The Genesis cradle, one of the four factions that jointly owned the Headless Dragon organization, had proven their worth by identifying a common genetic marker from all the slaves that had reached the second mutation. After investigating, they found that three out five individuals living on the Nether continent had the same genetic marker and shared the same ancestor. On the other continents, there were only a handful of them. They called it the Nether bloodline. They kept their discovery inside the organization. Even Grand magicians who were revered like gods on the continent, like Elias Evergreen, did the legwork inside the Headless Dragon to keep the secret from leaking. They shifted the glory to their new elixir while at the same time finding ways to fund wars all over the continent to get their hands on members of the Nether bloodline.

Having a guaranteed success in reaching the second mutation without any deaths occurring was a game changer. All the other deaths in the past had occurred due to a lack of information on their part. Their ignorance had cost them money in the past, but it never stopped them to keep gambling for a chance to see a third stage mutant emerging. They sacrificed stage two mutants hoping to create a third stage mutant. If one emerged, and emerge he did, they could overlook the pile of corpses they were drowning in. Those enhanced corpses would be later sold to the necromancers who paid a hefty price to add them to their arsenal of undead.

The Headless Dragon was an organization created for the sole purpose of making money and nothing else. Even if they had the means to fight for the right to rule the continent, it was not as enticing as they already owned most major businesses on the Nether continent. The entire continent was like their backyard. Nothing happened without them knowing about it or being involved.

Initially, the Headless Dragon was equally shared by the three guilds: The tree of wisdom, the Red Claw, and the Apostles. The Genesis Cradle Faction came into play two hundred years ago as a young disgruntled member of the Apostles guild, Lucius Wolfe, left the faction under the pretext that his genius was not valued.

In his defense, he was the youngest Grand magician ever recorded in history. He became a Grand magician at the age of thirty-four when the known average was seventy years old. With a hundred and eighty years left of lifespan, he chose to do research as an alchemist and the Apostles guild was more than happy to welcome him.

As he came to know that the source of the elixir that produced enhanced humans was nothing more than a diluted version of a strange powerful blood, he showed an unnatural interest.

The problem that the organization faced at the time, just like now, was to find a better way to dilute the power of the strange blood to give the human body a better chance of absorbing it. At that time, The Headless Dragon was literally drowning in corpses just to sell a few stage two mutants. The Nether bloodline was still a mystery at the time.

Lucius showed more interest in why certain individuals could undergo the second mutation without their vital organs shutting down or exploding. It did not take him long to find the common genetic marker. He found it weird that the organization that had been around for eight hundred years and no one had ever given this problem a thought. It had only taken him two weeks to find the Nether bloodline. Even more surprising he was part of that bloodline himself.

That simple fact almost drove him insane. He was seeing himself beyond the third mutation but the blood inside the elixir was still too powerful to let him do so.

He was back to the main problem everyone was facing, but he still decided to report his findings to the Apostles guild council. They laughed in his face. He had not earned enough respect in their eyes and if you added the revolutionary research he had shared, something an eight centuries old organization had overlooked, it was too good to be true. Lucius did not linger around to suffer more humiliation and packed his belongings and stole a vial of the purest blood before he left. He had wished for such a development. He had never wanted to share his findings for free. He still needed more time for his final plan to come to fruition.

A first stage mutant lived for a hundred and fifty years. A second stage mutant lived for three hundred years. He reckoned that the third stage alone would give him at least five hundred more years to live without mentioning the physical strength that came with it. It would also give him more time to reach the Half-elemental level in his magic and even reach the Elemental level smoothly. As a Grand magician, he was only a little bit stronger than a first stage mutant in terms of physical strength even the guaranteed extra hundred years he would get after reaching the second mutation was enough to leave any magician of the Nether bloodline satisfied. Others not part of the bloodline could only stare with envy.

As he needed helpers for his next plan, he created a spell that targeted the Nether bloodline. He tweaked the spell to only target Nether bloodline members born magicians. He needed Grand magicians of different professions to help him. He sent a mental message to all the magicians inside the spell range and received only twenty-one replies.

The twenty-one Grand magicians included a sealer, a necromancer, three alchemists and the rest could be considered as normal Grand magicians who dabbled into a little of everything.

The seal that was placed on the soul of every member of the Headless Dragon only compelled the members to not reveal the inner secrets of the organization. As Lucius had stolen a vial of blood, he only had to keep its origins hidden. The new element, the Nether bloodline, was only known in detail by himself only. He needed the twenty-one Grand magicians to help him come up with an efficient way to dilute each drop of the blood to a harmless elixir that could be injected safely.

