CHAPTER 66: ALL OF THIS WAS LEADING TOWARD A WAR

"How often do you need to do this practice? Hm, Treasure?"

"Ah... o-once a week."

"Alright, then be ready next week."

Now, with his eyes burning under the fluorescent lights and his consciousness ebbing and flowing like waves hitting the shore, Le An remembered the last thing Taras had told him that night.

Perhaps because it had been such a long time since he last saw Taras, Le An recalled those moments often. The warmth of that moment.

In truth... doing the pheromone practice once every two weeks would have been enough. But Le An had lied, just so he could be close to Taras more often.

Now, as he lay on the stretcher surrounded by experimenters in the lab room, Le An smiled to himself.

One of the doctors looked at the smile on his weary face and said, "His consciousness is fading in and out, we mustn’t let him drift off."

"Treasure, I want you to hold on a bit longer. It’ll sting just a little." The testers fastened the straps on Le An’s arms and legs. At that moment, his smile slowly disappeared.

After the uprisings and unrest caused by the attack had been brought under control, the GAC had given the green light to resume the experiment two days ago. And now, the trials had moved far beyond simply drinking a medicine—reaching the stage of direct applications.

For two straight nights, Le An wasn’t allowed to sleep due to a certain test condition. He was to stay awake for three whole days, and each afternoon, his brain activity was scanned for three hours while he received several injections. "Test product 37, injection started."

A thin needle pierced his arm as the testers recorded the spontaneous reactions of his body and brain. "No resilience. High activity in the limbic area, high activity from cranial to peripheral, code 66, code 987, code 12 and 13..."

Dozens of codes were exchanged in their dialogue, while Le An longed to sink into the oblivion of sleep. His eyelids grew heavy as he zoned out. Then, a hand touched his face. "Le An. Stay awake."

"Decreased blood pressure condition, amygdala activity rising at the third minute."

"Bring over the participant esper. Le An, we want you to guide him now." Le An held the participant esper’s hand and began releasing his guiding energy.

"Which level?" the tester asked.

"I am starting with level 1," Le An answered, his cuffed hands trembling. The esper was also connected to several machines, so the testers could check whether the level of Le An’s flow matched the level achieved.

What they wanted was to manipulate the guide energy—to create a drug that could amplify it, even to the point of detonation.

In the old theory, it was believed that the difference between an A-Level Guide and an E-Level Guide came from the amount of energy in their body. But as new studies advanced, it was discovered that the difference wasn’t the amount of energy, but the differences in brain activity.

In other words, there was something about the way Le An’s brain worked—his neurochemical nature—that made him unique.

For the past week, they had been comparing his brain with those of other average guides, having him guide under various conditions. Though they compared each cortex of the brain—size, number of neural networks, neurochemical properties—they found only a few noticeable differences. This week, they had developed injections to test those differences, and they were trying them on Le An.

The reason he had to stay awake was to trigger Le An’s automatic, reflexive brain activities and reduce his conscious control over guiding energy.

Le An’s eyes glazed over, until they demanded he guide the esper at level 5. His heart raced, and he raised his head, speaking in a restless tone. "This is dangerous for him. Level 5 under normal circumstances could cause g-guide shock."

The testers seemed indifferent. "Don’t worry, Le An. We will handle it."

Le An tried to protest wildly, letting go of the esper’s hand. "I won’t—"

The one recording pressed the device button and continued nonchalantly. "Excessive mood swings, anxious sub-behaviors due to low self-maintenance..."

"Le An, you must continue for the completion of this study. We must proceed immediately." Another tester leaned over him, tracking his eye movements. Le An’s gaze shifted rapidly from the effects of the last injection. He wanted to speak, but the tester continued.

"And you must relax your muscles. This might be a confounding variable for us."

Le An finally looked at him, half out of his mind. "B-but I can’t stop shaking unless I tighten up..."

His whole body convulsed and jerked violently. The tester’s face loomed close—or maybe it was just his mind playing tricks—but the tester smiled. "That’s why we strapped you down."

"Level 5. Le An, please cooperate." They placed the esper’s hand in his again. Le An gathered his energy, but his body jolted as the flow left him. "Haa... Please. It’s..."

He released level 5, and seconds later, felt something warm around his eyes and face. "W-what..." As he forced his eyes open, they stung—and the bluish lab environment turned red before his eyes. A hand with a napkin wiped his face.

All five testers rushed away from him—toward the esper.

It was blood. It was that esper’s blood, Le An realized at last.

As his senses lagged behind his consciousness, an image burned into his mind: the esper’s body doubled over, coughing blood the instant he felt level 5. Le An squeezed his eyes shut, unable to distinguish the shouts and voices around him. "Is he... okay?" he asked, but no one answered.

For about fifteen minutes, they treated the esper on the next stretcher, while the tester left beside Le An tried to keep him awake. The atmosphere in the lab grew tense and hushed as they wrapped up the day.

"Le An... Hey? Hey..." Le An came to, eyes wide open, caught between sleeping and waking.

"The purifier worked, he seems to be regaining consciousness."

"Yes. Eye movements are normal, body convulsions declining, blood rate stable. Le An, are you with us? You did great today. We’ll send a fast report to the GAC about test product 37. The effects look promising, though further analysis is needed."

