Sulfuric Acid Body Refinement

A few minutes later, he had placed two orders.

Then he put away his phone, leaned back against the battered sofa, and closed his eyes to rest.

Outside the window, the slum was as noisy as ever at night.

A few gunshots sounded in the distance now and then, along with a woman's shrill cries and a man's coarse curses. But inside this little room, at least for the moment, it was quiet.

Half an hour later.

Russell stood outside his shack, looking down at a tightly packed delivery box on the ground.

The box was small but heavy, wrapped in several layers of tape with a red "Fragile" label stuck to it.

He bent to pick it up and was about to go inside when—

"Hello! Did you order a home delivery?"

A young courier in a delivery-company uniform stopped his electric tricycle at the mouth of the alley. Checking the waybill in his hand, he called out to Russell as Russell was about to enter the house.

Russell turned around. "That's right. I ordered it. The last four digits of my phone number are ****."

The courier caught sight of Russell's face and froze for a few seconds.

It was nothing else; Russell was simply that good-looking. Fair skin, a high-bridged nose, deep blue eyes, and features as finely drawn as a figure in a Renaissance painting.

Paired with his slightly cool expression, they gave him an indefinable air of distance.

The courier quickly came to his senses and pulled out the delivery receipt, looking a little embarrassed. "Could... could you sign for it? Also, you ordered quite a lot. Would you like me to help carry it inside?"

Russell signed his name and handed the receipt back. "No need. Just leave it here. I'll carry it myself."

"Oh... oh, all right."

The courier nodded and, with some difficulty, unloaded a large item from the tricycle. It was a long box wrapped in thick foam and plastic film, and it looked to weigh well over a hundred pounds.

He set it carefully in front of Russell and was just about to say something.

Then he watched, dumbstruck, as the somewhat lean young man lifted the hundred-pound-plus box with one hand and carried it inside with ease.

"That... is some serious strength..." the courier muttered. He scratched the back of his head and rode away on his tricycle.

Of course, he had no idea the box contained anything but ordinary furniture.

Russell carried the box inside, then went back out for the smaller one by the door.

Laura sat on the sofa, eyeing the two boxes warily.

Felicity poked her head out from the back room and asked curiously, "Lord Russell, what did you buy? Those boxes are huge..."

"Some experimental materials," Russell answered briefly.

He wasted no time opening the long box.

Inside was a custom-made glass bathtub, about 1.7 meters long and 80 centimeters wide. Its walls were nearly a centimeter thick, and the exceptionally clear glass caught the light and gleamed.

There was also a 50-centimeter glass rod, just as finely made and transparent.

He opened the smaller box next.

Several glass containers sat neatly packed inside. Their labels read: Sulfuric Acid, 98% purity, total volume 20 liters.

These were not things he could buy through normal channels.

At least, not as an undocumented "ghost." So he had taken another route.

With enough money, you could buy anything there, and someone would dare to sell it.

Now, under the dim yellow light, the glassware sparkled, looking as exquisite as works of art.

Russell carried the glass bathtub into the bathroom and carefully set it in place. Then he brought in several large jugs of purified water from the kitchen and poured them all into the tub.

The clear water splashed against the glass walls with a rushing sound.

Next came the most important step.

He put on protective gloves and goggles, unscrewed a glass container of concentrated sulfuric acid, and slowly, meticulously poured the colorless liquid into the water along the inner wall of the tub.

Hiss—

The instant it touched the water, the sulfuric acid released a great deal of heat. Fine bubbles appeared on the surface, and a faint, acrid smell spread through the room.

He picked up the glass rod and stirred the water gently, distributing the heat evenly so a hot spot would not shatter the glass.

At some point, Laura had appeared in the bathroom doorway. She watched him warily.

She caught the unpleasant smell and instinctively took half a step back.

"Lord Russell... what are you doing?" Felicity called from farther away, unease in her voice.

"Taking a bath," Russell said without looking back.

"A... a bath?" Felicity wondered if she had heard him right.

He kept stirring until the sulfuric acid and purified water had completely mixed. The diluted solution was slightly hot, its surface as still as a pool of clear water. But anyone could see that this "clear water" could easily burn through an ordinary person's skin.

When it had cooled to about the right temperature, Russell removed his gloves and dipped his fingertips into the water.

Warm.

Comfortably warm, around forty degrees Celsius.

He nodded, took off everything except his mask, and slowly lowered himself into the glass bathtub without a change of expression.

Felicity cried out, "Ah!" and ran off with a flushed face. Laura remained in the doorway, watching with a strange expression as Russell lay submerged in the liquid with only his head showing.

"Won't that... hurt you?" she finally asked.

"It will," Russell replied calmly. "That's why it's training."

As long as I don't give up, there's always a way.

Superhuman Healing was, in essence, the destruction and repair of bodily tissue. Rather than have Laura inflict physical wounds with her claws, he might as well go straight to putting his skin to the test.

Level Three Superhuman Healing had already strengthened his body considerably. His skin retained its elasticity while gaining substantial toughness.

After testing it, Russell felt confident.

He had to press a little to cut his skin with an ordinary knife. The wound stopped bleeding within ten seconds and scabbed over and healed in about six minutes.

He still could not compare to Wolverine, but his body was already moving beyond human limits.

That was why he dared to bathe in sulfuric acid.

I'll sleep here tonight, Russell thought, closing his eyes.

He tried to clear his mind and settle himself, just as people did in martial arts novels.

Soon, his awareness sank into a half-waking, half-dreaming state in which he lost all sense of himself and his surroundings.

In the bathtub, the diluted sulfuric acid steadily ate away at his skin.

Though the concentration was extremely low and its corrosive effect had become weak, an ordinary person who soaked in it would certainly suffer irreversible skin damage.

For Russell, what mattered was not the strength of the corrosion, but how long it lasted.

One minute, two minutes, ten minutes, an hour...

Every second, the sulfuric acid reacted slowly and continuously with his skin. The surface cells gradually broke down in the acidic solution, and the outer layer of skin began to soften and peel away.

Then Superhuman Healing went to work.

New cells rapidly replaced the damaged ones, and a new, denser protective layer soon grew beneath the peeling skin. That layer was corroded in turn, then repaired, then corroded, then repaired...

A delicate balance formed between destruction and renewal.

Russell kept his eyes closed, with no sign of pain on his face.

He could now ignore a sting of that intensity entirely.

In his mind, a system notification sounded at intervals:

[Superhuman Healing Experience +1]

[Superhuman Healing Experience +0.8]

It was indeed much more efficient than recovering from ordinary injuries.

The night was still young, and he had plenty of sulfuric acid left.

Russell remained in the tub as his awareness gradually faded. Slowly, at a pace too subtle to see, his body grew stronger and stronger.