Arter was strapped to a chair, biting tightly on a piece of leather as his body experienced multiple excruciating jolts. Sparks flashed around his hair and his fingernails, and he did his absolute utmost to free himself of his binds, but it was no use.
He knew nothing about the world save for pain. For a very brief moment, the blasting sound of a siren going off across the research facility was able to pierce through the cloud of pain that covered his mind. But it was only for a second. Then the overwhelming pain returned, and it continued for eternity.
But even mired in pain that originated from the very depths of his being, Arter's resolve never wavered. He never wished for release. He never wished for death. He did not even wish for the pain to be over. He simply waited… until it was.
The leather strap fell from his open mouth and he took in deep breaths, his pale yet sweat covered body greedily taking in air as if he had been on the verge of suffocating. Maybe he had been. It was hard to focus on such things amidst so much pain.
"Are you… are you okay?" Maximilian asked, filled with hesitation. For a moment, he almost thought Arter would die. But he made it through.
As Maximilian observed Arter, and undid the straps holding him down, he suddenly noticed that the colour of his eyes became much deeper all of a sudden. Then, for the first time, the sparks of electricity around his body flashed, but instead of appearing around his hair or his nails, they flashed across his face. The across his arms, and then the rest of the body.
Arter grinned as he held up his freed arm and allowed electric flashes to dance around the palm of his hand.
"It happened. It really happened! My ability has evolved!" he said with a hoarse voice, and then laughed.
Even Maximilian was stunned, for before administering the necessary injections, Arter had shown him exactly what his ability was limited to. always on m|vl|e|mp|y|r
"Don't forget our deal," Maximilian said as he undid the rest of the straps. Although Maximilian was disadvantaged in the Vault due to his ancestry, he still wasn't afraid or felt inferior to any of them.
Even with Arter's evolved ability, Maximilian had more than enough confidence in his own ability. Yet at the same time he could not imagine how powerful it would be if it evolved further.
"Yes, yes, I haven't forgotten. Get in the chair. I'll strap you down and give you the injections. How long did this take?"
"Around half an hour if I had to guess," Maximilian said nonchalantly as he sat down and warily looked at the kit which contained the four injections that were able to cause Arter's ability to mutate. But the cost of that mutation had been long, incessant pain that was extremely horrifying to watch.
In truth, he really wanted to avoid experiencing it. But he could not allow fear to stop him from growing so much stronger.
"Are you sure you don't want to tell the others about this?" he asked. Arter had used up one kit, and there were four more left in the room where they were.
"We have no obligation to hand this to them, as they have no obligation to hand us anything that they obtain," Arter said with a voice exceptionally devoid of emotions. "Think about it. There are only four kits left, and after you use one, there will only be three. Do you really want to give two to them? Don't you have anyone whose innate ability you'd want to see evolve? A family member?
A friend?"
Maximilian frowned, but then sighed. Even though these injections could, apparently, only work on Neophytes, there were actually many people he could think of he'd want to use these on.
"Are you sure you can get the army to give us the kits back once they take them from us?"
"They'll definitely take one," Arter said and he strapped Maximilian down. "That leaves one for each of us afterwards. Now bite hard on this. Trust me, you don't want to accidentally bite off your tongue."
He put a fresh leather strap in Maximilian's mouth, and then positioned the first of four injections on his arm before closing his eyes. That was not really an effective defence against Maximilian's ability, but at least it would prevent him from immediately fainting.
As soon as he used the first injection, Maximilian began to writhe, and a blinding flash of light filled the room.
Arter stumbled back. Even with his eyes closed, he nearly fainted. He supposed that he deserved that for electrocuting Maximilian a dozen times during his own injections.
*****
"What exactly are we looking for in the medical bay?" Nero asked as he led the way.
"Well, according to the documents I've read, when the emperor found the first Vault, it contained a special room where there was a machine that conducted an automated operation. The details are vague, but apparently it took a couple of weeks to recover from that, but when he did, he gained a tremendous amount of strength for a normal human.
Now the next part is just speculation, but a lot of people theorise that gaining so much strength before he became an Initiate is one of the reasons he was so abnormally strong in the later levels."
"We don't have weeks. I thought we were going to skip that."
"Yes, but who's to say that they don't have easier ways to augment strength? After all, the records are old and full of speculation. Besides, there is one more thing in the medical bay that I have my eye on - if it's here."
Gabriel paused, and gave Nero an ominous look.
"There was also a lot of speculation that the emperor may have gained something in the Vault that increased his ability to manipulate aether. It's hard to believe that the man didn't receive multiple boosts from the Vault. It was not for no reason that the man defined an entire era all by himself."
It was true. Although, at his peak the emperor had many Sages serving as generals under him, it was also a fact that none of them could compete with him. According to his history books, there were recorded instances of the emperor fighting against as many as four sages altogether without losing.
The identity of those sages was never mentioned, nor why they would be targeting the emperor, but it was a generally accepted fact that the emperor was, to put it in modern vernacular, a boss.
There were even many comparisons drawn between Sage Morphius Kade and emperor Iskunder, at least in Kolar. Though, considering that the emperor had managed to unify the lands, he is still reluctantly considered to be the stronger of the two.
"Fair point," Nero said and quickly led the way to the medical bay.
Unlike the rest of the Vault, which divided each section into multiple rooms along a few side by side corridors, the medical bay only consisted of a few large rooms. The first one they entered looked like a ward for patients, as it contained numerous beds, each one attached to some kind of machine - or at least the remains of them.
This was the second room they had come across that bore signs of a fight, and the signs here were much more devastating than the last - or at least more deliberate. The room itself and the beds were all fine, but each of the machines next to each bed had been thoroughly destroyed. Even the computer at the reception had been destroyed.
There were also countless medicine vials which lay shattered on the floor, the liquids they contained long having evaporated.
Gabriel wore a troubled look, but said nothing. Both of them explored the room and upon finding nothing of value, moved onto the next room.
This one looked oddly like a dentist's room, although Nero struggled to imagine why the Vault would need a dentist's office inside of it. There was a reclining chair, attached to a machine with countless mirrors and lights pointed towards the chair, as well as a few odd ones he could not understand the purpose of.
Fortunately, this room was not destroyed so they opened up the computer to try and understand what the room was for. It had nothing to do with dentistry. Instead, it was a room for minor surgeries. Some more delving revealed that each of the patients were getting some kind of implants.
Since it could not benefit them at all, in any way, they moved onto the next room which was much more promising. It looked like a pharmacy, or something close to it, and it was in good condition.
Both of them immediately began looking through the computers for anything even remotely similar to an enhancement drug or procedure.