Alex and Isaac were rid of anything dangerous, such as their watches and put in separate cages.

The boss with the red aura, Kraten, talked to his subordinates. “Their other agents will definitely realize something is wrong so they will be coming soon. Prepare to fight!”

Kraten turned to look at one of the workers, a chemist. The chemist was tens of meters afar on the other side of the room. “Charles! How is the progress going?!”

“I am almost done with the first stage” The old man hollered without turning his head towards his superior. He was dressed in a white vertically striped chemise. A few of his grey hair remained intact around the top of his bald head.

Inside the giant pot of the alembic, a young woman could be noticed peeking through the small window. She was yelling, crying, and begging to be released.

“Okay, get done with everything by tomorrow cause if you don’t, the Tremblay guild’s forces are going to overwhelm us, we just caught 2 of them,” ordered Kraten before diverting his attention elsewhere.

“I know, I know!” The scientist started the ‘extraction’ by pressing a button.

Screams were heard for a few seconds before halting abruptly.

The temperature inside of the pot turned to hundreds of degrees Celsius before nearing the thousands.

After a minute, the woman’s body was already cremated. All that remained was the woman’s mana that had yet to vaporize. This left time for the other evaporated fluids to be filtered out.

After about five more minutes, the temperature reached the thousands and the mana finally started to vaporize. As its filtration began, a thick red-coloured fluid appeared. The fluid got collected in a large container.

The way to obtain this red fluid was only known by a particular group of evil individuals. This process was called red magic distillation.

There were renewable ways to extract mana without killing the donor, but such ways were more expensive. Moreover, the process took a lot more time.

“Good, the magic cap has been reached.” Charles celebrated.

“Bring me someone talented at using magic, the younger they are, the better! The second phase of the experiment starts now!”

“Oh, shit. That’s me, isn’t it?” Isaac worried, peeking through the cage’s metal bars.

On the opposite side, Alex was trying to escape. ‘These bars are going to be pretty hard to break.’

‘There aren’t any plants I can use to my advantage here. I need to grow them myself.’ A small stem started developing in his hand.

Suddenly, a red light started blinking and an alarm started beeping. “Magic detected!”

“Dammit!” Alex’s plan was discovered.

A guard pointed a rifle at him. “Don’t even try it.”

Looking away, Alex caught a glimpse of his brother. His hands were chained. He was getting pulled towards the apparatus.

Alex couldn’t do anything alone. ‘Isaac, I’m sorry. I-if only I was stronger.’

Isaac was brought to the same place where the young woman had been burned previously. The door was shut behind him.

The old man’s face suddenly appeared in the window. “Hello, young lad. Please remain calm, I am not going to kill you. This is for your own good.”

Isaac shrieked, “What are you going to do to me?!”

“Argh!” Tens of pipes pierced Isaac’s body.

“The first step is very simple, your mana will be sucked dry, so that- Well, you’ll see.”

Isaac was in a daze. He had trouble remaining conscious.

‘What is this? My mana is getting absorbed. I need to break this machine… electricity!’

*Zap! Zap! Zap!* Electricity flowed everywhere inside. It burned him a bit.

Charles chuckled. “Yes! Keep doing that! It’s just accelerating the draining of your mana!”

Charles wasn’t trying to extract his mana. That was the first phase. The second phase was something else. He first needed to get rid of Isaac’s mana using pipes. What was flowing out wasn’t purely mana since other liquids also left his body, but it did the job.

Confident in his craft, the old chemist had stopped observing the process. He was socializing with others.

‘Shit, if only I had my watch, I could do ten times this damage and break out of here. Actually, even without it, if it wasn’t for these pipes draining my mana I could-’

‘Wait! What if I try to absorb my mana back?’ Isaac decided to try something.

He began concentrating on his mana as much as he could.

“Uh!” It was challenging, but he did it. His mana started being absorbed back instead of pouring out.

‘Yes! It’s replenishing!’

Isaac waited for a few more seconds. His mana was strong enough. “Now!”

*ZAP!*

An alarm went off. *ERROR!* *ERROR!* *ERROR!*

The scientist was startled. “What? Not again! Come, workers! My precious machines need a fix! I wish we could use anti-magic handcuffs to keep these freaks from breaking stuff!”

Isaac had stopped the process by breaking the electrical circuit.

…

A few people arrived down to the fifth basement. The guards detected their presence.

One of them warned the boss. “Kraten, we have some intruders!”

The boss came quickly. He and the others got into formation.

“Open the door!” he ordered.

Christiana, Marc and John came out.

“Don’t die, guys,” advised Christiana.

Marc smiled. “Yeah, I don’t intend to die for at least the next ten years.”

Little did he know, he’d give up his life a week later when trying to save Aaron and Rico Amon.

End of chapter 12