14 Chapter 12 Experimentation
Lucas slowly opened his eyes, he couldn't recognize the room he was in, he could barely even see the room in the first place. His eyes hadn't adjusted yet, but even after waiting a while, it stayed hidden behind a veil of darkness. He felt that he was lying down on some sort of cold metallic table, slightly tipped towards his feet, making his head see the very few details he could perceive. He tried to move his limbs and head, but they were chained to the table. The cold air was touching his skin, making him discover that he didn't have any clothes on. He couldn't see his own body that well, but enough to know that all his limbs were still there. Trying to speak, calling out for someone, there was only the silent echo that answered. The only thing he had were his thoughts.
'What's happening? All I remember is that mage..! He must've drugged me....but why? Why? Why!'
'Would you calm down, please? I know we're angry, but that won't get us any closer to escaping this place, where even are we?'
He made his mind keep up the conversation in order to stay sane, and after what felt like hours of being alone with himself in the dark he heard some footsteps.
"Huh? Hello? Is there somebody there?", his voice cracked and felt hoarse enough to even surprise himself, how long had he been laying there for his throat to completely dry up? He moved his head around as much as possible, but he couldn't see anyone, yet the footsteps continued. The feeling that someone was walking around him without seeing them felt terrifying to Lucas. The sound started to come from multiple places, omnipresent even.
Tap, Tap, Tap
They continued and seemed without any pattern. The seemingly muffled sound of footsteps kept coming, turning Lucas almost crazy. The only thing holding him sane was himself, his mind that kept talking to itself to have some form of life. Eventually, obvious clear steps were heard that kept coming closer to Lucas, yet this time he stayed as silent as he possibly could. He was bordering on feeling scared, but something else in his mind told him to hold steady.
"Hello there Lucas, how have you been?" the voice gave away that it was Venion. "You probably are wondering what's going to happen to you, but rest assured, you won't die down here.", Venion brought a single candle with him and placed it on a table that was hidden in the dark. The table was covered in strange tools Lucas had never seen before, they filled him with a sense of dread.
The way the mage said that statement made Lucas feel terrified of what's to come
'If his potions are mere training, what's he afraid of that it might kill me?'
"Now before we start you can pose me a single question... Nevermind, I'll just tell you a story."
"Once there was a very smart man, who build his own business and was very loyal to the Royalty. He was awarded the title of Viscount, and he developed his land. But his kids that took over the business didn't have the blood of a merchant and fell off. Their title was changed to Baron and they were seen as a failure. Now that person had a child, but he wasn't sure if his child would be a good businessman. So he placed his hopes somewhere else, magic. If his child could awaken to magic and grow powerful enough, he could get the Count title.
Sadly, the universe didn't see the child as worthy and needs the help of a powerful wizard to forcibly awaken his child. Now that family just lives off the riches that were inherited, basically being useless in almost every way. Hopefully, you're smart enough to realize what I'm trying to say, otherwise, it would've been a disappointment and a waste of time."
Venion told the story with emotion behind his voice, the candle did light up the room, but with his typical hood on, you could only see the corners of his mouth go up and down in a theatrical fashion.
Lucas could piece the puzzle together after a bit, but before he could say anything a metal bar was pushed into his mouth. "Bite on this when it becomes too painful."
"Mmmph, mmph, aah" Lucas couldn't speak anymore, but he was trying to inform the mage of his age, he couldn't awaken to magic anymore. A magic core is still something that is being researched to this day, but a few things are widely known. One of which is that after 10 years without awakening, the core starts to fuse with the surrounding flesh and transforms into normal flesh over time. For Lucas, the core was still somewhat its own entity, but it already started its fusion.
"Now, now, we haven't begun yet, if you are going to be annoying throughout this I'll cut off your tongue"
With that threat, Lucas stayed silent, but he couldn't hide his emotion. Afraid and unsure of his future he started to cry.
"Hmm, I didn't think you were such a crybaby, you did all that so-called training, but it seems you're still weak mentally. Luckily, your mental state won't matter", Venion said while a genuine smile started to form on his face.
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Day 1: Subject - Lucas (male); looks a bit older than 10 years, but is probably the result of the growth potion (see annex 2.34 for additional information). The goal given to me is to forcibly awaken a core, so far I haven't had a lot of success. Injecting magic into the area above or below the core doesn't seem to access it. It seems there are certain pathways that magic needs to take to get to the core. I haven't had the time to check if they are the very same for body enhancement magic.
Whenever magic is injected the subject starts to have spasms and tries to scream, but he cannot go unconscious because of an insomnia potion (See 2.35) I gave before the tests. This should keep him awake for about a week, but additional potions will be given in due time.
Day 5: Subject - Lucas (male); I have made some progress, it seems that magic can be pushed through the body from certain points in the hands and feet. I have almost gotten to the core with the pathways in his arms. The pathways are similar to the body enhancement magic but still different in their own way, additional research is necessary to figure out distinct differences. The screams and cries have gotten louder, I believe this to be because of the body rejecting the foreign magic. Still, it doesn't look like the body can fight back.
