Metal pulsing with magic gently poked and prodded Azotreh as they awoke to the real world once more. They opened their eyes to see the augmented face of the Doctor. The gold ranker refused to give the experiments his true name, so they all knew him as such.
Thin wires extended from his fingers as they traced over Azotreh's skin, attempting to find something. What, they didn't know.
When Doctor noticed Azotreh was awake, his face split in a horrifying grin. The false teeth surrounding his augmented voice box were always creepy, but under the pale lights of the lab, they were even more so. The little speaker in his throat let out a loud screeching sound before it began to speak in the Aostean Common Tongue.
"AZ-087 status: awake. New change to eyes, secondary object circling iris. Unknown reason. Hair has partially turned white. Unknown reason. Draconic implant: Eye of Black Dragon accepted successfully."
Doctor leaned down as wires emerged from his metallic left eye. His organic right remained fixed on Azotreh's faintly glowing left eye as the wires from his own left eye held Azotreh's open. Azotreh felt their eye going dry as Doctor continued to examine it for more than ten minutes.
"Eye of Black Dragon organ, associated bloodline, and ability perfectly integrated into AZ-087's body," Doctor continued. He always spoke notes aloud, and the facility kept a record of all words spoken within its walls.
"System still locked by the containment array, analysis still impossible without system access. AZ-087 can access the eye, but without system assistance. Additional testing required."
Doctor pulled away, and Azotreh blinked rapidly to wet their eye again. The speaker began to play calm music for a long moment as two guards entered the room, wearing the same white armor as all others. The music was supposed to soothe Azotreh, but it didn't, not even a little. Azotreh felt the second awareness deep within their soul, pushing at something.
Azotreh followed the guards lifelessly, as they normally do. To show too much life caused the sycophantic guards to observe the experiments even more closely, and if there was one thing Azotreh didn't want, it was to be watched.
They were led through the mess hall, past the cells for the lesser experiments. Along the way, the trio encountered another larger group. Five guards in white armor, three priests in white robes, and a boy only a couple of years older than Azotreh. While the boy didn't spare a glance at Azotreh, they certainly felt the slight tug on their very soul. A tug of recognition from the awareness deep within. Whatever that child was, it felt familiar.
But they didn't have time to wonder, or any time to speak. They were instead led to their cell with efficiency and returned to it. They didn't fight, didn't even try. They had things they wanted privacy for.
While experiments that underwent severe psychological or physical trauma were placed on personal watch for up to a week, that didn't mean that Azotreh wasn't given privacy. It just meant that food would be personally provided instead of being required from the mess hall, and that two guards would remain outside at all times. Some of the experiments had the capacity to damage the facility, so ensuring they did no such thing was important.
However, Azotreh was tin rank; they couldn't damage the wall if they spent a millennium digging with a pickaxe. So the guards around them were far more lax than they were around the higher-ranked experiments.
Azotreh simply sat and meditated. Even without the skill or ability, sitting still increased resource regeneration by a minuscule amount. They attempted to re-enter the odd place with Nicholas, but it seemed that required unconsciousness or maybe other conditions Azotreh was unaware of. Even so, they tried.
They sat and meditated for three days, accepting the food given by a guard twice a day. It wasn't filling, but enough to sustain the body. Combined with Azotreh's full vitality, they were considered healthy.
Any time they felt a slight amount of their vibrancy return, they used Eye of the Black Dragon. They hoped against hope that something else would come of the ability, even though they were told it was simply a more powerful version of Darksight. But dragons were mythical creatures; how could they possibly have an ability with their name that wasn't extraordinary?
However, on day three, something changed. A small cracking sound echoed through the cell as Azotreh felt a shooting pain through their chest. The lights in the room turned red as the array was broken for a fraction of a second. The work of Nicholas did something to the array. It wasn't long, wasn't even for a single second, but something still happened.
The guards rushed in, but only saw Azotreh clutching their chest in agony. It's relatively normal for experiments to try and break the array and face the backlash of doing so. Even so, the extremely short moment of freedom and the aching pain should reinforce a lesson of obedience.
Azotreh felt their vision darkening again as the agony in their chest slowly faded. They saw a single blue light flicker into existence before their eyes alone. A single dot, nothing like what others described the system. But they saw it, and so they knew they could work towards escape.
Pain meant nothing, so long as escape was on the table, Azotreh would do anything.
The blue dot vanished as they passed out and returned to the bed.
Nicholas looked at the wall with wide eyes as Azotreh entered. The two had communicated whenever Azotreh slept, but nothing much happened. Nicholas was slowly figuring out what the fifteen available statistics meant, and what VIT, VIG, VIB, VAT, VEH, and VIV meant. But after figuring out generally what most of it meant, he just spent time trying to push against the facility's limitation on their soul.
On the screen flashing on the wall were three collections of text.
[Administrator I has blessed you with: Infinite System.]
