They walked back to Villa 11. The sun was hot against the white stone streets.
The security gate opened silently for them. The courtyard was quiet. Shara was not there. She was likely at the faculty buildings preparing for the new academic cycle.
They walked into the main dining room. A fresh meal was waiting on the black stone table. Cold roasted meat, hard bread, and clean water. Jin sat down and ate. He did not care about the taste. He ate fast to replenish his burnt calories. Luna ate quietly next to him.
"Go to your room," Jin told Luna when they finished. "Read your manual. Do not try to practice the space technique yet. Just read the theory. Understand the rules before you start the engine."
Luna nodded. She hugged her silver book tightly and walked down the guest hallway.
Jin went to his own room. It was a simple, square room with a hard bed and a wooden desk.
Nyx was already there. She stood in the darkest corner of the room. She blended into the shadows perfectly. She did not ask where they went. She was just a guard.
Jin sat down at the wooden desk.
He reached into his grey spatial pouch. He pulled out the heavy black manual. He placed the Devourer Gene Legacy flat on the wood.
The cover felt strange. It did not feel like dead leather. It felt warm.
He opened the book. The pages were thick. The ink was dark red. He started to read.
He read for two hours without moving. His eyes scanned the text rapidly. His corporate mind absorbed the raw data, categorized it, and analyzed the hidden variables.
When he reached the end of the first chapter, he closed the book. He sat back in his hard wooden chair. He let out a slow, quiet breath.
The gold plate in the library was a lie.
It was a lie of omission. The plate said the Devourer was the main legacy of the Academy. It said the Dean used it. But it left out the true scale of the asset.
This was not a standard legacy. It was not an Earth Immortal legacy.
It was an Immortal Emperor level legacy.
It was the absolute peak of the biological pyramid. It was a genetic blueprint designed to create a god.
Jin stared at the black cover. He understood the trap perfectly now. He understood exactly why the Dean offered this priceless intellectual property to poor outer-rim students for free.
The Dean was a half-step True Immortal. He was stuck. He had been stuck at that bottleneck for hundreds of years.
To take the final step and become a True Immortal, the Dean needed to devour one final beast gene. But the genetic clash inside his body was already critical. He had consumed too many different monsters to reach his current height. If he ate the wrong gene now, he would pop like a bloody balloon.
The Dean needed data. He needed to know which genetic combinations were stable.
He could not test it on himself. So, he gave the legacy to thousands of desperate students. He turned the Genesis Zenith Academy into a massive, live-fire laboratory.
The students were his lab rats.
They would choose different genes. They would try different combinations. Ninety-nine percent of them would explode into meat paste. The Dean would simply sit in his office, observe their deaths, and cross those failed combinations off his list.
He was crowdsourcing his own biological research. It cost him nothing but a few printed books and the lives of poor scavengers.
Jin did not feel angry. He did not feel betrayed. He actually felt a deep sense of professional respect. It was a ruthless, flawless business strategy. The Dean was leveraging his disposable assets to solve a critical R&D problem.
Jin accepted his role as a lab rat. He had the manual. That was all that mattered.
He opened the book again. He turned to the operational chapters.
The Devourer Gene Legacy was not just one single technique. It was a complete biological ecosystem. It was divided into three distinct sets of instructions.
The first part was a Breathing Technique.
Normal Foundation cultivators just sat still and let ambient Aether slowly sink into their skin. It was passive. It was incredibly slow.
The Devourer breathing technique was entirely active. It was highly aggressive. The manual outlined a complex, irregular rhythm of inhaling and exhaling. It required the user to mentally force the air deep into their bone marrow. It was designed to violently strip raw Aether from the atmosphere and pull it into the lungs like a vacuum.
It promised to speed up the accumulation of energy by ten times the normal rate. But the manual warned that the complex breathing rhythm would feel like swallowing crushed glass.
The second part was a Body Strengthening Technique.
This was the chassis. The breathing technique was the engine that pulled the fuel in. The body technique was the factory that processed it.
The manual detailed a set of brutal physical postures. They were not martial arts strikes. They were static, agonizing poses designed to push the muscles and bones to the absolute breaking point.
The logic was simple. The two techniques complemented each other perfectly.
The breathing technique pulled massive amounts of dense Aether into the blood. If the body was weak, that much raw fuel would rupture the veins and kill the user. The body strengthening postures forced the muscles to absorb that dense Aether. It broke the muscle fibers down and rebuilt them instantly, making the flesh heavier, denser, and stronger.
One technique gathered the supply. The other technique managed the inventory.
Jin memorized the breathing rhythm. He memorized the physical postures. It was a painful, brutal routine. He was ready to start.
But he read the third and final section of the book first.
It was the Gene Devour Technique.
This was the core function of the legacy. This was how you climbed the ladder.
You did not eat beast cores every day. If you tried, you died. The Devour technique could only be used to shatter a major bottleneck. It was the key to crossing from one major realm to the next.
Jin read the specific requirements carefully.
He was currently at Foundation Level 4. To reach the Core Formation Realm, he had to reach the absolute peak of Foundation.
But the Devourer legacy did not recognize Level 9 as the peak.
The Apex Empire operated on the Rule of 9. Nine levels for every realm. Level 9 was the standard ceiling.
This legacy demanded perfection. It demanded the Myth of 10. The Genesis State.
The manual stated clearly that a Devourer could not assimilate a gene at Level 9. The foundation would not be dense enough to survive the violent mutation. Jin had to push his fragile body to Foundation Level 10. He had to achieve perfect genetic resonance.
Only then, at the absolute impossible peak of Level 10, could he activate the final technique.
When he reached Level 10, he would have to hunt a Core Formation beast. He would have to rip its glowing core from its chest. He would hold the core in his hands, activate the Devour technique, and physically absorb the monster's DNA.
If his Level 10 foundation held firm, he would break through to the Core Formation Realm. He would keep his human body, but he would permanently gain the beast's core ability.
If his foundation cracked, his cells would go to war. He would become a red stain on the floor.
Jin closed the heavy black book.
He placed his hands flat on the wooden desk. He reviewed the entire process in his mind.
It was a steep mountain to climb. He had a Null Gene. His body hated Aether. Now he had to force it into his lungs, break his own muscles, and push himself to a mythical level of perfection just to survive his first real upgrade.
"Time to work," Jin said to himself.
He pushed his chair back from the desk. He stood in the middle of the quiet room. He closed his eyes.
He started the first breathing cycle. He pulled the heavy, rich Aether of the capital directly into his lungs. The hostile takeover of his own biology had officially begun.