Chapter 62: New Orion (1)

Chapter 60

Now, this was a rather tricky situation...

Orion thought as he looked at the nurse, whose face had gone as pale as snow. Of course, her face wasn’t naturally white to begin with. Rather, the poor woman had been so thoroughly shocked that all the colour seemed to have drained from it. She stood there, staring at him as though she had just witnessed something that shouldn’t exist in this world.

Orion turned to face her fully, wearing a warm smile in an attempt to ease her shock.

"Hello there..."

His words were supposed to calm her down, perhaps reassure her that there was nothing to be afraid of. After all, he wasn’t some monster that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He was simply a patient in a hospital room who had been experimenting with a newly acquired ability.

However, his greeting had precisely the opposite effect.

The nurse’s eyes locked onto Orion’s face, and she became even more stunned. For several long seconds, she remained frozen in place, her lips trembling slightly as though she were struggling to find the words to express what she was seeing.

Then, all of a sudden, she came back to her senses.

"D-DEMON!"

After shouting those words, she stumbled to her feet and rushed away as though her very life depended on escaping the room. Her footsteps quickly faded into the distance, leaving behind an awkward silence that settled over the hospital room.

Orion blinked.

That was pretty dramatic, in his opinion.

It wasn’t as though they were living in some stone age of the ancient people, a time when powers and abilities didn’t exist. In the present world, extraordinary abilities were hardly unheard of. Hunters possessed all kinds of skills, warriors displayed superhuman strength, and those with special talents could perform feats that ordinary people could only dream of.

Therefore, him lifting a few beds with telekinesis shouldn’t have been the most shocking thing in the world.

Perhaps if Orion had known just how costly telekinetic skills were, he wouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss what he had done as something ordinary. Maybe then, he would have understood why the sight of someone casually manipulating several heavy objects without even touching them could leave an ordinary person completely dumbfounded.

That aside, there was another matter that bothered him far more.

Why had she shouted demon after looking at him?

One could argue that it was because of his telekinetic abilities. After all, he had been lifting several beds into the air with nothing more than a single finger. Even so, that explanation didn’t entirely make sense.

The nurse had been staring intensely at him for quite a long time before she finally cried out in shock. Her reaction had begun before she even had the chance to properly process what he was doing with his newfound ability.

In other words, something else had frightened her.

Orion’s eyebrows drew together slightly.

Wait... is there something on my face? Something that scares her?

Unable to rein in his curiosity, he began looking around the bedside table. Fortunately, he soon spotted a small mirror lying nearby.

Without wasting another moment, he picked it up and positioned it in front of himself, adjusting the angle until he could get a good look at his face.

The moment he saw his reflection, his eyes widened.

His mouth fell open in disbelief.

It wasn’t because he saw a devil looking back at him...

Or rather, perhaps he really had seen a devil looking back at him.

If devils possessed super-refined features and looks capable of stunning anyone who laid eyes on them, then perhaps the description wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

Orion slowly closed his mouth as he scrutinized the image in the mirror, examining every little detail with growing disbelief. He tilted his head slightly, then turned it to one side and the other, making sure that the face staring back at him was truly his own.

Wait... is that really me?

He questioned himself.

After pausing for a moment, he nodded.

Yes, the figure in the mirror was indeed him.

There was no mistake about that. Those were his eyes, his nose, his lips, and every other feature he had grown accustomed to seeing whenever he looked at his reflection.

But...

Orion’s mouth opened once more, his disbelief returning with even greater intensity.

"When did I become so... so devilishly angelic handsome?!"

The words escaped his mouth before he could stop himself.

He was genuinely shocked.

Orion had been handsome before. In fact, he had been leagues above his peers in terms of appearance. His features had always been refined, and his looks had often set him apart from the people around him.

If someone had asked him to rate his appearance before, he would have confidently placed himself among the most handsome young men of his age.

However, if the Orion from before were to stand beside the Orion reflected in this mirror, the difference would be so immense that the former might actually be considered below average in comparison.

That was how ridiculous the transformation was.

His hair had become a darker shade of black. It was no longer merely the ordinary deep black colour that most people associated with dark hair. There was something almost unnatural about it, something so profound that staring at it for too long gave the strange impression of looking directly into an abyss.

It was as though the darkness within his hair extended far beyond what the human eye could perceive, concealing depths that had no visible end.

Then there were his eyes.

His grey eyes were still grey, but their colour had become so sharp and pure that they seemed almost unreal. They resembled two greyish stars plucked straight from some heavenly garden and placed directly into his mortal skull.

Their brilliance was difficult to describe. They were clear, striking, and almost painfully beautiful, possessing a strange purity that made it seem as though no impurity in the world could ever touch them.

And those were only the most noticeable changes.

There were many more.

