Chapter 4
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Superhuman
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Enlightenment to control every part of the human body.
To wield it, one must first reach the realm of perfectly controlling one's body.
So-hyang had somewhat adapted to her own body through the past year's life,
"But 'somewhat' isn't enough."
Since it was an enlightenment gained by handling the body beyond perfection, she needed to grasp her own body even more precisely now.
For that, time was required. After a year of preparation, So-hyang had secured that time.
"Food supplies are sufficient, and drinking water too."
Having stockpiled enough materials to sustain life in the cabin for the time being—
She began meditating.
Breathing neither slow nor fast.
A steady heartbeat.
So-hyang's mind began to illuminate her body even more clearly.
Counting heartbeats, feeling the circulation of blood.
Recognizing the movement of her lungs, and the flow of air drawn in through breathing.
Cognizing oxygen dissolving into the blood, and the blood supplying oxygen to the cells.
Cognizing the electrical signals flowing through the nervous system.
From the center of the body to the tips of her limbs, she engraved every action occurring throughout her body into her mind.
"Huuuuh..."
Aside from brief moments to rise, drink water, and eat, So-hyang immersed herself in meditation without the slightest movement.
Before she knew it, autumn had arrived.
Reddened leaves swirled in the wind and fell.
So-hyang picked up a barley grain from the floor and tossed it toward the gently drifting fallen leaves.
The barley grain pierced precisely through the center of a leaf.
"...Finally."
Even with her eyes closed, So-hyang could cognize the irregular motion of the falling leaf and the fact that the barley grain she had thrown pierced it.
Senses refined beyond comparison to before, and overwhelming enhancement of her abilities through them.
After immersing herself in meditation for a full half month.
So-hyang had regained the enlightenment of her past life.
"First, shall I improve the skeleton."
So-hyang had no intention of increasing her height or lengthening her limbs—altering the structure itself.
Growth that escaped one's innate physical conditions did not yield desirable results.
This was a fact realized through her past life's experiences.
"After all, the advantage of reach mostly vanishes once you pick up a weapon, so it's not all that meaningful."
Thus, So-hyang's goal was strengthening the density, elasticity, and very material of her bones.
Laying the foundation to support the actions of the muscles she would strengthen later—the frame itself.
She increased density by substituting vast quantities of calcium into her bones while mixing in trace metals existing in ionic form within her body.
Turning her bones into a kind of bio-metal.
The ultimate formula discovered by her past life's self after countless trials and errors.
Now, So-hyang's bones were more than twice as strong as the hardest human bones by her past life's standards.
Once she finished reinforcing the ligaments and cartilage connecting them, the skeletal reinforcement would be complete.
"...Hoo, next are the muscles."
If she simply wanted to boost raw strength, secreting heaps of steroids to become a hulking muscle monster was a viable method.
But that offered no real help in attaining true 'strength'.
For one, it inevitably reduced flexibility and range of motion.
Above all, secreting that much hormones would be difficult for even So-hyang to control.
Thus, So-hyang's goal was—
"—elevating the fundamental quality of the muscles."
There are mainly two kinds of muscle fibers.
Fast-twitch fibers that produce explosive, instantaneous power.
Slow-twitch fibers with high energy efficiency and superior endurance.
Humans are endurance-oriented creatures, fundamentally a species with a high proportion of slow-twitch fibers.
Of course, to surpass the limits of her species... So-hyang
"must combine both advantages."
Ultimate muscles possessing both explosiveness and endurance.
A biological tissue that should not exist.
But for So-hyang, who regulated her metabolism through willpower, it was far from impossible.
She even reworked the very form of the muscle fibers.
"Even tougher, more elastic and flexible..."
At the same time, mimicking beast muscles, she thinned the muscle fibers further to raise their density.
"Good. Muscles are complete too."
Even after reconstructing her body, her bones wouldn't harden instantly, nor would her muscles bulge immediately.
"To put it another way... it's a change in constitution."
A constitution that grew abnormally hard bones.
A constitution that built abnormally powerful muscles.
"To maintain this, eating well comes first."
No sooner had she spoken than a fierce cry of hunger resounded from her abdomen.
Not mere emptiness, but an intense starvation threatening her life if nutrients weren't replenished immediately.
The backlash from forcibly reconstructing her body.
"...This is bad. I might actually die."
So-hyang hurriedly dashed into the forest, hunted a wild boar, and roasted it whole over a fire.
She didn't drain the blood and ate it as-is, so it wasn't tasty, but thanks to the hunger ringing her survival instincts, even that tasted sweet.
She devoured every edible part—flesh, organs, eyeballs, genitals.
Only after boiling the bones thoroughly, grinding them fine, and drinking the broth did her hunger finally subside.
"Haha. I really ate a whole pig from head to toe."
She could feel the consumed matter being absorbed throughout her body as it digested.
"Need to reinforce the stomach too."
