CHAPTER 23

"Oh, are you crying?" Savio asked when he entered the room and saw Hirayon's shoulders trembling.

The child then turned around and gave him a glare while still quivering.

"That look..." Savio muttered, surprised at how Hirayon looked at him. But then he smirked and laughed out loud.

"That's the same look the chief of Water Clan usually has, right? Amazing, you're definitely his son," he concluded after remembering his encounter with Hanan before.

To him, it was an unpleasant but memorable encounter that he will never forget. After all, it is rare to piss off a private person like Hanan, who rarely shows himself in public. But now, he is sure with Hirayon missing, Hanan is in a rage.

'Shame, it would be an amusing scene,' Savio thought and laughed.

"If you touch me, you'd be dead," Hirayon said, not fazed by Savio's craziness.

The man let out a wide grin, "Of course I will be. Do you know how ruthless your father was? But what could happen if he doesn't even know where we are?" He asked with a carefree teasing smile.

It is true that Hanan makes him quiver in fear, but he doesn't care right now as they are far from him. He was confident that they wouldn't find the facility even if Hanan scoured the whole Diwana.

"Now, now, shall we start?" Savio asked, and a vast hologram appeared in front of him.

There he pressed numerous words, and the room's interior was changed. A table appeared with multiple glass tubes, bottles with different substances, scientific equipment, and injections neatly placed with thin to thick needles that could weaken anyone in fear.

With Savio's last click, Hirayon's bed moved and fixed itself on the wall. Propelling Hirayon upward, allowing him to see the entire room and the table full of experimenting tools above.

"Let me go!" Hirayon yelled as he tried to push the metal band away. As he was upright, the mattress still on his back, he was having difficulty controlling his body as gravity worked on him, making him dangle with the only metal stopping him from falling on the floor.

"Don't move around too much. Oh, wait," Savio said and approached Hirayon. He then pinned the child's hands on his side, then another metal band appeared beneath the mattress, restraining Hirayon. He did the same to the child's feet, and Hirayon was now entirely restricted from moving. The child tried to fight, but the slender man was stronger than he looked, and the little muscles he gained from training were useless.

"Release me!" Hirayon shouted as he felt the cold metal scraping his skin every time he moved.

"Just wait, alright? Later you'll be free to roam around and even play with other kids! Exciting, right?" Savio happily stated while removing the remaining air on an injection with a slightly thick needle. He was doing it with a small, cheery smile, making Hirayon dread what we'll happen to him.

He then moved closer to Hirayon, pointing the injection at the child's left arm. "Don't disappoint me, Hirayon," he said and inserted the needle into Hirayon's skin. He pushed the plunger, injecting the clear white substance into the child's arm.

The moment Hirayon felt the sting of the injection, he winced. It was painful but tolerable. When Savio finished, he moved away and looked at Hirayon expectantly.

"It should start now."

As if on cue, Hirayon's eyes widened as an unbearable pain enveloped his entire body. He tried to suppress it at first, but the longer he tried to, the more painful it was, to the point that he couldn't help but scream.

"That's right. Scream so that I know the first injection was effective," Savio said, nodding his head in satisfaction as he watched and documented Hirayon's reaction on the child's experiment file.

Hirayon felt like his body was on fire. With the pain, he felt like his insides were melting and his blood boiling. He was feeling the searing pain to the bone, making him not think of anything other than raw despair. He couldn't even hear himself screaming as all he could sense was the prolonged, excruciating pain.

Unlike what Hirayon felt like an eternity, he was only screaming for a few seconds.

"So when will your body accept it?" Savio mumbled as he calmly watched the timer.

A typical child's body takes ten minutes to accept the substance, but Hirayon was a chief's son, so Savio has high hopes. He wished that the child would be his breakthrough for another discovery about an oddity's body.

To his delight, Hirayon stopped screaming and fell unconscious while breathing hard. The child was full of sweat and tears. There was even blood on his hands and feet as he was resisting too much.

"Absolutely amazing," Savio muttered with a smile as the timer stopped with one minute and twenty-six seconds.

He then approached Hirayon and scanned his body using his ability. Savio looked at Hirayon's muscles, bones, organs, veins, and everything inside with glowing grey eyes. He was planning to take note of any changes, but to his shock, there were none.

"Nothing changed," he stated while trying to find any slight changes, but no matter how hard he tried, the child's body was functioning like usual. The substance ultimately entered his system, yet Savio could see no side effects.

The white liquid he injected into Hirayon's body was meant as a base for other substances with condensed elemental Aura. Using those, he would know if Hirayon could use other elements which really excite his researcher's blood to the bone. But because the child was unconscious, Savio had no choice but to wait.

