He went to his apartment. Inside, the place was dead quiet. No Lilia groaning and grunting in frustration over her studies and exams, no Lyra munching on whatever edible things she found lying around.

Lilia and Lyra had left earlier—something about exams ending, needing fresh air, and Lyra following along because she still didn't understand half the city and refused to let Lilia leave her behind.

He closed the door behind him and went straight to his room, settling in front of the stone on the low table. The surface carried a faint glow, the kind that always felt like it was watching him even before it spoke.

"All right," he said, resting his arms on his knees. "What's going on now?"

The glow deepened, soft but alive, like she was breathing.

[That fragment's powers you absorbed have settled. It fused with what remains of me. Because of that, the systems tied to you changed.]

Xavier rested his forearms on his knees, waiting.

[Your Unlimited Money System jumped two levels. You were stuck at seven. Now you're at nine. Ten million a day is nothing to you anymore. The ceiling is a hundred million now.]

He let out a small breath, more amused than shocked. "Oh yeah! You know, I feel like I no longer need to complete the quests because every time I find a new fragment, my Unlimited Money System gets upgraded multiple levels."

[Not only that, your Power System has also become more powerful.Your telekinetic strength grew with it. You won't burn your muscles out so easily, and the strain won't attack your bones the way it used to. You'll be able to hold more weight and keep it for longer without breaking yourself.]

He flexed his fingers once, feeling that faint resistance in the air—the familiar pull, but sharper, more obedient.

"And the essence thing?" he asked.

The stone warmed, the light shifting along its surface like it was stirring.

[That system is awake now. It's called ASSENCE ABSORPTION SYSTEM. Not half-formed the way it was. It's fully active now. If you have intercourse with someone of another race, you take a part of them with you. Their essence. Their nature.]

Xavier leaned back slightly, absorbing that.

"And I can turn into them, yeah?" he said.

[For a while. The duration depends on the species, the strength, the purity. When you use it, it burns out. And to get a new one, you repeat the act of mating.]

"I am aware of that already. What are the changes now that the fragment is fully merged?" He ran a hand down his face, not annoyed—just thinking. "How many essences can I collect and store?"

[Three.]

He nodded once. No surprise there. Limits always came wrapped in consequences.

[Choose carefully. Some forms will help you. Some will destroy you if you step into them without knowing what you're touching.]

"I don't think I need to worry about that for now. But a question, can I have dupes?" he asked with a curious look on his face.

[No. Once you have collected the essence of the said race, no matter how many times you perform sex with the same race, you won't get multiple essences.]

"Hmm~ What if… suppose, I had sex with Reva— who is a vampire— and then I had sex with someone else, who is also a vampire. Two different girls of the same race."

[Same conditions. Why do you even want to have multiple essences of the same race?]

"I was just curious."

[Nonetheless, find as many maidens you can find, and have intercourse with all of them. The more data you ‌collect, the more powerful you get.]

"..." Xavier had nothing to say in response. Or rather, he didn't know what to say.

Xavier was about to stand when the stone pulsed again, a little sharper this time, like she wasn't done with him yet. He paused, lowering himself back down with a faint exhale.

"You're not finished," he said.

[There's something else you should know,] she said, and the light shifted in a slow wave across the surface.

Xavier rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and watched the pulse settle. "Go on."

[You remember the blood you drank in the memory,] she said. [Zephyros' blood. It took longer than it should have, but it's finished merging. Fully drawn into your body.]

Xavier blinked once, slow, not sure if he was hearing her right. "Fully fused? Then why the hell am I getting tired like a normal person? That's the opposite of what it should do."

[Merging doesn't mean instant power. Not for blood like his. It needed time to settle. And now that it has, the effects won't show up as clean, isolated boosts. They blend with you. They reshape parts you don't feel at first glance.]

He frowned a little, resting his elbows on his knees again. "So what did it actually do?"

[Your physical strength climbed. Your endurance rose with it. Your body can handle more force than before. Your recovery is different now. Not faster—deeper. More complete. Do not forget that there was a time when you could not even lift a heavy rock, but now you can do that without even lifting your finger.]

He sat with that for a moment, rolling his shoulders as if testing something invisible. There was a strange heaviness beneath his skin, but it wasn't weakness. It was more like pressure.

"I felt something off," he said, "but I figured it was the vampires poking me with their medicine or whatever injections Luther likes to stab people with."

[That helped your wounds,] she said, her tone steady. [But the thing you're feeling now didn't come from them. Zephyros' blood doesn't work like those things. It doesn't make you fast or explosive. It reinforces everything underneath. Force, durability, how much pressure your body can take without breaking. It's the kind of strength that settles deep and stays quiet until you push past what you think your limit is.]

Xavier pushed his thumb across his palm, testing the tension in the tendons there, the kind of small check he did without thinking. The strength didn't feel sharp or loud. It was buried, heavy in a grounded way, like the foundation of a building rather than the walls. "Yeah," he muttered. "I can feel it. It's there. Just not obvious unless I go looking for it."

[You will start to notice it more when you stop holding yourself back out of habit.]

Xavier gave a short breath of a laugh. "Holding back isn't exactly my problem. And I never hold back against my enemies."

[I will rest now.]

Xavier got up and left for the academy.