Transcendent Gene
Chapter 238: Growth [2]

Chapter 238: Growth [2]

Whoooooosh!

It had been three days since the matter of the ancient ruin.

While Gio was struggling on the inside, there were people struggling outside, too.

Farrah arrived at the ruin site with her reinforcements and protected the rogue Sequencers, helping them subdue or kill Director Khan’s forces. There was even more chaos on the battlefield for a moment when they arrived.

Many of the rogue Sequencers took that opportunity to escape. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. The problem was that Director Khan managed to escape in their midst.

The clones that went after Gio turned into puffs of energy. Only the small traces collected from them remained to prove his presence.

Farrah was more focused on securing her own people and making sure the ruin site remained intact. Since she’d accomplished that much, she was able to accept the loss of the prime suspect.

She wasn’t the police and the people she brought weren’t the police. At the end of the day, it wasn’t their job.

The area around the big tree Gio disappeared into was secured properly by her people. They encountered six attacks, where people attempted to enter the realm in secret. However, only two of them were successful.

The reason Gio never ran into those people...

Well, if they didn’t reach him by the time he walked through the portal, then they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon, if at all.

The area was kept safe otherwise. That was the area Gio returned to.

The portal sparked as it was connected to something on the other side. A collection of blue and white particles flew out and swirled together until Gio was standing on the outside.

His face was still masked and his ripped clothing had been replaced, making him look in better condition than the people who’d been guarding the portal for the past two days.

The instant his vision returned, he felt a gun to the side of his head and two blades on his throat.

"State your identity," one of the men holding him still said.

"Left pocket. My ID is there."

He responded calmly, allowing them to search him and withdraw his identification from his wallet.

While one of the men took it to a tent nearby, another stepped in front of him, completely covering Gio’s body between his own massive shoulders.

"Your ID matches the name we were given. I’ll be checking your face now. If everything checks out, we’ll escort you back to the city."

As he spoke, he quickly lifted the mask and checked that Gio was indeed the person he claimed to be. Once he was certain, he put it back down and stepped away, his eyes scanning the forest.

"We’ve been attacked several times. Someone is after you, so it is important to maintain an environment of safety. That is the Lady’s instruction."

"Hmm..."

Gio hummed with furrowed brows as the guard explained the attacks that happened in the past few days. By the time he finished explaining, his colleague returned with Gio’s ID and handed it back to him.

"Everything checks out. I’ll escort you to the car now. Is it fine if we go directly to the lab?"

"I don’t have a problem with that," Gio responded with a nod.

In fact, that was his preference.

’They didn’t find the guy named Khan. Since he escaped, the only way to trace him is through the Gene Fluid I stole.’

He hoped the energy present inside could be connected to a certain organization or group. The only way to find out was to test it in Farrah’s lab.

The car ride was only for the sake of taking him away from the portal. When they’d made some distance and confirmed the lack of human presence around them, the chauffeur opened a door to Nightreign for Gio to walk into.

He moved through the market until he found the location where Conduits and Beacons offered their services, where he promptly noticed a man wearing the same uniform as Farrah’s subordinates.

He opened a second door, and when Gio stepped through it, he was already back in Farrah’s office.

"It looks like you had a good time, kid," she said with a smile as she noticed his presence.

"I take it the Riftworld wasn’t as difficult as we assumed it would be?"

"I wouldn’t say that," he replied, shaking his head with a smile.

It only had one danger to be wary of, but that danger did not discriminate. Eventually, it would find a way to eat anyone and everyone who didn’t escape in time.

"But I made it out, and I learned a lot of interesting things."

Gio walked up to her desk and sat down in one of the chairs across from her. He first withdrew a container filled with Thion Dust from the Storage Hole and handed it to her.

"There’s a lot I want to show you, so I’ll come clean about a few things."

He never directly showed her the Storage Hole before, but she was Raymond’s contact. He trusted her more than he trusted the average person.

"This is a gift," he continued as he gave her the dust she asked for.

"And this..."

He started with the absolute most important priority. Walking all the way into his Storage Hole, he carefully maneuvered his energy and brought out an entire case of Gene Fluids.

"...is something insane."

Farrah’s eyes widened the moment he brought it out. She shot up from her seat and walked over as if the instincts in her heart told her the identity of what Gio was carrying.

"46 said the final room was empty when everyone got there. He also said you were trapped, and it seemed like the asura was implying that you’re the one who stole everything..."

She looked from the Gene Fluid to Gio with incredulous eyes.

"46 thought he was trying to scapegoat you, but it was the truth?"

There were gloves on her hands in an instant. She covered her mouth and nose with protection as well before Gio was able to burst her bubble.

"You can’t touch them directly yet."

"Why not?"

"First of all, the glass has basically been turned into a salt crystal. The moment you disrupt it, it’ll melt into the fluid and ruin it. We have to handle it with energy until we can move all of the fluid into new containers..."

"...and secondly, we can’t perform any tests on the fluid itself yet. Before that, there’s something else you need to see."

She would find out on her own after a couple of tests, but it was good to skip the first few steps and get into the meat of the experimentation in cases like these.

’Hekat.’

Gio hid Hekat’s white energy within the blue glow of [Virtual Manifestation]. He put on a show, as if sending his energy into the fluid and using it as a net to draw out the secondary foreign substance.

The malicious red color of the foreign energy clashed against the blue, making it much more obvious. After making it visible, he removed his energy without separating the foreign source.

"It’s corrupted," Farrah said, understanding immediately.

Right. This case of corrupted fluid was for her to experiment with until she could learn the source of the foreign energy and maybe even find a more conventional way to remove it. There were several other cases waiting for her in his Storage Hole as well.

’But I raided so many vaults, you know?’

The amount of fluid he had was more than enough to go around.

He did his due diligence to science by donating a part of it. In a bit, he could also tell Farrah about the inside of the Riftworld.

And the rest of his stock of Gene Fluid...

’It’ll go to the same place as my Genesis Crystals.’

It was time to truly claim the boons of his hard work.

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