It was a trap!... It was all set up!
But why? Why had Ryu kept him alive rather than killing him previously?
Bain felt his chest rise and fail speedily. But despite the pain, he knew the first principle of escaping was to do it as quickly as possible.
The longer he remained in the enemy's control, the less likely his chances were of fleeing.
His body was on fire, with a gushing wave of dizziness slowly eroding his consciousness.
No!
'I can't afford to fall asleep. Before my body gives way, I must take Ryu down.'
Get up!
Bain stabilized his staggering body, putting off a defensive stance. Seeing this, Ryu, who had always been calm and collected, burst out in cruel laughter.
"Boy!... If you think you can escape, you're much more foolish than I thought." Silver-hair Ryu smiled, reaching for his inner chest pocket with a sly smile on his face.
"Now, now, little one… Since you're new here, you probably haven't heard of me much. Some call me the silver Mad Hatter, others the Silver Maniac… However, I very much prefer the name Doctor Ryu. If it weren't that I valued your body, you would've been dead by now."
What? Valued his body?
Ryu retrieved a syringe, followed by a bottled stock of a strange blue, glowing fluid.
"Kid... Don't look too sad. I am indeed a farmer, but my main profession is a doctor, who just so happens to dabble in experiments of his own." He said, flicking the syringe, releasing the air bubbles inside.
"I've spent the last 120 years studying and perfecting all my creations, one that will push my dreams forward in creating an 'Enhanced' army of my own."
Ryu's eyes flashed with a determined light the more he spoke.
.
The Unlightened!... Humanity's strongest group.
In the Blue Sails, they say just 1/70,000 people have successfully become what many now call The Enhancers.
This alone shows how difficult being an enhancer was. But to explain it all, one has to go back 3,500 years into the past.
The year was RE-500, and the Keltar solution took the world by storm.
The first era of humans took in the keltar solution. The advantages were evident for all to see.
However, this was just the beginning of the global shock.
When the 2nd generation children were born from the first mutated batch, they had far better advantages from birth. But even then, all children had to get injected with these keltar solutions until their body's saturation point.
The more the body could take in, the more talented the individual was likely to become.
The highest recorded number was 11, while the lowest was 3.
If the saturation point had reached, no matter how one tried to inject the keltar solution into the baby, the syringe would mysteriously get blocked as though there was steel in the human body rejecting more.
After the saturation point, no matter how a human tried to take in the solution, it was of no use. Till they died, that was all they would be getting.
But this wasn't the shocking bit.
They also discovered that humans could manually open and close what they now call aura points to control the flow of their aura.
It's also important to know that people who don't train their aura control would have leaked auras flowing out their bodies like water vapor.
All humans had aura. It's the energy produced by all living things.
Thus, all beings emit aura. But if one can train and even assimilate the many auras around them, they would not only be able to store it all but also grow powerful too.
In theory, one should be able to specialize their auras to increase attributes like speed, physical strength, and whatnot
But there was just one major issue here.
Even with humans' current mutated genes, they found they couldn't improve their strength, speed, or any other attributes without a significant backlash.
It can be said that once released, the auras all fought to leave their bodies in every possible direction. And back then, several people had exploded limbs, body parts, and even heads.
Humanity tried to make it work until someone found a way to train and redirect the gathered auras. But to release the power from their bodies, they would need the assistance of projectile weapons.
Rather than say they would get stronger, it was more accurate to say they transferred their powers onto their projectile weapons. For example, if one ever faced an Enhancer with a gun, they would find their bullets shot faster and seemed heavier than usual.
These enhancers made their projectile weapons stronger and faster, with some enhancers able to make their weapons grow slightly bigger once shot.
Others could turn their bullets into ice shards, while some into fire.
.
It's also important to know that once a person chooses their type of aura training, it would be 50 times harder to train another method.
So those who focus on speed might be unable to make their weapons stronger or heavier. They won't be able to train another method too. But that was all they could do.
Of course, there were only 41 enhanced humans since the beginning to become dual Enhancers.
No one could physically morph into better versions of themselves using these powers, or their bodies would blow up.
In conclusion, aura training was so difficult that only 1/70,000th of the population achieved this feat. Even in wealthy homes, many still saw failure time and time again.
They discovered that the mutated gene human body was like a sealed chamber refusing to open.
But though the results were disheartening, this still meant all humans had the ability to one day become enhancers. And with this drive, many hidden forces and scientists began moving in the shadows.
Several forbidden drugs have been created with no success in making one become an 'enhancer.'
Every hundred years or so, one would hear of the Absolutes bringing these mad scientists to justice, winning the people's love.
But who is to say they weren't in on it too? Heh…
Ryu Ryu smiled, staring at the precious jewel before them.
Yes… Why didn't he kill Bain? Because from the time many men had stormed into his territory, he had been observing and watching them fiercely.
Running through the woods, Bain had torn his legs on a bush, leaving his blood behind.
A determined doctor like himself always walked around with a few solutions in his pockets.
So as usual, he dropped a single drop of his pink solution on the blood spot expecting no reaction. However, he was pleasantly surprised by Bain's unique blood… He had never seen anything like it before.
There was something special in it.
'I must begin experimentation now!'
The creepily smiling Ryu Ryu approached Bain with the pointy syringe in his hand.
"Come now, Boy… It's time for you to prove my theory right! "
…