Chapter 3: Australian immunities

----- 17th August, 2024,

Townsville city, Australia -----

Alex came to a beach in the Townsville city of Australia, near to the great barrier reef for his target, the great " box jellyfish ", one of the most dangerous and venomous jellyfish in the world. This was a very nasty stinger that can kill you within minutes of a sting, truly a great tool for Alex to train his venom resitance in case he had to travel to either the pirates of the carribean world, or god forbid, the pokemon world.

He went to a secluded region of the beach where not much people come and dived straight to the water without any gear and fully nude. He searched the sea but was unable to find any box jellyfish that could sting him. Hence to not waste his time, he decided to meditate underwater to strengthen his body's internal systems and slowly strengthen his physical body using the underwater pressure just like in those chinese legends and cultivation stories.

But when he started going down the water, his lungs felt like exploding. They were eventually so deprived of oxygen that his body was almost shutting down. When his survival instincts kicked in, he quickly swam to the surface to avoid further miserable suffering.

" Damn, I thought I would not require oxygen since I technically can't die, but it seems turning into a vegetative is still a possibility. If all the oxygen ended inside my body when I was deep inside the sea and my brain decided to shut down, I don't even want to think about what would have happened." Alex got a frightening experience which once again put into his mind that this was a real world, exploiting loopholes was only possible to a little extent, it would not work like those that happened in fairy tales or novels.

"I should just return for now. I also have other important work to do. " Alex returned to his rented home and decided to apply what he mastered in hypnotism in these months onto himself. Self preservation was must after all, there are many things that could destroy you easily just from knowing about them, like eldritch creatures and lovecraftian entities.

He hypnotised himself to forget about certain aspects of what he had studied but at the same time created an instinctual aversion to all of that so that he would instinctively avoid making decisions that would lead to him getting in contact with such beings while keeping the related information sealed in his sea of subconsciousness. He made sure that it would not resurface under any circumstance and the seal would undo itself only when his instincts tell him that he could handle the consequences of the knowledge.

He basically created a secondary persona within him whose sole purpose of existence was to utilize the resources of his subconscious to regulate the seal on the knowledge. But it was not possible to complete it in one attempt. It was too complex to be possibly done at a go. So he created the seal in layers with every work of fiction which he knew as a different layer. After creating one layer of the seal, he was exhausted, so he decided to continue his studies on ancient and lost languages before finally going to sleep after a good fulfilling dinner.

By now, Alex had become proficient in ancient Chinese, Egyptian, greek, old english and sanskrit. He had now started his work on ancient bone script and oracle script, but they were proving to be quite the challenge.

The next morning, Alex once again returned to the beach to fulfill his objective of coming here, and he could not waste too much time in this because he was unable to do the other things that he had thought about in this area. He again went to the same secluded spot he found yesterday and dived in the sea fully nude , without any safety gears but with a medium sized container attached to his back to collect those venomous creatures. He decided to not do any irrelevant things this time and dived very deep below the surface to find those jellyfish. And he was lucky this time, cause he found a a swarm of box jellyfishes, so collected some of them in his container from the edges of the warm while maintaing a distance to not get stung.

He also found 2 blue ringed octopus and stone fishes as well, so he collected them in seperate chambers of the container and returned to the surface. He was happy with his find and quickly returned to his home while making sure that people do not find him and his box suspicious. After returning, he closed all the doors and windows and tried to soundproof things as best as he could. He then bit into a big piece of cloth and finally put one of his arms into octopus chamber and other in the stonefish chamber and tightly bit down on the piece of cloth in his mouth in anticipation of what was to come.

1 second, 2 seconds and slowly half a minute had passed and his bravery was fallen apart.

"Fucc, jusd ghurrhy uph ahnd do itdh (Fuck, just hurry up and do it)" Alex shook his hands to rile them up to attack him, and then it happened. First it was the octopus, and very shortly the stonefish also bit him.

"Arghhh..." He experienced the worst pain he had ever known for a short duration. It was so excruciatingly painful that it can't be described with words. It felt like all the nerve receptors in his hands were burning. His thoughts were going haywire and he was left with only his instincts. Very quickly voice stopped trying to come out of his blocked mouth. Alex had fainted , but his hand was still inside the chambers containing the deadly creatures, so they continued biting and stinging him until they too got tired. Alex was shaking and moaning even without consciousness.

After 3 hours, he slowly regained consciousness and pulled his hands away. His training of his body had helped him regain consciousness and break down the poison faster otherwise he would have been asleep for a much - much longer time.

"Damn, I wouldn't wish to experience it again no matter how much money you give me." Alex saw that both his hands were a swollen mess and they hurt when touched. He didn't take any supplement or medicine because he wanted his body to gain resistance to the venom and also the pain. He fed the creatures and shut down the container before going to his bed. Cooking was a painful experience but he had to grit his teeth and do it because going out was not a viable option given the state of his hands.

He then spent the rest of the time studying the lost languages and building up his seal. Finally the swelling got back to normal by the night, which again was faster than the average human standards. He also tried to copy the Jeahbongchim and mugotong techniques but they didn't work this time as well. Finally he meditated for a full hour before going to sleep.