[Ability: Eye of the Black Dragon has reached level two! Density of Poten: Perception has increased by 0.2%.]
[Innate Ability: Records of Existence uncovered.]
Nicholas simply stared in shock, while Azotreh instead worked to pull up their status. A new list appeared between Daos and Laws. Called 'Systems of Power,' it contained only two things. The Skill System and the Infinite System.
Nicholas had only been in Azotreh's body for about four days, but could have sworn everyone around them simply referred to their magic as 'The System' as if there was only one. It also lined up with stories from his home, of grand magical systems overtaking Earth and granting abilities. Some considered the idea of multiple such systems, but never quite like this.
Azotreh brought up the windows for the two Systems of Power. While the Skill System took minutes to just scroll to the bottom of its description, the Infinite System was simple. It removed all limitations of power growth while reducing the rate of growth to 80% of its original.
Nicholas slowly turned to Azotreh with wide eyes.
"Azotreh, what limits did the Infinite System just remove?"
Azotreh pondered as they read and re-read the description. They turned back to Nicholas.
"There are many people and beasts alike with abilities that have reached level one hundred. But I've never heard stories of levels beyond that."
Nicholas turned back to the display in awe. A simple system, especially compared to the Skill System's description. Yet that simplicity was power.
Nicholas felt a little shock. He had pushed off the limitations on their soul for only a moment, a fraction of a second, and it gave them so much already. What was it like for others with constant access?
At that moment, both Nicholas and Azotreh were in utter agreement. They needed to escape.
Azotreh stood up and left the central obelisk. Nicholas followed soon after, and both found a new building on the lawn between their homes and the obelisk. The new building was made from shifting white and black; a majority was white, with curling black lines across its surface. Like shifting text on a page.
They entered the building, finding two rows of empty bookshelves and one shelf with several books. They all began with the words 'Record of' before describing something. Books such as Record of [Eye of the Black Dragon], or Record of the Creature Archetype. Both were relatively short, as were most of the other books on the shelves. They held short descriptions of Azotreh's two abilities, their bloodlines, attributes, and everything else.
The longest was Eye of the Black Dragon, which showed both the description of the ability, [See through the dark and dim as you would in bright day or moonlit night.], and the boost it granted to Azotreh's perception at level 2, though the book called it the second threshold.
While Azotreh looked through the books on the shelf, Nicholas began to explore. He found a second shelf, one containing simple lists. Lists such as 'steps taken' and 'meters moved.' He wondered if they used meters here, too, before something else caught his attention.
Far across the room, in a place which hadn't existed before, sat a single book. The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar. Nicholas approached it cautiously, wondering what a book from Earth was doing inside their inner library. But it didn't leap up and bite his face when he touched it, so he opened it.
The book was in perfect detail, just as Nicholas remembered his own copy. Without the damage of his cat thinking it'd be a good chew toy. He wondered if there were other secret shelves here.
When Nicholas put the book down, it vanished. He touched its former location and only found empty air. So he began to search, and found it on a shelf, at the very end of its row.
While Azotreh kept looking through books on the statistics, or Potens as they were called, Nicholas wandered back to the lectern, only to find another book sitting there. Another of his home world. He read through it too, and when he placed it back, it vanished and appeared on a shelf.
Nicholas felt the subtle changes instinctively. While the facility they were in shut down system access, it didn't halt everything related to magic. So, with the knowledge that maybe he could preserve or even re-create Earth media, he pulled Azotreh from the library.
He crouched before Azotreh to get on their level and spoke, "The Records of Existence show records of your powers, your life, but also knowledge. So I have a task in addition to our escape. Find any books you can, and read them. Don't skim, but read every word."
Azotreh began to nod, but then Nicholas spoke again, "and if you can, get something to write with and paper. I want definitions of any words in the Aostean Common Tongue. If I can compile a dictionary, I have a feeling we'll get something good from it."
Azotreh nodded even more fervently. It was good, finally having something to do other than waiting for experiments. Especially if Nicholas believed it was going to benefit them. So Azotreh agreed, and before long, felt their consciousness returning.
In the outside world, their chest still ached a bit, but they were mostly okay. Not even an hour had passed since Nicholas succeeded in breaking through the array for a second, but everything seemed to have returned to normal operations.
Azotreh slowly felt the pain in their chest lessen, until finally they felt whole again. After that, they slept, returning to the realm of their own soul. There wasn't much better to do, or so they thought. And anyway, they may not have much control over this space, but if they could manifest clothes, then they should be able to manifest paper, right?
Azotreh spent hours trying to envision paper, to see the thin sheet of material in their hand. To know what it felt like, how it tasted, what crumpling paper sounded like, and what burning it in a crackling fire sounded like.
Before they could get the method to create paper within themselves, they felt their body awakening naturally. Another long day before them. But now, their mind was filled with hope of a brighter future.