The price of shortcuts was indeed steep: a feeling so agonizing and crippling that he felt he could pass out standing. A cruel joke to think that in exchange for almost instant knowledge, parts of his brain were melting and restructuring to compensate for the sheer volume of information. His blood pressure became hypertensive and allowed for his superficial veins to become more prominent, his breathing erratic and labored, while his vision blurred and pulsed. He closed his eyes but he still felt extreme nausea and exhaustion. He was border line seizing from the amount of excitation in his brain. Hours he felt passed in such a lucid state, battling a ever tumultuous pain. Although his pain tolerance could considered high and almost second to none, this type of pain felt too new and sensitive for his taste. An absolute mess may not be enough to describe what he felt like.
When the pain was reaching a climax, he felt a sudden warmth embracing him. It was gentle and comforting. Focusing on the calming sensation brought some relief and a much needed distraction, however it couldn't completely nullify the pain to a comfortable level. Gritting his teeth, he wondered what sadist gave sanctions for such a device. Maybe he would thank them latter if the results were adequate, but currently he wanted to chastise their ethics. His endorphins seemed to be kicking in, the pain gradually left but the exhaustion was still present. As he opened his eyes, he weakly stared down at the hands wrapped around him.
Oxana hands grasp lightly around his chest. This woman clearly knew of the averse affects, yet withheld such crucial bits of information. For what reason did she give such tough love. He felt her personal sentiment and attention to him was odd, even with the new information he received. Maybe he could have her divulge that secrete soon. He still couldn't reciprocate her feelings as their relationship was still highly platonic in his eyes, but his impression of her increased a little bit.
Sifting through the information, he was generally surprised to see that while some of the technologies were advanced and innovative, others were still in their rudimentary phases compared to what he knew of. He calmed down, for he was too exhausted to continue thinking about certain details and would need to rest soon. As his symptoms had eased, Oxana spoke, "I will not say I am sorry, for the gift you received is a bypass to tens of solar cycles of our scholarly efforts. I urge you to try not be as resentful as I was, the first time I received this information. I will give you three lunar moments of recovery before you receive your other half of the gift. Rest and eat well, your trials have yet to start. As I have matters to attend to, I will leave some of the guards and servants to look after you." She unclasped her hands and walked towards the door. Shortly after, leaving him to his own devices.
He walked towards the bed without care of taking off his clothes and collapsed on the bed. This time, he didn't dream of anything noteworthy, just a few sheep jumping over each other repeatably. When he woke up, he felt as if he had a hang over of lesser intensity. Fortunately besides the bed, a tray consisting of food and hangover medicine; a godsend that pharmaceuticals in this society produced such revolutionary medicine. Albeit he was a bit skeptical with hangover medicine as most remedies in his pre injected memory were based off working a placebo effect into the user. He took them as he ate the meal.
In his conversations with Oxana, she had always been rather explicit in choosing her words. He pondered about what that last sentence sentence meant, when Oxana said 'some of the guards' not the phrase 'some of my guards'. She was very possessive, as he remembered she had said that one day 'he would become hers', so could it be that she left a mole or a double agent by his side. Maybe he was overthinking it...tsk another thing he would fret about. Right now he would focus on repairing the burn and reforming the muscles.
Taking a seat, he willed the healing process under the scab tissue on his chest to start. This was met with some resistance, hence he expected along with anesthetization of the tissues other functions could have been impeded. Examining the tissue, he found that the high voltage had crippled most of the damaged cells' microtubules and cell receptors meaning that replication and healing was limited. No surprise really, his body needed to recycle the dead tissue in order to make use of the nutrients and ensure a limit of any post infections. He allowed many different types of macrophages and especially mast cells to consume and clean up cellular debris. Anything he could not use he would either send to his excretory system or recycle into nutrient components. Using the nutrients he set up a graft in the cavernous hole under the scab. As the scab did not impede healing, he decided to keep it for a bit longer. Using substance P and extrinsic healing factors he reconstructed the various proteins, lipids, lipoprotein etc. this process took a manner a couple of hours under his guidance. He had a massive scab at the end of the process that he decided to consume. A rather incredulous move to most people, but with the genetic techniques today he would prefer not to leave any genetic material, lest they make another one of him to hunt him down.
Now for the manner of tissue strengthening, he knew he could not strengthen tissue that has not been stressed, so he took one from the old books to exercise each muscle to the limit. He didn't think he had enough nutrients so he requested an extra three portions of meals to be delivered early. Maybe this is what she meant by giving him 3 solar moments as she believed he could finish tempering his muscles. It started with regular push-ups, which to no ones surprise he struggled with. His form was atrocious as his abdomen and arms could not support his weight. Luckily this also meant it was relatively easy to cause atrophy and stress to his muscles. Every time he repaired the injured muscle tissue, he incorporated more myosin and actin filaments. He compounded more and more muscles tissues into a tight interweave.
After a few rounds, he switched to a more rigorous modified push up, one that switched between and wide and close grip, rinsing and repeating. He repeated the same with squats, calf exercises, lower back exercises, until he found it was satisfactory. Did he believe in the whole tempered before purging impurities, no, what logic was there in that. There is no such thing as Impurities, only components of the body that do not function in unison. That was of course his stand point: the body was simply the accumulation of advanced cooperation. Like glass it fractures at the weakest point, like the three musketeers 'All for one and for all' the organs system work together or struggle as another organ system struggles. By the end of the day, he gotten all but a few muscles trained being some internal muscles including the heart, some parts of his lungs, tongue, some of the more intrinsic of neck muscles that are difficult to train, etc.
He needed to take a bath so he promptly called for a servant to lead him to the bath houses. One of the few technologies he was glad was a little behind. A little unwinding away from all this shenanigans, and enjoying the warm 'healing' waters in a marble temple was aesthetically pleasing to him. History had told of the valiant return of the heroes, and one of first stop they would take would be the bathes. Now he would tooting his horn to say he was the hero, but who say he could not enjoy the same hero's retreat.