After he told his new friends that they all shared a common ancestor and that they could stimulate their bloodline to reach greater heights by going through mutation after mutation, they all remained skeptical until they saw the vial of blood and felt an incredible power stored within. Even Lucius Wolfe only knew that the blood was harvested on the ninth floor of the subterranean world. As a Grand magician, he had keen senses. He had always felt an invisible thread pulling him deeper towards the underground world beneath the Headless Dragon Headquarters.

He was sure they would not refuse his offer. Some of them even wanted to torture him to find out the origin of the blood. They could tell they were close to it somehow, proving Lucius’s words of the common ancestor, but they were afraid to even get close as the power inside of it filled them with dread.

As Lucius listed the benefits of each mutation, they were all interested but none wanted to be the first to test it. Lucius volunteered to be the first magician to try it. He shared his Nether bloodline tracer spell with them and sent them to procure at least a hundred test subjects.

After a year of trial and error, they had managed to create an elixir that was specifically made for the members of the Nether bloodline. After the sealer sealed the prisoner’s souls turning them into puppets, they began to experiment. They all reached the second mutation even faster but of the one hundred and thirteen test subjects, only two survived to reach the third mutation. The other corpses ended in the elated necromancer’s hands.

Apart from the necromancer who had ideas about switching bodies with one of the sealer’s third stage puppet, the rest were still scared of the low success rate. They had almost abandoned the idea of reaching the third stage and opted for the guaranteed second mutation instead. They all underwent the procedure and reached the second stage. After much begging, the necromancer, William Baldric, finally got his wish granted and was given one of the two third stage puppets. He switched bodies almost instantly. He was the only one who had made any significant gains out of the lot. The others comforted themselves in the fact that they had gained another century of life to keep upgrading the elixir into a suitable concentration. In their minds, they were assured to reach even higher stages mutations in the future.

Lucius, however, decided to keep going with the injections in secret. He kept taking as many injections as he could. When the others found out what he was doing, it was too late. He was the only link towards the source of the blood, they could not have him die so soon. They could only stare at him with wide eyes as he reached the third stage. Was a magician’s body easy to modify than that of a non-magic practitioner? That was the only question inside their minds but no one was crazy enough to put it to the test. Only the lunatic in front of them had succeeded. They wanted to restrain Lucius in fear that he would decide to push his luck to the fourth stage, but they were happy to realize that the remaining Elixir was already entirely used by Lucius.

Lucius decided to bring them back with him to the Headless Dragon headquarters. He had meticulously planned his triumphal return. He wanted to be awarded his own faction inside the Headless Dragon. He was the only one who knew the new recipe that diluted the blood and the targeted bloodline.

When Lucius, his twenty-one followers and the third stage mutant approached the territory of the Headless Dragon headquarters, it raised a few eyebrows. A group of twenty-two Grand magician and a human was not rarely seen, it was that the seal that served as identification was only present on one of them. Lucius. The seal also sealed the memories of everything related to the Headless Dragon in the eventuality of betrayal. What preoccupied the organization was the problem of the lost vial of blood that Lucius had stolen before he had left. They were concerned that it had been discovered outside and that the group of magicians behind was coercing Lucius. They would just go get to the bottom of it and send assassins to silence anyone who had found out anything. Lucius would be punished for a few years and it would be the end of it.

Lucius knew what it would be seen like and decided to wait for a mediator a hundred meters away from the entrance.

A few minutes later, a middle-aged man made his way to them as fast as he could and stopped a few meters away from them.

“State your business.” Justin Raven the temporarily appointed mediator said with an unconcerned voice. It seemed as if he had better things to do and could not wait to fly back.

“I call for a grand summit.” Lucius said calmly.

Lucius had prepared a magic parchment in which were detailed notes of his group’s experiments in the last year. He reluctantly threw it over to Justin.

“For the eyes of the prime Council only.” Lucius instructed.

It was no surprise that nothing came out of Justin’s mouth. Justin left almost as soon as the parchment landed in his hand.

Not long after, an old man made his way out of the tower. His hunched back and skinny body indicated that even the wind could blow him out of existence. The old man flew towards them as if he was taking a stroll outside. When Lucius saw him, he almost wished he could teleport to another continent or kill himself before that old man targeted him.

“ Of all the members of the prime council, it had to be him. Why?” he thought. Cold sweat pouring out of his entire body. Even with his newfound strength, he knew that as a third stage mutant he only had a chance of trying to run away before the other party caught up with him.

It was Jonas Sulu, the leader Of the Headless Dragon. He was a necromancer and it was rumored that he was alive when the organization was created a thousand years ago. He was one of the handful Grand magicians of the continent that no one wanted to cross paths with even on a good day. With just his hobby and rare talent of learning every magic he could get his hands on or think of, he was strong enough, but if you added the fact that he was a necromancer who recycled most of the discarded enhanced corpses of the organization and further modify them, buff them with all kinds of spells and add his undead magic to the mix, he was the only reason no one wanted to annex the Nether continent even if officially he was only just a simple business owner.

