Mutagen

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"Wait." Mark interrupted. "I know what you wanted is something crucial to everyone but don't you think that its way overboard to ask me that? You traveled more than a thousand years in space and space is way vast. How do you expect me or even anyone here on earth to be able to accomplish that?"

What Freed wanted was way harder than saving the world in Mark's opinion. Saving the world would just take the whole world as a scope but searching for the source of PsyPathogen and Mutagen had the whole universe as target. Furthermore, even with the latest space technology on Earth, it was still impossible.

To what Mark said, Freed let out an understanding smile.

"That's why I'm not forcing you to do it. Just do it if you're able to. Besides, if it was back before those meteoroids collided with Earth's atmosphere, it would really be impossible. But with how your body reacted to both the crystals and the Mutagen, it really isn't impossible now. Even though the chances are small, there's a possibility."

"What do you mean?"

Mark tilted his head.

"One word, COMPATIBILITY. The compatibility of your body to both PsyPathogen and Mutagen is at unprecedented levels. If you ask me now, Mutagen is not changing your body but your body is absorbing and using Mutagen to change. If you're a citizen of Eriellis, I'm sure that you'll become the strongest Psychic in no time at all. There are also other factors. So, the possibility for you to gain abilties to traverse space it not zero at all."

Mark felt surprised. That fact was really surprising. It was no wonder now how he was on the level of Mutators even though he's just an Evolver. Even though he relied on his Empathic abilities and Self-induced adrenaline rush, there was no doubt that he was on par with some of the Mutators he encountered before in terms of physical prowess.

He noticed something from what Freed had just said.

"You say that my body is also compatible to PsyPathogen. It is the crystals?"

"That's right. The large crystal that keeper materialized is made out of the essence of PsyPathogen. It emits small amount energy constantly that came from the PsyPathogen itself. Normally, that small amount could barely affect anything since even if people were to absorb it, the amount will be reduced to almost nothing. You however, absorbed that minuscule amount of energy without any hindrance and even enhanced your Empathic abilities slowly in the past few years. Even though it was not enough to induce an upgrade to your ability, Mutagen that came from the same origin made up for it."

Mark nodded. So that was why.

"Back to topic, I won't force you to do it. I won't hear the answer in the future anyways. I just want to let you know what I wanted. After all, PsyPathogen caused me a lot of grievance."

Freed said with a melancholic smile.

As the second prince and the son of a concubine, his life was lax and his duties were minimal. He could live freely as long as he did not sully their Royal name. What he dreamed was to have a free and stable life, marry and if possible, manage a small territory under him.

Everything changed when that peace was ruined when PsyPathogen arrived in Eriellis. He lost most of his family. He lost the girl he was supposed to marry. The unwanted responsibility of being a king was dumped unto him. Now, he was nothing but a lost consciousness that could not exist on his own. He wanted to know where the cause all of what happened to him came from.

Unfortunately, he did not have the luxury to wait for the answer.

"You're going to disappear soon."

Mark realized and Freed nodded with affirmation.

"A thousand years is already too long even for a ghost to exist not to mention a consciousness like me without a body. I could not even take control of your body anymore even when you're unconscious. Actually… I used up most of my last energy to make this meeting happen. It was lucky that a third consciousness appeared to make this possible."

Freed looked at Mark.

"Normally, only one consciousness is allowed to exist in the conscious part of the mind. When the main personality is in coma, the other could come out like how took over your body several times before. Now that there is a new consciousness, it made it possible for me to pull you in here since there was a consciousness to take over outside."

"So, I'm a Mutator now?"

Mark asked.

"No, not yet. Your body is still in the process of changing and the change was taking too much time. Your body was way too compatible with Mutagen that an overall change was happening and there was even three at the same time." Freed tapped the air with his foot and the scene turned black once more. Evolution, Mutation and Fusion. Those three are happening at the same time."

It made Mark confused. He understood the evolution and mutation but what was fusion? Something was fusing with his body?

"That's right. Something is currently fusing with your body."

Freed held out his hand in front and a replica of the double terminated crystal appeared.

"We call this PsyCrystal. It can absorb energies around it and produce different crystals depending on the energy in abundance. As you know, the smaller sphere crystals can store abilities of both Espers and Mutators or even Mutated Infected if the infected mutated enough to a certain degree. Unfortunately, it also causes the infected to flock towards it due to the energy it emits. It also holds several more uses but to be able to use it, you needed to fuse it with your body."

