Walking back to my bed from the window, I sat cross-legged with a card floating in front of me. On the card, there were intricate vein-like drawings that seemed to pulse with a faint inner light. And if one focused enough, they could also see fifty-four distinct points marked across the pattern, each one representing a crucial node in the circulatory system.
As I stared at the card, its information was also displayed in front of me in neat, organized text.
2-Star - Profound Veins (Against the Gods)
Now that I've finished using all my gacha points, leaving only ten behind, it was finally time that I start to integrate these abilities with myself; though I've already done that for most of the other abilities I'd pulled.
"In the original story, when Yun Che had received the profound veins of the Heretic God, it was described as one of the most excruciating and painful moments for him." I recalled the vivid descriptions from the novel. "According to the source material, it was said that the feeling of having one's profound veins rebuilt was like having your organs rupture, your bones shattered, and your skin cracked before healing rapidly in an endless cycle of destruction and regeneration."
I stared at the card in contemplative silence.
"Maybe I should get myself some painkillers before integrating it?" But then I remembered that painkillers probably won't do shit if the process was really as traumatic as it was described in the original. And it wasn't like I could find proper anesthetics at this time anyway. It was already well past midnight, and wandering around the Sacred Family compound looking for medical supplies would raise too many suspicious questions.
"Since that's the case, let's just brute force it like a man." I muttered with resigned determination.
Grabbing the quilt from my bed, I stuffed it into my mouth and bit down tightly on the fabric. In any case, I absolutely cannot scream or make loud noises lest I end up alerting other people within the Sacred Family compound. It would be incredibly hard to explain why I was writhing in pain in the middle of the night at that point.
Once I was mentally prepared and physically braced, I clicked on the Integrate option.
There were no magical light effects or dramatic visual displays. The card simply vanished in front of my eyes like it had never existed. And the next second, I felt… absolutely nothing? I became silent, patiently waiting for the agony to begin. One second… two seconds… three seconds… After not feeling anything remotely painful for a full minute, I finally took the quilt out of my mouth before grabbing the glass of water to wash away the weird cotton taste and dryness from my mouth.
I looked down at my hands and muttered in genuine confusion.
"Is it actually done already?" Closing my eyes and focusing inward, I soon realized that there was indeed another organ system within my body! A complex vein-like structure had seamlessly appeared inside me, covering all my organs and wrapping around my skeleton like an intricate network of energy conduits. It was as if I was observing my own circulatory system from a third-person's perspective, but that clearly wasn't the case here since I could feel every single connection.
"Let's check the status first and see what changed."
Since the Gacha system also came with a comprehensive status sheet feature, I mentally called it up and it appeared like a translucent hologram in front of my eyes. Again, it didn't have any set physical form. The holographic display was just my subconscious preference for how information should be presented.
[Status]
Shen Yujin
13 Years Old
Male
Bloodline: N/A
Laws: Fire (25%)
Profound Veins: Attributeless Heavenly God's Spiritual Veins
Cultivation Rank: 1st Level of Elementary Profound Realm
Skills: Perception Distortion, Sage (Thought Acceleration merged with Sage), Shrine, Six Eyes, Unholy Flames, Parallel Calculations, Sticky Fingers (Full Series)
[Character Assimilation]
N/A
N/A
[Inventory]
Items:
1-Star - Power Boost Card (×3)
2-Star - Neuralyzer (Men in Black)
3-Star - Weakness Removing Card
4-Star - World Coordinates (Against the Gods)
3-Star - 3 drops of Golden Crow Bloodline (Against the Gods)
2-Star - The Thread of Fate (Your Name)
2-Star - Kon's Soul Pill
2-Star - 50kg of Magic Crystals
2-Star - Item: Silver Heart Ticket
3-Star - Compass (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Weapons:
2-Star - The Black Blade Yoru (One Piece)
3-Star - Gravity Sword (Modified | UQ Holder)
4-Star - Familiar: Terminus Est (Bladedance of Elementalist)
2-Star - Magical Chainsaw Wand (Is This a Zombie?)
"It's really integrated successfully!" My eyes moved down the status display before stopping curiously at the [Character Assimilation] section. I didn't have to think too hard before relevant information appeared within my mind regarding its function. Basically, if I managed to pull a character card from the gacha in the future, instead of summoning them as a separate entity, I could also choose to assimilate them directly, gaining all their accumulated powers, abilities, and even their muscle memory. Though so far I haven't gotten a single actual character except for Est, if she can even be considered a traditional character. So the section remained empty as of now.
Anyways, looking at my newly acquired Profound Veins, this was honestly the first time I'd ever seen or heard of something like "Attributeless Heavenly God's Spiritual Veins." The variation I was familiar with from the source material was just regular Heavenly God's Spiritual Veins that one could theoretically obtain by opening all their Profound Entrances, allowing one's veins to basically ascend beyond the human realm entirely.
While that already sounded incredibly overpowered, it actually was exactly that overpowered. At the very least, it bridged the seemingly insurmountable gap between people born with powerful bloodlines and special physiques compared to those without any inherited advantages. Not completely, but just enough to give them some realistic hope of eventually reaching similar heights.
Having those veins basically meant that a person's speed of cultivation, energy flow, gathering efficiency, and releasing control were all brought to a dramatically higher level, as if they operated under completely different laws. There would also be no artificial limits to any skill practice and those blessed with these veins would theoretically never hit a bottleneck in their cultivation progression.
It was considered the absolute best veins to possess short of True God's Veins themselves.
What really caught me genuinely confused was the "Attributeless" part. That was honestly the first time I'd ever read about such a variation.
