Eyes turning across his sockets, Jake waited patiently as his body functions slowly returned to normal. His thoughts, accelerated beyond measure, kept repeating the same thing - what happened?
After struggling for what seemed to be ages, he managed to regain mobility in his arms, pushing him up. As he he was wiping his forehead, he managed to get a glimpse at his hands. His eyes opened wide in shock, for what he saw scared him to his bones:
Skin shone brighter than before, reflecting the sunlight in an iridescent hue, rainbow reflecting from the surface. Though bare, hair can be seen emerging from the roots, shinier than before, almost metallic in nature. Wait, what? Noticing only now, Jake realised what had happened to his eyes. Telescopic in vision, he could visualize the tiny serrated gaps in his hair, almost reaching the level of atom. Before, needed the help of glasses to be able to focus properly at things close, yet now they seemed redundant.
As he pushed himself to stand up, strength never felt before surged from his feet, propelling him towards the ceiling. Barely missing ceiling, he landed back down to the floor. Shocked, he tried hard to restrain himself from thrusting forward by tiptoeing across the floor, but only succeeding halfway.
Still reeling in from the shock of these transformations, he attempted to go towards the kitchen to get himself cleaned up, as well as getting something to eat, for he was famished. Just as he was trudging towards the kitchen, he passed by the book, lying down haphazardly. The book, all of a sudden, opened itself, pages fluttering to and fro rapidly. Witnessing this, curiosity gripped him, inching him closer towards the book.
As he peered into the book, the fluttering stopped. Confused, he decided to wait, believing the book was going to explain something. His patience was rewarded, for what was revealed shook him to his core:
Name: Jake Benson
Age: 18 Earth Years
Status: Single
Pathway: Acolyte
Stage: Acolyte
Waypoints: 0/1/2/3?
Inclination: Chaos
Gobsmacked at the status revealed, Jake, in his infinite wisdom, decided not to ponder on how it knew his information, as he had other priorities: "What is the Acolyte pathway? I've never heard of it from school."
The page immediately went blank, before the pages ruffled themselves again, taking to a brand new page, where words started to appear again:
The Acolyte pathway is something that was discovered accidentally by {}M@#%@$^$@$%@$%. He had always wondered whether it was possible for humans to combine the two major pathways together to gain the advantages of both pathways, as well as to mitigate the disadvantages of going through only one. Through trial and process, he 'accidentally' managed to merge the two pathways together, and created a brand new pathway. Though he did manage to 'successfully create it, there were some... issues with this new pathway.
Gulping, he still decided to continue reading, hoping to find the proverbial... 'kink', as the book mentions.
Just like the two major pathways, there are 10 stages to it. However, unlike them, this brand new pathway has managed to break through its natural limitations, reaching to heights unknown. The !QGYTD@#$%&JGRTUNFETYK...
As the book continued to explain the history of the new pathway, information began to be redacted, forcing Jake to stop his perusing. Having settled on his more urgent priorities, Jake decided that he can research another day, what was more important was to discover what this new pathway entailed. As he thought about it, the book flipped to a new page:
Acolyte: By merging the two pathways together, the innate advantages of inner and outer are merged to provide an all - round build, capable of being a one - man army. In this stage, the mind and the body are harmonized together, transforming each other, refining the body, until initial cleansing is completed. Here, initial attunement to the chaos attribute commences, until his body can bear some usage with the chaos attribute. All basic attack, such as punches and kicks can be infused with the five attributes of wind, water, fire, earth and metal. Each refinement of the skin, muscles and bones leads to better harmonization with the chaos element. Although each waypoint can only handle one basic martial art, they are infused with the elements, which is not possible with Body Shaping. This makes their combat capabilities higher than Apprentice or Body Shaping combined.
Warning: Strong will is mandated for this stage. I repeat, strong will is mandated for this stage!