Nio struggled to open his eyes.
His eyelids felt unreasonably heavy at the moment. It didn't take long for his mind to recover from the incident, instantly reminding itself of what happened.
He had been pulled down by something or whatever it was to wherever he was now.
Finally able to stand up, Nio looked around. He was in a cave. However, unlike the cave he used to go from the compound to the forest, which was dark and weirdly shaped, this one was kind of weird.
It was decently lit and was in perfect shape. It seemed human-made.
The place he was now in was in the shape of a perfect circle with a pond at the center. From the ceiling, various amounts of water flowed down, colliding with the water in the pond like a waterfall.
'Is this connected with the lake? But how is this possible? Shouldn't the cave be completely submerged?'
Regardless, Nio decided that he needed to explore and find a way out. Around the cave there were several tunnels leading in several directions, there were sixteen in total.
Unaware of the direction to the compound or the first cave entrance, Nio decided on one randomly.
He remained vigilantly, carefully looking around, ready to react to any threat to his life, after all, something had pulled him here, they must be planning to attack him soon, right?
For some reason, nothing happened and Nio was able to travel through the tunnels leisurely.
The tunnels were long and slightly dark, however, as if through some magical means the tunnels remained dimly lit.
It took some time until Nio reached another room.
This one was in the form of a hexagone, it was full of staircases heading down towards a strong source of light.
'What is that?'
Nio was perplexed, what did he just found? He remembered the reasons why some areas had been censored by the Nell clan.
It was not just the cave entrances that they were trying to hide, but possibly treasures that could be used in various ways.
Was this one such treasure? If so, should it take it for himself?
One of Nio's plans to after his complete escape from the Nell clan was to procure treasures around the Western Continent in order to grow his own strenght.
But he never expected to find a treasure so early. What was it? A sword? Maybe an armor? Or perhaps a tome with several insights on the path of cultivation? It could also be a book about the secrets of the now-extinct magic.
"So curious."
What should he do now? Just go and take it? It couldn't be that easy, right? There must be some kind of test.
Nio looked cautiously around the room, looking for traps. Not noticing anything revealing, he concluded that he needed a better way to investigate.
He conjured various chakra strings and sent them around the room, finding gaps in the stone and exploring every crevice of the room and the entrances to it.
He didn't find much either.
So the next step was to see if it was safe to come in contact with whatever was producing so much light.
He sent a single chakra string in its direction to test the waters.
The string remained unperturbed and it reached the source of the light without any trouble. He retracted the string and analyzed it carefully.
"There is no sign of deterioration. It's safe I suppose."
Confirming that, he approached the light.
Once he was significantly close, he raised his hand and tried to wrap his fingers around whatever was creating so much light.
As soon as he touched it, Nio's body shuddered and started trembling.
He felt his bones quaking.
He felt his lungs inflate and deflate at unimaginable rates.
He felt his muscles rip and reform at that exact moment.
He felt like bugs were crawling under his skin.
His mind buzzed with an enormous headache.
And there was more happening, he just didn't feel that.
The system seemed to be saying something, but he didn't catch exactly what it was.
He spent some time like that, he didn't know how much time, but it was quite some time, at least, it felt like it.
GASP
When it finally ended, Nio gasped as if breathing for the first time in ages.
"Huff....huff...What was that?"
At the center of the room, that still remained magically lit, there was now only a levitating sphere of glass.
[Answer: You have consumed a cultivation treasure that awakened your bloodline.]
"My bloodline?"
Nio was already aware that in this new life, his biologic mother was someone special in order for him to be evaluated with a talented level of 1.
"Status..."
[
Status:
Name: Nio/Nioo/9-1-1/Alex
Age:7(25)
Cultivation: Body Tempering Stage 0
Bloodline: Mortal Body of Chance and Change
Health: Severe Exhaustion
PHY: 15
SPE: 13
END: 18
INT: 28
CON: 21
Credits: 524
]
His stats had improved slightly and there was now another entry on his status.
"Show me what you have about the Mortal Body of Chance and Change."
[
Name: Mortal Body of Chance and Change
Anime: ----
Description: A body that can be awakened by a sudden influx of heaven and earth energy. Those who possess this body have a high affinity to chance and change, meaning, that they can instinctively sense probability and chance as well as a great sensitivity to changes that occur around them in the scope of their senses.
Value: 1000 ~ 10000 Credits
]
Nio read it carefully, this was his bloodline after all. He reached the conclusion that his bloodline was not simple. The ability to sense probability and change was a pretty useful skill.
Sensing probability would allow him to make better choices as being aware of the probability of certain events happening would critically affect his decision-making.
Furthermore, sensing change was a great sensorial ability. Nio was still not sure how exactly such a skill would materialize, but the single effect of being able to sense changes in his body would be pretty useful to manage the various power systems he could acquire in the future using the Anime System as well as helping in the path of cultivation. It should help him greatly in the task of refining his body.
However, for now, he needed to get out of this place, which was his original objective.
Nio looked around the room once again. This time he looked more attentively towards the several entrances.
He looked at the entrances one by one. Each gave him a different feeling.
The one he had come from did not give him any feeling. The entrances to his left side gave him really bad vibes while the entrances on the right gave him a more comforting feeling.
One in particular caused him to feel something. It was a mixture of hope, confidence, and certainty.
'Is this Probability Sensing?'
He most likely was intuitevly sensing the probability of going back. The entrance were he came from did not give any feeling. Meaning there was certainty that was not the path.
The Entrances on the left gave him a bad feeling. The reason for that was most likely that the probability that something bad would happen if he went through them was quite high.
On the other hand, the entrances on the right gave him a more positive feeling. Those were most likely the ones with the highest chance of leading him out of this place.
Nio was overjoyed.
He had just gotten his bloodline and it was already proving to be usefull. He decided to go through the entrance which gave him the best feeling.
He walked for a while before he stopped.
What is that? He felt strange as if something told him that something was different and he should pay attention.
As he stopped he instinctively made silence and started to hear carefully.
It was the sound of falling water.
'A waterfall? Is it the one outside or am I back in that round room again?'
Nio resumed walking, attentive to any new instincts that he didn't know about kicking in.
The only change that he noticed was that the sound of the waterfall had grown louder and that the tunnel had grown brighter.
It seemed that he was getting closer to his destination.
It didn't take much time until he finaly noticed the curtain of water. With careful thought, Nio decided to not jump through the curtain of water and instead to go around it.
When he finaly escaped the scope of the waterfall, he finaly saw the lake that he had been previously. There was no signs of the rabits anywhere.
Either they were capable of fooling his senses, like they had previously proven or time had passed and they had left.
His intuition pointed to the latter.
He sighed in relief. Normally, he would dismiss such invasive thoughts, but his new [Mortal Body of Chance and Change] had been giving pretty good use.
He felt that it was safe to trust it.
So he went back home.