Chapter 9: Testing the phenomenon.
"I'm afraid that your companion can't follow us."
A woman with waist-length dark green hair wearing a red coat told me that Eric wasn't allowed into the next area.
I nodded and looked at him.
He sighed before speaking.
"Alright, I'll stay here, just don't forget about me when you leave."
He leaned against the wall and pulled out his phone.
I looked back at the woman, who had now unlocked the door and was waiting for me.
"Follow me please."
As she led me to Numoral's location, I couldn't help but realize that I hadn't been here before.
'I don't recognize this place.'
A door hissed open.
"Excuse me, sir?"
The woman leaned onto a table and pressed a button, speaking into a microphone.
As she looked into a screen, a figure dressed in a white protection suit looked at the camera, his face obscured by a mask, and waved its hand.
"There is an individual here bearing your mark who wants to meet you, he says it about the negativity experiment."
The figure nodded, and turned to look at something offscreen, from its movements, it looked like it was giving instructions.
It left the camera's field of view, and a minute later, Numoral came into the room from the door opposite the one I entered through.
"Good to see you again Anomaly." He spoke with a calm tone, but I could see expectation in his eyes. "Come to my office, let's talk."
He dismissed the woman and took me to his office, where he waved me to a chair.
"Take a seat." He said, taking his own behind the desk. "Tell me, what happened?" He placed his elbows on his desk and clasped his fingers in front of his face, leaning forward in his chair and looking at me with an intense gaze.
"I absorbed a Cor." I said and lifted my hand to show him the mark on my palm.
He said nothing for a moment, but his gaze grew even more intense as he jumped over the desk and grasped my palm, bringing it to his eyes and scrutinizing every detail of the mark.
He stepped back and pressed a button on the desk.
In a matter of seconds, his office transformed into a laboratory filled with complicated equipment that I was quite familiar with.
He gestured me to a seat, which I took, having been in it multiple times before.
"Tell me everything about your encounter." He ordered as he placed my hand into a scanner and a pure black visor with three white circles on it, two small separated by the third large one, all of them bisected by a blue horizontal line, appeared on his face.
I told him about our alerts, the creature, and how it was defeated.
"Interesting." He said as he read the results of the scan.
The visor melted into his body and he motioned for me to get up and follow him.
He led me out of the building without another word.
As soon as we exited the building, he grabbed my shoulder, and suddenly, everything got blurry.
'Raftaar' (Rough-Tar)
The ability used by spirit warriors to gain a burst of speed.
If one tried to use it without a powerful enough shell, it could easily blow their legs off.
The more powerful your shell, the easier to use it is, and since Numoral was classified as one of the 'Most powerful' spirits to ever exist, he could use it for as long as he wanted to.
When my vision stabilized, I could see a giant double door in front of me.
The door was absolutely enormous.
It was at least fifty meters tall, and the same in width.
Numoral pushed a part of the door in, revealing a much smaller door, similar to the one I had seen before.
As we stepped inside, Numoral asked me a question.
"Curious?" It was a single word, but it perfectly summarized what I was feeling at that moment.
I let out a hum and looked at the people standing guard.
They weren't like the other guards I had seen.
They were fully equipped, all of them were wearing armor and holding spears and shields, with a sword also visible in its sheath, hanging from their waists.
Some of them had been chatting and playing some sort of card game when we arrived.
When they noticed our arrival, they scrambled to their position.
Unfortunately for them, Numoral had noticed their slack.
"Seems like the last warning didn't register in your heads." He spoke darkly. "That's alright," he waved his hand and lights flew into their bodies from his hands. "Report to your commanding officer when your shift is over."
I noticed that the few who had been at their posts let out a sigh of relief.
Numoral ignored them and called for me.
"Let's go."
As we walked inside, he explained this building to me to sate my visible curiosity.
"This is the building with all our holding cells. Everything that is too dangerous to keep out of sight, but could prove useful in the future. People, monsters, objects, etc. They are all stored here."
We entered an elevator, and Numoral pressed a button to descend.
A few moments later, the door opened, and I could hear a cacophony of noises, roars, growls, screams, etc.
"We keep most of the captured Cors here. Just in case we need them for experiments."
He led me past a few smaller cells as the creatures noticed us and tried to attack, only to fail as the bars were too strong.
He opened a door and the creature lunged at us only to be pressed into the ground as Numoral raised his hand.
It was almost twice the size of the one I had seen before.
He gestured to me.
"Go on."
I went up to it as it growled and put my hand on its shell.
Nothing happened.
I looked at Numoral who pointed a finger at it, releasing a white beam of light from his fingertip, piercing through its head, killing it instantly.
The next instant, it was absorbed into my hand.
Numoral walked forwards and inspected the change in the mark.
The star had grown in size, the left, right, and top points now wrapping around to the back of my hand, with the bottom point reaching my wrist.
"Hmm..." Numoral did not comment on this change.
He led me out of the cell to another one.
This time, he didn't kill it outright.
His beam pierced its chest, and he told me to place my left hand on its wound.
I did so, but nothing happened.
He shot another, much thicker beam through it, causing it to collapse onto the ground and cease its screaming.
I didn't start dissipating, so I concluded that it was still alive.
However, that status changed when it got absorbed into my hand.
I looked at the star in my left palm, it was the same shape as the first one, but much larger than it was when it first appeared.
Numoral pulled out a rectangular piece of transparent material from... somewhere... and typed his thoughts into it while muttering something.
'It's the Note-Taker No.17'
I hadn't seen it for a few weeks.
When he finished, he took me back up out of the building.
Once the rapid journey back to the science division was complete, Numoral waved to someone, and it seemed like he teleported to our front.
"Gather a few dozen stage 2 Cors and bring them to C-room 2."
The man nodded and turned to leave, but stopped and turned when Numoral called out to him.
"Oh! and get a few stage 3's as well."