18 Injection
Back inside the room, Draco was sitting down while thinking about all of his experiences in the past five days.
In this time, it would be no exaggeration to say that Draco no longer saw the world the same way.
The powerlessness he had experienced while being thrown across the room was something he would never forget.
Draco vowed to himself that he would never again be so powerless, and he resolved himself to get stronger as fast as possible.
When he thought back to the person who had put him in this room, he would be lying if he said he didn't feel more than a little pissed off.
After all, without warning, Draco was suddenly locked in a room and beat senseless for nearly a week.
However, Draco now realized that what Amira had done might have been for the best. Draco's body was now stronger than it had ever been, and his reflexes had reached near superhuman levels.
That's not even mentioning the pro-serum that he was promised.
Whenever Draco felt his heart wavering, he just thought back to the promise Amira had made to him. All he had to do to change his life forever was land a single punch on Samir, and knowing this was what allowed him to persevere through his suffering.
Eventually, his efforts paid off, and looking at Samir who was sitting in front of him, Draco felt mixed emotions.
Throughout most of his time within the chamber, Draco felt utter hatred for Samir.
After all, how could he not hate the man who had been beating him beyond an inch of his life for days on end?
However, when Draco looked at Samir now, he felt like it was hard to feel hatred for the Ḥāmin. He figured that the Ḥāmin was just following orders, and that this was just how stuff was done in this cutthroat Dynasty.
While the past few days were painful, and were definitely the worst experience of his life, Draco realized that they had provided him with undeniable benefits.
When Draco looked at the rippling strength in his muscles, and felt his biceps, he could tell that his muscles were now stronger than they had ever been.
While Draco was contemplating the recent changes in his body, he heard the ear-grating noise of the room's metal door opening.
Looking towards the doorway, he saw Amira's familiar black-robed frame.
When he looked into her eyes, he saw that they were filled with guilt, but also resignation.
"Draco." she said quietly, walking into the room.
Draco didn't say anything, instead he just stared at her with a blank face.
Amira saw the cold look in his eyes, and it sent shivers down her spine when she compared it to the carefree, mischievous look he had previously had.
However, she had prepared herself for this before she had entered the room. After all, this was something she had expected to happen when she put Draco in the Immortality Chamber with Samir.
"I-I'm sorry, Draco." she said as she walked up to him and reached to put her hands on his face. "Oh, but look how strong you've gotten." she continued while cupping his cheeks with both hands.
When Draco looked into her eyes, his expression finally softened, and he reached up to hold Amira's hands in his own.
"Amira, my princess, don't worry." he said, his voice a whisper.
Draco pulled Amira into a hug, and for a second Amira wanted to push back because Samir was watching, but decided to allow Draco to hold her.
"Your eyes look so sad when you look at me like that." he said, whispering into her ear.
"You're not mad at me?" she asked after a while.
Draco leaned back and looked into her eyes, "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little upset, but it's fine. Honestly, now that it's over I feel almost grateful for what you did. I've never felt so powerful before."
When Amira heard this she smirked under his robes, "It's too bad you're still so incredibly weak." she said.
"Well aren't I lucky I have you then?" he laughed.
Amira let out a giggle and replied, "You really are, aren't you? Speaking of." she glanced at Samir off towards the side, "That should be changing soon, you remember my promise, right?"
Draco nodded his head, excitement written all over his features. "The Progenitor serum? It was the Chiron strength something or the other, if I remember correctly."
Amira laughed and shook her head, "Something like that, except it's called a Strength Enhancement Serum. It was made from the blood of Chiron, who was essentially a half human, half horse Progenitor."
"Strength Enhancement Serum? Are all strength serums made from this, Chiron Progenitor?" Draco asked, curious.
"Of course not." Amira said as she began to walk out of the room. "Chiron is just a Progenitor that my family happens to have enslaved. He's just a glorified blood bank that the Khalid Dynasty uses to mass produce pro-serum."
Draco hurried to follow Amira, but inside his mind he was shocked.
'The Khalid Dynasty truly is powerful to be able to keep a Progenitor trapped in their basement.' he thought as he saw the outside world for the first time in almost a week.
Following behind them, Samir raised an eyebrow when he saw their strange interactions. However, as a Ḥāmin, he knew that it wasn't his place to question his master's decisions, or speak at all for that matter.
When Draco looked around, he saw that Amira's mansion looked exactly the same as it did before he entered the 'Immortality Chamber'. There were white robed Ḥāmin scattered throughout the hallways, and the residence was eerily quiet.
