Chapter 358 - 13: Cosmic Star Body Refinement 3

Chapter 358: Chapter 13: Cosmic Star Body Refinement 3

In the Energy Array Control Center beneath the administrative tower, an amber alarm had been flashing for almost four minutes.

The young technician’s voice came out higher than he wanted it to be.

"Western dormitory block, density at eleven percent and falling. The drain is concentrated in a single room. Third floor, east corridor. I’ve never seen a curve like this. It’s not leaking, sir. It’s being pulled."

Supervisor Marsh did not answer right away. He stood in front of the large holographic map with his arms crossed, watching the western wing slowly turn from soft blue to a pale, starved gray. Behind him, Elder Corwin of the Academic Council had arrived without a sound, a steaming cup of tea held loosely in one hand.

"Shall I send security?" the technician asked.

"Whom would you like them to arrest?" Marsh replied. "A student, doing exactly what students are here to do?"

"But the drain—"

"Is a very large appetite," Corwin said mildly, and took a quiet sip of tea. "We had a student seventeen years ago who emptied an entire cultivation hall on the third day of his awakening. He is a Martial King now, and he still sends us a donation every year. Do you still want your year-end bonus? If yes, keep quiet and do as I say."

"Yes, sir."

Corwin watched the spiral on the secondary screen for a moment longer. "Pull the room number if you must, but do not disturb him. Not until he finishes. We can look up the name afterward."

Marsh nodded slowly. "Another diamond in the rough. Down in the low block, of all places."

"Yes," Corwin said. A small smile crept across his face, and he made no effort to hide it. "The competition next month is going to be fun."

"Reroute the gathering array," Marsh told the technician. "Send the main line to the western block, third floor first, and push the surplus to the rooms on either side. I don’t want the other students losing their morning because one room is hungry."

The technician’s fingers moved quickly across the holographic keyboard. On the map, thick blue lines of cosmic energy swung out from the main reservoir and flooded toward the western wing. The pale gray block darkened, then brightened, and slowly returned to a healthy blue. One single room at its heart stayed bright and bottomless, swallowing the extra supply as quickly as the array could send it.

Inside that room, Ash had no idea any of it was happening.

He sat at the center of the nine turning stars with his hands resting lightly on his knees, completely at ease, while the Star Cycles rolled through his body one after another. The black holes spun. The diagram held steady. The energy kept coming in dense, pure threads.

Halfway through, he noticed the supply had grown steadier and richer. A distant thought crossed his mind—maybe the academy had noticed him—but another Nova rolled through his bones, and the thought slid away like water off smooth stone.

It felt amazing. Every second of it. He would not have been surprised if someone told him he had been sitting there for five minutes, or for five hours.

It had been forty minutes.

Deep inside his body, the changes were far more dramatic than the calm expression on his face suggested.

During each Collapse phase, the dense star-core energy compressed his tissues at a cellular level. Weak cell walls ruptured and were squeezed out. Old micro-scars in his muscle fibers were crushed into powder and driven toward the surface. Tiny deposits of metabolic waste that had sat in his blood vessels for years were forced into the impurity channels. Even the microscopic gaps between bone crystals were tightened and cleaned.

During Ignition, billions of cells across all nine sections lit up in unison. The fusion-like glow did not destroy healthy tissue. It burned only what did not match the Martial Saint’s blueprint—irregular protein structures, slightly warped DNA segments, and any cellular machinery that operated below optimal efficiency. The Boundless Origin accepted the purified energy without resistance and guided the reconstruction.

During Nova, the compressed and cleansed cells expanded again, but not back to their original state. They settled into a denser, more ordered crystalline lattice. Skin cells became tighter and more elastic. Muscle fibers packed closer together with clearer force-transmission lines. Tendons gained a subtle spring-like quality. Bone density increased while remaining flexible enough to absorb impact. Blood vessels smoothed and widened slightly for better flow. Organs pulsed with cleaner, stronger rhythms. Even the neural pathways in his brain and spinal cord became more efficient, reducing signal lag by fractions of a second.

