"Artificial?!" Saria's expression immediately turned sour.
Ifrit's condition was caused by Rhine Lab's Flame Demon Project. The so-called project involved artificially implanting Originium into the body to gain powerful strength.
Such as extraordinary Originium Arts.
It was proven that Rhine Lab's Flame Demon Project was correct—implanting Originium into Ifrit's body did indeed grant her immense power. However, along with Ifrit's success came extreme instability.
While she gained great power, Ifrit's brain was also affected by the Originium, making her irritable and uncontrollable, frequently losing control. Saria's primary responsibility back at Rhine Lab was to suppress Ifrit when she lost control.
Ifrit's success was largely due to luck. After such a successful case appeared, the higher-ups at Rhine Lab reached out to others. They believed Ifrit wasn't a unique case; if there was one successful individual, there would be a next.
They firmly believed this.
They took action, controlling the narrative and deceiving Infected people by saying that joining Rhine Lab would provide experimental treatment. But the so-called treatment was actually Rhine Lab's secret experiments. These deceived Infected individuals had Originium implanted in their bodies by Rhine Lab while they were still ignorant of the truth.
Those Infected people waited on the operating table for the experimental treatment to begin, seeing Rhine Lab as their hope, unaware that they were being greeted by an endless abyss.
The higher-ups at Rhine Lab hoped to see more successful individuals.
But they failed.
Ifrit was like an unrepeatable success. After so many cases, only Ifrit succeeded, while others turned into piles of Originium and perished completely.
This world is cruel, after all.
It was also at that time that Saria began to question Rhine Lab.
"Don't worry, this child is an even more successful individual than Ifrit," Fujino smiled, waving her hand as a high-tech tablet appeared in her grasp.
Slender hands swiped across the tablet a few times before handing it over to Saria.
"Take a look at this."
"What is this?" Taking the tablet from Fujino's hand, Saria began to browse the information displayed on it.
Babel, Arknights.
This was the most prominent information in the text on the tablet.
"What is this?"
Saria asked in confusion; she had never heard of an organization named Babel on the Terra Continent, and the knight named Ark revealed in the information puzzled her even more.
She knew about knights; in a city on the Terra Continent called Kazimierz, the existence of knights was very popular. If Saria remembered correctly, there was also a knight named Nearl who was quite famous in Kazimierz. Saria had been to Kazimierz, and at that time, walking on the streets there, she could hear this name from time to time.
However, that knight named Nearl seemed to have left Kazimierz long ago because she became an Infected, and the knights in Kazimierz today were more like commercial products.
Fujino did not answer Saria's question, but instead asked her a question that left her somewhat bewildered.
"Is the world alive?"
Looking at the speechless Saria, Fujino smiled and patted her shoulder.
"After you fuse the elemental stone, perhaps you can personally ask this world whether it is dead or alive."
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