"3000! Thanks so much!" Brandyn said with deep gratitude, taking the money from his boss.
"Great. I think you should head home now. I'll tell you if anything pops up." Carbine replied, collecting the bundles of money.
Brandyn was about to leave until he remembered about his new friend's disappearance. If there was anyone that would know, it had to be the gang. Right?
"Um, do you know what happened to Flavian. I don't really know where he's gone to."
"Ah, yes. He's currently getting an experiment done to get stronger. It'll take a few days to do." Carbine explained, while not looking suspicious in the process.
Brandyn had seen Carbine many times and the way he sounded so smooth and truthful made him believe what he had to say. It was practical too. They could just make him stronger so that he could be more useful to the gang.
Therefore, he just went home and didn't question any further.
****
After this, Brandyn really had enough money to pay for all his expenses for a while. He was able to use the thousands of marks that he just had lying around to actually pay for extra weights. He wanted to do this to help his punching power and, so, he bought 30 kilogram gloves and a 100 kilogram vest for conditioning. With the use of abilities and advanced technology, forming things of high density was not a problem in Helios.
Some people had abilities that created completely new metals, that weren't possible in nature. Most of these metals weren't exactly new elements but were, instead, incredibly powerful alloys of strong metals and materials.
[User: Brandyn Santiago]
[Level: 6]
[Strength: 7]
[Speed: 7]
[Durability: 7]
[HP: 58/60]
[MP: 15/15]
[XP: 135/600]
With the stat point from his mission in speed, his stats were totally balanced. He even felt this in his martial arts as he realised that he was no longer being held back by his speed. While he was prioritising increasing his strength, he started to realise that his punches were getting stronger much quicker than they were getting faster. Now, this feeling had almost completely faded.
7 days went by up until this point and Brandyn hadn't seen Flavian for all of these 7 days. Why was Flavian gone for so long? Was he dead?
After completing his daily tasks for the day, he tried to text Carbine to actually see what was going on.
"Hello, Carbine. I'm just texting to ask where Flavian is. I haven't seen him in school for a week now and the school have even been asking people about his disappearance. I don't think his parents know, either." Brandyn asked, who seemed a little more worried now.
"I see that you are worried but there is nothing to be worried about. He is just going under some treatment to make him stronger, and it'll take up to 3 weeks to complete." Carbine replied.
Brandyn had heard of these shady experiments to make people stronger, and they were well-known in the world. However, the experiments were more associated with the underworld and crime so the fact that his gang were doing these types of experiments didn't surprise him at all. The main issue with Carbine's reply was that he had never heard any of these experiments going over a week.
The longer the experiment, the more unstable it likely was and there were horror stories of people dying or getting adverse effects as a result of these long-winded experiments.
"Did he willingly do this experiment?" Brandyn asked, which caused Carbine to stop typing once he saw the reply.
It was being done against his will.
Carbine wouldn't have replied in such a manner if he wanted the experiment, but Brandyn was clueless about the whole ordeal. How come Flavian wouldn't want to willingly increase his strength. There had to be another part of the experiment that was being omitted.
"Well, he wasn't entirely compliant but that's just how they are. They see the mess-ups on TV and are reluctant, but he will be happy with the result once he is done." Carbine said in an attempt to assure Carbine that everything was fine.
Another alteration that these experiments would make was in the mind. The main change that these experimenters would make to people was to make them totally subservient and loyal to someone or something. That had to be it! He was going to be made a soldier of the gang. A mindless, but loyal, soldier.
"Surely, they couldn't be doing that. Right? They must know how evil that is." Brandyn asked himself.
Brandyn was right, but that was the thing. They knew how evil it was and they were totally aware of that.
They just didn't care.
"If they want more missions out of me, they have to tell me the truth." Brandyn said in his mind, throwing his burner phone across his bed and off it.
Brandyn knew that these organisations weren't run by the most moral people as everything that was being done was illegal, from setting up shop in abandoned buildings to murdering rival gang members. However, this was a step too far. There is a difference between crime against other offenders, and this. This level of corruption disgusted him, as it drew parallels to the government's toxic desire for power.
Something that he hated so, so much.