At first, it was just a twitch.
Barely anything—like a nerve spasm under Liu Xian's left eye. The scientists didn't even glance up from their monitors. The fire mana was still dripping slowly into his system, the machine chirping rhythmically in the background.
Then the second twitch came, sharper this time. His whole body gave a violent jerk against the restraints. The fire mana reacted inside him like a spark dropped into dry leaves. His aura, once flickering weakly under the suppressor collar, suddenly flared.
"Vitals escalating," the woman scientist called out, voice tight.
"Good," said the older man, his eyes gleaming with a twisted kind of thrill. "Push it. Increase to 0.5%."
"But that's not protocol," she warned.
"Do it," he snapped.
The first scientist, too caught up in the data streaming across his screen, obeyed without hesitation. He keyed in the command, and the mana infusion jumped.
Liu Xian's back arched off the table in a brutal spasm. His fingers, still bound, clawed at the air like he was fighting something unseen. His mouth opened in a silent scream, teeth clenched, veins standing out against his pale skin.
The fire mana coursed through his body like a living thing, hungry and furious.
Then came the smell of something sharp and wrong—ozone and burning.
The lights in the lab flickered once. Twice.
And then the air itself began to thrum.
The mana suppressor around his neck sparked violently, hissing like a snake. It was holding him down, barely—but the cracks were showing. Fine hairline fractures spread across the metal like spiderwebs.
"He's overloading the collar," the woman said, taking a step back instinctively.
The older man grinned like a madman. "Beautiful…"
Without warning, the readings on the monitors jumped off the charts. Red alarms flashed across every screen. Sirens began to wail overhead.
"Subject unstable," the AI announced in a calm tone. "Containment breach imminent."
Before anyone could react, Liu Xian's body erupted in a shockwave of raw, uncontrolled mana. The fire element clashed with his natural current—electricity sparking along his skin—and the collision created a roaring pulse that tore through the room.
The two male scientists closest to him were thrown backward like rag dolls, slamming into the far wall with sickening cracks. One of them crumpled immediately, unmoving. The other groaned weakly, clutching a broken arm.
Sparks rained from the ceiling as light fixtures exploded, sending shards of glass falling like deadly rain. The massive machine that had been monitoring his brainwaves short-circuited, bursting into flames.
The woman scientist ducked low behind a nearby counter, heart hammering against her ribs. Through the thick smoke beginning to curl in the air, she could just barely see him—Liu Xian, still strapped down, but glowing.
His whole body was lit up from within, mana surging like a storm. His hair floated around his face, lifted by the sheer force radiating off him. His eyes were open now—but there was no recognition in them. Only a blinding, unnatural blue light.
"Subject reaching critical threshold," the AI announced, voice glitching under the power surge. "Containment failure imminent. Initiating lockdown."
Heavy blast doors began sliding down over the exits with loud groans of metal on metal.
The woman scientist watched, frozen, as the next phase began. Without any further input, Liu's body was reacting to the other elemental samples still present in the room.
The air mana vial cracked under the pressure. Instantly, the atmosphere around them shifted—the oxygen thickened, turning heavy and distorted, as if the room had been plunged underwater. The woman gasped, struggling to breathe against the suffocating weight.
Then the vial of shadow mana ruptured.
Dark tendrils oozed from the broken glass, snaking their way toward Liu Xian. They touched his aura—and instead of corrupting him, they were absorbed.
The boy's body shuddered violently, the glowing blue around him darkening into a chaotic mix of black and electric blue.
A monstrous boom shook the room as the concrete floor cracked beneath him. The slab he was strapped to buckled, the restraints snapping one by one under the relentless strain.
The final needle connecting him to the fire mana machine snapped with a sharp twang.
He was free.
Hovering slightly above the broken table, Liu Xian's body pulsed with unnatural energy. His breathing was ragged but deep, each exhale crackling with static.
The woman dared a glance at the other scientists.
One was dead. Neck twisted at an impossible angle. The other was conscious but bleeding badly, crawling weakly toward the door before the blast doors sealed shut with a loud, final clang.
"We're trapped," he rasped.
The woman's fingers clenched around the counter's edge. Her mind raced—should she try to reach the emergency shutdown? But even if she did, would it stop him?
Because it wasn't just a scared kid anymore lying there.
Something else had been woken up.
And it was angry.
Mana pooled around Liu Xian's bare feet, creeping along the cracks in the floor like glowing rivers. Wherever it touched metal, it melted it into slag. Wherever it touched glass, it shattered it into dust.
And then, impossibly, he spoke.
Not with his mouth—his mouth barely moved. It was like the words bypassed the air altogether and hit directly into the mind.
A whisper that sounded like a thunderclap:
"Where… am I?"
The woman scientist flinched.
Another siren wailed, louder this time—warning of imminent facility-wide meltdown.
Overhead, sprinklers activated, trying desperately to smother the fires spreading across the equipment—but the water turned into steam before it even touched Liu Xian.
He turned his head slightly, sensing the other presence—the broken, bleeding scientist dragging himself away—and for a brief moment, the boy's light flickered. A heartbeat of confusion.
Pain.
Then rage.
Another pulse of mana erupted, and the injured man was blasted backward, slammed hard against the wall, his screams muffled by the sound of shattering stone.
The woman scientist knew she had seconds.
Seconds before the whole lab would come down.
Seconds before he would turn those wild, unstable powers on her too.
But instead of running, she slowly raised her hands above her head, palms open.
"I'm not your enemy," she said hoarsely, her voice barely cutting through the roar of the failing lab.
Liu Xian's wild, glowing eyes snapped to her.
And for a moment, just a moment, the storm paused.
Breathing hard, the woman dared a single step closer.
"My name is Dr. Yuna," she said. "And if you don't calm down, they'll kill you before you even understand what you are."
The walls around them groaned, the ceiling cracking.
Liu Xian's body tensed, the wild light around him flaring again.
BOOM.
The chamber collapsed in on itself as a monstrous blast of energy tore through everything.