After my outburst a week ago, Val started coming to my room—Or whatever this was—every day to beat the crap out of me.

There wasn't a place left that didn't ache; the bastard had hit me everywhere possible. I could handle It. The pain was nothing, I had become resilient. I could recover from it. I'd done so before.

But the most f*cked up thing Val did to me wasn't beating me up—that was something I could handle easily—he'd reduced the food which came to my room.

Such torture!

But it mattered not, I was strong. This wasn't the first time I'd been hungry; far from it.

After the first week, I felt an all too familiar sensation.

Pain.

No, no, I'd been in constant pain, but this was different—the pain had decreased.

I was sure that Val wasn't one to go easy on me—so I thought that I had started becoming used to the pain; that it had started hurting less.

There was the glaring possibility that I'd started becoming a masochist, but that was a possibility I was not so keen on believing.

'Getting used to pain it is.'

Actually, this wasn't the first time something like that had happened; back when Uncle Alaric had trained me, it had hurt like a b*tch at first, then it had become less painful.

Though today, was different.

With that familiar sound of the room collapsing in on itself to form a door, I sighed, getting ready for another thrashing.

I didn't enjoy this sh*t, no, not in the slightest. But if I wanted to get out of this place, I needed to 'blow it up using whatever you want' as the faceless butler Mark had put it.

Now, the question was, how should I blow this whole place up?

"Get up." A soldier ordered, rubbing me the wrong way. If I had come to understand something about myself while I was here in the so-called 'tutorial', it was that I did not like to be ordered around, not in the slightest.

Now, I could just thrash the shit out of this dude, get his gun, and kill everyone in sight, but I knew better.

The time I'd been here, I had noticed something; something horrifying—for me at least.

There wasn't a single piece of Dor.

Not a single person I'd met had it.

That was concerning; I knew that I was nothing without Dor.

I sighed again, standing up.

"Walk in front." The soldier—let's call him Jonathan—said, pointing at me with his gun.

"Okay, Jonathon." I said, walking in front obediently—for now.

As I walked, I made some small talk with Jonathan.

"So, how's life been for you, my friend."

" . . . " He didn't reply.

"Ah, tell me what 'Ataraxis' is?"—I asked, twirling around to face him—"is it like, the name of your organization? Your boss' name?"

" . . . " He didn't say anything but raised the gun and pointed it at me. I didn't move; the gun lowered to aim at little Eddie.

I chuckled, "Haha. You know,"—I said, coiling around and walking in front again—"you remind of a friend I had—some of the few actually."

" . . . "

"He's like you. No matter what I say or do, he'd listen quietly. His name's Jeff by the way-" I stopped as the sound of a bullet rang from behind.

I stiffened, looking where it had hit the ground.

"Keep walking, and shut up." He warned.

"Oh, so you can talk; I thought you were a mute for a second there."—I said, then gesturing at the gun in his hands, I muttered—"cursed things, I tell you."

After a few minutes of walking and turning, I found myself in front of a door—which wasn't much different from any other door out here; white walls, white doors, everything white, even the ventilation thingies were white . . . Wow, another word 'popped' up.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

'Ventilation, huh?'

As two other guards came to 'escort' me inside, I turned around, waving at Jonathon. Yes, I wasn't cuffed or anything.

"Nice talking to you Jonathan! Bye bye!" I said and was then 'escorted' inside the room.

The room was unsurprisingly . . . White.

'Why is ever goddamn thing in this place white!?'

There were two men and a woman. Val standing beside them.

I was brought in front of one of the men.

His face was dotted with red markings, his eyes a piercing white.

'God, are these people on a mission to make me hate the color white? Damned people I tell you.'

The white-eyed 'doctor' smiled and I shuddered.

Now, I knew what Doryu meant when he said what my smile looked like; the smile definitely gave the feeling that he was going to r*pe a little girl and enjoy it to the fullest.

Ugh!

Self Note: never smile again!

Self Note 02: no! We are not going to r*pe little girls! Never!

"Is this him? He looks . . . Well, handsome; to my liking indeed." He said, making me shudder again.

'He's straight right?'

I didn't care If this was a tutorial or not, I'd f*cking kill them all and then stab myself in the brain and die while laughing like a third-rate Xianxia villain.

"While that may be so sir, I don't think we can give him to you." Val said, calmly.

"Hmm." The tattooed white-eyed d*ck head nodded—yeah, it was decided; I was going to kill this b*tch.

The doctor walked up to the chair, which wasn't far, and sat atop as he spoke, "Mr. Cyrus, while I do think it's admirable for you to be against joining our cause"—I snorted—"you do not really have a choice. Your DNA Mr. Cyrus, is very . . . how should I say this? Um, yes! special. It is very special." He said, motioning me to sit down as well, which I did.

