Seed lay motionless on his mattress for several minutes, waiting for his breathing to level out and listening closely to the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of Jay's chest across the room.
Jay hadn't stirred. Not once.
Quietly, Seed swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his bare feet touching the cold dorm floor without making a sound. He glanced down at his right forearm. Under the dim silver light filtering through the blinds, the web-like crimson lines beneath his skin pulsed faintly—thump-thump—a second, slower heartbeat echoing right beneath his wrist.
Curiosity easily outweighed the lingering soreness in his bones. He couldn't test a living biological weapon in the middle of the bedroom, not with a 5-Star Vanguard sleeping ten feet away.
Moving with the fluid, silent grace of his 30 Agility, Seed slipped across the room, eased the bathroom door open just enough to slide through, and clicked the lock shut behind him.
He didn't turn on the overhead fluorescent light. Instead, he let his system-enhanced night vision adjust to the cramped, tiled space, stepping up to the sink and staring into the mirror.
The reflection staring back at him looked like a stranger. His pupils were still dilated into pitch-black voids, rimmed by glowing, arterial-red irises. A thin smear of dried blood stained his lower lip where he had bitten down to muffle his screams.
"Alright," Seed whispered, raising his right arm in front of the mirror. "Let's see what you actually are."
He focused his intent on the Marrow-Hound coiled inside his veins, pushing a small pulse of willpower into his forearm—just like activating his Adrenaline Heart, only deeper, tapping into that newly unlocked Mutation attribute.
Instantly, the faint crimson lines beneath his skin flared bright red.
Seed hissed through his teeth as the skin on the back of his right hand parted cleanly—not tearing wildly, but splitting along a neat, biological seam without spilling a single drop of blood.
From the opening, thick strands of dark-crimson sinew and pale, interlocking bone plates erupted outward. They twisted, braided, and hardened over his knuckles and forearm in less than a second, locking together with a dry, chitinous click.
Seed stared at his hand in the mirror. Instead of fingers, a jagged, eighteen-inch bone-and-sinew blade jutted seamlessly from his wrist, its edges serrated like shark teeth and veined with pulsing red fibers.
"Whoa..." Seed breathed out, turning his wrist slightly.
The blade didn't feel heavy or awkward like holding a sword hilt; it felt like an extension of his own skeleton. He swung it silently through the empty air—the razor-sharp bone sliced through the stillness with a faint, lethal whistle.
And the best part, Seed realized, a slow grin spreading across his face, it looks like hardened blood and bone. If I coat the surface in a thin layer of active blood magic, every instructor at this academy will think it's just an advanced Blood Forging technique.
His fake cover was completely airtight.
Next, he tested the second function described in the system prompt.
"Manifest," Seed muttered softly, stepping back from the sink to give himself floor space. "Show me the beast."
The bone blade on his arm instantly unraveled, liquefying back into thick cords of dark crimson muscle and bone fragments that slithered down his palm and dropped onto the cold bathroom tiles with a wet thud.
Seed watched closely as the mass writhed on the floor, rapidly assembling itself. Ribs snapped into place like ivory cages; lean, whip-like tendons stretched over a gaunt, four-legged frame; and a narrow, elongated skull formed at the front—complete with exposed, jagged teeth and two hollow, glowing red sockets where eyes should be.
It stood roughly knee-high, sleek and terrifying, looking like a miniature, four-legged echo of Eeyore's horrific anatomy.
The Marrow-Hound tilted its skeletal head clockwise, staring up at Seed before letting out a silent, rumbling vibration from its chest.
Seed's breath hitched for a fraction of a second at that familiar clockwise tilt, his hand instinctively twitching toward his waist before he forced himself to relax.
"Easy," Seed whispered, crouching down slowly. "You're mine. Not his."
Suddenly, a sharp, pinching pain jabbed at Seed's right forearm—followed immediately by a notification flashing in the corner of his vision:
[HP: 19/20]
[Warning: The Marrow-Hound is consuming host vitality to sustain manifestation. Feed the symbiote raw flesh or blood to halt consumption.]
Seed winced, grabbing his wrist as the symbiote drew a tiny fraction of his life force through the invisible tether linking them. With only 20 HP, losing even a single point to sustain the beast outside his body was a massive tax.
"Back inside," Seed commanded immediately.
The hound dissolved into a stream of crimson threads, shooting upward and slipping cleanly back through the seam in Seed's palm. The skin sealed shut instantly without leaving a scar, and the faint red lines settled back beneath his wrist.
Seed leaned against the bathroom counter, exhaling slowly as he looked at his intact hand.
He had an undetectable, shapeshifting weapon that could morph into whatever blade, whip, or shield he needed mid-fight—and an autonomous predatory hound for flanking and scouting.
The catch was simple: he needed meat. A lot more of it than before.
Seed washed the dried blood off his lip at the sink, dried his face on a towel, and unlocked the bathroom door. Morning classes were only a few hours away—and after dying in the nightmare, he wasn't just going to survive the academy anymore.
He was going to hunt.