Legacy of Forgotten Times 179 Power Dampener Ring

Right! He was talking with Ms. Snow and then she had captured him. Linri got up and looked around. He was still in the lab and he could see Ms. Snow working on something in front of the computer. That was his chance to escape!

Wait... where were the restraints? Didn't Snow catch him for torture? Was he wrong? Could he possibly have hallucinated? Maybe that was a side effect of his [5x Burst Instict]? 

"You are awake now?" said Ms. Snow without turning her head.

"Yes?" since there was no point in acting like he was still unconscious, Linri replied back to her. Maybe she could shed light onto what happened just now.

"Ms. Snow, did you perhaps just..."

"Yes, you were behaving irrationally and I needed to collect a sample from you in order to make the power dampener, so I knocked you out," she said nonchalantly.

"How long was I out for?"

"Whole night"

"..."

"Has anyone ever told you that you are an exceptional test subject? From what I have seen, it's a wonder that you are alive and there are a lot of things that do not make sense. For example, you shouldn't have any access to prana. I am not an expert on the subject matter, but I couldn't find any trace of an elemental root in your body. Also, your cells are incredibly unstable. You actually possess two different DNA strands in your body. Usually, this is diagnosed as chimerism: when a fetus devours their twin in their mother's womb. However, in your case, it's because of your ancestry. The Kitsune cells and Werewolf cells are constantly destroying each other and regenerating once again, but each time even stronger. Where do they even find enough energy to do such a thing? Also, did you have any growth spurts recently? I think that should have been one of the side effects of your condition. By the way, you possess remarkable self-regenerative qualities even more than that of a normal werewolf. Seeing that, I couldn't help myself taking more than necessary," Ms Snow started to go off a tangent about his condition. From Linri's perspective, she might possibly be a Renegade, but she was still a scientist foremost.

"How much did you take exactly?" Linri could not help but ask.

"About 20 litres of blood, a kilogram of tissue, two ribs and a leg bone. I also wanted to take some brain tissue, but wasn't sure if it would regenerate, so I stopped myself. No need to thank me."

"...Excuse me?" Linri was about to lose his shit. If you don't know, a human possessed around 5 litres of blood in their body. So this bitch had actually drained him of his blood at least 4 times?! Not to mention his bones!

Linri immediately touched his body all over to see if anything was missing. His ribs were all there and he couldn't feel any kind of problems with his leg.

"You are surely joking, right? If you did all that I would have been dead by now..." said Linri.

Ms. Snow didn't turn her head towards him but just pointed to a different corner of the room. In there, Linri could see a hospital bed with a lot of blood on it. Next to it, there was a cooler with blood bags stacked on top of it. He couldn't see his bones, but at least he was sure that Ms. Snow was not lying.

"Are you crazy?! Were you intending on killing me?!"

Ms. Snow did not reply to him, just turning her head towards him as Linri remembered the fear he felt back then. Crap! He had to first return back to being a human before he could even complain, such a drag!

"I am sorry! If you want, you can have other tissue samples. Do you want me to cut myself?" Linri said in a fawning expression. He was really disgusted by himself. The sooner he returned back to being human, the better it was.

"There is no need. They won't last long, anyway, but I am sure Hina would be really interested in them. When it comes to the body, she is much more versed than me. I think she would like it if you could donate some of your blood to her," said Ms. Snow after returning back to what she was doing before.

"Speaking of Ms. Hina, do you know about the sub-bionic [AI Chip] she installed to the students?"

"Yes, we worked on it together. What about it?"

"I think there is a problem with mine."

"Just reboot it. That should stop the visual glitches."

"No, mine doesn't have a visual glitch. I think it has a brain of its own."

"Hm?"

"Well, you know the most basic ability of the chip is to record the abilities, spells and attributes of the students, right? And most of the time we have to update the information ourselves, but, during the fight with Rina, something weird happened. When I transformed, there was a new section on my stat page which was called [Ex-Burst], then the chip listed a bunch of prerequisites to use that power along with what it can do. At that point, even I didn't know the extent of what I can or can not do, but this chip was able to list all of it and even name the ability itself. It isn't supposed to do that right?" 

"Fascinating... Unfortunately, if you really want me to check that out, I would have to crack open your skull and I don't have the necessary equipment in there. Ask Hina when you get out of here and, if she can't find the reason, I can always open your brain and see what's inside it myself. Catch!" said Ms. Snow before throwing him some sort of ring.

"What's this?"

