Shaking off the events of that morning, Leo travelled for several hours before reaching a tall, crooked tree within one of the least travelled regions surrounding the base. The reason many people avoided this area was simple-- no one wanted to hunt overgrown rodents that barely even formed beast cores, creatures that offered neither challenge nor reward.
With such an isolated place being the ideal ground for him to practice in the past, he knew the terrain well. The only difference this time was that he had no idea what exactly he would be practicing, nor what awaited him once he started.
The ground beneath him was muddy, clinging stubbornly to his boots and smearing them with filth, which caused him to scowl.
"Dammit."
Every time he left Glory Base, he always came back looking more or less like a homeless person, while others returned looking as though they had just stepped out of a five-star hotel. It made him wonder, not for the first time, if he was doing something wrong or if he alone had missed some vital step everyone else seemed to understand.
Leo shook his head violently to dispel all these thoughts. He hung his bag on the branch of a nearby tree after carefully scanning his surroundings and making sure he was truly alone. Despite knowing there would be no one around, his overcautious nature still won out. It had saved him more times than he could count in the past, and he wasn't about to abandon it now.
Leo took off his shirt and tucked it away in his bag. He would be foolish to let it go to waste so soon. He straightened his back and relaxed every muscle in his body, forcing himself to breathe evenly. His gaze dropped to his body, his eyes searching desperately for something, anything different.
Alas, the only change was that all his cuts and scratches were gone. His scars from childhood, however, remained, etched deep into his pale skin like cruel reminders of a past that refused to fade.
This led him to believe that he could not heal scars from before the bite. Leo furrowed his eyebrows and frowned. The true cause of his inner turmoil, however, was his build. He was lean and pale, almost like a beggar who had missed too many meals. Most superhumans his age had at least put on a little weight, their bodies growing denser and stronger, but he remained the same.
In fact, he seemed to lose even more weight with every passing day. Some had even joked that he was a walking corpse.
Leo slapped himself hard across the face, the sharp sting blooming across his cheek. He used the pain as a stimulant, grounding himself so he could think clearly again.
"Focus, you fool. You're here to make a better life for your sister."
With a clearer head, he let his mind drift back to the night before, to when he had gazed upon the moon and felt as though he possessed the strength to challenge the world itself. Back then, he had wrecked his room with what he could have sworn were the claws of a beast.
He looked down at his hands now and frowned again, his breathing growing tense by the second.
'What am I, crazy? These are nails, not claws.'
He hissed as he tried everything he could to make them grow, to sharpen, to become more powerful than they had been the day before. He raked them against dry wood, attacking the tree in frustration, only to end up with several bloody splinters embedded in his fingers.
Infuriated by his many failed attempts, he felt a strange heat begin to boil in his chest. It coiled tighter and tighter until his rage finally exploded. He began hitting the tree with powerful force, growling under his breath as his fists slammed into bark and wood alike.
He paused suddenly, his eyes widening as the realisation struck him.
"Hold on a moment… did I just growl?" he asked himself.
If that morning his senses had been dialled up by ten, now they were pushed past a hundred. A cacophony of sounds flooded him-- grass brushing against grass, insects skittering across dirt, crickets singing in the woods, wings fluttering, distant movement he couldn't place. All of it crashed into him at once.
He covered his ears, desperately trying to block out the noise, hoping things would settle down. Instead, they grew worse.
With the constant sounds still assaulting his delicate ears came the thing that pushed him to the very edge of madness. Smells-- countless, overwhelming smells bombarded his nostrils. He could smell a dead animal's carcass rotting somewhere nearby, wet mud soaked with decay, and the sharp, nauseating stench of dung.
Unlike his ears, which he could at least attempt to block, he needed his nose to breathe. This made it hard for him to actually breath.
He staggered, clawing at his throat as he struggled to draw in a single clean breath, his eyes dilating in panic. What he wanted more than anything was to feel fresh air fill his lungs. Instead, he was choking on a multitude of smells so potent they crushed his senses, the pressure building in his skull until his head throbbed with pain.