Sizzle sizzle~
From afar, the sweet savory scent of barbecue wafted in the air, causing the other disciples to turn their heads and salivate. Because of their underlying influence, some of the neighboring abodes where the disciples resided soon had the aroma of barbecue.
They too decided to have a barbecue party for brunch.
"Wahhh~! I've always wanted to have this." Finana wiped the thirsty grin on her face while her eyes lasered on the hamburg cooking on the grill.
Every time Horatius flipped the hamburg steak, she would follow it up in the air. Finana would then suppress the urge to snatch it in the air and eat it all together. Then again, the hamburg steak wouldn't be complete without its sauce, so that made it easier for Finana to stop herself.
"I can't believe that we all wanted hamburg steak. What a coincidence." Horatius commented, nodding at Satoshi so he would start preparing the sauce.
Without needing further instructions, Satoshi began prepping the sauce. With tonkatsu sauce as the base, Satoshi prepared the hamburg steak sauce based on how his mom would prepare it. He had seen it countless times and it was practically ingrained in his mind.
"Whoa~ what was that? That smells so good!" Horatius started drooling as he caught a whiff of the sauce that Satoshi made.
"Our own version of hamburg steak sauce. I got it from my mom." Satoshi answered as everyone surrounded him. He was using the same ingredients but his combination brought out its every flavor.
A couple of minutes later, Finana set up the table she found inside the house, setting it a couple of feet away from the grill so they could have the full barbecue experience.
"Thanks for the meal!"
"Thanks for the meal!"
As Horatius set down plate upon plate of hamburg steaks, everyone licked their lips in anticipation. It was only when Horatius sat down that all of them started eating.
"Whoa, this is delicious! Especially that sauce, man, it pairs really well with the hamburg steak." Horatius exclaimed, finishing his portion in an instant.
"You should teach us how to do it next time. It's really good!" Finana agreed.
"Mhmm~!" Compared to the other two, Lucy actually relished her portion, slowly eating it so she would enjoy it to the fullest. Once she finished her meal, a satisfied smile appeared on her face while she gently dabbed her mouth with a napkin.
Even though she also really likes hamburg steaks, she didn't eat them in an unsightly manner. She was famished, but her mannerisms and table etiquette were befitting royalty.
"Now, onto the real topic..." The atmosphere of the place suddenly changed as Horatius leaned forward. He gave a brief glance at Satoshi before his lips curved upward. "Satoshi, mind explaining what happened during the first test?"
"Oh, you mean... ah, right!" Satoshi pressed his hands together as if he just thought of a great idea. He then started answering the presumed question he received. "Everyone was thinking that the maximum reward you could get in a test is two gold mints, right? That is, if you run the marathon with two tonnes on you and without using your superpower."
"I figured the rewards would multiply if you added more than that. After all, it wouldn't be available if it didn't give additional rewards, right? So I equipped four two-tonne pouches and got eight gold mints."
With utmost confidence in his explanation, Satoshi twirled his index finger as he explained. Somehow, he felt comfortable with this group even though it had only been a couple of hours since they met each other and gathered.
Sigh~
Scratching his head, Horatius had a troubled expression on his face as he stared at Satoshi. "No, I wasn't talking about that." He commented.
This time, bewilderment filled Satoshi since he had no idea what Horatius was implying. If he wasn't talking about his exploitation of the marathon rewards, then what was he talking about?
"Yeah, we already knew that, but that's not humanly possible so no one tried it. In any case, what we want to know is how you carried eight tonnes by yourself without using any of your superpowers. Are you even human? How does that even work?" Horatius let out, pulling out all stops since Satoshi didn't seem to understand his indirect question.
"Oh, I'm sorry but I don't know either. I only found out about it during the disciples training." Satoshi brought his hand up and clenched it. "It seems that... my body actually adapts to its environment. Be it gravity or an absurd amount of weight, I can withstand it."
"How about temperature? If it's very cold or hot? Can you endure it as well?" Finana's eyes lit up as she intently stared at Satoshi.
"I-I think so." Satoshi nervously replied since he knew what was about to happen next.
"Then we have to test it! If you only found out about it, wouldn't it be better for you if you knew its limitations? Right now we should put your body in extreme trauma... well, not too much since we still have two or so tests later on." For some odd reason, Finana was more fired up than usual.
Without saying another word, she started cleaning up and clearing the empty space in the yard. She was more than eager to test Satoshi even though Satoshi was the one who owned the unique trait.
"Is it the... Golden Refinement Body? There's no way, right?" Horatius muttered to himself. He had only heard the term loosely discussed in the books in their world, but throughout history, there were only two recorded instances of this strange phenomenon.
Horatius touched his chin as he got too deep in his thoughts. "Strange, isn't he from another world other than ours? So that means the phenomenon could exist in other dimensions as well... wait, does that explain why there were only two recorded instances of it?
"What are you muttering about?" Finana asked. "Come on, you should help out too."
"Sorry," Horatius apologetically said, scratching his head. For now, he would put the thought at the back of his mind. Once they were done with these tests, he would know for sure whether Satoshi has the Golden Refinement Body or not.
While the term may sound like it was straight out of a cultivation novel, it was a loose term that describes a rare case where someone was born with an almost-indestructible body. Provided that the body was subjected to a slow adjustment as well as having enough energy for sustenance, the body could then adapt without much difficulty.
This wasn't a superpower, but rather, it's akin to a congenital disorder. That's why it doesn't work like any superpowers out there. If any, it was closer to a natural unique trait than a buff.
"All right, let's start with fire! Remember, you should consciously not activate any of your abilities or superpowers, Satoshi." Finana reminded him before nodding at Lucy.
At Finana's signal, Lucy then fired off intense flames at Satoshi. Since he wasn't activating anything, Satoshi immediately felt the burn in his body, and his skin got a third degree burn.
"Aghk~!" A scream of excruciating pain came out of Satoshi's mouth as he was forced to kneel on the ground.
Fortunately, Satoshi's pain threshold was high, and he actively reminded himself to not activate any of his superpowers nor expend any energy. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to endure the flames that scorched his skin.
Then a miracle happened.
A couple of seconds later, Satoshi's body just stopped burning. His body got used to the temperature and he didn't even feel a sliver of warmth.
'Strange... how come I have this ability when I've never experienced this before? When did I awaken this, exactly?' Satoshi asked himself.
For a moment, Satoshi thought that his nervous system entered failure, but he could still feel it whenever he pinched himself, which disproved his first assumption. Still, it was weird that he never knew about it until now.
Then again, he never subjected himself to extremes, so there was no way he'd know he had such an overpowered bodily trait.
"Next is the coldness!" Finana called out, to which Lucy fired off an extreme blast of ice beam.
Fwip~!
Suddenly, Satoshi felt like his heart stopped, and he could've sworn he lost consciousness in a split second. But after that, the sudden cold disappeared altogether, and he didn't feel a thing while the ice beam continued to hit his body squarely.
"Whoa, what's going on?!" Satoshi exclaimed as his body continued to adapt to the coldness.
"Now gravity!" Finana ordered.
Just like the first two, Lucy once again used his Golden Pen Representative to apply gravitational pressure onto Satoshi.
"Now let's move on to hydrostatic pressure! Then space environment!" It's as if something was awakening inside Finana as she continued testing the sheer limits of Satoshi's body. But no matter what she did, Satoshi survived everything.
He did suffer some really serious injuries, but he didn't die— which was a good thing.
"Can we stop for now? I might transition into an 'm' at this rate." Satoshi panted as he collapsed on the ground, all beaten up and out of breath.
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