Make your choice.
Damian stood there like a fool, staring at the words this old book had given him as a warning of what he was about to do—not in one, but in every valid option that led to his death.
He was pondering, but he didn't have much time to think about what he could do because time was running out. The morning was about to come, and before the candlelight turned into white light, Damian had to return to the first floor. If he left now, Damian knew he would become flower fertilizer by the next day.
Was cleaning up the continuous blood that spilled beneath the door an option? The blood kept pooling as if whatever was releasing that blood had numerous liters on its body.
Was asking for help an option? The children sleeping with Damian were afraid of his different eyes; they all seemed hostile toward him, so no one would come to help him. Besides, both those children and Damian were common orphans; no one had the capability to assist him.
Was finding the housekeeper or the guard an option? The guard never moved from the door of this wizard tower, and as for the housekeeper, she never appeared in the morning, and Damian didn't know where to look for her.
All the allowed activity areas for him were from the tenth to the thirteenth floor, besides the lower floors. But there was no way out of his situation. Damian now tried to calm down; his breathing softened, and all the fear left his chest.
"Fuck this; it's not like I can do anything else." Damian put the mop back on the cart table and straightened his messy clothes. He walked to the door at the other end and knocked three times in a row. In the silent hallway, these three knocks were very clear. There was calmness in his face, and despite being nervous due to the circumstances because of his age, he showed nothing more than that.
Just as Damian raised his hand to knock three more times, the door in front of him opened slowly. Damian held his breath for a moment. A slim figure appeared from behind. It was a woman, dressed in a black nightgown, with a plump but not obese figure, and the skin exposed outside the clothes was very fair.
Damian wasn't in the mood to pay attention to silly scenes, especially when he was about to die, so he concentrated his thoughts on what he had to do. All he felt was fear, but despite the chances of certain death, he didn't allow himself to show any emotion on his face.
Still, even though he had no expression on his face, his teeth trembled slightly, and his face, which should have been normal, had a certain condition as if it were rotten. Over his rotten area, she had some strange apparatus—a truly strange thing that Damian couldn't explain in simple words.
"What's wrong?" The woman's red lips were slightly parted, and her voice was quite pleasant.
"Miss…" Damian's voice was very abnormal. He took a deep breath to calm his impression and said, "There's a huge pool of blood constantly flowing from the room across. No matter how much I clean it, the blood keeps coming out, and it's about to dawn, but if I don't finish cleaning this floor by then, they'll turn me into fertilizer."
The woman looked at the blindfolded and black-haired boy, then glanced at the blood in the front room and smiled strangely. Then she looked at Damian once more and asked, "Why should I save you?"
Damian obviously wouldn't know such kind and helpful people in this place. "Miss, what do you need me to do? I can do anything you need; life is so beautiful, so I don't want to leave without doing something meaningful."
Damian was an orphan, a servant, and a child who could be replaced by others who would be more than willing to take his place in this tower, so he wasn't qualified to impose conditions. The woman held his chin with her thin fingers and said, "I need a live experimental subject, but I haven't earned enough credits recently to request one. If you volunteer to be my experimental subject, I'll help you solve that problem."
Damian narrowed his eyes behind his black blindfold; he turned his head to his black book flying to his left. Seeing that it showed nothing, he breathed even more relief. Damian was very weak right now, so he could only trust the black book floating by his side to survive; without it, he would blindly bet on death.
"I'll do it!"
The woman raised her red lips, very satisfied with Damian's decision. A few seconds later, she turned aside to let Damian enter her room, then she left and did something unknown.
Damian was now in the woman's room. He found that this place was much larger than the room where a dozen children like him lived, and it was also quite diverse in terms of uses.
As far as Damian could see, there was an oil lamp lit in the room, very bright and steady on the ceiling. It should also have a magical effect that makes the whole room very warm. On the long table in the middle of the room, there were many accessories and materials that he didn't recognize at all. The most striking thing was the crucible on a small stove in the middle, with a pot of black liquid bubbling in it.
