When the filled orb in the system panel began to spin, the energy stored inside rapidly spread throughout Yuhara's body.
In an instant, the intense pain made Yuhara's entire body convulse, like countless little bugs gnawing at him from head to toe.
That pain dug right into his bones—even Yuhara couldn't keep a straight face through it.
All he could do was grit his teeth and endure, even though he'd already expected unimaginable agony.
After all, when he underwent his glorious evolution before, his system tortured him so badly he nearly lost his mind.
But this round of leveling up and reinforcement still totally blew away his expectations!
A torrent of life energy raged through Yuhara's body, with zero rhyme or reason.
But Yuhara could feel the huge amount of energy surging along his muscle fibers, blood, and bones.
Finally, it was like all this energy found a home, pouring into his bones, muscles, organs, and more—his whole body undergoing wild, earth-shaking changes.
"Crack, crack, crack—"
In a daze, he felt his bones vibrating, and Yuhara could even hear them colliding.
"Never thought this so-called life force would hit so damn hard, and the modification process is just this simple and brutal."
The principle behind the Dark Scythe's enhancement is basically letting your body slowly absorb the energy.
But even "slowly" left Yuhara in agony—he felt like his whole body was about to get crushed.
And after being smashed to bits, his body would heal again under the influence of the energy, becoming stronger each time.
Good thing he was a qualified ninja—anyone else would have tapped out already.
Time slowed to a crawl. Yuhara forced himself to wait it out, clinging to consciousness through the pain.
He had no clue how long it went on, when suddenly his body relaxed, and that blinding, nearly blackout-level pain vanished without a trace.
Instead, a weird and wonderful comfort flooded through his body.
He felt lighter, like he could control his body way better now!
"Is it over?"
Yuhara muttered, lifting his head to look out the window—night had already fallen, and moonlight spilled onto the floor through the glass.
He sat up a bit, realizing for the first time that his bedsheets were totally soaked—probably from the cold sweat during that mind-melting pain.
But just then, Yuhara noticed that the energy he thought had finished actually started stirring again.
This time, it whirled straight toward his eyes!
Yuhara frowned a little. His eyes ached and felt swollen, but honestly, it wasn't nearly as bad as before.
More importantly, he could feel his eyes growing stronger.
It was a bizarre sensation, as if his eyes were syncing up with his newly upgraded body.
It was like, by boosting his eyes, his chakra became even more full and powerful.
Only, this was the usual evolution process flipped on its head. Yuhara's body got upgraded first, and then that upgrade bounced back into his eyes, balancing everything out.
"Actually, it feels like my eyes are recovering quite a bit?"
Yuhara raised his eyebrows. Even though he'd been using his eyes a lot these days, he'd always held back.
But Mangekyō isn't the Eternal Mangekyō—no matter how much he restrains himself, he can't stop the eye strain and vision loss.
Even if he didn't notice any obvious vision problems, the discomfort never really went away.
Now, though, he could sense some subtle revival happening in his eyes—a huge surprise.
This boost to his eyes didn't last long. Soon Yuhara felt the energy transmission slow to a stop.
Along with that, he clearly sensed that the mysterious energy in his eyes had increased.
On top of that, the strength and toughness of his eyes had been boosted in an unbelievable way!
Both upgrades meant he could use his Mangekyō Sharingan longer and more effectively.
Honestly, even Yuhara was blown away by how much stronger he'd gotten!
No joke, if he'd been in this state last night—
He definitely could've lasted longer, and his combat power would've been way higher!
"It's just… even with all this, my eyes only hit a new limit—they haven't crossed into the Eternal Mangekyō yet."
Yuhara knew exactly what was up.
His eyes had definitely been supercharged by the Dark Scythe's physical enhancements, giving them a massive rebound.
But it wasn't a true evolution yet. He was still just at the Mangekyō stage.
In fact, he could tell he was still a long way from the Eternal Mangekyō.
Because he didn't feel that ceiling blocking his path just yet.
"But, not hitting the limit means I've got a ton of room to grow, and I feel like I can get stronger with training."
Yuhara thought to himself, remembering how his chakra didn't surge right away when he first awakened Mangekyō—it took time, practice, and steady improvement.
This time, the body upgrade was crazy painful, but he could feel he still had a lot of potential left to develop.
Now Yuhara was genuinely excited to see what would happen if he maxed out this round of upgrades.
"Maybe I'll hit the level of the Eternal Mangekyō one day!"
Lying back down, Yuhara grinned, though it was just a thought for now.
He didn't really know what the true definition of the Eternal Mangekyō was, just that you needed to fuse two pairs of Mangekyō together to get it.
He figured it was probably about combining the powers of "jutsu" and "body," but there's no hard evidence for any of that.
Right now, Yuhara had kind of filled in both "jutsu" and "body," and his eyes had gotten a massive boost.
All he could do now was wait—wait for his clan to grow stronger, wait for more points to draw what he wanted, and wait to see the final result of this transformation.
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P/S: If you are interested, you can read up to 30+ at patreon.com/Emik01.