciousness, its hooks embedding just a little further into his psyche.
South District - The Killing Hour
The moonlight here had a sickly, jaundiced quality, like radiation bleeding through thin cloud cover. This was the South District - ground zero of Beihai City's supernatural catastrophe. After the abandoned high-rise was confirmed as a Severe Entity Convergence Zone by the Bureau, all civilians within a 1km radius had been forcibly evacuated.
From a shadowed alley came the wet, ripping SCHLICK-THUD of flesh parting under unnatural force.
A humanoid figure crouched over its latest kill - a stray dog that had been unfortunate enough to wander into the wrong district. The creature's distended jaw unhinged with a series of cartilage pops, stretching wide enough to swallow the carcass whole like some grotesque python. Its ribs stood in sharp relief beneath skin like moldy parchment, shifting visibly as whatever passed for digestive organs pulsed beneath. Claw-like fingernails, grown into keratin blades, scraped against concrete as it scuttled forward in jerky movements.
The Roaming Corpse's emaciated frame jerked upward with unnatural suddenness, its neck twisting 180 degrees with the ease of something no longer constrained by living anatomy. Blackened nostrils flared as it caught Ethan's living scent, the stench of putrefaction rolling off it in visible waves. Moonlight glistened off its elongated fingernails - each one a six-inch curved weapon, hardened to obsidian sharpness. Strings of viscous, putrid saliva stretched between its jaws as they unhinged further, revealing row upon row of needle-like teeth stained with fresh blood and older, darker substances.
Its movement pattern was neither fully human nor animal - spasmodic bursts of speed interspersed with eerie, frozen pauses. The half-consumed canine carcass slid from its grasp with a wet thud, bones already stripped clean of every scrap of nutrition. What remained looked like it had been dissolving in acid for weeks rather than minutes.
Ethan's enhanced vision tracked every twitch, his pupils dilating to absorb every photon of available light. This thing's faster than a regular zombie, he noted clinically. His knuckles popped like gunshots as he shifted into a combat stance, the new muscle fibers in his arms coiling with potential energy. Good. I need to properly test these upgrades.
The Roaming Corpse's lipless mouth stretched into something that might have been a grin in another reality.
It charged.