This time, she had temporarily boosted her digestive capacity to absorb it all, but repeating this would surely damage her stomach.
After eating her fill, So-hyang sat on the bench and began to ponder.
"For now, the foundation is laid."
Cardiovascular system, cardiopulmonary endurance, bone marrow, various internal organs, skin and immunity, sensory organs—improvements galore.
Many parts of So-hyang's body still needed work.
Above all, even for her past life's self, an unexplored domain remained...
The brain.
"Brain, brain..."
As mentioned, even her past life's self had left the brain as an uncharted territory.
Curing Alzheimer's or enhancing reflexes had merely restored her to peak condition, far from true remodeling or strengthening.
She had attempted brain remodeling once before.
"...Nearly died for real."
She never tried again after that.
Challenging the unknown was akin to her past life's favorite hobby, but this was on the level of 'jumping from the stratosphere without a parachute and surviving'—sheer impossibility.
However, in this life.
So-hyang's body showed real possibility.
"First, this body is young. Hasn't even reached secondary sexual characteristics yet."
Secondary sexual characteristics.
In other words, puberty.
For a girl, the pelvis begins to widen, hips enlarge, menarche occurs followed by proper menstruation, breasts develop, and body fat increases.
And the brain—including the frontal lobe—undergoes drastic changes akin to restructuring.
Altering a fully mature brain might be reckless, but piggybacking on the brain's natural growth phase during puberty should minimize side effects...
So-hyang reasoned thus.
"Second is that the soul truly exists."
A human is a combination of water, carbon, ammonia, lime, phosphorus, salt, potassium nitrate, sulfur, fluorine, iron, silicon, trace elements, and various organics.
Narrowly speaking, merely electrical and chemical reactions in the brain—or so her past life's self had thought.
"...Can't deny what I've felt directly."
From the start of this life, she had sensed the soul, and living in So-hyang's body, she felt its presence every moment.
Objectively, a normal child's brain capacity handling her past life's memories, mind, and cognitive abilities.
"Impossible by past life's common sense. The soul exists."
If she could think via the soul—a medium beyond the flesh—then she could tamper with the brain while preserving consciousness.
"In any case, attempting remodeling when puberty arrives makes sense."
Upon observing her body, exactly eleven years, eleven months, thirty days, twenty-three hours had passed since birth.
"...Not much time left?"
One hour later.
Precisely at the moment she turned twelve, So-hyang's puberty was set to begin.
During the remaining hour, So-hyang honed her senses through meditation.
She had reached a realm where she could cognize even cellular functions without conscious effort, yet tampering with the brain still filled her with tension.
As she recalled her past life's medical knowledge and calculated the most stable, efficient path to improvement, the hour slipped away.
Her brain's hypothalamus began slowly secreting gonadotropin-releasing hormone, and So-hyang's puberty commenced.
When she projected her will onto the changing frontal lobe to reshape its structure, her consciousness began to waver.
'Failure? Can't be helped.'
It was still just a shaky head without damage—recoverable.
The instant she tried to withdraw her will focused on the brain, the innate talent of this life's child began to blossom.
Not the old man's from her past life.
The talent innate to this life's child.
The gift of a spirit medium.
Originally subordinate to spirits, it was a talent that had vanished after the child's soul died.
But the old man's will stimulated the traces engraved in the flesh, causing it to bloom anew.
"...What is this."
A sensation utterly novel to the current So-hyang.
Her Upper Dantian opened, and her Spirit Eye awakened.
Things previously invisible began appearing in So-hyang's vision.
Flows of souls, the movement of natural qi, the faintly visible threads of fate.
"Hmm..."
And in that instant, a streak of inspiration flashed through So-hyang's mind.
"...Soul—cognitive ability unbound from the brain."
The child's innate spirit medium talent meshed with the old man's near-monstrous will, bearing fruit.
The moment she envisioned the metaphysical image of separating the mind composing her self from the body—
"[Whoa, this is actually happening.]"
So-hyang's vision soared into the sky, allowing her to look down upon her own body.
The method of forming the self with soul rather than flesh.
A faculty awakened when plants without innate self or inorganic matter are reborn as spirit objects.
She had awakened spirituality.
Not all spirit objects awaken spirituality.
Only something like a divine tree revered as sacred or a demon sword that has accumulated demonic nature through countless slaughters meets the preconditions...
For a human to obtain it was an event rarer than rare gems across all history.
"[The body moves, senses are felt, yet consciousness exists outside the flesh...]"
Of course, So-hyang had no way of knowing this, so she simply pondered how to utilize her new achievement.
"[Good.]"
After a brief period of verification, So-hyang reached a conclusion.
"[With this, I can sufficiently strengthen the brain.]"
With certainty gained, from outside the flesh, she concentrated her will on her own brain—
"Ha, haha, hahahaha!!!"
The superhuman forged by human will was complete.