After walking for a while he realized what the source of this discomfort was. The fact that he could hear his own footsteps echo throughout the hallway but not Amira or Samir's was unnerving.
Draco followed Amira down a flight of stairs, with Samir following closely behind them. Amira made a left turn into a hallway, another left turn, and then went down another set of stairs.
Looking at the door at the bottom of the staircase, Draco noticed that it looked exactly the same as the one on the Immortality Chamber.
When Amira typed something on the door's control panel, the large metal door started to screech open.
After they had all entered the room, Draco took an alarmed step back.
'Wait, isn't this just a torture room?!' Draco thought to himself as he looked around.
In the very center of the room was a metal hospital bed, except that it had wrist and ankle clamps. Next to the bed was a metal tray with scary looking surgical tools, alongside a number of monitors that were displaying seemingly random information.
Along the walls of the room were several more expensive looking monitors, and they all flashed with light as they displayed various different things.
Suddenly, Amira's soft voice could be heard to his side, "Draco, go ahead and get on the bed down there."
Draco looked at Amira with a strange expression on his face, "A-Amira, what for? Is this really necessary? I already spent all that time in the room." he said, more than a little fearfully.
Although Draco was now much more resistant to pain, there was no way he was going to volunteer himself to get tortured on that scary looking metal bed.
Amira was confused when she heard Draco, but suddenly laughed when she realized what he was worried about.
"It's fine, Draco. How else do you think I'm supposed to inject you with the pro-serum?"
When Draco heard this, he scratched his head in embarrassment, "Oh, sorry. I guess I'm still a little on edge. I didn't realize you had to inject the serum."
Amira just watched Draco in amusement as he climbed into the hospital bed.
Samir approached from the side, holding a familiar looking black box.
Draco didn't see the man grab the box from anywhere, but he was so excited that he wasn't even going to question it.
When Amira opened the box, a cloud of vapor escaped into the room, and Draco once again saw the red vial of liquid that he had risked his sanity to obtain.
For the second time Draco read the words that said 𝘚𝘛-𝘌 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘮. 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘩 𝘌𝘯𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘮. 𝘚𝘺𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘯, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘶𝘳 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘳.
Draco gulped as he looked at the swirling red liquid in the vial, and he watched with bated breath as Amira picked up the vial, and then inserted it into a handheld machine.
The machine itself looked like a metal cylinder, and it was hollow on the inside to allow entrance for the vial. On the end of the machine was a long, sharp needle that gave Draco goosebumps to look at.
After Draco had laid back on the bed, the metal arm and leg clamps automatically closed shut with a clang.
Looking at the massive syringe in Amira's hand, he felt both trepidation and excitement.
"After this is done, will I be as strong as the Ḥāmin?" Draco asked.
Amira shook her head as she stood at the bedside, "Don't get ahead of yourself, Draco. The Ḥāmin have received several different pro-serum injections since childhood."
"After this, you'll be as strong as a Ḥāmin foundling, at most." she continued.
Hearing this, Draco wasn't actually that disappointed, because he knew that even a Ḥāmin foundling would be magnitudes more powerful than he currently was.
Amira then looked towards Samir, who was standing to the side. "Samir, give him the stabilization pills." she said.
Samir then opened a pill bottle and took out two, shining blue pills.
After Samir handed the pills to Draco, Amira said, "Swallow those, and then relax your mind. You must be at your peak mental state if you wish to succeed in integrating the serum with your biological systems."
Amira didn't tell Draco this, but even with the stabilization pills and his recent training, his body only had around a 40% chance of accepting the serum.
Even though this chance of success was twice as likely as usual, the integration process would be a long and grueling one, and Draco still may not succeed in the end.
Draco swallowed the pills Samir had given him and focused on calming his mental state.
However, if Draco had known that the pills he had swallowed were worth a million dollars each, who knows if he would have been able to calm himself.
After swallowing the pills, Draco felt a rejuvenating energy flow through his body. It was like he had just drunken water for the first time after having walked through a desert for days.
"I'm ready." Draco said after a long moment, feeling the strange energy course through him.
Amira simply nodded her head and placed the needle of the machine along one of Draco's arm veins.
Without waiting for a queue, Amira pressed the needle into Draco's vein, and then pressed a button on the side.
Just a moment later Draco was being injected with the red substance.
In the next moment , however, Draco started screaming.