"You see, we—the Ataraxis—have a simple goal, and that is to bring peace. For that, we require your assistance. You have something we desire and we are going to test if it is really as powerful as we think. You are going to corporate, be it willingly . . . Or unwillingly."

"Ho? And what is in it for me?" I played along with this 'fake' doctor; no no, I was real. I knew that. If I wasn't, I wouldn't even have the ability to think . . .

"Peace. You will have peace. While you would have lived your life as a mediocre person, we provide you a chance to leave a mark in the pages of history. We can use you yo do so much. Your DNA alone can help us create a medicine so strong and versatile, we wouldn't need to worry about getting sick, age, or death." He said, and I noticed Val acting a bit weird.

Staring at him for a few seconds, I burst out in a fray of manic laughter.

"HAHAHAHA!"—Wiping my tears, I continued—"that's the funniest joke I've ever heard. Peace? You call this"—pointing around, I said—"peace? Really? You're mentally disable I tell you."

He sighed.

"I see that a peaceful method has not been able to convince you Mr. Cyrus." said the quake.

"now, let me tell you," he began slowly as he stood up. "you've just stepped into some grade A, go ahead and get yourself killed, cosmic-level sh*t, Mr. Cyrus."

His face got near my ears as he whispered, "and your only option is to buckle the f*ck up and do what we say."

I scoffed with contempt.

***

I'd underestimated these people.

I really had.

They'd really been 'peaceful' in their approach.

Because a day after I met that tattooed white-eyed dude, I was put through the most extreme training regime I'd ever experienced.

Even uncle Alaric seemed a bit kind now.

I'd be taken into a room, full of strange machines, wires, and tubes—Which, I later found out, was a medical facility.

They'd run tests and experiments on me which really made me think: was this really a tutorial as Mark had said?

This seemed real, too real.

When that five-inch needle had been pushed inside my spine while I'd been tightly bound to that bed and awake; that was painful.

When I had been put inside a room where they'd burned me alive at a temperature even higher than my own flames—which I was immune to—was painful.

And then they'd put me inside water so cold that I was trapped inside an ice prison for a few days, where I could do nothing but breathe—through the hole over my mouth, which they'd, fortunately, carved out for me—was painful.

I couldn't even move a muscle, dammit!

'For data' they'd said.

I had gone through so much pain and misery for those f*cking lines; that so-called data!?

Whether they were trying to see my limits or whatnot, I did not care, I was enraged.

Though I couldn't do sh*t about it; the f*ckers had made sure to keep anything resembling Dor way out of my reach; I was nothing without Dor.

They always stopped whenever they thought I was near death though, so that was good.

There was one more thing that I'd found out about myself through this hell.

I had a regeneration factor.

No, I didn't need Dor for it, I had a regeneration factor of my own. That was surprising, to say the least.

They only applied medication the first few days and stopped afterward.

That was what made me think. They said my DNA—yes this term and information regarding it popped out of nowhere, courtesy of Kismet I guess—was special.

But, so far, I'd only come to know about my healing factor.

I had it before. When I used Dor, I was able to heal faster than any race I knew, but it had never worked without Dor, until now.

I was able to survive being put inside a burning pit, having my skin burned as I screamed with a melted throat and a dangling eyeball—yes, it was definitely in the top five of the most traumatic experience I'd ever had.

When my body healed without any medication or spark in a f*cking night, I'd inferred that I had a healing factor.

'Cool, right? but painful nonetheless.'

But, what did my healing factor have to do with them? Ah, yes, they'd said something about making a medicine.

Was that it? Using my DNA for making medicine in the name of making 'peace'?

'Heh~ fucking hypocrites.'

Another thing about my regeneration was that the time to heal increased every day. A smidgen, but increased nonetheless.

Other than that, my physical strength, speed, reflexes, and awareness all increased.

That was all I was able to find about myself during these couple of days. I still didn't know where I was.

The thing was that this place or organization—had they called it Ataraxis?—had technology far surpassing our own.

Helen was not that high up In regards to technology, whereas Eden was higher in technology than even us—the Helians—but the Ataraxis, whatever it was, was way above us both in technology.

I was not patriotic or a hero, but this piece of information was still something I did not like.

Edians were above us Helians in technology, and now some unknown organization was even higher than the Edians themselves.

This place was not fake, I knew that much. I was sure that this wasn't fake. The pain I had felt this past week or so was a witness to that.

I refused to believe that it was fake. And if it was real as I thought it was.

We had a third sword in the same arena.

And as it was known, only one could emerge victorious.

And I did not like that. It meant more work—which I definitely didn't like.

I was too lazy for that shit.