Pain.

An immeasurable amount of pain engulfed my entire being.

Slipping in and out of my consciousness I felt my whole body burn. Every part of my body was engulfed by flames.

At some point, I had lost track of time. Perhaps only minutes and seconds had passed, but for me, who was being burnt alive, such moments felt like an eternity.

Before long, my body hit something hard and cold. But, being in the state I was in, my mind wasn't able to process what was happening around me.

Instinctively, I just rolled around, trying to get rid of the flames engulfing me.

"Ah...ah..."

Whilst slipping in and out of my consciousness, mustering every bit of my last strength, I swallowed something that I had put inside of my mouth beforehand.

After that, despite all of my struggles to remain conscious, the world turned dark.

***

"Have you got anything?"

"No, his facial features are too deformed. We can't get a proper read on his identity."

'What's going on? Who's talking?'

Awakening my somber mind was the sound of two people conversing. Though I tried to focus my mind on what they were saying, my mind was too muddleheaded to be able to comprehend anything. In fact, I found it hard to even think properly at the moment as everything felt dull and slow.

"Hmmm, what about after we heal him?"

"That's possible, but it may take a couple of months for him to fully heal from these injuries. Almost half of his body is burnt. Perhaps if we use a high-grade potion, but..."

"No, we definitely can't do that. It'll be a waste of money. We can just wait a couple of months. Anything else?"

"For now no. All we know is that he suddenly appeared in the hall with third-degree burns all over his body. I'm more surprised by the fact that he's still alive."

"Were there any items on him?"

"No. Given the state he was in, there's a high chance that all the items he had got destroyed. From the looks of things, he must've survived some sort of explosion. He had no clothes on him when he appeared, and even the ring he had on him was badly damaged."

"...I see, alright, you may leave."

"Understood, call me if you need anything, professor."

Minutes after the conversation ended, slowly opening my eyes, I was met with an unfamiliar white ceiling. A bright white light entered my vision constricting my pupils slightly.

Turning my head slightly, I found myself laying atop a cold metal table with wires attached all over my body. My body was numb.

"Oh, you've regained consciousness?"

A voice suddenly called out for me.

Turning my head towards where the voice came from, an old man with a white lab coat appeared in front of me. With an amused smile, he studied me from top to bottom.

"How peculiar..."

He muttered.

Under his observant eyes, I felt like a lab mouse. Insignificant.

'Who are you? Where am I?'

"Ghaaa..fhhiuuu"

The words that I wanted to speak did not come out. Instead, a zombie-like sound escaped from my lips.

"Ah, I wouldn't recommend you to speak right now."

The old man said whilst a chuckle escaped from his lips.

'Where am I?'

"Huaagh..."

Unable to comprehend what he was saying, I once again spoke. The same zombie-like sound escaped from my lips.

"Tsk. What is it with you patients? Whenever I say something, you end up doing the exact opposite of what I tell you to do"

The old man grumbled.

"Hey you, bring me a mirror."

Turning around, the old man yelled at one of the people in the room. Lifting my head slightly, I spotted a man wearing a white coat and a mask.

"...yes!"

From how polite he was being, he was most likely his assistant. The assistant quickly rushed towards one of the cabinets.

Not long after, the attendant came back with a mirror. Taking the mirror, the old man walked up to me and smiled.

"Here, since you can't understand what I'm saying, I'll just show you the state that you're in."

Once he turned the mirror around, my mind blanked.

'This can't be...is that me?'

"huagh...guhhhg..."

Reflected on the mirror was something that you would only see in a horror movie. With no hair on my head and burn marks all over my face. The clear white skin that I used to have was no longer there as my face was now dyed red with pus flowing down my face.

I looked horrendous.

My mind which was showing signs of recovering was once again blank. I had many questions that I wanted to ask, but as if something was stuck in my throat, only hoarse sounds escaped from my mouth.

"hgugha...haefa"

It was then that I slowly started to recall what had happened.

Moments before the explosion happened, taking out the Monolith ring that I had taken from professor Thibaut a couple of months back, I desperately channeled all of my mana into it.

The goal was to teleport me to the Monolith.

Even though I knew it was a bad idea, this was the only way I could survive. Unfortunately, even though I successfully managed to teleport myself to the Monolith, by the time I had managed to activate the ring, the flames had already engulfed me.

From there it wasn't hard for me to understand what had happened. Having teleported directly in their headquarters, they must've directly taken me in.

"Hahaha, don't worry. With current technology, recovering your face shouldn't be too hard...but, unfortunately for you, the higher-ups aren't willing to fork out the money needed to heal you quickly, so it might take a bit for you to recover your old appearance."

Amused by my reaction, the old man laughed.

"Let me introduce myself real quick" Lowering his head slightly, the old man introduced himself. "Nice to meet you, my name is Joseph Sharp and I'm the person in charge of you."

"!"

The moment the old man mentioned his name, my mind instantly cleared up. Cold sweat trickled down my back.

"Now, now, be a good boy and stay here. I'm going to check out my other subjects, I'll be seeing you in a bit. By then, you should've already have recovered your voice."

Joseph Sharp.

A notorious scientist that worked in the Monolith. He along, with a couple of other famous scientists was responsible for an extremely important project in the novel.

The Monolith super soldiers project.

A project that involved the creation of elite soldiers that had no regard for life. Their sole purpose was to serve the Monolith and accomplish any task they were given. They were soldiers that felt no emotions nor pain, almost like robots. Each soldier ranked from D and above, and although singularly weren't that strong, when they worked together, they were a force to be reckoned with.

They were an elite unite that would appear five years from now and were responsible for many tragedies. They were so strong that they almost resulted in Kevin's death multiple times throughout the novel.

