I barely made it back to the hotel room. The taxi driver had to help me to the elevator, probably thinking I was drunk rather than suffering from severe energy depletion.
"You okay, buddy?" he asked, eyeing me with concern as I leaned heavily against the wall.
"Fine," I managed to grunt. "Just... overdid it tonight."
When the elevator doors finally opened on my floor, I practically crawled to my room, fumbling with the key card three times before the door unlocked. Once inside, I collapsed onto the bed, my entire body feeling like it was being torn apart from the inside.
The aftermath of using the Saintly Body Skill was worse than I'd anticipated. Every muscle fiber screamed in agony, and my meridians felt like they'd been scorched with acid. This was the price of borrowing power beyond my cultivation level—the technique had given me temporary strength at the cost of potentially crippling damage.
"Need to... recover," I whispered to the empty room.