Day 16: Subject - Lucas (male); I have finally reached the core through the entrance point of the hands. It took a lot longer because the pathways become harder to figure out when one reaches the chest and abdomen. I have also figured out why the subject screams. As stated before, I speculated that the body rejects foreign magic, but it looks like the magic is destroying the pathways. The body sees the foreign substance as a virus and tries everything it can to get rid of the injected magic, but without an active core, it can only self-destruct certain parts to save others. Every time magic is forced through it, it destroys it a bit, this was also one of the reasons it took longer than expected. Using a bit of healing magic, it was immediately fixed. The veins were restored, but that did result in an increased reaction from the subject.
Day 22: Subject - Lucas (male); Reaching the core through one pathway wasn't enough, it needs to be done through every pathway at the same time. This is a difficult task for a starting mage but can be done when you prepare certain spells in advance. The subject has stopped screaming, but he is still conscious. It seems that he either got used to the pain or accepted his fate. I'm very close to succeeding, the commissioner of this task has been pushing me to hurry up because he needs the results for his own use, but research cannot be rushed.
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In the dark room, Lucas was lying in a pool of sweat and blood. He had been the subject of an insufferable experimentation process. To force an awakening is already painful, but even more so when you're too old. Still, the mage before him had been injecting magic inside his body. When that happened it felt like his body was on fire, but was freezing. It felt like every cell was being corroded and healed at the same time. It started around his hands, this was painful but tolerable. The problem came when that feeling reached places like his lungs and heart. He couldn't fall unconscious because of some weird drink and had to experience every change in his body in detail. Venion used different elements to see if there was any difference, this only made it worse. Wind cut his veins in two, while the fire burnt them to a crisp. Earth was used to see if he could penetrate the bones to look for additional routes, breaking them in the process, water was mixed with his blood, making his heart spasm. Light was used almost every half hour to restart the process and darkness simply destroyed everything in its path, making Venion think twice about using it.
At a certain point, all his pain turned into anger, and all his fear turned his mind into a cynical mess. He was someone different from when he came inside this room. His mindset had lost a lot of his typical naivety, but he didn't immediately let go of his natural trust in people. Every night he stayed awake thanks to the potion, so he had a lot of time to think about his life and the future. The only possible way to stay sane for him was to talk to himself. He already did that but doing so for hours with no end in sight would break most people, even going weeks without sleep would kill someone. The only thing keeping him alive were the potions that also kept him awake. The discussions in his mind took a strange turn after the first few days, they explored how he should kill himself. Stuck with only his thoughts, he turned into something different.
The mage came back and had a smile plastered on his face. "Hello Lucas, have you slept well?" The mage grinned, knowing Lucas wasn't sleeping during all those nights. "We're almost done, I believe, just a single experiment left." Venion said with excitement. Lucas' eyes widened a bit from that statement, not that he could express his emotion any further. "Let's get this over with, shall we. I wanted to do this yesterday, but I needed to refill my mana."
The pain started again, in the beginning, it felt like extreme torture. When he reached the chest it felt like hell, but he didn't make a sound. After days upon days of insufferable pain and suffering, he reached a new level of tolerance. His legs and arms felt like they were melting while also being frostbitten. That feeling spread over his entire body until it reached his brain.
Although he was strong, the experimentation was still too much to handle and he started to spasm and scream again. It felt like the same scene from the days before, but there was a single difference, there were no tears.
He felt 4 strings of energy close in on his core. Normally, a normal person cannot feel their core unless it is awakened, but after almost a month of feeling magic inside his body, he could finally see it. The strands each reached a unique place on the core before making contact. The core had to remove the surrounding flesh and turn into an independent organ. This took some agonizing pain and time, but it eventually succeeded. The room suddenly felt a gravitational pull towards the center of Lucas' body. It felt like every single bit of magic in the air wanted to go into his body. Then everything was suddenly pushed away from him as he started to glow with beautiful yellow light. Even Venion was pushed a single step from the sudden breakthrough.
"I DID IT, FINALLY, HAHAHA!" like the ravings of a madman, Venion was laughing crazily.
Lucas on the other hand wasn't even paying attention to him. He felt like he was freed from the table and was floating inside some strange space.
He opened his eyes but when he did he saw a shining sun that gave light to the entire universe. Instinctually feeling that this must represent his core, he inched closer to it. The sun was a beautiful mass of light that gave a comforting warmth, but something felt off. Inside this sun was a single speck of darkness, and no matter how bright the sun shone, the spot stayed abyss-like.
Instead of touching the magnificent sun, he was interested in why that darkness wasn't disappearing. The sun was crying out to him to not touch the darkness and embrace the light, but he felt like he was being misled. He went up into the darkness and reach out with his hands. The sun kept alarming him in any way it could, even giving Lucas a headache, but his hand didn't stop. Right before he touched the speck everything was suddenly swallowed by the ever-growing darkness.
He stood there, in complete black. Inside the abyss, he didn't feel afraid anymore, he felt somehow safe like he was always meant to be there. Two big fiery bloody looking eyes appeared from the darkness and asked a single question in an imposing tone:
"What Is Thy Desire?"
The voice was strong and dominating, it felt like he couldn't move his body or even speak. He could only look towards the eyes and stare in admiration. He wanted to keep staring but couldn't ignore this being's question and used all of his determination and desires to speak a single word.
"Power"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
And then everything went black.