"You."

Disrupting me out of my thoughts, Joseph called out to the same assistant from before.

"Yes!"

"Give him a small dose of the serum."

"...how much?"

"Ah, I don't know. Given his state, I guess 2mg would be enough for now," replied Joseph, squinting.

"Understood."

Watching the assistant leave, Joseph smiled. My eyes soon interlocked with his.

"Alright, I'll see you soon, test subject 876..."

Waving slightly, he joyfully whistled his way out of the room.

'Get me out of here!!!'

"ghuuuaa!!!"

Watching him leave, a desperate scream escaped from my mouth. It was almost instinctive. Even though I survived, I was now in a place worse than hell.

The 'serum' that Joseph was referring to was the liquid that they used to create the super soldiers. It was a liquid that eroded someone's mind, essentially turning them into brainless puppets. From there the brainwashing would start, turning them into unwavering Monolith soldiers.

"ghuu!!"

Knowing this, mustering every bit of strength that I had in my body, I tried to get out of the binds that were locking me, but it was all to no avail.

My mana had been blocked. Regardless of how much I struggled, the binds around me wouldn't budge.

I was truly powerless.

Suddenly, spit escaped from my mouth as the air was knocked out of me. Though I felt no pain, it didn't take me long to realize that someone had punched me.

"Shut up."

The assistant glared at me.

"Be silent whilst I'm doing my job."

Taking out a long syringe that had a long needle at the top, the assistant put a strange blue liquid inside of it. Squeezing the bottom of the syringe, a droplet of blue liquid fell down the body of the needle.

"Perfect."

The assistant turned his attention back to me. Opening my eyes wide, I struggled even more fiercely than before.

'No! Anything but that!'

"Ughhh! guauhhhah!"

"Calm down, it's not going to hurt."

Seemingly taking pleasure out of my suffering, the assistant slowly moved the syringe in my direction. Whilst he did that, with his other hand, he covered my mouth.

"hmmm...hmmm!"

"Now, now, be a good boy and take the shot."

Feeling a slight tap on my shoulder, I knew that the assistant had already put the syringe inside of my body.

—Squeeq!

The moment the assistant injected all of the liquid inside of my body, my mind numbed and I once again lost consciousness.

'No...help.'

"ghh..."

***

—Fffwhheeu! —Fffwhheeu!

Merrily whistling, Joseph's brows suddenly knit.

"Hmm, another failure."

Staring at a patient from a large glass window, Joseph took out a notepad and crossed off a name.

"Test subject 037 failure...300mg seems to be too much for a single dose," Joseph muttered, scratching the back of his head.

Yet another failure.

"Fuck."

Despite spending over a decade in formulating the recipe for his serum, it was only half a year ago that he had managed to perfect it.

Even then, Joseph still needed to do a lot of testing.

He first needed to understand how much of the serum he needed to inject his patients with each day to erode their minds, then he also needed to check for any side effects. After doing a calculation, Joseph estimated that he still needed a year before finally being able to create his first super-solider.

The only problem was the higher-ups.

Having spent so much time on a simple formula, they were starting to doubt his research. He needed to present them with something fast.

"Joseph."

Disrupting Joseph out of his thoughts, a voice suddenly called out for him.

"..hm?"

Turning around, Joseph's face darkened slightly. A trace of disgust flashed his eyes.

"Xavier, what is it?"

Standing before him was a young male. He had fair skin and green eyes. Outwardly he looked like a perfect gentleman, however, Joseph wasn't deceived.

The man before him, Xavier Pearce, was one of the more sadistic and twisted men that Joseph had ever met.

He was extremely notorious for his torture methods that could cause his victims to lose their sanity within minutes. He was not someone that Joseph wanted to associate himself with.

And despite being higher ranked than Joseph in the hierarchy, Joseph couldn't bring himself to respect the man before him.

"How is test subject 876?"

Ignoring Joseph's obvious signs of hostility, Xavier asked.

"876? He's awake, I've already asked someone to inject him with the serum."

"Good...good. Make sure you give him to us after you dull his mind. We've got a few questions to ask him."

"Understood."

The number of people that were allowed to hold onto the Monolith ring was extremely few.

For someone that they did not know to have the Monolith ring and suddenly show up, the higher-ups had a lot of questions to ask him.

Joseph understood this.

The main reason why the test subject was given to him, was because they wanted to numb his brain for questioning.

Only once he could no longer think for himself would he be able to spill out everything.

"Alright, keep up the good work Joseph."

Patting Joseph in the shoulder, Xavier smirked. Just as he was about to leave, his footsteps halted.

"Ah, before I leave. The higher-ups have told me to tell you something."

"...what?"

"They said that within three months if you don't produce anything, they'll cut your funding by half"

"What!"

Joseph's voice raised.

He had clearly told them that he would get results in a year. Saying that they would only give him a month clearly meant that they had lost faith in him.

"You know that's impossible!"

"Haha, you know that I can't do anything about this Joseph."

Laughing out loud, Xavier's eyes squinted. A black show rose from his teeth.

"I don't care about whether it's impossible or not. I'm merely telling you something that the higher-ups have told me to say, so make sure you don't mess up. Is that clear?"

"khh...understood."

Under Xavier's threat, Joseph secretly ground his teeth and nodded his head.

'Damn it.'

He cursed inside of his mind as he looked at Xavier straight in the eyes.

"Perfect. I'll see you around."

Smiling brightly, Xavier turned around and left. Staring at Xavier's back for a moment, Joseph took out his phone and failed a number.

Before long, someone picked up.

—Professor?

"Increase the frequency at which we inject the patients with the serum from once a day to three times a day."