"It's the power dampener you have requested, with this you have gotten your reward. The moment you wear it, you should be able to cancel your transformation and return back to being a human and, if you want to transform again, you have to take it out and fulfil all the prerequisites again. Anyway, you don't have that much to live, so I don't get why you want to return back to being human, anyway."

Without listening to what she said, Linri immediately put on the ring. His teeth, tail and ears tucked back inside his body and his hair returned back to its natural white colour. However, instead of getting excited, he suddenly felt weak all over his body. Right, now that his transformation was over, all the negative effects had applied to him. When he checked his stats, he found out that his prana had become 0 and there was a warning stating that he couldn't regenerate any prana currently. He was bummed out to find that his attributes had also weakened again. He was actually sort of hoping that they would stay since there was no mention of attribute boost in his [Ex-Burst] description. He guessed it was just a side effect from his body turning to that of a werewolf. 

"Anyway, why are you letting me go so easily? Aren't you afraid that I would leak the secret that you were the one who designed this thing?"

"Why should I? They should already know it's me by now and I had no intention to hide it, anyway."

"Yeah, I guess you are right. None of the students would have died, anyway." said Linri surprising Ms. Snow.

"Before you ask, I already knew that the so-called poison was just a sedative and all those weird black veins were just for show. You wanted us to think we killed each other. However, I still can't wrap my head around why you would want that." 

Yes, anyone knocked out due to the rules of the game was actually still alive. However, that didn't mean the event itself wasn't dangerous. If you had killed someone during the combat fight they were actually dead for real. That was why Rondo and Jin had accepted being knocked out so easily and that was the reason why Linri tried so hard to eliminate others before. If more people had passed to the fights, there would be a more likelihood of death. There were a couple of characters dying during this event and the players were extremely salty once they found out other people's characters were fine. Anyway, during the fight, all the students would think that, if they didn't kill their adversary, they would die themselves so there would be no holding back. Heck, even Linri himself almost died from that! Actually, he was dead for real for a second there, but he wasn't aware of it himself. Linri just thought he triggered his [Ex-Burst] before dying.

"Again, that is of no concern to you!" said Ms. Snow with cold eyes. This time Linri did not dodge her gaze and looked right back. Since he didn't have [5x Burst Instict] anymore, he wasn't afraid of her in the slightest. There was still some slight fear, but it wasn't enough to cloud his judgement and he could still escape if she decided to catch him. His prana was already 0 and burning himself with the [Bracers of Nox MK I] shouldn't take too long.

"Fine, I am leaving then," said Linri as he turned back, but he couldn't see the door he just came through. A new door opened inside the room and he left through that one as fast as he could. When he finally got out he smelled the fresh air of the morning. It was relaxing.

"Morning!"

"Fuck!" Linri was jump-scared. Just now there wasn't anyone there, so how could Richard suddenly arrive behind him? That was bad for his heart.

"Did you get your reward from the GM?" Richard asked. Oh, right! Linri still had not told him the true identity of the perpetrator because of all the stuff that was going on at the time. He must be extremely curious about that.

"Before you ask, it was Snow."

"Yeah, I know."

"You do?"

"Yes, every faculty member knows about it, but don't tell any of the students. Also, congratulations on your awakening," Richard said with a smile. Linri was frowning. There was something going on he didn't know about and, as always, it left a bad taste in his mouth.

"That wasn't a real awakening. I can never awaken for real. I just temporarily boosted my werewolf genes so that they would manifest, but the backlash of it was even harder. Look at me, I can't gather any prana or even heal right now," said Linri as he slightly slit his palm. The blood wasn't coagulating, so it would keep bleeding for the next three hours.

"Well, it doesn't matter. At least we now know that there is a slight possibility that you can awaken one of your bloodlines completely and possibly stay alive."

"Why are you here, anyway? Weren't there any girls you could hit on this early in the morning?"

"No, I came here to get you so that we can train. If you can rebuild your body like a Sovereign through elements you can solve this problem for good. We can't waste any time!"

"Ok"

*Crack*

Linri's words were cut short by the fact that the ring on his finger exploded into smithereens. That was weird. Anyway, he just had to ask for another one from Ms Snow if he ever transforms again.

"AAAAHHHHHH!!!!" Linri started to scream uncontrollably. He was feeling pain all over his body, much worse than the time he was tortured by Lozna. When he looked at his hands he could see them growing sharp nails akin to claws.

Richard, on the other hand, was seeing something else entirely. Linri's body was getting deformed. His teeth were growing longer and suddenly falling out before they would grow back again. His hair colour was constantly changing between white and black. That was bad. Both of his bloodlines were trying to gain control over his body. If he did not do anything, he was going to implode!

Chapter end