Chapter 124

  Earlier.

  “I finally took the time to examine the strange trees you asked me to study,” Johanne said, looking up from her tablet. “Indeed, it was as you say. They are developing rudimentary mana systems. They possess simirities to the Fae networks, although there are differences.”

  Travis frowned. “Is it dangerous?”

  Johanne shrugged. “We don’t know yet.”

  “Could it happen to people?”

  “So far, we have observed a corretion between the rate of absorption of the creatures floating in the mana and the speed at which the vegetation has been developing the mana systems. However, we have seen no absorption and no mutations in any animal. It is too early to extrapote, but I think the floating creatures only affect pnt life.”

  Travis’ eyes narrowed. “Is there any chance we can weaponize the effect? Create our own anomalies?”

  “I see you are as greedy as always, Mister Tyrell,” Johanne remarked. “Very well, I shall devote a portion of my researchers to the task. I don’t think it will yield any result, though.”

  The man was undeterred. “There must be a way. After all, we are seeing random anomalies pop up all the time around here.”

  Johanne shrugged again. “The intricacies of magic. There must be another method through which it happens. I will look into it when I have the time.”

  “People,” Travis insisted, “do people as well. I want to know if people can attain magical powers without the aid of the dungeon.”

  Johanne’s hands traveled to her hips, resting there as she looked at Travis with a stern expression. “Give me funds, then. What do you expect me to do?”

  “Why don’t you ask your AI?” Travis scoffed in response. “It seems to command considerable resources. Did you know that it agreed to pay a teenager one point two million dolrs a year?”

  “So what? I saw the report; it was an investment into a cyphering method that might render all other cybersecurity unnecessary. Don’t act like a million or two are sums big enough to warrant this reaction when, very clearly, they are not. I saw your own spending. It’s exorbitant.”

  “There is another matter,” Travis said before she could leave.

  Johanne simply stared him squarely in the face, making him sigh. Shaking his head, he said, “Our mole is finally becoming useful. In exchange for a method to obtain Silver-rank, he will soon send the schematics behind the OA’s energy dome. I expect you to study and reverse engineer the technology as soon as you possibly can.”

  Johanne huffed, turning on her heel and leaving. Her parting words could be heard above the noise of the closing door. “You are lucky you’re the boss’s left hand, and that I like magic.”

  Travis didn’t have time to wonder about what she meant by “left hand of the boss,” because a report caught his attention. It was from Doctor Kavins, regarding the development of the healing drug he had been tasked with by Michael on David’s behalf. Normally, it would be up to either Johanne or David to oversee the doctor’s experiments, but Johanne had just left with clear warnings that she didn’t want to be interrupted again, and David was in the dungeon with Michael.

  Perhaps the tter was supposed to be the right hand, at least in Johanne’s view? It didn’t matter. Travis was already pnning to influence Doctor Kavins’ experiments, and David being currently unavaible only helped him enact his pns faster.

  The dirt bike he personally bought to navigate the huge Site 00 grounds came to a halt in a cloud of dust. The ck of rain was not having a huge effect on the vegetation thanks to the use of skill stones like [Soothing Rain], but the same could not be said for the dirt road used to navigate the site. Even then, not a speck of dust reached him thanks to his magical power protecting him from the small particles.

  “Johanne cims she’s about to master portal tech, at least for in-site transportation. The bike’s nice, but I can’t wait to see portals all around and stop wasting my time running around Site 00 like a courier,” he muttered. He also realized that, maybe, Johanne had all the rights to be grumpy with how hard she was being worked.

  He dismissed the idea. She shouldn’t be treated like a normal person just because she looks like one.

  Then, his face brightened and a rge smile tugged at his mouth as he saw Doctor Kavins. “Doctor!” he excimed enthusiastically, “How are the trials on the vitality tonic going, doc?” he asked. Of course, he had Icarus summarize all the reports about it on the way to the b, bringing himself up to speed.

  The doctor nodded at him, squinting against the sun. Travis parked the bike at the concrete ptform on the side of the hill and followed the doctor inside through a reinforced steel door.

  “Calling it a tonic might be an understatement,” the pallid man said.

  “How so?” Travis asked as he was led deeper and deeper into the underground base. The whole complex was a huge maze built into the side of the hill, mostly through Johanne’s efforts since they still cked a dedicated team of geomancers and builders who could use magic to speed up the building processes.

  “I’ll be frank,” the man said with a sigh, and only now did Travis notice the bags under his eyes, “our patients—well, test subjects really—are spending 15 hours a day shitting gallons upon gallons of bck sludge. You know what’s in it? Micropstics, toxins, and other impurities.”

  “Huh,” Travis hummed, “sounds like a good thing to me.”

  “It would be, if not for the fact that they would die unless we keep them hydrated.”

  “I guess they could make use of the ‘locate toilet’ skill stone, then,” Travis said with a chuckle that almost spilled into a full roar of ughter. He managed to contain it, seeing the strange expression the doctor wore.

  “What does it do?”

