Chapter 379 379: Perfect Stillness (1)
Chapter 379 379: Perfect Stillness (1)
Christian needed some time, but in the end, he was still able to soothe Anastasia. Whatever had unsettled her seemed to fade, coaxed away until the incident felt forgotten.
Now, in his lap like an obedient child, Christian was patting her head when he suddenly asked, "By the way… were you really that curious about me? Enough to ask Olivia? If you want to know something, just ask me directly."
Now mellowed down and smiling like usual, she met his gaze and asked teasingly,
"Does asking about you mean I'm curious?"
"Well… normally, yes." Christian replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Not in my case, then," Anastasia said with a soft, amused chuckle.
And Christian didn't argue against her, but merely had one thought in his mind… too adorable.
His earlier annoyance faded as he looked at her like this, and almost unconsciously, the arm around her waist tightened, pulling her a little closer.
They stayed like that in comfortable silence… and after an intense week of nonstop sex, Christian felt calm like never before.
No, it wasn't just about the last week.
Thinking about it carefully, it had been a busy time since the moment he gained his Idle System.
First, it was money. Then revenge.
There was Eva too, and how he pursued her at one point, then at another he was attacked, getting entangled with a supposedly colossal company, eventually forcing him to leave his hometown.
Yet, things didn't turn out peaceful there either. The world was changing, and he was constantly forced to accumulate more power just to feel safe.
Is that all? No. At one time, he wanted to create Iris, an AI. Then later, he wanted to make a body for her.
Yet, he didn't even finish that before he had to make an android for an overpowered intruder.
Small or big, goals or necessities, Christian felt as if he had been chased by something since the moment he got his Idle System… and only now did things finally calm down.
He had not been able to live out the idle life he had always wanted, even after gaining his Idle System. But that was finally going to change.
Be it wealth or power, Christian had acquired both. And with his women and his subordinates, even if something happened, they could handle it for him.
As for safety… with Anastasia in his lab like this, that was the last thing he needed to worry about.
If his life were a story, this moment would mark the final chapter. Nothing remained now except his long-awaited happy ending.
Fulfilled and calm, stripped of any worry, Christian seemed to enter a tranquil state he had never experienced before… and in response to this state, his Idle System reacted.
[Reaching a state few can ever attain, where existence itself flows without a ripple, where nothing within wavers, the host stands beyond disturbance.]
[The skill Perfect Stillness has been created.]
The tranquil state he was in seemed to deepen even further as he gained a new skill. Yet, with his eyes having closed at some point, lost in the sensation of the moment, Christian remained unaware.
Knowledge, accumulating it, deriving it, he had always done that through his Idle System, passively receiving what it gave him. Yet now, on his own, Christian began linking, connecting… and then deriving new insights.
Be it Biology, Trading he had long stopped bothering with, subjects from his high school days, or technologies that had already surpassed the modern world… he sorted, reorganized, and then formed new ideas and understanding.
And he didn't stop there. Every piece of theory about essence flowed through his mind, things related to skills he practiced, like concealment or lie detection, more complex ones like the Flawless Body or the Harmony Physique, and even the most sought-after knowledge… essence techniques.
Christian was optimizing every piece of information within his mind.
In this state of tranquility, he not only went through everything he knew, but for the first time in real life, he actually practiced his essence techniques, Breath of the Shadow Blade, Void Art, and Infernal Spark.
If he were to open his status window, Christian would have found that every skill he had was increasing in level in real time.
But he didn't know that.
The only one who noticed the profound changes within him was the small girl in his lab, watching him with sparkling eyes.
Essence, raw and boundless, far more than any mortal at his level should ever command, began to gather around him in slow, invisible currents.
At first, it was subtle.
Then, like a storm forming on the horizon, it began to build, slowly, yet unmistakably. Pressure followed, heavy and suffocating, enough to crush any mortal in the early stages.
And yet, just as it seemed that this storm would continue to grow, devouring everything, his house, the city, perhaps even beyond, matching the destructive force of the First Sign of the Earth itself.
…it stopped.
The storm receded. Its intensity softened.
It did not disperse. It blended.
The boundary between Christian and the world around him simply… dissolved.
There, yet not there, he became part of nature, like a tree rooted so deeply into the forest that it became impossible to tell where the earth ended and the trunk began.
The air no longer felt heavy. Instead, it turned soothing, calming, carrying a gentle rhythm that spread outward from him.
Anastasia watched all of it.
Her mismatched eyes, once one vivid purple and the other molten gold, had shifted, both now glowing a deep, blood-red.
If anyone had leaned close enough, they would have seen why: thousands upon thousands of microscopic runes, glowing like living embers, arranged in perfect, ever-shifting spirals across her irises. Each rune flickered, rearranging itself in perfect synchronization with the rhythm radiating from Christian.
She did not blink. She did not breathe.
Her small hands clutched his clothes, while her lips curved into a smile of pure, sparkling delight.
Only she could see this.
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