"Hurry now, Hirayon. Aren't you excited to know what more elements you can wield?" Savio whispered to the child before deciding to call a servant to wipe Hirayon's sweat and change his clothes to a plain white gown. Even though Savio could wake up Hirayon with the help of a recovery pill, he refrained from doing so as he wanted to see the child's capacity to absorb all the substances that he would inject from now on without the help of healing pills.

With that, Savio waited until Hirayon woke up after more than an hour of sleep.

"Finally! Let's start now!" Savio excitedly said, not even allowing Hirayon to understand what was happening. All the child felt next was another round of agonizing pain after Savio injected a substance in color red.

Hirayon's scream echoed in the room, and Savio acted like what he was hearing was normal. He felt no sympathy for the child and was even annoyed at Hirayon, for his body was clearly rejecting the red substance.

"I expected it, but I was hoping a little since your father trained with fire Oddities before," Savio said, watching Hirayon scream with a disappointed gaze.

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What he injected into the child was a substance with the Fire Element Aura inside. If Hirayon's body accepted it, that means the child could wield the fire element. Unfortunately, Hirayon was now screaming, with veins in his entire body bulging out. The pain he was feeling was his body's rejection of the substance, indicating that he couldn't use the element.

"Let's try Air Element next," Savio said, calmly preparing the next injection while listening to Hirayon's scream.

This process continued for days until Savio was finished trying on every element there was. He injected hundreds of elements into Hirayon and mercilessly watched the child writhe and scream in excruciating pain.

Disoriented, Hirayon could barely feel and see anything. He was weakly breathing while his face and body were full of sweat and blood. Some of his veins popped at some point, but the experiment continued like it was just nothing.

Numbed, Hirayon couldn't move any of his limbs. He was utterly limp. Even opening his eyes required him an arduous effort to do.

He was still feeling a shock of pain every minute, jolting his body, but he was too tired and out of it to scream. To him, the last days were worse than hell. It felt like an eternity as continuous pain enveloped his entire soul. He didn't even know when he stopped screaming and just allowed his body to react unconsciously.

"Your body is definitely record-breaking, but maybe I pushed you too hard," Savio said while looking at Hirayon's charts. The last few days were a successful experiment for him because no matter how much Hirayon's body bled, it fought until the end. That was a new field to explore, and his main subject would be children of Prime Oddities, particularly Hirayon.

After his eleventh injection, the child's body started to slow its pace in accepting the substances. From a minute and twenty-six seconds, it added more until the last substance Savio injected took more than an hour for Hirayon's body to accept.

At some point, the child also stopped screaming, but because he was still trembling and shaking in pain, Savio could still identify which elements Hirayon had an affinity with.

"Well, you can rest now. We're done with our first set of experiments. I'll monitor you for now, and if your recovery is too slow, I will give you a pill. But I doubt you'll need one as you didn't even need a blood transfusion even after all the blood you cried and puked. How does that sound?" Savio asked the limped child, who was softly grunting and jolting from time to time.

He smirked, "My bad, you can't answer right now," Savio said and chuckled like a deranged man.

"Then jolt if you agree," he said and waited for the child's body to receive a shock. When it did, he beamed a huge smile before happily walking out of Hirayon's room. Leaving the child limped and red from all the severe pain of experiments.

A few days later, Hirayon found himself properly lying in bed. His body felt heavy and aching, but when he tried to sit up, he was surprised to see that the metal band on his waist was gone.

Hirayon looked around, and he was still surrounded by white walls. He was disoriented from sleep, but when his eyes landed on the table beside his bed, he was reminded of what he had gone through.

As if cold water was poured on him, he jumped out of bed and away from the table that still had a few injections with different colored substances inside.

With heavy breathing, Hirayon touched his body and looked down. There he saw bandages on his wrists and ankles with a slight hint of blood. Other than that, there were no other injuries which made him frown.

'That can't be. I remember coughing and letting out blood,' he thought and pressed on his chest. He thought he would feel pain but other than the heaviness of his body, there was none.

'Did I dream things?' he asked himself as he was sure that the nightmare he experienced was absolutely the reality. He felt like he was thrown into flames over and over again, and no matter how hard he screamed to make it stop, nothing happened, and he continuously succumbed to agonizing pain.

Hirayon was deep in his thoughts when a man in a uniform suddenly entered the room while pushing a trolley. He looked straight at Hirayon and smiled at him, making the child jump and move away from the man.

Standing still, the young man smiled and bowed slightly. "Good morning, OWS59. I'm FORT685, and I will be your servant from now on. Please call me whenever you need anything. I also brought your breakfast," he said, removing the cloth above the trolley and revealing several dishes.

