"What the heck...", Infront of Alexis stood a collapsed building.
He didn't need to be an archaeologist to know that this particular building was old, what shocked was the damage done to it.
This building that looked very similar to a chateau had deep slashes on it's pale yellow walls, they didn't seem like magic attacks... a tier beast perhaps?
Curiousity took over him as he walked inside.
Alexis had to be careful because the building looked very fragile, one wrong move would mean that he would be trapped under the ruins...
"Not that I would mind getting smashed into paste by a building because I'm immortal..." he mumbled and pushed open the rusting iron door.
*grrrt*
It would be hard for an ordinary person but because Alexis was a Saint Knight mage, his strength was enough to open the door slowly, but it opened and Alexis went inside.
The interior of the building seemed quite advanced or rather complex, it wasn't necessarily the technology inside but the items it contained...
Alexis who was right in the middle of what seemed like an ancient hall, looked around and found something very odd.
"...A notice board?" He was puzzled but moved closer to it.
The notice board was made of metal framing which held a glass panel and the notices were underneath the glass panel...
"Day 15th of Month 1, Year 566 K.F, Lunar Kingdom Special Laboratory, opens!" He read out loud.
"..."
"Kingdom?" He tilted his head, Alexis shrugged and walked away.
He had better things to do than solve a mystery...
As Alexis walked around the building, he gathered some papers and documents that had miraculously survived against the seeds of time.
Most of these documents were written in Ancient Lunarian while some, a couple of them, which were most likely written in some kind of code, he deduced.
He also found the remains of some people, he was pretty sure a Tiered beast had attacked this laboratory and killed the scientists or whatever...
Alexis then found a staircase which led him down to the lower levels which were underground.
Once the stairs ended, Alexis found another iron door, this one was well secured and hadn't rusted at all.
Alexis pushed it open, what was behind the metal door was a narrow pathway with many rooms, possibly cages? The doors leading to these rooms too were made in metal...
Something about this place didn't seem right to Alexis, why would there be a special Laboratory inside the beast forest? He was also curious as to why the laboratory wasn't called something related to Tiered Beasts.
Alexis picked one room randomly and went in.
Immediately as he stepped into the room, his eyes turned sharp.
'...what the hell was that?!' He thought as his hand unconsciously moved to his sword, Alexis looked around inside this dark room...
Just as he entered the room, he felt a presence of something... it was something he was quite familiar with but this one seemed a bit off?
His free hand quickly made a Light magic circle which brightened up the whole room.
Earlier on, Philip had told Alexis that his affinity was towards Ice, at first he didn't really get it but once he explained what he meant, he understood everything.
A person who hasn't used mana is called a "Virgin Mage", and if the said "Virgin mage" used one of the elements while trying out mana, he or she would automatically be able to use the said element with ease when compared to other elements...
Since he used Ice when he was small to get rid of the warmth of the summer nights, Alexis could use Ice magic easily, aswell as the two Prime elements, which are Wind and Water.
This does not mean that a mage cannot use any other elements!
Back to the story, Alexis lit the room up with his light element, he felt it strain him a bit, but it wasn't that bad considering he was surviving in the beast forest...
Once the room was brightened up, he saw what gave him an uneasy feeling...
"God... you are one ugly bastard!" He frowned, infront of him was a grey humanoid creature, it was hanging on the top right corner of the room.
It's head had some strands of hair while the face was an absolute abomination... it's eyes were halfway out of it's face and looked disgusting while the nose was just two small holes.
The mouth had a few human looking teeth and was open, the drool fell down on the floor as Alexis observed it...
"Let me do you a favour and get rid of you once and for all!" He said and fired countless beams of light at it.
The beams of light went through it's body as it fell on the ground, bleeding dark red blood...
The humanoid creature didn't even bother dodging and waited for the beams to kill it.
Alexis saw the creature welcome it's death as if it had accepted it...
"T..Thy...Thys..ti..ne" croaked the dying creature as Alexis' eyes widened, he then smirked and shot a light beam through it's head, instantly killing it.
"To think that it can speak Ancient Lunarian, "Thank you" huh? Maybe you were a human that was experimented on?" He asked the dead creature and laughed at his theory...
His gut instinct told him he was not wrong, infact, it screamed something totally different to what he thought at first.
'If this is not a Tier beast research facility, I would get the proof from the documents in my ring... it would give some entertainment while I'm stick here.' he told himself.
"But it is a possibility... it is more believable than a spy, reincarnating!" He muttered with a smile and left the building.
