Wizard: Start with Biological Transformation to Grind Experience - Chapter 618 - 22: The Laboratory
Chapter 618: Chapter 22: The Laboratory
The faint glow of the Alchemy Firefly struggled to tear through the thick darkness ahead, and the sight revealed caused Lynch’s pupils to contract sharply.
Before him was an underground laboratory so enormous it made one’s heart race. Cold stone walls extended in all directions, disappearing into the deep darkness where the firefly’s light couldn’t reach. But in the glow, rows upon rows, columns upon columns, of countless transparent glass containers towering several meters high stood!
Inside the containers, it was filled with a viscous, dim greenish-black liquid emitting a faint ghostly green light. And soaking within were bodies of humans of various forms!
Their eyes were tightly closed, faces contorted, as if enduring immense pain in their deep sleep. Some bodies were intact, while others were incomplete. Lynch’s breath nearly halted—
He recognized several of those faces! That farmer with the hoe, that woman with the basket, the innkeeper… even those two children singing that eerie nursery rhyme!
Their pale, rigid corpses, like specimens, were frozen in this cold solution, silently telling of eternal torment. The pungent smell of preservatives mixed with an indescribable stench of soul decay, almost nauseating.
Lowering his gaze, the ground was inscribed with a massive Magic Array covering most of the laboratory floor.
The array’s runes were so intricate they were dizzying, outlined in a dark red material resembling congealed blood, emitting a disquieting faint red light. Numerous fine energy conduits extended from the Array like veins, precisely connecting to the bottom of each glass container.
At the edges of the Array were scattered some yellowed, dust-covered parchment manuscripts.
Lynch approached one of the containers, carefully identifying the small runes etched on its outer wall—those were ancient Acadia soul imprisonment runes, mixed with complex life maintenance and soul energy guiding arrays.
His gaze then fell upon the massive Array on the ground, and combining the structure of the runes and the faint traces of energy flow, a chilling conclusion quickly formed in his mind.
Finally, he bent down and picked up some scattered manuscripts. The paper was so fragile it seemed it would crumble at a touch, and the handwriting on it was scrawled and insane, filled with feverish experiment enthusiasm and cold rationality:
“…137th Cycle Record: Target soul (Code A-7, Original Identity: Blacksmith Apprentice) witnessed its mentor (Code A-3) being scalded to death by ’Experiment N’ with molten iron, resulting in soul wave peak values breaking thresholds, significant improvement in stamina… Pain is the flame that tempers the soul, and only in the utmost despair can it forge the immortal…”
“…Energy consumption is tremendous; need to optimize soul essence extraction efficiency. Maintaining ’Gri Town Illusion’ and ’Regeneration Cycle’ Magic Stone consumption far exceeds expectations… But for the success of the ’Ultimate Weapon,’ all costs are worthwhile…”
“…Experiment N’s adaptability is beyond imagination, and the growth rate of soul stamina is satisfying. But hatred is also simultaneously growing, needing close attention to its spiritual stability…”
“So that’s it…”
Lynch straightened up, a flash of understanding in his eyes: “This isn’t a tomb but a… gigantic Petri dish and soul furnace!”
He gazed around at the hellish scene: “These containers are the sepulchers preserving their body ’proto-embryos.’ The Array on the ground is the core driving the entire system—it extracts some sort of energy, maintaining the ’activity’ of bodies within the containers, and more crucially…”
He pointed to the energy conduits connecting the containers: “It anchors the soul marks of these people! Linking them tightly to the ’illusion’ above the town!”
Kong’s body trembled as she already understood Lynch’s deduction, yet it still sent a chill through her heart.
Her voice trembled as she said, “So… the townsfolk above, those cyclic ’shadows,’ and even the ’undead’ that revive at night… are all just by-products and tools of this colossal experiment! Bodies preserved here, souls imprisoned in the cyclic illusion, experiencing death and ’regeneration’ over and over.”
This is absolutely terrifying, capturing people here, repeatedly torturing, killing them, and then repeatedly ’resurrecting’ them.
A true existence where one cannot live nor die!
But then, Kong was quite perplexed, saying: “…But what is the purpose? Such tremendous consumption, merely to imprison and torment these ordinary people’s souls?”
Lynch furrowed his brows: “Yes… what is the purpose?”
He was equally puzzled by this.
It must be understood, a wizard’s experiments must have a purpose; such a large and long-term investment couldn’t possibly be merely for the amusement of tormenting these ordinary humans, could it?
“It’s training.”
Just as Lynch was astonished, an ethereal, ephemeral yet infinitely sorrowful voice suddenly resonated in the deathly silent laboratory.
Lynch and Kong spun around abruptly, fully alert!
In the center of the laboratory, near the core of the massive Array, the air rippled like waves. The gray-dressed girl who had previously prayed in front of the tombstone gradually appeared, fading into clarity.
She still wore that faded coarse linen dress, her long hair loose, her face pale yet beautiful, carrying an inhuman transparency. Her feet did not touch the ground, merely suspended there, her empty eyes gazing toward Lynch and Kong.
Kong instantly assumed a defensive posture, Cross Sword in front of her, her silver-gray eyes vigilantly fixed on this sudden spiritual body.
Yet Lynch raised his hand, signaling Kong to keep calm. His Eye of Death could clearly “see” that the girl’s soul light was pure yet fragile, burdened with profound sorrow, yet without the slightest hint of malice or aggression. She seemed more like a bound, agonized witness here.
Lynch asked in confusion, “And you are?”
“Sasha.”
The girl calmly uttered a name: “A member of Gri Town.”
Then she looked at Lynch and Kong, saying, “It’s been a long time since anyone came here; since he left, you are the only visitors here.”
He?
Lynch continued to inquire in perplexity: “The training you mentioned earlier refers to…”
The girl glanced at Lynch, calmly saying: “Nicholas Avalon.”
After a pause, she continued, her voice extremely placid, yet every word bore immeasurable weight: “This place exists to train his soul stamina.”
She raised her hand to point at the corpses soaking in the containers, at the massive Array on the ground, and at the void above symbolizing the small store: “…This is his eternal execution ground and also his training ground. The Wizards of the Eternal Tower took us… his father, mother, sister, the uncle blacksmith, Aunt Susan from the bakery… everyone he knew, anyone he ever loved…”
“Extracted our souls from our bodies, imprisoning them in this cyclic cage. Then… they forced him, again and again…”
“Forced him to kill us with his own hands!”
“In the most brutal ways! Or… watched us being tortured, dismembered, devoured by molten rock, or torn apart by Undead right in front of him!”
“Every death was genuine pain. Every ’resurrection’ was to prepare for a deeper despair next time.”
“Only by repeatedly refining in the utmost agony of destroying cherished ones can the soul abandon all weakness, be honed to become… invincible, enough to bear…”
“The ’strength’ the Wizards seek.”
