My head hurts.. Lua groaned as he awoke in his bed. Needless to say, he was utterly exhausted. Getting out of bed, he tried his hardest to remember what had happened previously. The memories hit him one by one, until he finally pieced together a story.
He had instantly been knocked out after drinking the concoction, for reasons unknown to him. It appeared the documents weren't lying - it was in fact getting considerably harder to evolve with each Grade. He had been knocked unconscious by the evolution process, which not only proved that he could only take so much more, but it also showed that he could have possibly died had he not been resilient.
I wonder what happens if you can't handle a potion.. Do you die, or perhaps, worse? Lua couldn't help but shudder at the thought of losing his sanity and becoming a monster. On the bright side, he felt he would become a pretty cool monster.
Arc looked at Lua, facepalming. He had been the one to carry Lua to bed, and he had been watching over him for the past few hours. He had also been the one to turn away inquiring team members when they inevitably came knocking to ask where Lua had been. Needless to say, he had been acting as a babysitter.
So, it was absolutely appalling to him that when his "baby" finally woke up, the first thoughts that went through his head were how cool of a monster he could have ended up as. He was appalled, but absolutely not surprised. That was because he likely would have done the same thing.
After Lua's evolution, Arc and Lua had gained an even deeper connection, allowing them to connect to each other's surface thoughts. They could communicate over short distances by thinking about it.
The range that they could be separate had also increased. It had increased to a whopping kilometer, not enough for them to live separate lives. It wasn't like they wanted to either.
"Cut me some slack. My mind's a mess." Lua made his excuse, but he failed to convince Arc. They knew each other far too well to fall for such tricks. Lua finally sighed, giving up at trying to find sneaky excuses. Instead, he inspected his new abilities.
Most fundamentally, his strength had increased once more. Additionally, he had gained new information that he could use to make new devices that were considerably more advanced. Beyond that, however, there was little change. It was as if he had only gone to Grade 12 Premium edition instead of Grade 11.
There was one ability that was current quite leveled, but was still new. It allowed Lua to create a magnetic field in his body, letting metals gravitate toward him. However, when he tried this on an iron rod that had been alloyed into steel, he found that it was too slow. Even when really close, the magnetic field wasn't strong enough to get things into his hands within seconds. It took three minutes for the metal to gravitate 10 centimeters. It was impractical.
Lua decided to forget about his useless new ability for now. He decided to not even bother thinking about it, and not waste precious brain cells. What he wanted to do now was to learn about the intricacies on how to utilize his new knowledge to the fullest.
It was hard to describe what Lua had learned into words. However, if there was an oversimplification, Lua gained insight on how mechanisms worked on a deeper level. He had gained the ability to make considerably more sophisticated machinery, yet still primitive compared to the many marvels of this world.
Lua's primary intention was finding a new gadget for Arc to use. Arc was too weak in his present state, preventing him from being active in combat. Lua needed to change that if they were to survive through the delicate situation they had found themselves in. They needed to assure their position in this battle royale of a world.
Lua shared his plans for a weapon with Arc. Together, they spent the night working on a weapon that was both complex, and simple to use at the same time. It was not a sword, nor was it an ax. It was both innovative and completely unexpected to their enemies.
Lua completely dislodged Arc's arm, not bothering to disable his sensory systems. He didn't need to bother - it was a simple fix. The only difficult part would be Arc getting used to said weapon. It took Lua until morning to get the gadget working, and to install it onto Arc's arm.
"Done." Lua finally said, proud of their achievement.
Arc's arms looked nearly the same as before. One minor change was that Arc's knuckles had spikes on them, ready to impale and make someone bleed with every punch. However, that wasn't all.
"Try it." Lua said, excited to see how it worked.
CRASH! Arc's fist extended, crashing straight into the outer wall of the room. The bricks collapsed into the street below, letting cold air into the room. Lua and Arc were momentarily stunned.
"That's going out of our paycheck." Arc said, pointing out the obvious to Lua. He was both happy that it had extended properly, but disappointed that he hadn't expected the sheer amount of force it would have. It was way out of proportion.
They both stared at the broken wall for some time. They simply didn't know how to explain this, and they wouldn't be able to hide it. They would eventually realise that it was much colder than it should be.
"We are screwed." Lua finally admitted begrudgingly.