Chapter 52: Declan’s Brilliance (I)

The scientists exchanged glances before getting to work, their fingers rapidly moving across their holographic screens until, a few seconds later, one of them reached toward a card-generation device beside the desk.

WHIRRRR...

A crimson card emerged, which he handed to Declan along with the original.

"The elevator."

He pointed toward it.

"Scan that card. It’ll take you directly to the entrance of Lady Blythe’s laboratory."

Declan took both cards.

"Thank you."

He turned around without another word and disappeared into the elevator, and once the doors closed, Matt watched them with a strange expression.

"Quite an arrogant kid."

Another scientist glanced toward the elevator.

"If he has her Invi Card, that level of arrogance is understandable."

_________________

The elevator moved upward and took barely ten seconds before,

DIIIIIIING!

The doors opened, revealing a massive door made from glowing crimson material directly in front of Declan.

He approached it with his fist raised, ready to knock, but then noticed the card reader and lowered his hand.

"...Right."

He brought out the crimson card instead and swiped it across the reader.

BEEP!

The door opened, allowing Declan to step inside, but rather than finding the laboratory he had expected, he felt as though he had stepped into an entirely different building.

A gigantic hall stretched before him, so enormous that it resembled a two-story building without a ceiling separating the floors, with different sections scattered throughout the vast space, including laboratories filled with test tubes and strange chemicals, enormous glass containers filled with bizarre liquids, and countless machines, instruments, and other pieces of equipment.

And somehow...Everything was crimson.

The test tubes, the floor, the tables, and even many of the machines were in a colour of red.

"Who are you?"

The voice echoed through the enormous hall, causing Declan to raise his head and look toward a woman standing about ten meters above him on a stair-like platform protruding from the wall.

She wore spectacles, but even through the lenses, the brilliant crimson light radiating from her eyes was impossible to miss as it illuminated Declan’s face.

He paused, taking in her neatly tied crimson hair and the crimson lab coat hanging loosely over her shoulders.

"Are you Lady Blythe?"

Declan asked.

She raised an eyebrow, apparently finding it strange that he had entered her laboratory only to ask whether she was the person he had come to see.

"Is there any chance you lost your way somewhere along the way?"

Declan shook his head.

"No."

He glanced around the enormous hall.

"In a laboratory this large, I’d expect several other scientists or interns, so I wanted to make sure I was speaking to the right person."

She stared at him for a moment before answering.

"Yes, I am Lady Blythe."

"Good."

Declan reached into his pocket and flicked the crimson card into the air.

"I am Declan Ezra. I was given this by a Nexian named Morgaret."

The card spun through the air before Blythe effortlessly caught it, and the moment her eyes fell upon it, they immediately narrowed.

This was truly one of her Invi Cards.

"Morgaret?"

"Morgaret Bloodsworn."

The instant he said the name, the crimson light in her eyes intensified, causing Declan to instinctively shut his eyes.

VROOOOOOM!

The air trembled, and when Declan forced his eyes open, he found Blythe suddenly standing less than a meter away, her face barely five centimeters from his.

"Boss Morg gave you my Invi Card?"

Declan instinctively leaned backward as her entire demeanor had completely changed, the prideful, slightly disdainful woman from before having disappeared entirely, replaced by someone who looked as though she had just encountered her favorite celebrity.

"Yes. Boss Morg."

"Unbelievable..."

Blythe straightened herself, reining in the crimson radiance from her eyes as she began circling Declan, who followed her every movement with his eyes until his neck gradually became stiff.

"You’re still a human, and a Newcomer," she said, stopping before him. "So... you’re here to undergo your first fusion, aren’t you?"

Declan nodded.

"I am."

"Then you’re in luck."

She turned and began walking toward one of the laboratory doors.

"A new batch of Nexus Seeds arrived yesterday. They were brought in for the creation of several Anomalous Nexus Seeds."

"You do know that the sooner you undergo the fusion, the better your chances of adapting to the Nexus Seed, right?"

"Yes, I do," he replied as he followed her, though his expression quickly changed. "But did you just say Anomalous?"

Blythe glanced back at him.

"Interesting."

The two disappeared through the laboratory door.

CLICK.