Jonas had just come out of his laboratory going for a stroll when Justin respectfully handed him the magic parchment after explaining the situation outside. He found the situation amusing as there was no one, even insane, that would not think twice before getting on his bad side. He understood that he met Justin by accident and that the poor soul outside would never have wanted him to be the one to deal with him. If Lucius was an Elemental Magician from the other continents, he would’ve understood why he acted this way, but even a three-elemental magician would have to rethink carefully if he wanted to survive his legion of undead. He considered Lucius a pampered genius that had not yet grown up from Justin’s explanation of what had happened last year. He forced himself to read the contents of the parchment. He could not believe what he was reading.

“It took this kid a year to accomplish what took me a bitter thousand years to do.” He thought. Oddly enough, he believed in Lucius’s notes even without proof because he himself had found an unorthodox way to use the diluted blood to reach the third stage, but it was only useful on corpses, there was no human strong enough to endure his experiments. Since he was a necromancer himself and also used all kinds of spells that focused on enhancing the body, his current body could be considered as having reached the fourth stage in theory, but he had not had the chance to properly put his strength to use. For normal humans to reach the third stage, his dream of having a living army to protect the organization while he was not there, a few more powerful living mutant samples to work with and more powerful undead was not out of his reach anymore.

As he slowly made his way over, he was holding his excitement to see what kind of powerful specimen had landed in his hands so easily.

“Let’s cut to the chase young man. I want to experience that little strength you gained. I assume that the other two successful specimens you mentioned in your report are here with you. All three of you, come forward and try to survive for a minute under my magic.” Jonas said as soon as he got close enough to be heard. His hunched back straightened the moment his feet touched the ground.

Lucius Wolfe cursed himself. He felt fear at the old man’s words. His followers had yet to realize to who they were up against.

“At least he gave us a minute.” Lucius thought. He turned around and asked Hans Pashar the sealer:

“Can I borrow Nyssa for a while?” She was the last sealed third stage mutant.

“Sure. Just keep her alive.” Hans said in a carefree manner.

Lucius then reached out to, William, the necromancer: “Are you interested?”

William was one of the firsts to guess who their opponent was. He had known that Jonas was a necromancer from the same soul undulations they both released, but he felt more like a pebble in front of a giant. There was only one such entity on the entire continent: Jonas Sulu. He had no choice but to join the fight. If that old demon really wanted them dead, there was nothing they could do about it.

“Sigh…Let’s hope he does not kill us all” William said as he appeared at Lucius’s side at the same time as Nyssa.

“I have no words of encouragement other than telling you to try and keep your bodies in one piece.” Lucius said.

“Do not worry kid. I will not go for the kill. It would be a shame to endanger such fine specimens. How about this? You try and kill me. I will not fly and I will only be using defensive spells in a twenty-meter radius. I will not use any magic beyond that but my undead will keep you company until you reach me. I still need to know the limits of your bodies, so when you reach me I will also use physical strength. I will also encourage you to use your magic as well as helping conjure an armor and weapons for your two friends. She will not last long enough without weapons.” Jonas raspy and happy voice was once again heard.

“Something is wrong. He is way too lenient on us. We almost stand a chance at defeating him.” William said.

“Are you mad? Can you not see that we are just his future lab rats?” Lucius could not see a situation in which they were not on the losing end.

“We can always create more of us. They will become his future lab rats.” William could only see the only way out of this, not the fact there was no reasoning with a demon like Jonas.

Every soul from the Headless dragon that had come to see what was happening, retreated as fast as they could. The other members of the prime Council had arrived and started cloaking the area around the headquarters. The third stage was a secret that could not be shared with the world yet. They were also interested in the results the third mutation would show them. Even their chief had not been able to resist and had offered himself as a target to gauge their abilities.

Lucius had conjured nigh unbreakable armors for the three of them. William had chosen to use his gauntlets and the small army of undead he had as weapons. Nyssa had chosen to fight with two swords. As for Lucius, his magic could be used instantly but it still did not give him much confidence.

“Any requests before we start? I remember that you have not asked for anything yet.” Jonas smilingly inquired. He looked like a benevolent god.

“I want to start my own faction.” Lucius spontaneously said. He deeply regretted his words, but it was his main goal in coming back. He did not want to see himself cheated out of his hard work even in the face of death.

“Granted” Jonas said. It appeared like he could wait anymore. His right arm moved up with his index finger pointing towards the sky. A gigantic rift opened thirty meters on top of him and weird humanoid, weapon wielding undead fell from the sky.