"You have not eaten for days, so I made sure to bring a lot," FORT685 said while pushing the trolley toward the middle of the room. He then stopped and pressed something in the hologram, and the next second, a white table and chair appeared beside the trolley.

Without waiting for Hirayon, FORT685 carefully arranged the dishes on the table before looking at the child again.

"Please eat. The food will get cold," he said in a professional tone, like an experienced servant.

Instead of complying, Hirayon asked. "Where am I?"

"You are in the Familia Facility, OWS59," FORT685 answered, surprising Hirayon as he was not really expecting the man to reply.

"Why am I here?" Hirayon asked again.

"To become strong," FORT685 answered, making the child frown. Hirayon felt he was fed an absurd lie and treated like a stupid kid.

"What do you mean?!" he shouted as he was sure that wasn't the case.

FORT685 nodded calmly, not fazed at the anger Hirayon was showing. "I understand your confusion, and I will explain what I can to you. But please eat first, as you need a lot of energy today."

"Why? Cause you're going to experiment on me again?!" Hirayon fumed. He could still hear himself scream inside his mind like everything was happening to him again.

"No, OWS59, it's time for you to meet the other children," the servant denied.

"What children? There are others here?" Hirayon asked. The thought of other children suffering like him made him calm down and think things through.

'I am not the only one. What's their goal?'

"Yes. Please eat first," FORT685 insisted. When Hirayon looked at the table with delicious-looking meals, he heard his stomach grumble.

Still wary, he walked towards the man with a huge build. Coming closer, Hirayon noticed that the man had gray hair and black eyes, a combination that he was familiar with.

Although unsure, Hirayon asked. "Are you from the Rock territory?"

FORT685 looked at Hirayon with slightly widened eyes, "I was." He was not expecting Hirayon to notice his features that shout he is a Rock Element user.

"Then why are you here?" Hirayon asked and carefully sat on the chair. His eyes were still watching the man.

"I live here," the man said with a faint smile.

"For how long?" Hirayon asked while slowly lifting the utensils.

"273 years."

Hirayon looked at the man strangely. "Were you kidnapped as well?"

"No, I joined on my own," the man said, which confused Hirayon more. He couldn't understand why someone would willingly join a place where they do experiments on a kid.

"Why?"

FORT685 gave Hirayon a faint smile, "Because I need to eat." His situation was completely different from Hirayon's. Back then, he would do everything just to have a piece of bread. To him, the pain of injection was nothing compared to dying of hunger and thirst.

After his answer, silence enveloped the room, and it was only disturbed when the door opened, making Hirayon instinctively run to the far end right corner of the room.

"Wow, you can run now," Savio said with an amused expression. If it were the other kids, they would stay rooted in their place and tremble in fear.

"You really amuse me," he added and approached FORT685.

"I hope you didn't tell him something you're not supposed to?" Savio asked with a faint smile, but his eyes were firm and fierce.

The servant obediently bowed, "I only told him what I was allowed to," he answered.

"Good, good," Savio nodded and moved his gaze toward the wary child.

"Hirayon, you should finish your food. You'll be meeting the kids later in the arena. I wanted to train you first, but the Familia is adamant about seeing you."

"What arena?" Hirayon asked. Even though he doesn't want anything to do with someone who made him feel unbearable pain, he must gather information to escape.

"It's the performance room. You better do well so you can earn award points," Savio answered while looking at a hologram.

"What are you talking about?"

"Explain it to him," Savio told FORT685 and focused on the message he received.

"The arena is a massive and spacious room where you will play with other kids. From there, the members of the Familia will watch you and give you awards and deduction points. You can use the points later for pills and stones that could help you get stronger," the servant explained.

"What Familia?"

"It-"

"Familia. They are the ones who made all of this possible. They are the founder of the mission to unite every Oddity in the world. Amazing, right?" Savio answered, interrupting FORT685, who was about to speak.

"We're already united," Hirayon pointed out, remembering what he had read in his books.

Savio paused for a few seconds before giving Hirayon a deranged smile. "You're mistaken. What the family wants is different from the peace we have now. What they want is for everyone to become equally strong and capable."

"But that is impossible. Oddities can't use another element they don't have a high affinity with." Hirayon objected. The only way an oddity could possibly wield another element is if that person could master the last element and reach another rank. Still, oddities can only use a different element that is compatible with their last one.

Savio looked at Hirayon seriously. It was the first time the child saw the crazy man give him a normal but equally terrifying gaze. He heard alarms in his mind, but then Savio's next words silenced everything in the room, including Hirayon's mind.

"But it is. We made it possible."

R E H I L I Y A