Chapter 261: Internal Thoughts

The ink closed over Kalon’s head and the bathroom disappeared.

Black pressure sat against his eyes, his mouth, his ears. The chemical smell filled his nose even when he stopped trying to breathe through it. His body had handled stranger environments than this, so the adaptation kept him stable, but stability was not the same as progress. He floated in the dense pigment and waited for something to change.

Nothing did.

At first he thought the whole baptism was useless.

No system ping. No affinity shift. No heat or cold or light responding the way other elements had when he forced contact. Just a grown man sitting in a tub of industrial ink in a London high-rise because a tentacle woman on a peaceful water planet did not care that he existed.

The thought was almost funny. It was also embarrassing. He had ordered gallons of pigment on same-day delivery, ignored a confused courier, and submerged himself like the answer would simply soak in.

Minutes stretched.

Or what felt like minutes. Under the ink there was no clock. Only the dull press of fluid and the sound of his own pulse.

He started counting the affinities already active in his body because there was nothing else to do.

Fire. Earth. Light. Dark. Ice. Water. Lightning. Dream.

The list sat in him the way scars sat on other people.

Each one had a story attached.

Mud and Josinia.

Ice and Sifa and Qyra.

Light and Veylora.

Darkness earned through the system’s harder gifts.

Lightning after Thea’s path brushed his.

Water had been closer to the surface for a long time.

Dream from Aunt Elena.

Ink was supposed to join that list if this crude idea worked.

Was it normal to carry so many?

On Earth the answer was no. One affinity made someone special. Two was a rarity. Three was almost unheard of.

Kalon had been blessed in a way where even eight affinities was far below his limits.

The Space Seducer System that had been gifted to him on that strange night had made the impossible, possible.

...

He thought about the direction his life was headed.

A year ago he had been a bullied academy student with no sponsor, no respect, and no real path. Now he had an organisation with its own card, alien women who could travel with him, mid platinum-ranked power, and a second event already selling out online.

The climb had been so fast that some mornings he still expected to wake up in the dorm and find all of it gone.

It never was.

Each travel cycle added another layer. Each seduction stage unlocked another tool. The system rewarded momentum, so he gave it momentum.

Where he had come from still mattered.

The old version of him had wanted strength so the bullying woukd stop. That reason was simple. Righteous in a small personal way.

The new version wanted more than silence from bullies. He wanted reach. He wanted a structure that could survive outside academy walls and national organisations.

Intergalactic League had started as a curious idea. It was becoming something larger in his head whether he liked it or not.

What was the end goal?

He turned that over in the dark.

Someday he wondered if he could reveal the secrets properly. Tell the government about the planets beyond Earth. Species that were not human. Travel that did not require ships.

If the world could accept that, coexistence might be possible someday.

Vendurions, Cryons, Veylorians, Cupidians, Delphinians, Thalassians, all of them acknowledging one and other in a controlled way.

He wondered whether he would ever become powerful enough to make a place where those species could coexist on purpose.

A planet built for it. Or claimed for it. Rules written by someone who had walked each world and understood what broke them.

The thought was arrogant. He knew that. It also felt more honest than pretending he only wanted stronger skills and better fights.

Could that planet be Earth?

Earth already had the cameras, the money, the organisations, and the hunger for spectacle. If Intergalactic League became big enough, it could stop being a cover for alien women in staged bouts and start being the first public bridge between planets.

His organisation could be the catalyst.

The idea sat in him heavy and bright at the same time. It would take more than being a platinum fighter. He would need to stretch beyond that.

He would need to become somewhat of a god.

That last part bothered him. Raising himself onto such a pedestal.

Had he lost his way? Had he become too egotistical?

Was he still righteous, or had he become like the bullies he once hated?

He used people. He manipulated stages. To him, pleasure what a path to becoming stronger, but to his women, it was pure enjoyment and love.

And yet the system rewarded him for it, and the rewards made him stronger, and the strength made the next steps easier.

That loop could turn ugly without much effort. He had told himself the difference was consent, choice, and the fact that he truly had love for many of his women.

Not only that, but he also made sure to do good deeds whilst he could. He had saved thousands, or even tens of thousands of lives across the different planets he had travelled to.

Surely that meant something?

More time passed...

His thoughts looped in his mind. The chemical taste sat on his tongue. His fingers pruned and then stopped feeling like ordinary skin.

Then the change came without warning.

A cold, dark pull moved through his chest and out along his arms, different from water, different from shadow.

The ink suddenly felt like it was aware of him, and he felt aware of it. The ink was a fine-grained density that answered when he pushed intent through his hands.

He had done it. The ink Affinity had been awakened...

Kalon pushed up through the black surface and broke into air, ink streaming down his face and chest in thick sheets as he left the baptism behind.