The next morning he started by stretching his body and practicing his martial arts and trying to copy those two techniques. He repeated the routine of the previous day but this time his swelling was a little less and it healed a bit faster as well. He added a little challenge for himself at the end of the day as well: a jellyfish bath. He filled the bath tub with water up to 3/4th level and then lied inside it. He then turned the chamber of jellyfish down into the tub which almost immediately stung him on contact. But he didn't scream this time. He tried to hold it in at first but the venom worked its magic and he lost consciousness before the scream could escape his throat.

----- A/N -----

Why do I feel that he is turning into a masochist? Ayy, I don't want that to happen.

---- End of A/N -----

When he regained consciousness, he found that his whole body was sore and he couldn't move. He thus had to experience the stinging while remaining awake and feel the pain from his overly-sensitive body while only being able to let out guttural sounds and being unable to even scream. His body went in and out of consciousness repeatedly but with each duration a little shorter than the previous one. He had finally regained mobility after a whole night with the jellyfishes. Yes, he had to sleep with the jellyfishes stinging him over and over again.

This routine continued for 12 days until Alex had adapted to the venom and was able to just shrug it off while still feeling the pain. He had achieved little success in his seal and studies while his attempts at copying the techniques were still unsuccessful, though he could feel that he was very close and had sometimes even gotten very little boosts which proved to him that the technique was real in this world. He once got a 1% boost for 5 minutes and thus was feeling happy about this minor success.

Alex then left Townsville city and went from place to place to get bitten by the venomous creatures of Australia, be it exotic wasps, snakes, centipedes, ants, spiders, etc. He had been attacked by close to everything that is considered deadly in Australia , a country where almost everything wants to kill you.

---------- A/N -------------

He is a man on a mission. His mission is to give "brave wilderness" from YouTube a run for his money. Bro is becoming a menace to society.

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All this took 2 months of time. Now it was the start of November and only 2 months of time was left for him, before he was put to the trials of survival. He had completed his study of those lost languages and now he felt that he had done enough. His knowledge seal was nearly done and he had started consuming industrial pollutants to increase his cell immunization. He had achieved major success in replicating the Jeahbongchim and mugotong and was able to actually double his prowess, though for a short duration only. He knew that it was his body which was limiting him from further success and that he would need to unlock some genetic constraints before he would be able to actually replicate those techniques fully. In 2 weeks he left Australia and returned to New York to catch up on the shooting and combat training he had missed.

His body remained sleek but he knew that he had become much stronger than before and thus actively controlled his strength to prevent any mishaps. He then spent his remaining time in leisure playing video games with out of the box thinking and amazing non-conventional survival tactics. He also challenged his thinking in horror movies but it did not receive much success because of a lack of information. He tried to read as many alchemist cultivation stories as he could and memorized the formula of many potions and pill recipes.

"Fine now, let's see how my trip to the god space goes. I have already achieved whatever little I could. Let's spend the remaining time trying to gain fire resistance and enjoying. "

----- Time skip, 5 minutes before teleporting to god space -----

"All preparations are done now. Since I would be transported to the lord god space with my physical body and clothes, I should wear the special light weight armor I managed to purchase from the black market. I should also bring my hand guns with me as well, and some clips/magazines that would last me till my first 2 movies." Alex wore his armor but not his clothes in fear that he would be transported with just his clothes and not his armor.

"Not that it would matter much, but a few extra points and rewards in the beginning and some less purchases in the near future would be a good thing, I guess. "

Alex then put his guns and bullets like he had cultivated the american dao and also filled every pocket and remaining space with ample amounts of painkillers, stimulants and attached as many bottles of hemostatic sprays as he could onto his belt and also added a few strong, concentrated disinfectants just in case.

[Photo for reference]

And then the notification appeared on his phone:

'Want to know the meaning of life? Want to live... a real life?' There were two choices given ' yes' or 'no'

"Let's try pressing 'no' for a change. " Alex tried to press the 'no' button, but just when his figure was about to touch it, he could swear he saw the 'yes' an 'no' options interchange positions. And thus, he was teleported out of this world on his journey to the lord god space.

-------------------------- A/N ---------------------------

This was it, for this chapter . 2.2k words. It sure was a long ride. I tried to add some comedic elements to it so that you would not feel bored, but the comedy ends now, and its time to get all serious again.

There will be similar comedic inserts in this fic to lighten up the mood during the non-serious aspects of the story but the overall story is dark. Very dark, if I can do justice to what I have in my mind and give proper execution to my ideas.

Lastly, keep dropping those power stones and also leave reviews to help me with providing directions.

Also, does anyone know what are the actual requirements for a novel cover image? because I have some awesome ones but this app is just not accepting them. I have even tried converting them to Jpg format and repixelising them to width 800 and height 600 pixels, but it is still not working. Any information would be very helpful.

Edit :- I succeeded in changing the image. The key was to not follow the regulations set by the app and instead resize the image to 3072 × 4096 px and then upload it.

Author out.

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