Le An gazed at the esper on the next stretcher as the testers loosened the straps around his arms. His vitals had stabilized, but he was covered in blood. Another tester blocked his view. They helped Le An sit up.

"I told you that level 5 would cause him shock," Le An said almost reproachfully. One tester smiled, reassuring him. "Yes, he went into shock, but he’s fine now. Don’t worry. He chose to participate, remember?"

"And Le An..." The one recording looked him in the eye, and Le An couldn’t help but imagine an evil glint there. "The flow you released wasn’t level 5. It was nearly level 6—more than you realized."

Le An stared, dumbfounded. "What?"

So they really had found a way to manipulate his guiding activity.

"Even when you said you started at level 1, your flow graph was unstable, constantly pushing the limit of level 2."

"..." He stared at them long enough for them to notice something was off. "Le An?"

"I..." He blinked, feeling drowsy. "That’s great but... blood..." His blank gaze fixed on the stains covering his hands and their lab coats.

"I-I don’t feel..."

He fainted, sinking into deep sleep. The last thought flashing in his mind was how he once told Taras he was fine with blood.

---

Again.

Le An woke up in the lab, mumbling to himself. "So... I slept."

He pulled the injection needle from his arm the moment he saw it. His entire body was sore. Looking around, he realized he was alone.

Since the lab and the experiments were under strict GAC monitoring, today Tracker hadn’t accompanied him for the first time.

Le An felt strange. Maybe he had gotten too used to not being alone. That, when he thought about it... was dangerous, wasn’t it?

His patient gown smelled faintly of soap. Staring at the ceiling, he recalled his last conscious moments and what the testers had said. So the product really did boost his guiding energy beyond his control. That was hopeful.

Getting such a remarkable result on the eighteenth day felt unreal. He was still in the trial phase—far too early to call it a solution. But if this was truly the solution to "make everyone a Treasure"...

Then he would be free much earlier than he imagined.

No more endless blood tests, machines, or interventions... no more pain. He stood up, feeling excited. Leaving the room, he wandered through the lab base. No one was around. Following the distant voices, he walked further until they grew clearer.

"He might not endure anymore... if we do that..."

"Yes, did you feel his body while positioning him? All bones. He’s lost too much weight in three weeks."

"He was nearly killed, duh. What did you expect?"

Le An stayed quiet, listening secretly. There were clatters mixed with their chatter—they were eating on break, probably.

He touched his own body for a second. As people had been saying lately, he really was shedding pounds. Even some news reports had appeared—speculating whether he was seriously harmed in the attack, or ill—sharing pictures of his pale, exhausted face. The chatter went on.

"That’s not abnormal. If the GAC hadn’t insisted we speed up the process, what we’ve done so far would’ve taken nearly three months." Several hums of agreement followed.

Speed up... Why had the GAC wanted to accelerate the experiment? Le An trembled, heat rising in his face with anger. There had to be some advantage for them.

"And the fact that the Treasure of the country is scared of blood? I almost died when he fainted!"

"Tell me about it!"

"Imagine if he knew all the other seven participants we tried product 37 on died... He’d go beyond hemophobia."

They snickered.

"I told you I’d win the bet, dude... Haha!"

"How was I supposed to know they’d die immediately! We used the same medicine adaptation process! They just dropped dead, without even giving us a chance to observe anything."

"I hate cerebral death. There’s no blood, so it’s not convincing, you know?"

"He’s a real gift from God, I’m telling you. You can’t replicate what God created so meticulously. We’re doing crazy, impossible stuff here."

"Honestly, I’m here for the pay."

"I just begged my uncle to get me into the experiment, you know... If an omega is present, you always have a chance. Haha!"

"Dude, I literally saw you groping—"

Le An ran, aimlessly.

Blue walls, machines, long corridors—repeating endlessly like a labyrinth. He felt trapped. Words echoed in his mind. Dead. Seven people. Product 37. Cerebral death.

He turned left with the last of his strength, only to see the same thing again. Another long, never-ending corridor.

When they found him drenched in cold sweat, all he said was that he wanted to go home for a day or two. Their touches sickened him. Their questions were meaningless. The whole thing was dreadful, cruel, meaningless.

And still, like a fool, he thought of the moment he would be freed—as if everything could be forgotten and the blood washed away with a single bar of soap. He thought of Taras.

After returning from the lab, Le An didn’t utter a single word to anyone. Because today, everything had struck his heart like a heavy blow.

On TV, the scene of Miss Maleah’s father—the father of the woman he’d met on the day of the attack—collapsing and dying during his company’s anniversary celebration was being replayed over and over.

On another channel, trials accusing opposition groups of terrorism, the uprisings of dissenters, and, in a corner of the screen, the moment Le An had been nearly killed—while reports of other small-scale, unexplained explosions across the country kept surfacing...

Le An knew all of this was leading toward a war. A war the people of the Outskirts deserved to win, to reclaim their rights.

He wanted it too. He wanted these diseased people at the top to fall, and the oppressed to take back what was theirs.

For that... Le An made the decision.

He was going to help them. In every way he could. With whatever strength he had.