"Have you seen it? That's exactly what you'll help me with." The woman with the rotten face entered the room at some point. Damian looked back and saw that the door was closed. He didn't know if the blood puddle outside had been solved, but he also didn't need to know because first, he needed to survive this to tell the tale.
"I need you to put your hand into the crucible, take it out, and tell me how you feel."
The woman pulled a chair from the corner and placed it on the opposite side, where she leaned back, crossing her legs, waiting for Damian to take the initiative to do his part of the deal.
Damian knew he had no negotiating power, so he simply didn't waste time begging for mercy, rolled up his non-dominant sleeve, which was his left, and plunged it directly into the bubbling black liquid. He didn't dip his finger first for fear of causing the woman's displeasure.
"Ow…" Damian took a deep breath, thinking that his hand would burn in the next moment. But it wasn't burned; at least he didn't feel the burning sensation; instead, what he felt was an intense cold. A chilling cold spread along his arm. Damian was so cold that he started trembling.
"You can take it out now."
Upon hearing the woman's voice, Damian quickly withdrew his hand, fearing that the longer it stayed in contact with that liquid, the worse the consequences would be. But when he saw his hand, the breath he had just exhaled due to relaxation was sucked back in due to shock. All the skin and flesh of his left hand had disappeared. All that remained of Damian's left hand was a skeletal hand, as clean as a mannequin in an art room. The most terrifying thing was that Damian felt no pain at this moment.
"Hoo… Hoo…"
Damian continued panting due to the lack of air, holding his left wrist with his right hand while both hands trembled together. And when his left hand trembled, it made the sound of bones rubbing against each other. The woman in front didn't comfort the fear in the child's eyes. She stood up and looked at this result with an indifferent gaze.
"The new wolf has good gastric juice... Tell me, how does your hand feel right now?"
"Very cold… But it doesn't hurt." Damian endured the fear and cold, giving the best-explained answer to the crazy witch next to him.
"It also seems that I can control it." As he said that, he moved the fingers of his left hand. It's a bit difficult, but it works.
"Not bad at all." The woman smiled, apparently satisfied with the answer Damian had given her. She searched and then picked up some elements from the materials on the table in the middle of the room and threw them into the crucible casually. The crucible emitted two rays of white vapor and then returned to the silent state it had just been bubbling into.
"That seemed to work well." The woman leaned back in the chair again, lifted her chin toward Damian with interest, and pointed to the crucible. "Now put the other hand in."
Damian nearly peed himself upon hearing that, but he knew he would be asked to put the other hand in again; obviously, the first attempt had been a failure. Repeating the process was natural, but still, Damian wanted to think that it wouldn't happen because of the same reason he had used his non-dominant hand.
But now that he had been asked, Damian, without any expression, lowered his left hand and then placed his right hand over the crucible.
"Uh…" Damian suddenly felt like his whole arm was frozen. His right hand, buried in the black liquid, felt nothing.
"That will do."
Upon hearing the woman's voice, Damian immediately withdrew his right hand. What was reassuring was that, after all, this time it wasn't a skeletal hand that was shown. Not only that, his palms, which were originally covered in scars and calluses from the work he had been doing for a long time, also became soft again and returned to their natural white color.
Without waiting for the woman to ask what he had felt, Damian said, "Hey, the sensation this time was even colder."
Damian tried to stop his teeth from chattering but couldn't. "It doesn't hurt... I can manipulate it perfectly."
As if to prove this, Damian stretched out his fingers and lifted them so that the woman in front could see them clearly.
The woman smiled again, this time obviously happier, and Damian could see this woman's white teeth.
"You really surprised me." The woman stood up and even clapped twice.
She walked to the other side of the room, took a glass bottle from the cabinet, and handed it to Damian, who was still trembling. "Drink it…"
Seeing Damian's somber expression, she mocked how this child tried to appear more serious in a situation where he clearly felt fear.
"Don't worry, this is not a test; it's a potion that will help you recover."