-●-●-●-
Alexis returned back to his camp after following the marks he had left on the trees while he entered the deeper parts of the forest...
Since it was getting dark soon, he quickly took a bath and sat down next to the fire he had made.
He then took out the documents he had collected from the building and went through them one by one, what he found was something which even he did not expect!
Alexis originally thought that it was some super soldier facility but...
"Forced to copulate with a beast? What the fuck have these guys been doing?" He shouted and read through the contents of the document and frowned.
Even if he was a ruthless person, he too had a sense of morality, this little archaeological adventure became something quite uncomfortable for him...
"I was right... that Laboratory was a human experimental facility" he mused over his earlier meeting with that grey humanoid.
"Was it one of the women that was experimented on or a spawn of a Tiered beast and a woman?" he asked himself out loud...
" [I have received orders from his majesty, continue with the experiments. We need progress and we must ensure that none of these 'matters' are disclosed to the public] " he kept on reading the papers one by one.
" [May the Gods forgive me for my sins, I can no longer continue working in this hell on earth. This is wrong! We might end up being punished by the Gods for our actions...] "
"bold words" Alexis commented.
" [It's over... they have done it, the first human beast hybrid. This creature is too powerful they needed two hundred Divine Knights to subdue it...] "
"Two hundred!?" He shouted and eagerly read the next one.
" [Whoever finds this letter, what happened in this Laboratory is something which must never be unearthed, even to this day I still hear the screams and pleas of the thousands of women forced into this disgusting experiment, but nobody cares! I feel like I'm working with the devils. May their souls rest in peace for I know mine won't...] "
"tch not this one!" he frowned and picked another one.
" [From: Head Scientist Marvo,
The beast has gotten smarter and keeps getting smarter! Just yesterday I had a conversation with it, this is great news. Once it has gotten enough intelligence we can use it as a weapon in the coming war! Sir General, however there is some bad news, there is one scientist who is a bit upset about what is going on. We might need to terminate him!
To: General Lancer] "
"Tier beasts can't talk to humans, what the hell did they make?" He mumbled.
" [This is it, they think that the beast is under the tip of their thumb but the beast has them by their necks! When I look at it conversing with the Head Scientist, It's eyes scream 'rage' and 'anger', these people don't know what they have done, before I die I just want anyone who finds this letter to know that I'm sorry for what i have been working for, using women from destroyed nations as experiments...] "
The rest weren't necessarily important...
"But... what a mess!" Alexis sighed, his ancestors were seriously a different breed of humans.
He then proceeded to throw the documents into the fire and went inside his tent to sleep.
The next morning, he woke up refreshed and turned to the fire, it was dying.
There were still some pieces of paper in the fire but they were very small and held no importance...
Alexis brushed his teeth and started stretching.
Today he would absorb a Mana core he had gotten from his toughest opponent yet, a Tier 6 beast.
Normal mages of the Saint Knight tier can never win against a Tier 6 beast but Alexis is anything but normal.
Using his cunningness and intelligence, Alexis managed to defeat a Tier 6 beast, it's element was a Darkness type, the glassy orb was pitch black and looked ominous.
Alexis took it out of his Spacial ring and held it in is hand.
He followed the instructions told by Philip.
First, he had to get into a meditative pose and close his eyes, then he had to cover the orb with his mana and then crack open it.
If it was open forcefully and all the mana inside the core was let out instantly, the user of the core would die due to the extreme purity, the death also depended on the element...
Alexis would not risk dying even if he was immortal... If it was pseudo-immortality then he would die if he was gravely wounded, therefore he followed the instructions and patiently cracked the orb gently.
The cracking process took him four hours, but it was still not over...
Once the Darkness mana orb started leaking its mana slowly, he would have to absorb and refine it at a constant pace so that there are no pockets of unrefined mana.
The entire process was straining on his body, it has been almost six hours excluding the cracking process.
His legs went numb after staying in one pose for nearly ten hours.
The next day, Alexis opened his eyes gently, the orb was on the ground but the black colour was gone and it seemed like an empty ball of glass...
Alexis who opened his eyes couldn't see that for a second, his eyes, not just the pupil, but the entire eye was pitch black and looked demonic!
He then got up, only to fall on the ground and sleep.
Once again he opened his eyes, this time he was more energetic and lively than before, his eyes had returned to it's normal state.
He felt his legs and took a long cold bath in the river.
Alexis then continued his daily routine and eagerly waited for the day he could finally leave, but he would miss the beasts that would warily look at him...