"But didn't I leave those crystals in the vehicle…"

"Keeper, she sent the crystals to your body. No, she's not Keeper anymore I guess. That little girl had already inherited her soul and abilities. Keeper disappeared already."

Freed looked sad once more. He then tapped his foot and a large screen appeared in front of them.

What was shown on the screen however looked like a video where the camera was moving erratically. It was like an amateur video just taken with a very high quality camera. Mark realized that the video was on first person view.

The place seemed to be in the middle of the city. The person whose sight was connected to the screen was currently rampaging fighting the infected around him. The person controlled several red gelatin whip-like tentacles from his palms. Mark noticed when the person waved his arms in front of him. On the back of his right wrist, a double terminated purple crystal was embedded on his skin.

"It's my body isn't it?"

Mark asked as he turned to Freed.

"That's right. Quite an amazing ability you developed."

The emotionless Mark was suddenly filled with different emotions. Abbygale was a cute cat girl, Odelina was a bone armored woman, Emika was a little dryad while Mikio could be considered as something like a spriggan or a tree sprite. Laelaps was a golden dog and Fein was a four horned crimson beetle. On the other hand, Keene was a bone blade warrior and Jester was black cat boy. He however…

He somehow resembled a… Like a…

"A hentai tentacle monster right?"

Freed continued his thoughts with a wink. Mark wanted to hit this guy.

"Actually, it's expected. You're body had already mutated way before Mutagen infected everyone. You think your ability is only to control the generation of Adrenaline and allocate which part of your body to receive it? You're wrong. It's true that you can control the release of adrenaline but anyone can do that with enough psychological training. Allocating the adrenaline to a specific part of the body however isn't."

Freed turned back to the scene on the screen.

"You have the ability control your blood. What nutrients should be allocated to where and even command your blood cells to prioritize which chemical and where the chemical in your blood should be carried. It is a mutation far from what science could explain. Mutagen however took that ability of yours into another level and even evolved further."

Watching the scene on the screen, Mark noticed that the tips of the blood whips actually had metal spikes on them making the whips able to pierce through the bodies of the infected. Unexpectedly, after one of the whips pierced the infected's body, its body started to thin as if it was being dried up of blood.

"I can absorb blood of others?"

Mark looked at Freed in askance.

"Probably." Freed shrugged his shoulders. "I also don't know up to what extent your body will change to. You better savor this scene since other Mutators had no chance to observe a demonstration of their abilities without struggling in pain."

***

Time passed after that and Freed made Mark wait for the changes in his body to finish. The scene in the screen became more and more redundant as the savage consciousness that took over Mark's body had no intellect due to not being able to absorb Mark consciousness that was inside his subconscious. Freed also felt bored and closed the screen.

The two started to talk about many things, about the usage of PsyCrystal, about the history of Eriellis and about many more things.

"By the way, I have to apologize. Not only to you but also Mei."

Freed scratched his head.

"Where did that came from?"

"The sufferings of you two and being detached from the world was because of my actions. Three years ago before you became a shut-in. The time you witnessed Mei's kidnapping. You two should have died there."

Freed smiled.

"Do you believe in fate? Our gods at that time said that fate exist for everyone. However, it's different from what most people thought of it. Fate is not a just a name to tell that something was destined to happen. They said that fate is some sort of energy in the universe that could influence and could be influenced by everyone. Like how you just waved your hand without knowing and the dust from your hand flew several miles away just to make someone else sneeze. Following the energy of fate around you two at that time, you two should have died already. However, I interfered."

When someone died, his connection to life should have been severed and what were left were only the memories of people that knew him. Mark and Mei were both destined to die at that time and the connection to the world had been severed. Their connections to people started to drift away since they had no foothold in the world anymore as people who were supposed to be dead.

Due to that, they started to be neglected by destiny itself and were treated as pests. Since they should be dead, their effect to the fate of others should have been minimal. However, the two remained alive. Since they had did not have much connection to fate anymore, they could affect the fate of others tremendously.

"You're talking something like a preacher from some religion you know that?"

Mark shrugged.

"But you believe me right?"

"I can't deny it since I'm able to see parts of the possible future itself. Besides, it's not like science deny these things in theory. Experts only tell that there were no scientific explanations for these kinds of things, YET. Those who say that the world is exactly what they knew were nothing but a bunch of narrow minded idiots."

Freed could not help but laugh because of Mark's logic.

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