His facial features had become even more refined, with every part of his face seeming to fit together with almost impossible perfection. His appearance carried a degree of maturity that hadn’t been there before, making him look more composed and distinguished despite his young age.

His jawline appeared sharper, his facial structure more defined, and even the proportions of his face seemed to have improved.

Orion continued examining himself, his expression shifting between astonishment and confusion.

Or am I just imagining things?

He leaned slightly closer to the mirror.

And... am I a little taller now?

He couldn’t say for certain, but something about his body felt different. Perhaps his proportions had changed along with his appearance. Perhaps it was merely an illusion caused by the other changes.

Whatever the case, one thing was certain.

He was no longer the same Orion Stormblade he remembered being.

After a while, Orion finally lowered the mirror and let out a long sigh.

"Just what happened during the Dungeon X raid?"

He muttered the question under his breath, his expression growing serious.

He couldn’t remember much about what had happened inside Dungeon X. His memories were fragmented, with entire portions of the experience seemingly missing from his mind. He remembered entering the dungeon, but everything that had happened afterward remained frustratingly unclear.

Still, he was certain that his current transformation had a great deal to do with that raid.

It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.

His appearance had changed dramatically, his strength had increased to an unbelievable degree, and he had awakened powers that he could barely begin to understand.

Most importantly, the mysterious Origin System had appeared, replacing the ordinary blue system he had known before.

Whatever had happened inside Dungeon X, it had completely transformed him.

Not just in terms of his appearance, but also his might.

Orion was no longer the same person who had entered that dungeon.

He had become something else entirely.

With that thought in mind, he summoned his system screen once more.

The familiar interface appeared before his eyes, its majestic white background illuminated by words that shimmered with a multitude of colours. The rainbow characters reflected in his sharp grey eyes as he began examining the information displayed before him.

He skimmed through his status again.

And, once more, he was shocked.

His stats were high.

Far too high for someone who was only at Level One.

To understand just how ridiculous his current situation was, one had to know that there were limits to the physical and mental stats a person could possess at each level.

These limits weren’t arbitrary numbers. They were generally accepted boundaries that determined how far a person’s attributes could develop before reaching the natural ceiling imposed by their current level.

For someone with no level, the limit was only fifteen.

Even if such a person was exceptionally talented and managed to push their stats beyond the ordinary boundary, they could never surpass twenty.

That was the accepted limit for someone who hadn’t attained a basic level.

Once a person reached the basic level, their stats could grow to a maximum of one hundred.

For the elite level, the cap increased to three hundred.

And beyond that, the limits continued to rise as one advanced through the higher levels.

Of course, reaching those limits was another matter entirely.

Even a peak basic-level warrior at Level Ten would struggle to approach the hundred-stat limit. In fact, there were no known records of anyone actually reaching the maximum stats permitted at the basic level.

Not a single person.

At least, no one had ever been recorded as accomplishing such a feat.

Yet, there was Orion.

He was still at Level One, and his physical stats were already in the forties, while his mental stats were in the fifties.

Every single one of his physical attributes stood at forty, while his mental attributes had reached fifty.

How was that even possible?

Even if he possessed an extraordinary talent, shouldn’t there still be some kind of restriction? How could someone who had only just reached Level One possess stats that were several times higher than what many people at his level could hope to achieve?

Orion stared at the numbers for a while longer, hoping that perhaps he had misunderstood something.

But no matter how many times he checked, the numbers remained the same.

He was still Level One.

His stats were still absurdly high.

And the system offered no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

After thinking about it for a while and failing to understand how any of this was possible, Orion finally decided to push the matter aside for the time being.

There was no point in exhausting himself over something he couldn’t explain.

Besides, he had plenty of other things to investigate.

With that in mind, he moved his attention to the other tabs of his system.

Ding!

[Due to the Origin Rebirth, all of the host’s skills will undergo evolution.]

Orion’s eyes flickered.

Before he could fully process the notification, another message appeared.

Ding!

[Only one skill detected.]

[Skill: Dash has now evolved.]

Ding! Congratulations!

[Your D-Rank skill, Dash, has evolved into an S-Rank skill: Flash!]

Orion’s eyebrows rose.

Another surprise?

At this point, he was beginning to wonder whether his new system intended to keep throwing one shocking revelation after another at him until his brain could no longer keep up.

Nevertheless, he quickly focused on the skill description.

[Skill Name: Flash]

[Rank: S]

[Description: An evolved form of the D-Rank skill, Dash.]

[When activated, the host releases a burst of mana that is converted into light energy, allowing the host to move at astonishing speeds comparable to flashes of light. Vast distances can be crossed in an instant.]

[The host’s speed, acceleration, handling, and reaction speed are tremendously boosted while Flash is active.]

[Mana Consumption: 50 mana points for every minute of use.]

Orion raised an eyebrow, completely stunned.