[Desert Facility - Pre-Procedure Area]
After the mysterious man left, Hajime pulled aside one of the medical technicians - a woman with tired eyes and the efficient movements of someone who'd performed this procedure many times.
"Who authorized the protocol downgrade?" he asked quietly.
The technician glanced around, then leaned closer. "Came from above, no name attached, but the clearance codes were legitimate."
"Above how far?"
"High enough that I don't ask questions."
Hajime's jaw tightened. He walked back to where Vorn was reviewing the consent forms, his expression tense in a way that hadn't been there minutes before.
"You should've had second-tier clearance," Hajime said. "At minimum."
Vorn looked up from the paperwork. "And...what's that mean?"
"Safety protocols. Mana stabilizers during injection. Monitoring enchantments to prevent cascade failure." Hajime sat down heavily. "Even inactive ancient bloodlines don't get standard treatment unless someone intervenes."
"Then someone wants to see what happens when I'm exposed to the full process."
"Or they want to see if you break under it."
Vorn signed the final form and handed it back. "Either way, turning back now accomplishes nothing."
A medical technician approached. "We're ready for final preparation."
---
[Sterile Preparation Chamber]
The room was aggressively white - walls, floor, ceiling, equipment all the same antiseptic color that made everything feel like he was here for a heart surgery. Vorn was given a plain medical gown and directed to remove all personal items.
His artifact clothing went into a sealed container. The card integrated into his chest remained but like a tattoo- it was a part of his biology now.
"No sedation," the technician explained as she attached basic monitoring leads. "No mana stabilizers to ease the transition. No enchantments to intervene if your body starts rejecting the serum."
She moved with the muscle memory precision of someone following protocols rather than treating a patient.
"The injection will trigger a full-body cascade reaction. Your cells will attempt to restructure themselves at the molecular level. You'll feel everything. If your body can't handle the transformation, we won't intervene."
Vorn nodded, no questions, no concerns, no visible emotion.
"Most people ask about pain management at this point," the technician observed.
"I'm not here to be saved," Vorn said quietly. "I'm here to survive."
---
[Injection Chamber]
The room was smaller than Vorn expected. A single table surrounded by monitoring equipment, dim lighting that made everything feel isolated from the outside world.
He lay down on the cold metal surface. Restraints weren't necessary - the serum would paralyze voluntary muscle control within seconds of injection.
The Transcendent serum sat in a vial nearby, glowing with internal light that seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. The liquid moved strangely, like it was alive and aware of its surroundings.
"This will burn on contact," the technician warned, loading the serum into an injection system. "Your body will lock up immediately. Don't fight it - fighting makes the rejection more likely."
The needle found his vein easily. Cold metal, then fire.
The serum hit his bloodstream like molten metal. Every cell in his body screamed at once - not pain exactly, but the sensation of being unmade and rebuilt simultaneously.
His muscles seized, vision fractured into prismatic shards. Breathing stopped as his respiratory system forgot how to function.
'Heat.'
His bones felt like they were melting and reforming. Muscles tearing apart and knitting back together stronger.
'Collapse.'
Systems shutting down, organs struggling to continue functioning while their fundamental structure changed.
'Rebuild.'
New pathways opening, enhanced connections forming. His body learning to operate on principles that felt strange to him.
Around the table, technicians monitored readouts with professional detachment.
"Heart rate erratic but stable," one reported.
"Brain activity spiking. Neural pathway formation accelerated."
"He's not rejecting it," whispered another.
The lead technician frowned at her instruments. "He's adapting too fast. These readings are off the charts."
---
[Secure Communication Room - Concurrent]
Hajime stepped into a soundproof booth and activated an encrypted channel. The same tired voice that had disappointed him before answered immediately.
"His progress is accelerating beyond normal parameters," Hajime reported. "But someone stripped his safety protocols. This wasn't an oversight."
"We're not obligated to shield him. His family name is ancient, but they're politically inactive."
"He's not just surviving the procedure. He's changing in ways the equipment can't measure."
A pause. "Then let him change. If he dies, we lose nothing. If he succeeds, we gain data on unprotected transformation."
"And if he becomes something we can't control?"
"That's not our concern. Our obligation was to his bloodline, not to him personally."
The channel closed. Hajime stared at the dead communicator for several minutes.
"Vorn..." he muttered to the empty room. "Just don't end up like your family did."
---
[Recovery Pod - Hours Later]
Consciousness returned slowly, accompanied by the sensation that his body no longer belonged to him. Everything felt denser, sharper, connected in ways he'd never experienced.
Vorn sat up carefully in the recovery pod. His movements were smooth but unfamiliar, like operating machinery he'd never used before.
A mirror on the wall showed changes that went beyond physical enhancement. Faint lines of light pulsed beneath his skin, following patterns that seemed to map his circulatory and nervous systems. His eyes held flecks of the same light.
"Transcendent," he whispered.
The word felt different in his mouth. Not an aspiration anymore, but a statement of fact.
Outside the recovery room, observation windows showed medical staff taking notes, recording measurements, documenting the successful transformation of someone who should have had a much higher chance of dying.
In a separate observation area, the mysterious man watched through multiple screens, his expression unreadable.
"Let's see what you become," he said to no one in particular.
On the screens, Vorn was testing his range of motion, flexing hands that could now crush steel without effort, standing with balance that defied normal human limitations.
The real experiment was just beginning.
---
[Facility Corridors - Later]
Walking through the medical complex, Vorn noticed changes beyond the physical. His enhanced senses picked up conversations from rooms away, detected heartbeats and stress levels of everyone he passed, automatically analyzed potential threats and escape routes.
Staff members who looked at him quickly looked away, not from fear exactly, but from something more instinctive.
Hajime waited by the exit, looking older than he had that morning.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Different, definitely better than I was this morning." Vorn flexed his fingers, watching the light patterns under his skin respond. "What happens now?"
"Recovery period. Let your body stabilize to the new baseline. Then we begin actual Transcendent training."
They walked toward the vehicle in comfortable silence. Around them, the desert facility continued its work - other candidates undergoing procedures, researchers documenting results, administrators managing the complex logistics of human enhancement.
But Vorn's transformation felt different from the others, more complete or something along that line, like seamless.
And somewhere in the facility's depths, people were taking notes about exactly what that difference might mean.