  Travis shook his head. “Don’t mind me. Spent too many nights working in a row, with nothing but magic keeping me up. As for the little issue of people shitting to death? What’s the big holdup? Just make them drink more. That’s what you are here for,” he patted the man on the shoulder, “to work out the kinks and make the impossible possible. I can see you would be a prime candidate for a tonic that keeps your vitality strong.”

  “I could have it? For free?” asked the doctor.

  “Of course. Benefits of working for Unity Corp. Everyone gets the best treatments. In fact, why don’t you consider joining Candle Light as a researcher?”

  “I will…think about it.” Said Kavins pensively, “anyway, apart from that little kink, as you said, their biomarkers are rather good.”

  “Great,” Travis said, suddenly serious, “do more tests. Find a way to make a less potent version that doesn’t hospitalize people while trying to detox them. Besides, we want a tonic and not a miracle drug.”

  The doctor hummed. “We are doing trials on that as well. Even a less potent version should keep someone in perfect health basically forever as long as they take it.”

  Travis smiled. It was the first real smile of the day. “Now, that’s what I like to hear. It’s still a bit much, but I like the idea of people needing to take it forever. That’s what the medical industry already does with people, isn’t it? Make all illnesses, even curable ones, into chronic conditions and earn lifelong patients in the process.”

  “Well, my integrity as a doctor—”

  “Your integrity was subsidized by big pharma before, and is currently being subsidized by us. That’s what matters. Listen: The world isn’t ready for a miracle cure for cancer yet. A cancer recovery is a one-time payment, while a pill that halts cancer is a monthly or weekly payment. Besides, anything that can be proven to be magical… will be problematic. The tonic will already be pushing the limits of what is considered possible. But it’s good. It will warm the public up to the idea that some things that were considered impossible, aren’t anymore.”

  There was a slight pressure emanating from Travis. The doctor, who wasn’t even a Copper ranked human yet, felt like the weight of the world was trying to push him to comply. He bowed his head, but a hint of defiance managed to slip through.

  “Didn’t Michael say he wanted to do good for the world?”

  “He did, and he still does. It falls upon us to bance what he wants with what we should do. Sometimes the young minds are too idealistic, too rash, too quick to act. Make three versions of the drug: a tonic to boost vitality and nothing more, a full-power drug like the one you have in the works here, to give people a starting kick. Finally, an intermediate version to maintain health. Then we’ll have the marketing people figure out what to do with them. I’m thinking the tonic version should cost about as much as a gym membership, the intermediate version like the miracle liquid that it is, and the drug that cures impurities… well. I’ll think about how much I can charge for it, and how much scarcity we need to maintain.”

  It went without saying that Travis wanted a possible industrial-level output as soon as they figured out how to render the operation scable. Fortunately it was not going to be the doctor’s problem. He didn’t envy Johanne or Michael or whoever it was who would have to figure out how to make a factory that produces magic items.

  When Travis left, it was as if Doctor Kavins could finally breathe again. His shoulders slumped, his whole body tired and wrung out after barely a few minutes talking with the head of Candle Light. Not only was the pressure immense, but the reputation that preceded Travis Tyrell would have been enough to push most people to their knees. In his moment of defiance, Doctor Kavins had thought he had seen his death, by simply daring to speak out against the other man.

  It was with great resignation that, once he arrived at the b, he sat at his computer.

  “Commence the next phase of the experiment,” he said tiredly, “it’s time we delivered some results.”

  The first screams began almost immediately. The new liquid being injected into the subjects quickly began to act, its increased potency changing them at the cellur level. This was the price of progress, the doctor told himself, this was the price he would have to pay to be the first to develop a real miracle cure. Because after removing all the impurities from the body, it was now time to fix whatever damage had been done to it by years of exposure. Cancer, genetic damage, congenital defects, everything.

  It's a rather violent process, he thought as he watched it all unfold in real time on the many screen of his office room. While he was cradling a cup of steaming chocote milk—his ctose intolerance cured by another of his experiment—the people downstairs were suffering.

  He would have to figure out how to render the process tamer, perhaps by diluting it through several weeks of treatment. It would also serve to make Travis happy, as more weeks of treatment meant more opportunities to shake as much money from the sick and poor as possible.

  It made him want to vomit.

  After the procedure was over the subjects, all elderly or otherwise frail people who had survived the first step of the experiment only thanks to the curative properties of the liquid, were all led to their cells. They looked suspiciously like detention cells, but it was for their own sake. At least, that’s what the doctor had told them.

  Only when the first door was kicked open from the inside, with force enough to bend the thick metal and pulverize the concrete around it as the door was torn from its hinges, did the doctor realize that perhaps they would have needed better security. The old dy had transformed into a tumorous mass of flesh, pulsing veins and writhing appendages.

  The arm bred, the security doors smming into the floor. But this far from the heart of Site 00, they were all just mundane defenses. Who would have thought they needed anything more than that?

  The bst doors were like paper. One after the other, they were torn asunder by the might of the abominations that were coming out of the detention cells, and one by one all the security cameras started going dark. The first response unity team arrived in minutes, but by then it was already too te. They went in, never to be heard from again.