"Are you sure to go through this now?" She asked once again while looking at Kai, who was lying on a mattress for an operation. Next to him was a blood bag and one bag filled with yellow liquid.

This was the operation room where Ria transfused the zodiac blood into Ayaka's body.

"This is a perfect time. After two weeks, I have mastered the new magic and taken another week to calm myself down for this operation. I feel I am at my peak, so this will be the perfect time to face my weakness and control it." Kai nodded with a serious expression.

"Still…"

"Teacher, I know you are worried about me, but there was another reason for this. With a little less than two months, I could use the first one or two weeks to control this new strength. I am sure that my strength will increase by leaps and bounds since you are the one doing it. As soon as I have perfect control, I will challenge you. We can use the spare time for me to learn the strategies and tactics under you." He assured her with a gentle smile.

"…" She let out a long sigh before grabbing the blood bag. Hanging the blood bag, she explained everything first. "The medicine will be stimulating the blood inside your body. I have speculated that you will become a lion itself."

"A lion? Like the failed zodiacs?"

"No. It's only in your subconscious level. In other words, you will feel the shock for a period of time that might reduce you to a coma. To gain strength, you need to know the source first. That's why you will need to understand the lion inside you. Of course, the technology I have here will teleport your consciousness to your subconsciousness where you can meet the lion.

"But do pay attention to one thing. I don't have the ability to help you when you enter your subconsciousness. Unless you wake up by yourself, I will just damage your brain if I force you out to the point you will face brain dead.

"That's why you need to handle everything without my help, and I can't give you any information about what you can do or not. There is no guideline to that as well. Anyway, I can only say good luck to you."

"Thanks. Don't worry. You said the success rate is high, right?" Kai smiled. "I am not worried, so you should support me as well."

"Alright." She sighed and finally took the medicine bag, hanging it so the fluid could flow into his body. "Are you ready? You will need to endure pain when the medicine stimulates the blood."

"Yes." Kai nodded with a serious expression.

She then let the medicine flow down the small hose before entering his body. When it came into contact with his blood, specifically his lion blood, the medicine caused a certain reaction as if someone came to his body and made a mess out of it.

The blood became agitated as if trying to fight the medicine. However, only due to this process could the blood wake up completely and start their circulation all over his body.

"Argh!" Kai screamed out of pain. He never expected that the stimulation from the blood felt like nails impaling every single spot on his body.

Grabbing the railing on the side of the bed, he crushed them with his grips alone. Ria understood the pain well and shouted. "Don't give up. It will only be for a few minutes! You have endured the pain when becoming a Zodiac. You can do it again!"

"Argh!" Kai continued screaming for several minutes before a "ding" sound rang on his brain instead of his ears. It jolted his entire body, especially his brain. His consciousness became blank before it was shrouded by darkness, and Kai finally went into a coma.

Ria Ross grabbed his hand and placed it on her cheek. "If in the past I could send you with a smile like a psychopath, I can't do it now. The emptiness in my heart has been filled by you this whole time. You gave me the meaning to live on, so you should succeed as well."

Tears gradually formed on the corner of her eyes before they flowed down uncontrollably. She clenched Kai's hand even harder and said, "Please. No matter how high the success rate is, I still don't want you to take that risk."

There was one thing that she never told Kai. It was written on the document she had this whole time.

There was a sentence saying, "Up to 90% of success, 5% of losing the consciousness and 5% of integration with the animal."

What she didn't want was Kai turning into a magical beast. Losing consciousness was just like a coma. There was still a chance for him to wake up in the future. However, when he integrated with the animal and turned a part of his body into an animal, she would need to kill him.

That was how she had been doing things this whole time. And there was this promise where Kai preferred to see the others sad for a few years than their whole life just because they had no human children. Even if they said they accepted them, there would be rejection on a subconscious level that thought of it as disgusting.

She feared that the most, so she was a bit weak on this matter despite the belief of Kai succeeding.

Kai, on the other hand, was falling into his subconsciousness as if he was falling down at low speed.

'What is this? Where am I? Why can't I open my eyes? Why am I falling like there is no gravity here?' Many questions appeared in his mind as he tried to move his body but to no avail.

In the end, he chose to rely on his ears, albeit the result was practically the same or even worse. He couldn't hear a single noise in this as if there was nothing existing in this place. For him, who had grown up with noises echoing in his ears every single second, this emptiness completely baffled him.

The anxiousness grew inside his heart as he felt something was wrong.

'I need to do something, but I don't have any clue. Teacher told me that she didn't know what would happen and what I would encounter in my subconsciousness, so what should I do? Is this what it feels when you are in a coma? You can't hear and do anything, only thinking like this for a long time. No wonder there is a huge difference between before and after coma.' Kai thought.

While thinking about all the useless things that appeared in his head, he gradually felt that his body fell slower. Not long after that, he felt his back touching something.

He then regained his ability to move, albeit slowly like moving on the moon. He slowly opened his eyes and prepared for anything he needed to face.

What he found was nothing but blank space. Everything he could see was black with some bright spots around him.

"This…This looks like I am in outer space. It's dark, but the stars are shining. What should I do here?" Kai muttered and looked around while checking his body. "There is nothing wrong with my body. It's the same specs like when I went into the simulation room using the Training Tube. Should I explore a bit?"

Even though he wanted to explore, he didn't know what to do. Looking at his feet, he found that he was stepping into nothingness.

There was only empty space there, but it felt like there was a solid platform supporting his feet, so he didn't fall anymore.

"Still, I can't believe what I see in my subconsciousness. Teacher said that this technology was similar to that of a training tube that sent one's consciousness to the virtual world. However, she tweaked it a little bit to change the virtual world into my subconsciousness.

"I never expected there would be something like this in my mind. Wait. Did my teacher just achieve a scientific breakthrough with just this research? No, how would she know there was a space like this inside me? Did she test it on herself first before using it on me?" Kai's face turned pale, feeling helpless.

"It seems no matter how hard I try to repay all her kindness, it wouldn't be enough." Kai closed his eyes and smiled. "If there is another life, I would love to be your biological son."

Thinking like this, something jolted his mind as if there was someone calling him.

He looked around, only to find nothing. However, he didn't give up and shook his head, gathering his resolve once again. "I need to focus. I can report and talk about everything to my teacher later. It's not like she wants another achievement like this since the government will just take it from her hand once more. That's why I will gather all the information here first and tell only her, not anyone else, even the girls."

With that resolve in mind, he stepped forward according to his feelings. He headed straight to the emptiness.

After walking for a few minutes, an altar suddenly filled his vision. The platform itself was quite big, around four times the size of a king-sized bed. The white pillar surrounding him looked majestic, but that was all.

He carefully approached the altar and found the lion there. To his surprise, instead of what he thought of a normal lion or a mutated one, the one he found was entirely different.

It had a normal yellow and cream color body, but he didn't find any fur around its head, but everything seemed normal until he saw two fangs sticking out of his mouth. The fangs were long and reached the bottom part of its mouth.

When it sensed Kai's presence, it gradually opened its eyes and turned its head around, finding Kai in his vision.