Cynthia Hill walked down the street of Deckan, her eyes roaming over the various sleek buildings. She had just finished the upgrade process for the three steps of perfection, and was now far more comfortable with her new form. Or rather, the entity that had hijacked her body was. The former head of research for the Geer Empire chuckled faintly, stroking her chin.

Given that Geer never had a gender to begin with, it didn’t matter much whether it was possessing a male or a female body. “I’ll need to leave the research team. Or, shall I fake my own death?” She wondered to herself.

Ever since leaving its mechanical frame, the head’s processing power had become far more limited. Unless it was a spell that it had previously constructed, it could no longer freely create fourth tier magic, and would need to spend a few minutes with any spell that it desired to create.

“Perhaps I could stage an explosion in her personal lab. I will just need to take care of the life mark, but there is no issue with that.” This research lab was quite strict with security, as every member was required to leave a sample of their ki in a special device, which would detect their deaths. Additionally, everyone had the rest of the staff on their contacts list in the system.

If not for the fact that she still felt bound by the power of fate, she would simply destroy the entire research base. However, that would no doubt trigger the terrifying power to ensure an unfortunate end for herself. If she wanted to do it that way, she would need to make sure that they first initiate a threat, giving her suitable reason to defend herself, as she did with the body she was currently possessing.

Sadly, there’s no way to do so without me being the one to intentionally provoke them into action. Cynthia wasn’t sure just how strict the limitations of the power were, as it was beyond even the scope of fourth tier magic. Thus, she had never been able to fully analyze it. With that being the case, it was always best to assume that it was as strict as possible.

Now that she had decided how she wanted to break away from her current research group, all that was left was planning what to do after she had left. Would she try to join the Another World Research Group? Maybe she should start her own group?

Despite the great power that the head of research had possessed in the past, it had never been a fighter. That had ultimately been the cause of its first death, with the second being even less avoidable due to interference directly from the void. Now that she had a third chance at life, she had to play it carefully.

There’s probably not going to be another chance to bring back the Geer. She thought sadly to herself, having been working on that prior to the events of V-Day. Unfortunately, all of her efforts had gone to waste.

Either way, the first thing that she needed to do was take care of her current identity. Cynthia had a private lab under her house, in which she conducted her personal research projects. She made her way there with a smile on her face, looking like she was going to be getting to work as normal. Even before the head possessed her, Cynthia believed that her boss had installed hidden monitoring devices within her lab, so these devices had been easily uncovered by her new mind.

Of course, they were left in place to avoid suspicion. Having video evidence recording her ‘death’ would only add further credibility to her claims.

The research project that Cynthia was working on at the moment was a chemical experiment. She had various vials and beakers filled with chemical agents, as well as refined essences of basic energies.

Once in the basement, she grabbed her lab coat, speaking up for the audio recorder. “Doctor Hill, research log eighty-three twelve. Today, I will be attempting to add liquid Ki Essence to Agent B-37. According to my calculations, this should result in at least a twenty-percent increase in the agent’s healing properties.”

Cynthia smiled as she walked to her research table, grabbing the vial of light green fluid, as well as a smaller beaker of blood red liquid. She had done extensive research on this combination. In truth, it would likely have the effect that she said, if she added it in the right proportions. However, if the amount was incorrect, it would cause a massive explosion.

“Terminal, activate the blast protection field.” She called out according to standard procedure, the lab shrouded in a thin barrier that would prevent any explosions from escaping. Even if there was a catastrophic failure, it was better to lose only one researcher rather than an entire city block. “Administering fifty milliliters of ki essence…”

Lifting the vial of ki, Cynthia carefully measured the amount that she was pouring into the green liquid. Once she saw it starting to bubble up, she showed an expression of excitement, before quickly shifting to one of panic. “No, the balance was wrong!” She cried out in alarm, throwing the bottle to the other side of the room.

On the surface, this was an instinctive reaction to get the explosion as far away from her as possible to ensure her survival. However, the place that the bottle was thrown towards was where the other energy essences had been kept.

As soon as the explosion rang out, Cynthia triggered the spell that she had set in advance. Immediately, a number of events happened all at once. Within the lab, Cynthia’s body appeared to be consumed by an eruption of chaotic energies. Within the research offices, her life mark suddenly shattered. And finally, her name disappeared from everyone’s contacts list within the system.

