Time passed, and Kai frequently commuted to A City, where he worked on Isaac's nonstop experiments. A massive, high-tech lab stocked with machines and scanners and observation decks floating with holographic displays was the lab. Isaac had thrown every test against him: pure strength analysis, energy-output tests, and even battle creativity tests.

  "Alright, Kai," came Isaac's voice from the control room intercom. "Try punching the kinetic gauge one more time. Only this time, don't hold back."

  Kai took a sharp breath and rolled his shoulders. The machine before him loomed in its height like a steel wall, reinforced with the strongest known materials.

  After a forward step, he smashed the knuckles against the machine.

  BOOM!

  The impact was not just powerful; it was catastrophic. A shockwave traveled through the testing chamber, shaking the walls, while the reinforced metal of the kinetic gauge was turned into scrap. Smoke and sparks filled the air; Isaac could only watch as the holographic displays showed the numbers spike into impossible domains.

  "Jesus Christ," Isaac muttered to himself, eyes flitting from one screen to another. "That was beyond Level 7 Super Strength..."

  Kai flexed his fingers, shaking off some residual energy. "Is that good enough for you?"

  Isaac, still staring at the busted machine, blinked, followed by his usual smirk. "You just turned a billion-dollar device into confetti, but yeah, I'd say that's good enough."

  Kai continued the tests for hours—he ruined high-grade training dummies, ravaged waves of summoned monsters such as trolls and ogres, and displayed his complete dominancy over many forms of energy.

  Meanwhile, in the observation room, illuminated by floating holograms and cascading data, Isaac murmured and analyzed Kai's performance.

  "Kinetic, Thermal, Chemical, and Electrical Energy... and he's only Level 4?" Isaac mumbled incredulously. "His Kinetic Energy manipulation itself is on par with a Level 7 Super Strength user—meaning he could level mountains or toss battleships like pebbles. His electrokinetic output is at Level 6, which can black out an entire city."

  He navigated to yet another screen, reposting a slow-motion playback of one of the earlier tests—where Kai had transmuted his own sweat into a dangerously reactive liquid, Chlorine Trifluoride, the most flammable substance known to man, as a fuel and then superheating it using Thermal Energy to unleash fire as hot as the sun's surface.

  Isaac smoothed a hand down his face. "Who even thinks about something like that?"

  But what fascinated him more than Kai's highly destructive abilities was the Energy Barrier.

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  "This is not merely a defensive mechanism," he said as he pulled up a number of slowed video clips of Kai in action. "It is somehow reactive… somehow automatic. It just filters attacks without conscious activation. He understands his own power to a level no one else does. With that being more, he seems to be better at innovating than most ability users. He can be quite dangerous."

  And then, as he dwelled on all that data, a thought suddenly came to him that made his stomach tighten with a mix of excitement and dread.

  "If he is only at Level 4 right now, what happens when he gets to Level 5? Level 6?" There was a flare in Isaac's eyes as he jotted down notes on a rapid scale, "Should my guess turn out to be correct… his next unlock could be Seismic Energy or worse... Gravitational Energy. Either way, it's both catastrophic if misused."

  The long day of experiments had turned into a night full of thoughts for Kai as he returned home. Kai slumped against the couch, staring at the ceiling and replaying all the events that had taken place in the lab in his mind.

  In the mind of Isaac, he had seen it all, had everything worked out; there was not much to Kai, he thought.

  But he was wrong on that one.

  Kai smirked.

  Kai let Isaac think that he was only limited to Kinetic, Thermal, Electrical, and Chemical Energy. It was the best decision he could make. Isaac was an ally now, but this didn't mean he would always be one.

  Kai glanced around for a moment. A shimmer of light distortion rippled around his hand. Light Energy. This was how Kai had entered Isaac's building in Stealth Mode; he could bend the light, nullifying the sound, completely masking his presence—something he had never shown in the tests. However, that's the only length of what he could control over Light and Sound Energy. Isaac was clueless.

  But that wasn't his only secret.

  The Ability Tampering Device…

  In the tests, Isaac was so busy focusing on Kai's raw ability that he ignored one significant fact: Kai had copied the energy frequency of the bracelet Isaac had given him, the one that could nullify the ATD's effect. But that was not all.

  Kai had done research on the ATD itself. He realized that it emits a frequency of Mystic Energy. That frequency disrupts the Mystic Energy inside ability users, blocking their powers.

  But in that case, there was a way to neutralize it.

  "If I match that frequency... I'd be able to override it," a grin spreading across Kai's face, having already reprogrammed his Energy Barrier to mimic the Mystic Energy frequency of the ATD.

  Now, he was completely immune to it.

  "He still thinks I need that wristband to resist the ATD's effects," Kai muttered.

  Then, his expression hardened. It wasn't a matter of trust; it was that trust was a luxury.

  If Isaac ever turned against him and tried to use the ATD as leverage, it would be far too late for Isaac to learn that it did not work.

  Kai sprawled back on the couch, closing his eyes. For now, he would play the game. Keep training; keep growing stronger. He would let Isaac think he was still figuring Kai out.

  Because when the time would come… he would be ready.