Gah!"
Neo woke up with a grunt. Sweat dribbled down his face, and deep lines marred his forehead.
He turned over onto his stomach and heaved. He heaved harder when nothing came up, and heaved even harder once more.
When he finally realised his stomach was as empty as his body count, he stopped heaving.
He panted heavily for a few minutes as he thought about the dream he had just experienced. He had dreamt that he was a huge black glob of apocalyptic size, wandering through space for eons.
It was the most lonely existence Neo had ever seen. It was alone in the dark xoanse if space and only did the same thing every day.
During his life as the glob,he passed through countless galaxies, thousands of solar systems, and an unknown number of planets.
And he devoured every one of them.
'Why do the bad dreams feel so real while the good ones remain hazy and blurry?' he thought.
Neo could almost still taste the planets he had devoured. One would expect them to taste nice if the glob enjoyed devouring them so much, but in fact...
They tasted horrible! Especially the suns! They were so hot and peppery that Neo's tongue now felt limp in his mouth!
And that wasn't even the worst part of the dream!
No, the multiple planets with different flavours of sh*t weren't even the worst part of what Neo had experienced.
The worst part was that the mysterious glob died in a very ridiculous way. The death of such an apocalyptic, overpowered being was so absurdly anticlimactic!
Instead of the galactical, world shattering battle that should end the life of a being of this level, what killed him was too unbelievable.
He died from choking! He had devoured an inconspicuous-looking black planet floating alone in a dark corner of the universe with one bite. Neo had thought nothing of it at first, except that the planet smelled like ass... But then the ass-smelling planet just wouldn't digest.
It was a nasty feeling. He choked and shuddered for what felt like months before he finally reached a point of no return. And at last, he exploded.
A really, really bad dream.
'No fruits or round meals for years, please. Especially not meatballs!' Neo thought, standing up slowly.
Now that he had recovered from the traumatic dream, Neo could finally focus on himself once again.
He remembered hearing a loud crack come from his chest area, then experiencing an overwhelming pain that knocked him out in mere moments.
Hold on! Wait a minute! Something wasn't right!
Imagine going to bed feeling like you weighed 50 kilograms and waking up feeling lighter than 5 kilograms? Neo was experiencing something bizarre right now.
He felt so light. And so strong!
He felt so good!
Neo looked down at his privates and felt they had also grown bigger... and more curved. In fact, they were approaching tangents...
Neo hurriedly adjusted his posture before sighing in relief.
He pushed himself off the ground with barely any effort, marvelling at the feeling of weightlessness. Seriously, he had either grown much stronger or much thinner, and staring at his normal-looking arms and lanky but normal-looking legs, Neo was definitely not thinner. If anything, he had grown slightly bigger.
It didn't take Neo long to piece the clues together and develop his theory.
He took a levelled look around and noticed that most of the cliff's surface was singed and charred, like a battleground between two powerful lightning spirituals. Although, surprisingly, there were no craters present.
He observed the layers of dried blood and dead skin where he had been lying and finalised his theory.
He had probably undergone some sort of tribulation when the orb in his chest cracked and he was turned into something completely different. That would explain the increase in power and lack of pain.
'Hopefully, I can fuse with a spirit now,' he thought.
Neo had fully accepted the fact that he was probably no longer human. It wasn't like he had a choice, so the sooner he came to terms with it, the faster he could focus on getting stronger.
After all, he had a crazy amount of catching up to do with his peers.
He was also going to have to pick a spiritual university now that he wasn't completely hopeless. The thought of this made Neo feel extremely joyful.
While he was still clenching and unclenching his fists in amazement, the simple silver pendant resting on his chest, which had never reacted to anything before, abruptly glowed.
Then it heated up!
Neo's smile froze. Had his bad luck already begun to act up? But he had barely done anything!
'Think later, fling faster!!' he thought, grabbing the pendant and yanking it off his neck.
At least, he tried to...
The pendant remained glued to his neck no matter how hard he yanked, like a fanatic girlfriend locking her legs around her boyfriend's waist, telling him to do it inside...
Neo shuddered.
Whatever was going on was not funny! Neo didn't want to turn into a headless corpse just when he was finally able to fuse with a spirit!
Shing! Shing! Shing! Shing!
The pendant flashed four times, and four items appeared before Neo.
Neo's eyes widened.
'Paper?'
Neo couldn't believe his eyes. Was this the legendary paper? Within the paper?
Neo picked up the strange-looking material and caressed it gently, feeling it up. It felt... like paper?
Neo wasn't sure anymore.
His eyes scanned the piece of paper, and he watched as a bunch of words magically appeared on its surface.
Neo was slightly shocked to see that it was a mysterious language he had never seen before, and yet he was somehow able to understand it...
He felt a bad sense of déjà vu, but he ignored it and read the first line. He guessed it was a letter from his parents, and his heart thumped with nervousness as he read the first line.
"My dear son,"