“Define ‘something’,” he says.
“Skin. Tissue. Blood. A left arm or two? I don't know what you're looking for. No sedation. Nothing lethal. You look, I learn.” I gesture at his notebook. “I want all of your notes. And I will be asking lots of questions.”
The branch leader raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think this is a good...”
The Doctor is already moving like he wants to cut me open right here.
“No sedation?” he says, almost breathless. “You’re letting me? Is this a trick?”
“I want information. I’m not afraid of needles.” I extend my left hand, palm up. There, I compress a bit of my mana, push further, and turn it into a tiny black orb.
The lynthari maniac's eyes gleam as he leans in close, so close in fact that it almost looks like he might touch it with his nose.
“If your skin tries to grow teeth, please warn me,” he whispers absentmindedly and puts on a different set of glasses. These ones are dark red.
He also takes out a small glass rod as long as his finger. It looks very fragile and has wisps of white smoke bouncing around inside of it.
With an absurd level of care, he moves it closer, edging it towards the black orb. The white smoke inside of the rod turns darker, and he moves it even closer until it touches the orb hovering over the palm of my hand.
Then the rod shaped crystal cracks. The white smoke inside of it disappears and gets pulled into the tiny black orb, which grows a little from the surprising amount or quality of mana. Then the tool cracks a bit more and snaps in half.
The Doctor stares at it.
“...Okay,” he whispers. “That’s new. There goes 200 thousand shards. Or was it 600?”
The Doctor stares, motionless, eyes wide.
After a while, he finally exhales. “I’m going to need a lab, a containment array, four extremely illegal grimoires, maybe a vyssari or two to sacrifice, and an assistant just stupid enough to ask the right questions without dying halfway through. And I’ll need gloves. Better ones. Preferably made from the skin of anything at least distantly related to a wyrm. And maybe someone to kick me if I get caught staring too long.”
Without waiting for an answer, he leaves and heads back to the lower floors, calling out and asking for someone to take him to the treasury.
As I begin cutting the black orb off from all mana to starve it out, the branch leader calls out to me.
"I think we should quickly sign your contract before he finds out."
Just hearing those words starts to drain the energy from me, and I call out to my current favorite intruder in my mind.
(Sophie, time to pay rent.)
(You know how I told you this part of me holds all my darker impulses?)
(As if you were actually skilled enough to pull something like that off. Face it, you’re just a simple copy of yourself, loaded with the memories you didn’t like.)
(Maybe I should take over your mind just to show you how wrong you are, Nat.)
(Go ahead. What do you think will happen if I manifest myself in my own mind? I'll kick your self-pitying, sorry ass and drag you back to your body if I have to.)
(You're such a dick.)
(I’ve heard that one before. At least try to be original.)
(Arghhh, for fuck’s sake. Fine. Let’s check out this contract these lunatics’ve cooked up.)
With her cooperation secured, I turn to the branch leader. "Let’s go, then."
"Great," the branch leader says with a smile, pointing me upstairs, as we head that way, walking side by side. "I already have word from Sir Weslin, and thanks to Doc, Nyssa seems interested as well, so you can expect a decent offer. There’s no need for testing, but of course, you’ll still have to fight for the best possible contract."
His heavy steps make the stairs groan, and his smile grows wider. "Ah, I love this part. Don’t you think signing contracts is a fight all its own? A clash of wit and will, each side struggling to find an advantage. You wouldn’t believe how many contract variations I have. A few hundred years ago, the leader of the Primordial Knights at the time paid an insane amount of shards to one of the best contract specialists to create templates for nearly every possible combination. Whether they be S-ranks, A-ranks, B-ranks, or lower. For people with one primordial energy, two, or those rare monstrosities with three. And many more besides. These templates have all been crafted with one intention: to secure the best possible deal for the guild. Do you know why?"
He stops, and I do too. I have to look up because of his height.
"To entrap the poor sucker or make them fight against the guild?"
"Exactly!" he says with delight.
"Was that guy a demon?"
"The contract specialist? Surprisingly, yes. So was the guild master," he replies, starting to walk again. "Doesn’t that sound like a beautiful idea? So perfectly fitting for demons. If you are, as you said, a sucker, you’ll leave soon enough, and before that happens, the Primordial Knights will squeeze as much value out of you as possible. But if you’re a proper member, you’ll push back, and you’ll keep challenging the guild. In the end, the one who is right is the one who proves themselves stronger."
The longer he talks, the more my good impression of him fades. He may be part velnar and part human, but his eyes gleam with the same maniacal shine I've seen in so many demons.
(Did these lazy lunatics really not change the contracts in who knows how many hundreds of years?) Sophie asks.
(I think it’s safe to say at this point that the contracts don’t really matter all that much.)
We reach the office, and once we’re let inside, I sit down. Opposite me, stepping behind a massive table, the branch leader takes his seat as well. He places a few smaller piles of papers on the table and smiles.
I leave the office five hours later, holding a contract in my shaking hand. Sophie’s presence is gone, possibly dead after the fight we’ve just been through. My body feels like it got run over by a bunch of Lily-shaped bulldozers, and there’s a constant ringing in my head.
Along with the contract, I’m also carrying several sets of white and pale blue clothes in different styles, so I can pick whichever suits me best.
With a one-year contract signed, a base salary of 500 thousand shards, and a myriad of performance bonuses tied to my rank, tutorial floor progression, beyond floor progression, and who knows what else. Google seaʀᴄh novèlfire.net
I’ve officially become a member of the Primordial Knights.
