Not knowing what to do, he decided to continue what he reads earlier. In this day and age, it was really rare to encounter a person still using a book information format meanwhile other people using visual animation format. He then searched the material he wants to read and sank into his consciousness.
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19th February 2097 AD
At the Genesis Lab headquarter, they conducted a meeting with 'The United Nations'.
What was the topic?
The topics were big enough to make every nations leader gulping in harmony, each time the Genesis Lab revealed the fruit of their labor one after another to the public. After a not so brief moment, after the leader of the Genesis Lab Leonhart Bloke spoke to all of them. Their face grew from greed to despair, from hopeful to desperate, and from asleep to wide awake. The meeting room was filled with swears and cries of many languages.
A few hours earlier…
"What we have done can't be fixed. We the Genesis Lab only research something necessary for the future of mankind. The inextinguishable source of energy, the Philosopher’s Stone. And after years of research, we are finally one step closer to the 'Gem'.
The first year of research has passed, we now know the Philosopher’s Stone is not an Artifact rather it is an Organism. This Organism has the power of replicating and shuffling their gene respectively without the use of an actual food as an energy. That was the only thing we knew.
And due to curiosity, we foolishly tried to extract them here to our dimension with a tiny black hole experiment with a specific property. This basically opens a portal that connect our dimension and Gods' domain for only a split of second.
The result was a success, and we managed to pull a colony of this so called Organism out to this world."
He chugged his glass of water, then continued his report.
"At first the Organism started adapting to this world atmosphere. It takes only 1 week for them to finally be able to survive this planet environment. And when they have learned how to survive, they started to learn on how to thrive in this world.
Another week passed by, due to the Organism being isolated together with lab rats. They started to infect and invade the lab rats. Firstly, the behavior of the rats started to change, they 'were' omnivorous. On the other hand the newly born infected rats began to eat each other. We noticed that there is some sort of ring shape bar at the rat’s neck, and when the bar made a complete turn they began to change.
The first-generation survivor, only 20 in number, each got separated and isolated to a new cell. Our researcher was there to observe the survivor. We totally got shocked, these 20 individuals each develop a unique trait. Some razor-sharp teeth, to aid them slaughter their prey faster. Some eerily glowing eyes, to assist them stalk their prey in the darkest of the night. Some strong newly developed limbs, that as sharp as icicle pick, to help them pierce their prey with ease. And the list goes on and on.
Because of these newly version of rats look some sort of demonic, we decided to name them temporarily, we bestowed them a new name Demonic Rat. We then tried breeding them, by administering a massive dose of oxytocin to each one, we hoped this reduced the odd of them killing each other during mating. The results were a complete success. The newly born offspring looked even more demonic then before. They each share their parent’s traits."
At this point all of the audience show the same face, as they glance at the pictures and videos involving the experiment, their faces only show one emotion, fear.
Fear of what is coming next, and fear of having nothing left.
Because there is only one type of fear that could overcome all of humanity, that is fear of the unknown.
After he had chugged his next glass of water, he started to speak again.
"At this point we conduct our next experiment. Because our major fund came from military related industry, they have an enormous interest to use this recently developed rats as a biological weapon. So, we tested it for ourselves, and we place the Demonic Rats and their offspring, in a new lab which contain other batch of freshly infected rats.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The Demonic Rats massacred all of them, and this was still within our calculation. But they began to change again, now they got 2 rings on their neck. Thus, giving them new traits. Then we decided to continue this experiment later. After exactly 10 rats left, we sprayed the entire lab with sleeping gas, in hope this incapacitated them. It is noted, that we used more sleeping gas than before. We stupidly let this small detail pass under our noses."
"Umm, excuse my interruption. But when you say 'we stupidly let this small detail pass under our noses' does this mean exactly what we all here think?"
"If you think they adapt to the sleeping gas, then yes, it is. Because the DNA in their body is perpetually shuffling, due to Organism, it is probable, that they find the right set of genes, that makes them more immune to sleeping gas."
"......"
He was obviously putting on a brave front here.
His hand shakily grabbed another glass of water and chugged it down very quickly.
As if this was the signal for the audience to remain silent.
The audience completely adopted a grim face.
"This final 10 survivor looked nowhere near a normal rat. Their body grew significantly bulkier, if a normal rat only weight about 250 grams, the Demonic Rat average weight is around 100 times that amount. That means their mass is about 25 kg. But despite this, their size stays only twice as big as normal rat. When we research this, we only thought, that their muscle mass must be massive.
However, when we dissected the Demonic Rat, we found out that at the center of the body near the heart, there was a crimson colored Orb. We were suspecting this was the crystallized form of Organism. It was so dense, even platinum couldn't compare to its density. The Orb size seems to depend on the size of the Demonic Rat's Heart divided by 2. There is no radiation coming from the Orb. We named those crimson colored Orb, Demon’s Core.
But we really sure that in the future we can found some method to unleash this world defying power. As we detached it from the Demonic Rat. The Demonic Rat body began decomposing, as if it returns to the basic elements in the Periodic Table and vanished into thin air."
The audience watched the pictures and videos of this particular experiment.
Their jaws were starting to drop.
Leonhart started chugging his glass of water again.
"Alright we're continuing this meeting later after break."
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Approximately 45 minutes later, after he finished reading the book, that piqued up his interest. He stood up from the bench, that has been warmed up now. The surroundings were now filled with laughter and chatter.
As he walked down the path to the auditorium, he heard two upperclassmen gossiping about him.
"Why would a Bland like him came this early?"
"Did he get too excited and came here early even though he is just a mere 'reserve'?"
Those daggers like words, are thrown around as if it was nothing. From the emblem of the uniform, we can tell, that the upperclassmen are all a Unique. This school only allowed 100 freshmen to enter every year. Because of a lack of an Educator that is also a Defier, the school decided to polish some of the gems whole-heartedly. Instead of polishing all of the stones in the box equally half-hearted.
As to why did he get called a mere 'reserve', when the polished gem 'breaks' and can't shine as bright as before, what would the craftsmen do?
To cast it away and started to polish a new gem from the piles of stones are the precise answer.
That is what it means to be a 'reserve'.
Not long after the upperclassmen gossip.
Igrum sensed an animosity in the air surrounding the First High School.
* THUD *
(Is that the sound of rocket launcher being used in school ground?)
(What is their main objective, is it the ceremony? If that's the case then they must be foolish because the ceremony is not even started yet.)
(But if they're only using this rocket as a bait, then maybe they're targeting something more important. In that case i'll better take a look on where they were. But I can't go in too deep yet, 'they' not even granting me to use a speck of my power during the test, not to mention my limiter. The timing couldn't get any worse than this. Okay first I have to find Quinn, and then we can talk.)
Igrum sits on the bench, enhancing his sense, and launching a wave of crimson dust particles, by doing that he could tell whether or not the enemy is near. Because he was so focused on the enemy, he forgot to observe his surrounding, and as a result...
"Hello, are you in pain? It is almost time for the ceremony. When you need, any help just go to the infirmary or something. Woah..."
Igrum almost died out of shock. But still his default face for shock still count as a poker face so.
He calmly gazes at the girl from his sitting position, as he elevates his head slowly but surely in vertical direction.
The first thing that he perceives was the skirt of a uniform.
Then a crimson colored bracelet on her arm.
Following that the school emblem on her left chest.
Finally her panic as if seeing a ghost face.