When the group arrived at Paige's lab, the disheveled scientists received them at the elevator's door and guided them to another testing area.
"As soon as I heard you made a demon contract with Dante, my entire body perked up!" the scientist said with enthusiasm, which contrasted with her tired and scruffy appearance.
While walking to the room, Paige inquired about the process for making the contract. She had heard the gist of it when the warlock talked about it with Camille, but the scientist wanted to know every little detail.
Dante began explaining the intricacies of dividing a demon's soul in order to remove the harmful side effects, and as he kept talking, Megan and Zac entered the testing room.
The warlock, Sophia, and Paige were looking at them from an adjacent room behind a bulletproof window, where the scientist had a console in front of her.
"This is one of my newest inventions—though I haven't used it much, I think it's perfect for this occasion," Paige said, speaking into a microphone for Zac and Megan to hear.
"I call it the MET room. That's short for Multicombat-Experience-Training room," she continued.
With the console on her side, Paige could change the conditions inside the MET room to almost anything she could think of.
"The conditions…?" Zac pondered aloud.
"Yes. For example, let's say you wanted to practice your moves in the middle of a monsoon…" Paige replied, pressing a button in the console.
At that moment, the MET room got slightly darker, and the square tiles on the ceiling slid open, revealing a machine that produced and sprayed water all over, simulating a real monsoon raining over Zac and Megan.
From the walls, another machine produced strong winds, making the pair cover their faces and stand their ground while Dante and the others watched from the viewing room.
"Anyways, you get it now…" said Paige, pressing a button to end the simulation.
As the room lit back up and dried up, Zac and Megan stood in the center, completely soaked, prompting the scientist to ask the servants for a change of clothing.
After the pair left the room for a few minutes, they returned with dry clothes, letting Paige continue with her explanation.
"Apart from environmental conditions, I can also have you practice against different situations. For example…" Paige commented, pressing another button on her console.
Megan and Zac prepared themselves for the worst, turning their gazes and seeing one of the walls' tiles sliding and showcasing two mounted crossbows.
"These crossbows will follow your moves and shoot every once in a while. Let's see how you deal with them…" Paige explained.
Zac panicked a little and stared at the crossbow aiming at him, attentively waiting for the moment it took the shot to move away.
Meanwhile, Megan slowly walked to the side with an indifferent expression, but her gaze was solely focused on the weapon.
The warlock noticed that Sophia clasped her hands together, sensing a bit of unease coming from her body. However, Dante didn't feel nervous at all, as he knew that the crossbows would be no match to the pair's new enhanced reflexes.
After a few tense seconds, the crossbows shot simultaneously, with one arrow flying toward each.
Zac took one step to the side right before the arrow could hit his chest, making the projectile hit the back wall.
Megan, however, took a different approach and managed to catch the arrow with her bare hands, prompting the scientist to start writing it down in her notebook hastily.
Sophia was impressed and clapped for her friends with a smile on her face. While Dante was satisfied with the results, he knew that the two of them were capable of more impressive feats.
Still, Paige was only getting started, as she had dozens of conditions and situations that she wanted to test.
For her subsequent trial, she kept the crossbows active and loaded them with a new arrow before turning off the lights, leaving them in complete and utter darkness.
There wasn't a single speck of light inside the MET room, as Paige wanted to test their other senses other than their vision.
*Click!* The group heard the sound of the crossbows releasing the arrows.
Dante smirked before Paige could turn the lights on and was surprised to see that Zac successfully avoided the arrow while Megan caught it again.
*Phew* "I couldn't see anything. I just moved when I heard the 'click,'" the redhead commented, wiping a drop of sweat from his forehead.
"Huh… That didn't happen to me. It was a bit dark, but I could still see," Megan replied, catching the attention of the scientist, who turned to Dante for an explanation.
The warlock said that while the process for making the orbs was the same, he had used different demons' souls for each, as they both had different strengths.
"Zac once told me that he was a warrior. Even though he wasn't totally serious, I could sense that his comment had some sort of truth to it, so I made sure that his orb focused on physical attributes that would benefit a warrior…" Dante elaborated.
"Megan is already adept at physical combat and pretty strong for someone who doesn't use magic. So, I made her orb focus on more stealthy abilities. She still gets a physical enhancement from it, though, so it's not like I completely replaced those effects," he continued.
Paige kept writing down everything the warlock said, finding it fascinating how Dante accommodated his contract to fit the user perfectly.
"Of course. There wouldn't be a point if I gave them an ability that they couldn't master—Actually, I think that could probably kill them," the warlock replied.
After the scientist enthusiastically wrote down the word "death," she asked the warlock if he had any requests that he wanted to see tested in the MET room.
"Hmm, can you make it so that a gun is shooting at them?" Dante asked nonchalantly, shocking Sophia and Zac.
"Heh, heheh, hehehe! Finally, I've been waiting for someone to ask me that!" Paige replied, chuckling like an evil villain.
Nonetheless, Dante could sense a vast amount of positive energy flowing from the scientist, and he found it strange how someone could be so happy about testing a gun on someone.
'She has absolutely zero malice. This woman is driven solely by her curiosity…' The warlock thought, letting out a slight, satisfied smile.