"Is it something like there's no limit to how many different laws I can practice simultaneously, or does it mean that I cannot practice any of the elemental laws at all?" Since I'd already mastered a full quarter of the Fire Law, it definitely couldn't be the latter interpretation. "So it's either that there's absolutely no restriction on law comprehension, or I'm just dumb and have no idea what this actually means."
Since it wasn't anything immediately urgent that required answers, there was no real point in overthinking it right now. Instead, I mentally summoned another card to appear in front of me. This one displayed a magnificent image of a fire bird—a Golden Crow! The legendary bird had its wings spread wide, covering a huge expanse of sky as golden flames danced around its majestic form, falling toward the ground below and burning anything they touched to complete ashes.
"Woah, that's honestly a lot of detailed visuals for only three drops of blood."
Three drops of Golden Crow blood. A genuine True God Bloodline. In the world of Against the Gods, the key differentiating factor that separated real players from those with barely any narrative significance was possession of a True God bloodline. Only a very small number of exceptional individuals who didn't have any bloodline advantages were ever able to stand on the biggest stage. Like those blessed with rare special physiques, or those with insanely high natural talent in a specific aspect of cultivation. Other than those rare exceptions, everyone else was just… cannon fodder for the main characters.
The best example demonstrating this principle was the Convention of Gods tournament. All the top contenders were those with powerful inherited bloodlines, with only Jun Xilei, the personal disciple of the Sword Sovereign, being one notable exception without any bloodline advantages. And that was purely because she was insanely talented in swordsmanship to an unprecedented degree. In over fifty thousand years of the Sword Sovereign's existence, she was the only person he had ever taken as a direct disciple.
Anyways, the main point was that True God Bloodlines were a crucial aspect if one wanted to realistically reach the absolute pinnacle within the world of Against the Gods. And while the Golden Crow Bloodline wasn't necessarily among the strongest bloodlines available in that universe, it still belonged to a genuine Primordial Fire Beast with incredible destructive powers.
Matched with the bunch of fire-related abilities I'd already received from the gacha system, it might complement my build really well.
With such optimistic thoughts, I activated the card and, once again, it vanished. This time, in its place floated three perfect drops of liquid golden blood. Despite them not actively doing anything threatening, the air around them was visibly distorted just because of their mere existence and the intense energy they radiated.
The three drops began circling around each other in a hypnotic pattern before they suddenly changed their trajectory and flew directly towards my forehead, entering through the center of my brows before completely vanishing into my body.
I hurriedly closed my eyes and focused intently on absorbing their power. Within my body, I could distinctly feel these drops of divine blood moving steadily towards my newly acquired profound veins. Once they were fully absorbed into the vein network, their initial dull-gray color underwent a dramatic transformation. Now the veins held a distinct tint of gold throughout the entire system.
The next second, a massive amount of profound energy suddenly burst into my veins as they greedily started to absorb it, condense it through multiple cycles, before releasing it in a refined form once again. The process repeated itself over and over in an endless rhythm of improvement.
Time passed quietly as I remained in deep meditation.
After what felt like an hour, I finally opened my eyes and released a long, condensed breath before my lips naturally curled up in a satisfied smile.
"6th Level of Elementary Profound Realm! Those three drops had enough concentrated energy to propel me all the way into the middle layers!" I suddenly laughed with genuine delight. "Even Yun Che took six full months of excessive training to reach this same stage. Here I was thinking that I might have to spend over a year just to reach the Nascent Profound Realm. Guess I'm more blessed by fortune than I initially realized after all."
This was genuinely great. There was absolutely no debate about who had superior natural talent in cultivation between me and Yun Che. Even with my new Heavenly God's Spiritual Veins, the gap in raw ability was still abysmal. And the reason for that discrepancy? He possessed the complete inheritance of the Creation God of Elements, one of the four strongest True Gods who were just below the Ancestral Goddess herself—the creator of the entire Primal Chaos. And he was also the only character whose cultivation progression was written in enough detail for readers to get a realistic idea of how long it would take normal people to advance. If Yun Che took six months to reach 6th Level of Elementary Realm with his ridiculous talent and advantages, it was a clear indication of how long it might realistically take someone like me.
That's exactly why these three drops were such a godsend opportunity right now. Especially considering the fact that most of my powerful offensive skills required me to reach at least the Nascent Profound Realm first, because that was the cultivation stage where practitioners could finally project their energy outside of their physical body. It was the same reason why I couldn't test my Golden Crow flames right now—I simply lacked the cultivation base to manifest them externally.
"Now, the only thing that's left would be…"
Three identical cards floated in front of me, their information appearing within my mind automatically—Power Boost Cards. Apparently, when used, they would generate a random probability number between 1 and 100. Based on that randomly generated probability, it would proportionally increase the power, effectiveness, or potency of whatever item, ability, skill, or trait it was applied to.
And what I needed right now more than anything else was personal strength, meaning my own cultivation level. So without much additional thought or hesitation, I used all three cards directly on my cultivation base.
Instantly, my cultivation started to rise at a genuinely rapid pace that defied normal progression rates. In mere seconds, it reached the absolute pinnacle of 6th Level of Elementary Realm, shattered through that barrier and smoothly entered the 7th Level. And from how fast the energy was still accumulating, it was clearly not the end of this boost! Soon after, it breached the 8th Level threshold and finally stopped somewhere near the middle section of the 8th Level.
8th Level of Elementary Realm… achieved in mere hours instead of months or years of dedicated training… The speed was definitely a one-time boost effect. Now that all the instant power-ups were completely finished, I could only rely on manual cultivation and training from here on out. A bit of a bummer when you got used to instant gratification, really. But it is what it is.
And now for the final card, and honestly the card I'm most genuinely excited about… for some very apparent reasons: 4-Star - Terminus Est!