Every full Star Cycle left all nine parts of his body a measurable step closer to the superior martial physique blueprint. The ranks of Body Refining were no longer climbing one by one. They were rising together, pulled upward by the closed orbital system of the technique.

Ash was somewhere in the middle of the fifth Star Cycle for the blood when a bright, rude chime cut through the room.

The diagram flickered. The nine black holes wobbled. The singularities lost their perfect alignment. Ash’s eyes snapped open, and the entire technique folded itself back into his body as smoothly as a flower closing at dusk. The glowing star diagram vanished. High above the dormitory, the visible spiral of cosmic energy slowly unwound and thinned out.

The chime sounded again. His terminal on the desk was lit up with Rylan’s name.

"Oh," Ash said aloud. "I almost forgot about breakfast."

He crossed the room in three long steps—faster than he had meant to—and had to catch himself before he slid into the desk. He tapped the screen. Rylan’s face appeared above it, hair slightly messy, a bread roll already in one hand.

"Where are you?" Rylan demanded. "I’ve been sitting here for an hour. The rice is getting cold, and I’ve had to fend off two people who wanted your seat."

"I’m on my way," Ash said. "Almost there. Just around the corner."

He was standing in the middle of his dorm room in his sleeping clothes.

"You said ’soon’ a while ago."

"Soon is a flexible word," Ash replied. "Five minutes. Save the seat."

He cut the call before Rylan could answer, then looked down at himself.

He looked terrible.

A thick crust of dark, gritty sludge covered his arms, his neck, and the back of his hands. It had dried to a dull gray-black on his clothes and was mixed with rusty brown where last night’s blood had dried. This was a far heavier layer than the light dusting he had scrubbed off earlier that morning. The Star Cycles had spent forty minutes driving impurities out of every layer of his body, and the black holes had only swallowed so much of it. The room smelled faintly of old iron and burnt dust.

"Nobody can see me like this," he muttered.

He stepped into the tiny bathroom and washed faster than he had ever washed in his life. The water ran gray, then brown, then gray again. He scrubbed at his neck, his arms, the back of his ears, and under his nails. Every time he thought he was finished, more grit appeared.

I just washed up this morning and now I’m doing it again, he thought, half exasperated. I really need money so I can at least buy a utility technique for bathing. This is getting ridiculous.

Under the sludge, his skin already felt unfamiliar. It was smoother than before, tight and clean, and strangely warm to the touch. When the water finally ran clear, he shut it off, toweled himself dry, pulled on a fresh set of crisp gray academy robes, and slung the spatial pouch at his belt.

He was halfway out the door when he caught his reflection in the narrow mirror beside it.

He stopped.

He had looked into the cracked bathroom mirror only a couple of hours ago and had seen the same ordinary face with a slightly different look in the eyes. This was not the same.

The Star Cycles had not only rebuilt his muscles and bones. They had rebuilt the shape of him.

His skin was clear and even, with a faint healthy glow beneath it, as if lit from the inside. His jaw had sharpened. His cheekbones sat higher. The slight softness around his face had disappeared, and his nose and brow had settled into cleaner, more defined lines. His hair had grown thicker and glossier and fell across his forehead without any effort at all. His eyes were deep and bright, and held a faint, steady gleam of starlight that came and went when he moved his head.

He was still himself.

He was just a version of himself that looked like the promotional poster for a high-budget drama.

Ash stared at the reflection for a long second.

"Oh my god," he whispered. "I look deadly handsome."

He touched his own cheek once, as if to confirm it was real, then shook his head and stepped out into the corridor.

Breakfast with Rylan was already late.

And somewhere far below, in the Energy Array Control Center, Elder Corwin took another calm sip of tea while the technician quietly recorded the room number for later review.