"Murray, are you sure you can handle the upcoming hallucinations? Your extent of infection hasn't yet crossed 80%, but the degree of disturbance it's been causing you seems...heavy."

Murray winced. "How loud was I? How much time did it take?"

Mir checked his communicator.

"45 minutes. As for the volume of your shouts, let's just say you were screaming at the top of your lungs. Did you undergo some sort of torture in your hallucinations? Sure seemed like it."

Murray shook his head and refused to answer the query. Mir didn't press the issue. After a minute of silence, Murray stood up, capping the bottle of honey.

"Send Reno a message. Tell him to meet us at the grassland if something happens we get separated."

Mir gave him a blank look.

"What are you planning?"

"It's been too long. No one has yet made a move. If we can't weed out some people now, their combined forces would be difficult to deal with, too difficult. And that's what they've been waiting for, it seems. They'll send people in batches on each scheduled train to avoid being detected or suspected. But once they enter the sacred ground, they'll meet up and track us down together. No possibility of suffering losses that way, see?"

Thinking about it, Mir realized that this would probably be a good strategy. Not being watched or chased might lower a prey's guard even if it knows that there is a predator out there.

"Do you want to force them out? We can't be sure if anyone inside the data tower right now is one of those guys. Going overboard might just backfire," he warned Murray.

"I know. We won't go overboard. We just need to show them that the more they delay their attacks, the less chances they have of succeeding later."

Somewhat confused but curious, Mir followed Murray back to the data tower, completely out in the open like they didn't suspect anyone inside it might be their enemy. It turned out, there were around twenty people in there, ranging from teenagers to middle-aged men.

Entering the reception room where the soldier was sitting lazily, Murray spoke loudly enough for the entire room to hear him.

"We'd like to examine our current stats, please!"

The soldier looked as flabbergasted as Mir had been just a moment ago.

"You've spent five hours in the sacred zone, that too in the peripheral region. What changes could you have accumulated in this time?"

Murray surveyed the room full of strangers and said in a hushed tone, "The extent of viral infection in my body is going to cross 95% soon. I need to know when I should stop trying to consume more infected food and begin the neutralization process. I plan to reach the Transcender tier within a couple of days."

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Although Murray appeared to be speaking at a low volume, pretty much everybody nearby could hear him. The light in their eyes changed as they appraised Murray once more. Someone who could reach the peak of the evolution standard scale in his late teens wasn't a person to take lightly. Anyone could tell that Murray wasn't rich. That would mean he was either a student of the National College or affiliated with an influential organization that could afford to raise young talents.

The soldier's eyes flickered, seemingly able to glean that Murray had some insidious intentions for requesting the checkup right here. But he had no valid reasons to refuse. In most data towers, there were mini scanners to assist the explorers...with payment, of course. He couldn't turn down business when it came knocking on his door.

"Alright. Follow me," he said. Mir and Murray were tracked by the occupants of the room cautiously as the soldier guided them out, towards one part of the building they hadn't yet explored.

"This is our medical facility. If you have the money, or an insurance recognized by the Ministry of Finance, you can come here to treat both yourselves and your contracted creatures, even in case of fatal injuries. We have cryopods to slow down most of your biological processes until expert transcenders who can treat you come running. The service is pretty good."

The soldier's introduction to the facility was met with silence, because both Mir and Murray were staring wide-eyed at the dozens of heavy machines, 3D projectors, and slim monitors that had been arranged methodically inside the chambers. The facility was small, but it looked more advanced than anything they had ever seen in their short lives.

"This is the difference between ordinary people and superhumans, Mir. This is the future," Murray whispered absentmindedly.

Their scans didn't take long.

The reports weren't as detailed as the huge one in the gateway station, but these smaller scanners could roughly glean most of the major stats.

Murray's report contained two new changes.

Rate of Saturation: 84%

Overall Score on the Human Evolution Standard Scale: 77%

"The honey didn't increase your extent of infection stat, eh?" Mir said after taking a look at it. What a pity!

"If a single mouthful of contaminated food could increase our stats, it would be so very easy to reach the peak of the scale. Increasing the extent of infection stat is the hardest one, followed by the rate of saturation. I'm gonna consider myself lucky that one of the two stats increased. And my evolution standard score has been stuck at 76% for a while now. The honey just tipped it over past the edge."

Mir bobbed his head, absorbing the less well-known, practical info. The usual knowledge taught to them in schools and colleges was more generalized, rarely discussing the details of any issue due to the reasoning that most of their research on the concept of mutation and evolution was at a rudimentary phase. The researchers couldn't be certain about half the results they discovered, leading them to keep their teachings limited to vague theoretical interpretations.

"How many points do you think the bottle of honey could give you?" he asked Murray while his report was being processed.

Murray made some calculations on his fingers.

"Probably an average of two points per major stat. The more I'll drink, the less effective the virus would become on my body. Every source of the virus slightly influences the physical and molecular structure of the virus due to how it reproduces itself-"

"I know, I know! The immune system of the body can't immediately detect the protein structure of the virus when it comes from a new source, making its reaction against the virus relatively slow compared to the viruses it can recognize. But during the next intake of the virus through the consumption of the same contaminated food, the immune system recognizes it faster and takes action sooner. After several such intakes, most of the virus gets killed before being able to infiltrate the body at a level where the immune system can no longer detect it. So even if you have a large source of the same contaminated food, your stats won't grow!"

Murray gave him a blank look.

"Where did you learn that? This theory was announced a month ago at a conference that didn't allow journalists. Only the research facilities controlled by the local governments, the influential Churches, and the Companies tied to the Circle of Commonwealth have been informed of this potential breakthrough discovery."

This time, it was Mir's turn to be surprised.

"I'm not so sure about that. I found a research paper published last week in the biochemistry journal where I look for data outside the textbooks. I didn't go through the paper, but the concluding remarks pretty much explained the whole thing simply."

Murray's eyes narrowed.

"Check for it again. Right now."

Unsure of what was wrong, Mir quickly turned on his communicator to enter the free-to-access education network where an entirely separate search engine had been created for browsing journals. Typing in the name 'Scalpel', he entered the keywords in the search bar.

The most recent entry showed a date of the last month. Confused, Mir tried several other methods, including typing in the title of the paper so far as he could recall.

However, no such entry could be found. And Murray seemed to have expected the result, or the lack of it. He said, "Search recent news about this journal in the news networks. Try the more obscure and unreliable ones."

Mir followed his instructions and found one news article stating that a researcher had been arrested for publishing fake papers based on unreliable research results and statistical data.

This researcher was affiliated with the popular biochemistry journal 'Scalpel'.