Kim Jaehyun finally reached the bottom after more than an hour of falling. The layer of darkness had inconvenienced him greatly, but it wasn't intimidating when you knew that it was fake. Had he not known, he was sure that he would have fallen onto it, thinking it was the bottom, and then have fallen to his death.
Once his feet touched the ground, all the pain caught back up to him. About halfway through, his arm had numbed, but now it was slowly coming back to normal, meaning all the delayed pain came back to bite him in the ass.
"ARGGH, Fuck! That hurts!" He whimpered, jumping up and down whilst clutching his damaged arm.
It had long since turned red and was still gushing out blood from several freshly made orifices. He could see the bone at several points, the whiplash from suddenly stopping all his momentum with a single body part causing his bones to jolt and crack in several different spots. His fingers were all but bone, the friction from the fall ripping off the skin and flesh.
He reached inside his pocket, grabbing the one thing he had taken with him. A potion. He was actually surprised that it hadn't fallen out of his pocket —had he been on Earth, it surely would of. Actually, he'd probably have died from blood loss. His new body was rather resilient.
He, using his undamaged hand, uncorked the potion and drank it in a few gulps. He savored the liquid but then remembered that he had something to do.
He reached for his arm, making sure that it was all in position. However, he found a single area where the bone had jutted out from his arm, and if he left it be, it would heal wrong. He couldn't have that.
He winced at the touch, and his eyes burned with tears from the pain and the impending pain that he knew would come. He steeled himself by thinking of his family that he had left behind on Earth, a family that he would get back to even if this world had to burn, and then took a deep breath.
CRACK!
"AAARRRGGGHH!!!" He let loose a primal cry as he fell to his knees, unable to bear the pain. He took deep breaths, keeping his mind off the pain and on his family. He had a home to go to, and he would do anything to get there.
Before he could relax and take a break from the pain to adjust himself, the potion kicked in.
Bone grew extremely fast, filling in the cracks and fusing the broken areas together, causing great pain. He gritted his teeth, to the point his gums began to bleed, and cried and cried. Anything to take off the pain. But it didn't help. The potion worked for efficiency, not comfort.
Next grew the flesh, the meat being woven back together by tendrils of itself. It was an incredibly beautiful process yet a terribly ugly one and it was one he couldn't watch. It was painful, but more than that, it was excruciatingly itchy. That, tied together with the air on his open arm, made it quite the irritation.
But he held back from scratching, knowing that it would do more harm than good. At that point, he had long fallen onto his shins and chin, spasming in pain, and his arm couldn't reach the area.
Blood vessels grew alongside the flesh, adding to the itch, but that was the least of his worries.
The skin was starting to grow. In a process that was much faster and barely painful, his white skin crawled over the missing spots. However, the terror of regrowing skin was not in the pain it caused, but the irritation.
He felt as if there were a million, minute bugs on his arm, slowly treading over it, causing an itch so great that he needed sheer willpower to avoid rubbing his arm on the earth. The process of growing skin was also the fastest part, so it didn't take long. In a few seconds, it was done.
Finally, he was freed from that pain, he stood back up. He was sluggish, and now terribly hungry, but he had yet to get the cheat. He needed to wait a little longer.
Using the wall as a reference, he walked along the chasm, heading deeper inward, toward the west. Somewhere at the bottom of the darkness, on the north side, lay a crawlspace that would take him to the cheat.
'Well, it's more a natural treasure than a cheat.' He thought as he remembered the detail.
His goal was a peach that amplified your talents, so when the limiter came off at 20, he would be as strong, if not stronger than Elijah. It would also give him a boost before then, putting him on par with Elijah.
The closer to 20 years old you got, the faster your power increased. This was the reason why he had reached over 400 Mana, and why Elijah had reached over 1,000.
'The other main cast are already at 600. I have to hurry up.' He thought. 'And there's him, too. If he has reached 12,800 at 17, before 20 he'll reach maybe 18,000. I swear, if he ends up helping those fucking vampires, I'll...'
Due to the synthesis of his past self and Kim Jaehyun, he held both the memories and emotions of the original. He now held a deep resentment for vampires, due to a tragedy that had happened when the real Kim Jaehyun was young.
As he walked along the dusty pathway, his mind wandered, thinking about everything that could affect his plans. However, before he could get anywhere, his foot got stuck in a hole.
Whilst walking, he had dragged his right foot, the one close to the wall, on the wall itself, so that it caught in any hole.
'It seems I've arrived.' He said to himself, crouching to peer into the hole. He opened his hologram, activating a function that he wished he had explained in the book. The flashlight.
'It just magically appears from a bracelet made of fabric. Fascinating!' He thought, looking into the hole with the torch.
He could see a long tunnel that led to something shiny, so he knew he was at the right place.
Shifting position into one of crawling, he traversed the tunnel. It was at least a hundred meters long and very dusty, but he felt that he could hold his breath.
As he crawled, the occasional long rock dug into him, threatening to force him into releasing his breath, but he held strong.
Nothing of note happened in the tunnel, and once he crossed the other side, arriving in a chamber, he was stunned.
'I wrote about it in my book, but my goodness. Words don't do it justice.' Before him lay a single bush-sized tree, holding a single regular-sized peach.
Everything was normal, except the size of the tree and the color of the peach. The fruit shone an ethereal silver and gold, but as he closed in, he noted that those were just the colors it gave off. It was as dark as the night, with a deep luminance, one that sucked him in.
His arm reached for peach, his mind blurring.
SMACK!
Using his other arm, Kim Jaehyun smacked himself.
'Don't get sucked in,' He thought. 'Unless you want to die or ruin the peach.'
The fruit had a special property where it would grow stronger by vampirizing. The peach stole the life essence of those who weren't prepared, amplifying its effect on the one who ate it.
On the other hand, a single misstep when cultivating the fruit would cause it to die after being plucked. He had to be very careful.
'Crap, I forgot to bring a blade.' He realized, looking around for a substitute.
He found a relatively sharp rock and made it a little sharper by carefully banging it against another.
Once he felt it was sharp enough, he slit one of his palms open.
'3 drops for you.' He recounted the first step, following the method meticulously.
drip, drip, drip-
The peach absorbed the blood as quickly as it landed on its skin, so it seemed as though he had yet to do anything.
'3 drops for me.' He raised the makeshift blade again, cutting shallowly into the peach, and letting 3 drops of its nectar fall onto his wound.
The cut on his hand healed instantly, and he could now take the peach freely.
He grabbed the fruit, and pulled it off the tree, which withered immediately after.
He began to eat the fruit, leaving nothing behind, even the seeds. He was rather eager to get this power up.
Nothing happened for a good 10 seconds, before his heart palpitated rather loudly, and then stopped altogether.
His vision blacked, and his unconscious body slumped to the floor.