The door shut behind them, and the moment it did, FWOOM!, every light in the laboratory went out, plunging the entire room into pitch darkness.

______________________

"You don’t seem like a newbie when it comes to Cores."

The words echoed through the laboratory, which was filled with two primary things: a massive collection of ball-like objects, each roughly the size of a human heart, suspended inside glass compartments divided into numerous sections and covering almost an entire wall, while at the far end of the opposite wall were several bed-like machines equipped with transparent glass coverings and numerous mechanical arms hanging above them.

Declan and Lady Blythe stood before the wall of glass compartments, both staring at the hundreds of Seed Cores stored within.

So many Cores...

Declan couldn’t help but marvel inwardly, having never seen so many Cores gathered in one place throughout his entire life, and the sheer number before him was enough to leave even someone as knowledgeable about Cores as him awestruck.

"There are no Anomalous Cores, though," he finally said, turning toward Lady Blythe.

Her brows immediately creased.

"Why? Wait... Do you wish to fuse with an Anomalous Core!?"

She asked in surprise, and Declan nodded without hesitation.

"Of course."

The crimson light within her eyes intensified slightly.

’Morgaret really sent him here to fuse with an Anomalous Core. That’s most likely why she wanted me to personally handle his surgery.’

"The Anomalous Core section is over there," Lady Blythe said, pointing toward the side.

Declan followed her finger, only to find a completely smooth wall.

"Huh?"

He stared at it in confusion, but Lady Blythe simply tapped the glass of her spectacles three times, causing a holographic panel to appear before her face as her fingers immediately began moving across the virtual keyboard.

WHIIIIRRR!

A mechanical sound reverberated through the laboratory as the wall slowly retracted inward, revealing a smaller glass compartment that extended from within it and contained another collection of Cores.

These were drastically different from the ones in the previous section, being nearly twice as large and, unlike the relatively dormant Base Cores, visibly throbbing with immense energy.

"Hey. I understand Morgaret wanted you to do this, but if you decide you don’t want to, I won’t force you,"

Lady Blythe said, though she fell silent when Declan walked toward the glass display, his eyes narrowing as he studied the Cores inside.

"That one, and that one."

He pointed toward two of them.

"Those!?" Lady Blythe’s expression changed slightly.

"Those are the lowest-stability ones here. One has a sixty percent destructive stability rating, while the other is sixty-five percent. They’re far too destructive."

"I know. I can’t fuse with two Seed Cores, can I? I just want to check them out," he answered calmly.

Lady Blythe nodded before tapping her spectral screen, causing the glass compartment to open and allowing her to reach inside and retrieve the two Cores, which she then held out toward him.

Instead of taking them, however, Declan stared at her hand in disbelief.

"Are you trying to get me killed?" he asked.

Lady Blythe snickered.

"Just wanted to see."

Her casual expression hid the fact that she had done it intentionally, as touching those Cores directly with bare skin would have been enough to burn through Declan’s hand and potentially melt the bones beneath it within seconds.

She wanted to see whether he actually understood what he was dealing with or whether his confidence was nothing more than an act.

"Bring it here," Declan said, pointing toward a Core sink beside the table.

Lady Blythe didn’t argue, placing the two Cores down while watching him with growing amusement.

The young man looked far too young to possess the knowledge required to handle the objects before him yet moved with enough confidence and deliberation to suggest that he genuinely knew what he was doing.

That only made her more curious, so she pulled a chair over and sat down, intending to see just how long he could maintain this act.

Declan, however, had already entered his own world as he grabbed an additional pair of protective gloves from the side and slipped them onto his hands before reaching for a nearby syringe.

He then activated the blue flame rinser beside the workstation with his other hand and watched the flame flicker between blue and orange.

He carefully passed the syringe through it, causing the material to immediately begin glowing red, and after inspecting it for a moment, Declan discarded it without hesitation before grabbing another syringe and repeating the process, only for that one to begin glowing red as well.

He threw it away too, then repeated the process with a third and fourth syringe before finally discarding the fifth, at which point Lady Blythe tapped her spectacles, causing a hidden compartment within the table to open and reveal a neat row of freshly prepared syringes.

"Hmm."

Declan hummed before taking one and passing it through the flame, and this time, the syringe remained stable as a beautiful blue shimmer coated its surface.