Song walked slowly, heading to a place known in the City as ‘stimulating.’

His brother asked him countless times—why? The answer was simple. Song wanted to feel alive. 

But it was clear. It shouldn’t obstruct his bigger plans within the Sect. Song set up his rules—no relationships with Abilitiers. It left him only one direction. 

The City. 

He sighed, thinking about his past decisions. Song made them a few years ago, when he transported to the City for the first time. 

He had hit a wall. 

It was amusing to think about it now, but back then—not at all. He was well-built. To some, it was arousing. But his looks were not; he was considered not even moderately handsome, mostly because of his scars. 

Song kept them for a reason. 

He developed a cultivation method using energy from wounds to enhance his energy level. He could heal them and hide them as well, whenever he wanted. But wasn’t it a challenge to keep them in view and see who was scared and who wasn’t? Who cared about his looks, and who didn’t?

It was a good test. Not many passed it. 

When he was younger and traveled to the City to ‘experience,’ it caused problems. It was difficult to find someone attracted to him, at least back then. 

He didn’t want to change his appearance; he also didn’t want to pay for it. 

Song looked at it as a difficulty to solve. Finding a solution, a good tactic, was challenging. Especially after his first time. He was satisfied, but she was moderately satisfied. Song gave it a thought. It was illogical to put so much effort into finding someone attracted to him and then lose it. 

Next time, he did it differently. He observed, noted all the reactions, and adjusted to the other body. Did whatever it took to make the other person satisfied. He was also satisfied, even if not fully. 

This person came back and was even more attracted to him after he took care of his pleasure.

It was nine years ago. 

Song went to the City to feel alive nine years ago, after the story with his teacher happened. Whenever his brother asked him ‘why,’ the answer had been there. Song didn’t want to tell him details, as Anders was not strong enough to absorb it. 

Wei knew; he didn’t judge as easily as Anders. 

Their friendship had already lasted for seventeen years. Wei rescued him from the Deserts. 

Song was captured by cartel number two; his whole family was killed. He refused to take artificial energy. At the end, he refused to eat. They left him to die on the sands, under the burning sun. There he got his scars. There Wei found him, rescued him, and invited him to the Sect.

Wei did it even before he learned what energy level Song had. Being eight years old, Song was already powerful but hid it, afraid that it would be the same as in cartel.

Song was welcomed into the Sect. 

Anders. His parents were without Ability and lived outside the Sect’s boundaries. They invited him to their family. With Anders, they were just like brothers. 

The cartel’s camp he was in, he didn’t remember well. 

What exactly happened there? He assumed. 

Song wanted revenge. Years passed as he trained and specialized in weapons, aiming to destroy them.

Hell, kill them all.

He worked hard to achieve his goals without any rush. He needed to wait until the board changed. And now he needed to learn more about finances and management if he aimed to build an army. Even about how the brain was constructed, as his tests with reducing the amount of sleep started to give him trouble. 

The Sect started to cooperate with the City more openly after the changes that happened, and Song was finally free to attend classes at TU. Before, it was impossible.

Song was busy working toward his goals. Experiencing life was engaging for the first year or two, but he didn’t want to spend too much time on it. It was more like an experiment—how to find a way and how to experience the best, however, and with whoever. 

Not that Song cared. He put his energy into it, but he didn’t overthink it.

His opinion in the Sect wasn’t something Song cared about. 

However, after all his trips to the City, it was initially bad, but after some time it became a good kind of bad. 

Too good even. But that was amusing. All because of his tactics. Stories were told about him—that he knew what to do—and he was sought after for his skills. 

The people that he gave pleasure to, some went to great lengths to look for him. Some even noticed he was not Crystaler and probed in the Sect, trying to find him, trying to get to know at least his name. 

Song hadn’t used his real name in the City. 

Especially since he sometimes worked there, investigating. Being well-known in the clubs proved advantageous for his investigations. These places were the best to track down specific people. When he started to be esteemed… how amusing to use this kind of word to describe his skills. 

Whenever he asked about someone, it was assumed he was interested in the body.

Again, amusing.

Today, Song was there with an additional task in mind. 

The arena fights gained a new challenge two years ago. Huge bonuses were paid to those able to fight and win against the new types of opponents. In the City, they started calling them creatures.

These were people, surely. Transformed in cartels’ labs into the state they were in. 

How? 

This was what they, along with Wei, had been trying to discover for the past two years...