The tallest and most advanced skyscraper at the center of this Starviris city belonged to none other than Torch Corporation.
This planet Z-1 had gone through war a hundred years ago, and only 28 cities were intact and livable due to the nature around them being relatively good.
Each of those 28 cities had an organization that controlled and developed them.
But ultimately, this was a breeding-class planet of the Waxton Galactic Alliance.
People who have been living here for generations have sent their kids to the alliance after school and training, becoming soldiers of the alliance.
To keep the population, those who wanted to live normal or lavish lives had to marry and bear two or more children. If not, they wouldn't be given a place to live.
That was not all. The alliance also sent many tasks, along with resources and other things, to the organizations to develop the planet as well as for various experiments. The test subjects were none other than random people, but mostly poor ones.
Recently, the alliance sent an important task to the cities along with a mysterious dust acquired from the Grim Realm. They wanted to test it on multiple subjects to see the reaction and changes it brings.
Torch Corporation got 30 grains of this mysterious dust, but a problem occurred.
Twenty years ago, Torch Corporation had retrieved a man from a meteor crash site.
They named him Subject X because of his peculiarities and also hid him from the Waxtn Galactic Alliance.
Subject X was unique because, in this world where everyone is forcefully affected by Mystic Pulse, he was pure.
Mystic Pulse had utterly zero influence or effect on him. It was an anomaly of the anomalies. The unthinkable for people.
The research department's head was a woman called Mercilla with a slightly screwed head, and as she was also one of the leaders, she wanted to keep subject X to herself instead of handing it over to the alliance.
She kept him for twenty years and also used subject X for her pleasure, fiddled with his brain to remove some of his memories, mostly about himself, and did experiments on him that did not affect him much. Ultimately, she wanted to make him her weapon, a tool.
And when this new task arrived that had the most important and top priority label on it, she used him first.
She incorporated the mysterious dust into Subject X. It was just a single grain of dust, but the moment it entered him, all other dust strangely resonated and forcefully entered him, causing incomprehensible changes before he suddenly disappeared.
At the moment, she was reading the post-experiment data in her lab before he disappeared, and she couldn't wrap her head around it.
Mercilla knew she fucked up as this wasn't something a small-time scientist like her who wasn't even a Pulse Weaver could figure out unless she did more research on Subject X.
'We need him back here,' she thought, her fist clenched.
Suddenly, the door to her lab burst open as two men wearing dark blue and maroon suits entered. The one with an ugly expression was an old man in his sixties with gray hair, and the other with a relatively calm expression was a middle-aged man.
"Task Force Alpha is eliminated. You said Subject X can't do anything, so what the fuck is going on, Mercilla?!" The old man shouted as his meat flaps of cheeks trembled.
"If the alliance asks for some results, do you have anything solid to give them?" the middle-aged man asked in a calmer tone.
Mercilla took a deep breath and turned around before nodding. "I do have the data that will intrigue them."
"Your Subject X ruined everything. If they find out that we had kept someone like that for years, they would kill us and put other people in our places!"
"We simply don't need to tell them that," the middle-aged man said as he narrowed his eyes. "We can just say that we did an experiment on a person we randomly found, and this happened."
"Yeah," Mercilla said, though a hint of frustration appeared in her eyes as she wanted to keep Subject X to herself. "If Task Force Alpha is dead, we have to send everything we have to capture him."
"No need," the old man snorted. "I'm going to inform the alliance about this and tell them to send a team of Pulse Weavers to capture this subject. You organize the data so I can send it as well."
"At least try!" Mercilla said with a frown. "If we can capture the Subject X ourselves and then send him, it'd be better. Suon, tell him."
The middle-aged man called Suon didn't take her side and shook his head. "I know you just want to study him more by bringing him here, but we don't want to lose men we have hired with our own money. It's best to let the alliance handle it."
"Bitch, give it a rest, and don't screw this up for us!" The old man angrily slammed his fist on a table beside him before turning around and leaving.
"Tim, you dickless bastard, we all agreed to this, so don't go dropping everything on me!" Mercilla shouted angrily, but the old man only snorted and continued walking.
"Merc, please organize the data fast," Suon said somberly. "We have to involve the alliance as soon as possible, and there's no changing this."
"Fine, I got it. I'll need a day because I've been awake for over twenty-four hours now. I need to sleep."
…
On the other hand, Riven and the two kids had relocated and arrived at the hill-forests area.
They didn't go deeper and stayed at the periphery near the riverbank first as Riven began teaching them about their first abilities.
'Tom, face the river and use your ability. Let's see how it goes at first.'
'And Jack, you still need to wait a bit since I used more of your power, so just watch for now.'
"Got it," Jack nodded. "By the way, what's the name of Tom's first ability?"
"It's called Equinox Spears," Tom said as he pointed his palm forward, causing a spear made of pure flame to manifest beside his arm. "Woah, I can feel the spear in my control!"
But in the next second, the spear dispersed.
'You need to get used to the control and make sure you do not lose it. The subtle connection of energy you feel must be strengthened so you can do something like this.'
Riven controlled Tom's powers, causing one ice spear and one fire spear to manifest before they shot forward like a bullet and crashed into each other a hundred meters away on the other side of the river, causing an explosion.
"Woah!"
"Awesome!"