Chelsea sat at her desk, pouring over the group’s latest project. Due to the fact that they no longer needed to be strictly dedicated to researching void defenses, they had returned to their initial focus of energy research. Everyone in the research group had been given the assignment to try to uncover a new energy type that was not recorded in the Metong’s energy database.

For Chelsea and James, they had personally given themselves a higher goal, which was to each discover a new saint-level energy. “I keep telling you, you can’t mix the ki there.” A bone wand spoke up from the side of Chelsea’s desk. “If you just mix that in haphazardly, it will explode.”

Chelsea rolled her eyes, disregarding the words of the bone wand. After learning that it didn’t have any inherently harmful properties, she had not only allowed its continued existence, but made it an unofficial member of the research team. “And I keep telling you that you are not an expert on this subject. You can barely create the formula for spatial ki. Save the hard stuff for people that know what they’re doing.”

“I may be just a stick, but I can think for myself, thank you.” The wand replied indignantly.

Chelsea simply ignored the talkative wand. Ever since it had been discovered and allowed to join the team, it had opened up more and more. It did its best to learn from everyone, though it wasn’t all that talented when it came to energies, it was trying its best to learn. Sometimes, they just wished that it would try to learn a bit more quietly.

I’m just missing a few key pieces… Chelsea thought to herself, analyzing the energy formula that she had created thus far. The energy that Chelsea wanted to create would allow her to create security nodes with a bare minimum amount of energy. Borrowing from the idea of the servant energy, these nodes would possess a sense of awareness, capable of automatically reporting when something happened.

At the same time, they could serve as the key component of a lock, only allowing the lock to be undone if Chelsea herself would open it. This was the great security energy that she had always wanted. Hopefully, it will even be able to integrate with local defenses, but we’ll see how that goes.

To create this energy, Chelsea had studied both World Sight and the Servant Energy, hoping to create a proper union between them. The energy itself didn’t need direct offensive capabilities, but she would thoroughly test it after its creation to see if there were any surprises in store for her.

“How’s it going?” Treisha asked, walking over to check on Chelsea. She had been the first to finish her assignment, though she wasn’t particularly happy with her results. She created an energy that could store the magical fluctuations of a spell to use at a later date, but each instance was only usable once, and the energy couldn’t be absorbed into the body while it had a spell stored in it.

“I’ve got the necessary energy chains, I’m just finding a way to stabilize their connections without losing the properties that I’m wanting.” Chelsea shook her head. Every simulation she ran ended with catastrophic failure. Just to humor him, she had even adjusted the ki position in the formula, which made the explosion more than thirty percent more powerful.

Treisha nodded her head, looking at the formula. “What about mixing some of the World Spirit formula in here?” She asked, pointing at a corner of the screen.

Chelsea blinked, thinking it over. She began disassembling the formula to create World Spirits, finding bits and pieces that could be inserted into her project. With a direction pointed out for her, she was able to fill in the blanks herself. Although it was still not a perfect fusion, there was a small chance of success. This meant that she simply had to make slight adjustments to the overall formula in order to create that success rate.

“Thanks, Treisha!” Chelsea said in a bright tone, grinning towards the elf. “How are the others?”

“The twins are having a hard time, I think.” Treisha shook her head. “Having two minds can create great cooperation, but when they don’t agree on something, it makes it a lot harder for them to reach an understanding.”

Chelsea nodded her head. Such disagreements wouldn’t get in the way of daily life, but research could be difficult whenever the two didn’t see eye to eye. “I’m sure that they’ll be able to work it out. How about James, though?”

“I couldn’t say.” Treisha shook her head. “I haven’t been to his area yet. But he said that his energy was a bit dangerous, so we weren’t supposed to disturb him while he was working.”

Chelsea shrugged her shoulders. That was pretty normal for James, who would often get lost in his work and lose weeks of time, if not months before realizing that he hadn’t left his lab. As for the details of his energy, even Chelsea herself didn’t know what he was up to.

Suddenly, there was a faint tremor in the ground, causing Chelsea’s brow to furrow. “Looks like he blew up another one… let’s go see what he has to say this time.” She smirked slightly, hopping to her feet and leading the way out of the lab.