Inside the hands of the robot, a small circular bead of light green color is pulsating with a chaotic rhythm as if it is alive.
The hands holding it would have ceased to exist if they were not mechanical in nature. The air trembles around it, and the ground exerts a gravitational pull many times higher than its normal value.
A small spark of green lightning keeps flickering around it. It would have been almost impossible to get a clear view of this seed if not for the highly controlled environment around it, which keeps resisting the influence that this small bead has on its surroundings.
This small bead is the source of power on which the foundation of this world's power system is based, collectively known as 'seed of true growth.'
Every single researcher cannot help but get fascinated by this small bead, which is so small in size, yet if in qualified hands, it is enough to make the whole world bow in front of its power.
Everyone can feel a pull toward it, like a small whisper in their ear telling them to take a step forward, to get a hand on this power, and to achieve everything they want.
The one who appears to be struggling the least against this pull is the head scientist of this project, Doctor Isla.
Unknown to others.
Isla can feel nothing while looking at this seed of true growth, a fact that pains her more than anything because she knows the truth.
She know that just like the very beginning of entering the first level of evolution is reaching a peak potential of an individual body, something not everyone can do because every step on this path of evolution uses an individual's potential as fuel.
Similar to a currency that can be exchanged for power.
The fact that she can feel nothing, no whisper, no longing, absolutely nothing, like looking at a stone on the side of the road, means only one thing: that she does not have any potential left to be stimulated by the seed.
"Stop gawking at it and keep working," she ordered in a loud voice, her tone louder than usual with a hint of irritation wrapped in slight anger that made the researchers embarrassed for their lack of composure despite watching this seed almost every day.
"Damn, such a strong mentality; I wish I could also develop an unbreakable composure like hers." Unknown to the truth, many researchers thought secretly in their hearts after seeing her lack of reaction toward such a powerful object.
Isla ignored those subtle glances of researchers and started giving orders.
"Start the experiment and stay alert to control any harmful reaction."
The researchers around her nodded at her words and began their work.
The mechanical arms filled with evolution serum moved toward the unconscious man and took their place just above the temples, neck, chest, abdomen, groin, wrist, and foot, where major arteries are located.
"Position is locked, ready to initiate," a researcher said while moving her glasses upward, proud of her own efficiency in work.
"Begin," Isla said, only one word in response.
The mechanical arms advanced and entered inside the arteries of the unconscious man, flooding them with a dark blue substance that appears to be very eruptive, so much so that even the walls of the arteries began to break.
After injecting sufficient evolution serum inside his arteries, all the mechanical arms retreated by following the same route and got enclosed once again, but the continuous tense situation of the arteries did not stop; instead, a few arteries began to bleed internally.
Isla, along with all other researchers, can observe every single change taking place inside their subject's body through the 3-D holographic image.
Even after watching the continuous bleeding of those arteries, they did nothing; instead, they waited because they knew that this was inevitable.
After all, their subject is just a medium grade in quality with only a 62% chance of evolving into a deviant.
After a few seconds, the almost broken arteries finally managed to barely withstand the destructive force of the evolutionary serum and began transferring it to every body part and began a new cycle of evolution that comes after destruction.
"The subject body has begun to adapt to the continuous evolution."
"It will take fifteen minutes and twenty-one seconds to reach the required threshold for transplantation."
One of the researchers announced.
No one replied because it's not important right now.
Time kept passing, leaving each moment behind in its own rhythm. No one spoke or even looked at each other; everyone kept their eyes fixed either on the timer or on the constantly strengthening physical body of their subject.
The moment half of the time passed, a scream resounded inside the white room.
Suddenly the man who had remained unconscious since the beginning of the experiment awoke, but before he could make sense of his situation, the pain from his continuously breaking, reshaping, strengthening, and evolving body overwhelmed him.
"AHAAAAAAAA"
"HEEEEELLP"
He keeps screaming, but none can hear him. These white walls around him do not allow unnecessary voices to pass their boundary and disturb their master's work.
The whole group of researchers keeps looking at the timer and their 3-D hologram of a man's body, completely ignoring their screaming subject, whose voice remained confined in that white room.
A experimental subject whose constantly increasing strength is nowhere near enough to break those restraints that keep him confined to his medical bed despite pouring every ounce of strength into trying to tear those restraints.
In the end, he keeps suffering without knowing about a group of scientists that are watching his struggle with apathetic eyes
"According to the calculations, the subject will not be able to cross the barrier between second level and third level of evolution" One of the researcher spoke.
In just few minutes, a normal human reached on a level equal to the Masked man and David; something that took them several years to attain.
Finally, when the timer reached 00:00, the constant spikes of pain all around the man body stopped, but before he could take a breath of relief, something moved behind him.
"Start the transplantation process," Isla said the moment her test subject's body reached stability. Her voice is devoid of emotions despite knowing that her words have just sealed the fate of someone's life.
This time no one voiced their response; instead, only a subtle sound of keys tapping answered her.
The robot carrying the 'seed' moved toward the subject.
The man was scared for his life. The last thing he remembered was trying to hit on a girl inside a bar and then moving toward a taxi with her support, but who would have known that instead of a warm blanket and a soft embrace, such torture would await him?
"are you the one who—" The man's words were cut short because a floating marble of green color had suddenly appeared in front of his eyes.
Before he could understand just what was happening, the floating marble dropped straight toward his heart, piercing his muscles and breaking his ribcage with its sheer force.
The man did not even get a chance to scream before his vision blacked out.
Isla looked at the subject K-146 with a disappointing gaze.
whose body had begun to go through a new stage of evolution others would not understand, but she knew that the faster a subject blacked out after coming in contact with the marble, the lesser chances of survival he had, and this subject had blacked out almost instantly.
"Activate the dissecting program and mark this as a failure," she said, her voice stern.
True to her thoughts, inside the white room, the man's body began to deform.
In the beginning, his teeth began to fall out. One second he became old, and another second he reached the peak of his youth.
Then the condition worsened; new limbs began to grow, and several fingers began to generate in place of hairs on his head. A bestial roar resounded in the room before the condition could get out of control.
One after another, several attacks landed on his body; each attack destroyed his body from the outside while the nanobots present in his bloodstream started exploding.
This continued for a few minutes before the bestial roars finally stopped, and in place of a bound man, a mess of charred meat remained with no proper configuration to identify that he was once a human.
"Retrieve the 'seed', get the room cleaned and deliver this failure to those lunatics; we will continue after 4 hours of analysis on what we have gotten from this experiment," Isla said before moving toward the elevator with measured steps.
Before Isla could reach the elevator, one of the researchers who is responsible for controlling the robot to retrieve the seed spoke aloud.
"Doctor Isla, I think you should look at this."
He said while pointing toward the one-sided glass from which everyone can see that a robot is taking out a shining green bead from a mass of meat.
Isla narrowed her eyes toward the bead, and then she saw it: the shine of the bead had increased, and the lightning that appeared like a mirage before had started to manifest in reality like a small spark before the desstryction.
The energy radiation from the seed had increased to the point that even the robot's mechanical hands had started to melt slowly.
"This is not good" she thought.
"According to the system analysis, how many more trials can be done before this bead goes nuke?" she asked.
"Only one"
"FU#K"