Year 785, Imperial Calendar of Vorakh
The rat squealed, writhing on the rusted metal table I had dragged to the abandoned basement beneath the barracks.
It wasn't a normal rat. It was a "Pit Rat," the size of a cat, bloated by the alchemical waste draining through the sewers.
Normally, a bite from these things would rot your arm off. But this one was strapped down, splayed open, its organs pulsing under the light of my portable lamp.
With my Analytical Vision active, I could see the flaw in its heart: a weak valve that couldn't withstand the pressure of its mutated blood.
Using stolen forceps and a low-grade mana-conductive thread, I performed a bypass. I redirected the blood flow, sacrificed the digestive system (it wouldn't need it if it was going to live a short life), and enhanced the jaw musculature.
But the crucial change wasn't in the body, but in the mind.
I took a small shard of quartz crystal I had also stolen—I had become a thief in my own right by now—from a broken radio transmitter and wrapped it in the conductive thread. With surgical care, I embedded it directly into the base of its skull, bridging its central nervous system.
I didn't have enough mana to mentally dominate beasts like a member of House Rakkor, the only lineage of beast tamers in Vorakh.
But I didn't need mana.
With that rudimentary implant acting as a lightning rod, my meager magical energy fried its survival instincts and replaced them with a single directive: obedience to my frequency.
I closed the incision.
"Prototype Alpha-1. Wake up."
The creature opened its eyes. They were no longer black and scared. They were red and empty.
I released it. Instead of fleeing or attacking me, it stood motionless, vibrating with unnatural energy.
"Kill," I ordered, pointing to another pit rat, a huge male I had in a cage on the other side of the room.
The Alpha-1 was a blur. There was no fight. There was an explosion of violence. In two seconds, the larger rat was a mass of fur and blood.
The Alpha-1 looked at me, awaiting the next order, even though its modified heart burst ten seconds later from the strain.
I smiled.
Unstable, yes.
But obedient.
Year 787, Imperial Calendar of Vorakh
We were in the final exercises of the Belisarius Academy.
They dropped us into the Descartes Sector, a forest of dead trees and twisted metal where the Ascension Division dumped its failed experiments for observation.
The objective of the test was simple: survive 24 hours.
Around me, the squad wasn't scared; they were bored.
"What a disgusting place," Vesper complained, incinerating a deformed beast with a snap of her fingers. The monster, a mix of dog and man, turned to ash before it touched her. "Did Kaelen bring us here to clean up his trash?"
The rest of the group advanced with arrogance, eliminating everything that came out of the shadows.
The Cadets were strong. Too strong.
Then the "Colossus" appeared.
It was a mountain of pale flesh and tumors, three meters tall. It had no eyes, only a mouth full of disordered teeth.
Vesper threw a spear of fire at it, but the monster's flesh was so dense and wet that it simply absorbed the impact with a hiss of steam.
The Colossus didn't even flinch. It roared and charged, scattering the cadets like dolls.
My companions began to retreat, preparing larger spells, looking for brute force.
I didn't retreat. I stood still, adjusting my glasses.
My companions saw an invincible beast. I, thanks to my gift, only saw a shoddy job.
Look at it, I thought. Its knees are trembling.
It wasn't trembling with rage. It was trembling because its bones could barely support that mountain of muscle they had grafted onto it. It was like putting a tank engine in a wooden cart. It was at the limit of its structural endurance.
You didn't need to be a warrior to defeat it. You just had to accelerate the inevitable.
I ran toward it. I didn't draw weapons, only a syringe with a concentrated basic stimulant.
The Colossus raised an arm to crush me. It was slow. Heavy.
I slid across the wet ground, passing under its guard, and jammed the needle into its thigh, straight into the main vein.
Contract, I thought.
The stimulant raced through its system in an instant, forcing its muscles to tense to the maximum.
It was too much.
A sharp snap was heard, like a branch breaking, as its own femurs gave way under the pressure of its quadriceps. The beast didn't scream; it simply collapsed at once, unable to support its own weight.
Vesper and the others stood in silence, watching the mountain of flesh fall to the ground, useless.
I wiped the mud from my uniform. It wasn't a fight. It was a controlled demolition.
The only remaining sound was the surveillance drones buzzing among the dry trees.
Kaelen and the evaluators of the Ascension Division were observing our actions.
That day I didn't get the highest score in combat. I got something better: a letter of recommendation for the Ascension Division.
Year 791, Imperial Calendar of Vorakh
The beep of the heart monitor was the only thing breaking the sterile silence of Laboratory 3.
Director Varrick, a man who wore more metal than flesh on his body, looked with frustration at the subject on the stretcher. He was an elite soldier, a volunteer for the "Titan" program. Or what was left of him.
The soldier was experiencing systemic rejection. His skin was cracking, glowing with unstable violet light.
"It's a total loss," Varrick growled. "The human body cannot withstand the synthetic mana core. Incinerate him and bring the next one."
"It's not the body that's failing, Director," I said.
Varrick turned, looking at me with disdain. I was the youngest researcher, the "boy with the weird eyes."
"Do you have something to say, Acheron?"
"The core is fine. The body is fine. The problem is the interface." I walked toward the soldier, ignoring the magical radiation burning my skin. "You are trying to connect the core to the vascular system. The blood boils. You should connect it to the lymphatic system. It acts as a natural coolant."
"That is theoretically impossible," Varrick snapped. "Lymph does not conduct mana."
"Not natural lymph," I corrected.
I took a scalpel and a vial of my own compound, a pale green serum I had perfected over years.
"Allow me."
Without waiting for permission, I made an incision in the soldier's neck and injected the serum directly into his lymph nodes.
There was a moment of tension. The violet glow on the soldier's skin flickered... and stabilized. His breathing stopped being agonized. The heart monitor dropped to a steady, powerful rhythm.
The soldier opened his eyes. They glowed with power, but there was no pain.
The silence in the room was absolute. I had achieved in thirty seconds what the department had attempted for five years.
Varrick looked at me, and for the first time, I didn't see disdain. I saw fear. And greed.
"What did you call that compound, Acheron?" he asked.
I wiped the blood from my hands with a silk handkerchief.
"It doesn't have a name yet, Director. It's just... a design correction."
That night, I was promoted to Lead Researcher. They gave me my own laboratory, unlimited budget, and access to the fresh "raw materials" arriving from the prisons.
I looked at my new laboratory, very different from the basement of the Belisarius Academy.
I no longer needed to steal like a rat; I had all the materials I wanted.
I was no longer a discarded reject; I had become a relevant asset of the Empire.
I had crawled through the trash for years, surviving among rats and waste.
Now, finally, I was beginning to climb toward glory.