Bloodbound Codex: I Grow Stronger in Secret

The Codex came out through his chest and opened as it always did, the moment it did, the Stylus shot from the attached position at the side directly toward the Monster’s body Atlas was standing on, It pierced the body with its tip before sucking in the dark red blood that titanic corpse of the monster had.

Atlas stared at it for a moment before opening the first page and then shifting to the next page without wasting more time, The moment he did, he noticed that the Stylus had already sucked all the blood the monster had now it hovered beside him.

Gripping the stylus in his hand, Atlas spoke, ”Now, It’s finally time...” With that he slowly pressed the stylus’s tip against the name [Metadata ??? - Rank ???], For a few moments nothing seemed to happen as Atlas frowned in confusion before suddenly...his pupils shot upward.

There was no pain, nothing at all yet, Atlas felt his consciousness being taken away but before it completely did he felt something else...he didn’t quite understand why this happened but he felt some kind of pull from far away outside the Ruin just before his consciousness faded away completely.

Atlas’s back fell on the floor of the boss chamber, While the codex continued floating just above his body.

Time passed by, first minutes then half an hour, then a whole hour still nothing happened inside his body nor his mind, nor his entire being including his soul. Only after a whole two hours passed by that something strange occurred...Atlas’s skin, something passed through them on their own once.

Then again and then again, it continued without any end.

If one were to look closely at what it was, they would recognize it to be nothing but numbers, letters of many languages Greek, Latin...passing through his skin like codes, like...Data. That Alone would have been strange enough but the process did not seem to stay only on his skin.

It seeped deeper, Into his muscles, then his veins and meridians, the codes mixed of numbers and letters seemingly rewrote his Veins and Meridians through which Spirit energy passes through. After that it seeped into his blood cells.

Then came his organs.

The strange phenomenon moved deeper into Atlas’s body, passing through each organ without causing any visible damage. His heart, lungs, liver, and every other organ were gradually covered by the same strange patterns before the process continued toward the rest of his body.

It eventually reached his nervous system. The pathways connecting his muscles and organs were affected first, followed by his spinal cord. The process continued upward until it reached his brain, where it spread through his neural pathways and began running alongside the signals traveling through them.

His entire neural network was gradually connected to the same strange system.

But it did not stop there.

The process continued beyond what could normally be considered part of the human body, passing through the deeper structures of his existence one after another. His physical body was only the beginning, and whatever was happening to him was slowly reaching the parts that could not be understood through ordinary anatomy.

Even his soul was eventually reached.

The changes continued without interruption, moving through every layer of Atlas’s existence and leaving nothing untouched.

What had started from his skin had now reached the deepest part of his being.

All this process finally came to an end until a full five hours passed outside and only after reaching throughout all his physical and beyond structures were completely examined and...changed on every fundamental level possible. After that, the codes, the data running through them completely vanished from sight as they seeped into each layer to such a degree nothing and none could perceive them.

Even after the process finished Atlas did not wake up and remained Unconscious for another whole hour. Only then did his fingers trembled on their own before his eyes shot open and he saw the ceiling above him; the celling of Ruin reminded him where he was.

He did not rush and sat up like he usually did whenever he went unconscious, this time he slowly sat up before standing up completely, dusting off the dirt over his clothes before focusing on the codex in front of him, ’I...What was that? and...What is this feeling?’ He thought as he looked at the Codex’s Trait page.

[Metadata Axiom - Rank ???]

[Description: 1. Helps User Interfere with #@$## Of Reality, Interference depends on user’s Level of Cultivation, Any Kind of Energy is not needed for interference.]

[2. User’s Mind and soul Information has been Overwritten to the fundamental level to make sure any curse, Mind Manipulation or Illusion doesn’t work on him.]

[3. User’s Existence Information has been rewritten at the fundamental level, preventing any external force from completely perceiving, replicating, altering, sealing, or erasing his existence.]

Atlas remained silent as he stared at the description while feeling a peculiar and unfamiliar feeling throughout his own body, ’...Existence Information? What is that?’

He slowly read the description again, trying to understand what the Codex meant by those words. The first two effects were already beyond anything he could properly understand from the Unknown Trait, but this one was even more different and seemed like the more unbelievable one he had been expecting since before.

The wording itself was strange, especially the part about his Existence Information being rewritten at the fundamental level. Atlas had already understood that the Trait had done something to his body, his mind, and even his soul after experiencing those five hours of unconsciousness, but he had never expected the result to reach something as vague and fundamental as his entire existence.

He continued staring at the description without saying anything, his eyes moving over every word as he tried to connect it with what he had experienced before losing consciousness. There had been no pain during the process, and even after waking up, he couldn’t immediately feel any obvious difference in his body.

His physical strength hadn’t suddenly changed, nor did he feel as if some completely different consciousness had taken over him. Everything still felt like his own body, his own mind, and his own soul, yet the description clearly stated that something had been rewritten at a level far deeper than any of those things.

That was what made the third effect difficult for him to understand.

Atlas knew what it meant to have something altered physically. He had seen his own body change countless times through cultivation, Traits, Bloodlines, and other abilities. He also understood the concept of his mind or soul being affected because the second effect had already explained that clearly enough.

He read the description once more, paying particular attention to the words that stated his existence could not be completely perceived, replicated, altered, sealed, or erased by an external force. Each of those words carried a different meaning, yet all of them seemed to point toward the same thing. Whatever had happened during those five hours had apparently changed something fundamental about Atlas himself, something that went beyond the normal structures that made up his body and soul.

But he still couldn’t understand how far that change actually went and that only made him wonder, ’Does that mean I can’t die anymore? Nah, there’s no way that’s it...External forces can’t erase my Existence, why are the terms so complicated?’

He had originally expected the Trait to give him something useful, perhaps another ability that could help him become stronger or survive against opponents far above his current level. Instead, the Trait had done something he had never even considered possible, and the more he thought about it, the more difficult it became to determine whether this was simply another powerful ability or something far more fundamental.

Still, Atlas wasn’t going to decide its true value based only on the description.

He needed to understand what it actually meant before deciding whether this could become his ultimate ability, just like ”Rei-Kokuin”.

It wasn’t simply protecting his body, mind, or soul.

It was referring to his existence itself.

Atlas’s expression gradually became serious as he looked at the words once more, ’What exactly happened to me?’