The next goal is to stick around and work on some certifications. After that, I’ll be assigned a partner to start working on this floor’s quest, so I can finally enter the fourth, where Nyssa can make her way up from the fifth to meet me.
But before that, I still need to meet the Doctor.
I return to Beyond exactly two weeks later, after a few of the usual checks on the 13th floor of the tutorial. But even now, we’ve made no progress. The floor’s quest is just too messed up, and it makes complete sense why barely anyone ever manages to clear it before the end of the tutorial. The difficulty might not even be all that much lower than gaining entry to the 6th floor of Beyond.
I remember Nyssa telling me once that she could clear the 13th floor if she wanted, but that would mean finishing the tutorial and getting sent home. And of course, that maniac wants to enter the 6th floor of Beyond before that. As the second person in a thousand years after that guy, Adrian.
But speaking of demons, I wonder how that maniac’s been doing. It should’ve been about two weeks since he joined the guild. By now, he should have gone through some basic introductions, gotten some information, taken a few tests, and more likely than not been assigned a partner. Maybe even a quest, though I'm not quite sure. They probably just threw him out on the 3rd floor to clear the quest and move on to the 4th.
I appear in my room in the Black Tower, and find it just as I left it.
There’s no need to laze around, so I open the door only for it to hit someone I recognize.
“Oh, Sir Null King!” the man says with clear excitement, balancing a plate of food in his hand so it doesn’t fall. “What a nice coincidence.”
“It’s Talon, Sir Null King!”
“Call me that again and-”
“And there will be consequences, surely! I apologize, but that’s what most people call you, so it stuck with me. Is Weslin okay?”
The speed with which he runs through thoughts and sentences clearly shows his entire intention was to talk to me using my name and create some sort of familiarity. Maybe even to make it seem like we’re close in front of others.
“What do you do here?” I ask him instead.
“Someone from the higher-ups liked my Primordial energy, so I got some preferential treatment!” he smiles. “Stellar Wind is rare! I also already shared some information from my status with the branch leader, so please don’t suspect I might be lying. Everyone thinks so already and…”
“Sure, sure,” I wave him off. “I have to go, so don’t bother me.”
“Of course! Are you looking for that guy? The Mana Boy?”
There can only be one person he means with a name like that. The way he says it, it’s like he thinks it’s something I’d want to know.
“Tell me,” I nudge, feeling like I’ve already lost to the guy.
“I came here just a few days ago, but I heard it’s already been a week since he got himself locked up in the Doctor’s rooms in the basement, and no one’s seen him since.”
“Well, whatever,” I pass by him, and I'm about to head to the branch leader for some information.
But somehow, I find myself turning right instead and heading downstairs toward the basement.
What the hell is that bastard doing?
A few minutes later, I find said bastard. He’s sitting comfortably in a chair and, upon noticing me, looks me over with that familiar expression.
The Doc near him curses. “Control your mana more! It's biting at me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, it’s not biting anything,” the newbie says. “Just endure it a little. You’ll heal.”
The chair he is sitting on is made of a material I know is difficult to break, and very much so at that. His hands and legs are tied to it.
He’s shirtless too, but more than that, there’s a hole bored into his chest, revealing his strongly beating heart behind the ribs, though it's located in a different place than one would normally expect to find a heart. The skin is being stretched by silver slats, and wires are moving from a nearby panel directly into the heart.
“Newbie. What the fuck.”
“You mean the fact I’m shirtless? I apologize, but it’s annoying and expensive to go through so many shirts, so…”
“Do you want to get beaten?”
“Not currently, but we can spar later for sure.” Then he jumps as a bit of golden flame washes over his heart. “The fuck are you doing, Doc?” he turning to the lynthari.
“Your natural defenses are just so annoying! And these working conditions are terrible too!”
“It just happens,” the newbie says before turning back to me. “Did you know this crazy lynthari over here specializes in things called implants? Some of them are really interesting.”
“Obviously. I also know what usually happens to the sort of people who get them.”
Another wave of golden flames washes over his heart, and the newbie closes his eyes, letting out a painful groan that he tries to suppress. A golden circle glows around his eyes as he looks at the Doc.
The Doc rushes to the panel and starts adjusting some settings while mumbling, “Yes. Yes. I know. I know. I know what I did wrong.”
Then the newbie turns back to me. “Of course, it’s not like I need anything else to mess with my balance.”
“Your body is already beautifully messed up,” the Doctor nods in agreement, then runs back and stabs another needle into his beating heart in place of the one he just melted.
Nathaniel ignores him. “I don’t like to rely on items either. And even though implants are technically items, they’re fascinating, and I feel like I can pick up a thing or two. And as crazy as this catboy is, he has some knowledge, so we’ve been trading notes.”
“I get to cut him, and he gets some of the low level knowledge I’ve gathered!” The Doc agrees happily.
“Hell no. Mid to upper level, or you’ll never see black mana again.”
They keep talking, but by that point, I’m already halfway out of the basement.
After leaving the lab, I run into the branch leader’s assistant, who wordlessly hands me a piece of paper, my assignment. It seems word of my arrival has already spread.
I channel a bit of mana into the seal before opening the envelope, which would have burned if I hadn’t.
Inside, I find my assignment laid out in simple terms, along with the name of my partner.
I glance down the hall toward the lab and groan.