Chapter 153: A String of Cadet Disappearances (7)

Without even knocking, a red-haired young man burst through the laboratory’s door. “Professor! This is it! Look!”

Jayden let out a deep, weary sigh as he turned toward the newcomer. “Again, Oscar?”

“I’ve found a lead for the research on Artificial Soul Stigmatas!” Oscar said.

With a sigh, Jayden replied, “You’re still obsessed with that?”

Oscar leaned in close, eyes blazing. “Obsessed? This is conviction, Professor. Conviction! It was because of your thesis on Artificial Soul Stigmatas that I became your disciple in the first place!”

“That thesis was discarded long ago for being too dangerous.”

“Exactly!” He thumped his chest with pride and grinned broadly. “And I’ve found a way to solve that problem!”

Jayden could only shake his head. “The Holy Empire will raise a storm over this again.”

“Haha, isn’t that something you’re already used to, Professor?”

“Considering how our research grants shrink every year, I can’t say I’ve gotten used to it at all.” Suppressing a bitter smile, Jayden pulled out an old thesis on Artificial Soul Stigmatas from a mountain of papers. “Very well. Let’s hear it.”

“The purpose of the original Artificial Soul Stigmatas was to create one for people who had none, correct?” Oscar said.

“That’s right.”

Artificial Soul Stigmatas were basically devices that carved fake soul stigmatas into ordinary people, granting them the ability to wield mana. When research on the theory had first been published, it had shaken the entire hero society to its core. The Holy Empire didn’t just protest about it; they practically foamed at the mouth with outrage.

The fact that mortals could dare replicate the blessings of the gods was something even the heroes who had quietly tolerated Jayden Bastion’s soul stigmata research up until then could not accept. They turned on him with fervent condemnation. However, if the theory could actually be realized, it would be a different story.

“The problem is that humans can’t replicate a perfect soul stigmata,” Oscar continued.

“Exactly. That’s why the theory was abandoned.”

“But! What if… we never needed a perfect soul stigmata in the first place?”

“An imperfect soul stigmata?”

“Yes. We still can’t create true soul stigmatas with human means. So instead, we make an inferior version.”

“Go on. Explain in more detail.”

Oscar flashed a grin, handed Jayden a paper filled with complex equations, and explained, “The core of a soul stigmata is its ability to channel the mana stored within it. That’s what grants heroes their superhuman powers. But Artificial Soul Stigamatas have a fatal flaw, the mana supply. A true soul stigmata naturally replenishes itself by absorbing mana from the air, restoring what was used. Artificial ones can’t.”

In short, once the mana was spent, it could never be restored.

Oscar continued, “That’s why I thought of mana stones. Cheap, mass-producible low-grade stones could replenish the mana inside the soul stigmata.”

“So you’re suggesting a sort of mana battery?”

“Exactly! That way, even heroes with real soul stigmatas could use artificial ones as a mana reserve to replenish their mana when needed!”

While the device was called Artificial Soul Stigmata, its effect was closer to that of a magical device or artifact, something anyone could use. Of course, that was only if it worked as the theory claimed.

Jayden replied, “Even so, low-grade mana stones can only provide a pitiful amount of mana.”

“Maybe so, but isn’t that still something?” Oscar spread his arms wide, grinning radiantly. “If this gets distributed to ordinary people, they could fight three-eyed, no, perhaps even four-eyed demonic monsters, depending on the person! And if that happened, we could drastically cut down the thousands of deaths caused each year by monsters and demons! With our hands, the people… No, we could save the whole world!”

* * *

Yes, that was the dream the two of them once shared, a dream they both knew could never come true and a dream that had already faded.

Tears welled in the corners of Jayden’s wrinkled eyes as his mind drifted back to two years ago. He looked at Sophia, who still had him by the collar. The same fiery red hair as that of his disciple and the same unwavering eyes, brimming with resolve. Her entire presence burned like a living volcano. The two of them looked alike.

He gave her a bitter smile as he asked, “Do you know how many heroes exist on this continent?”

“What?”

He continued, “Officially, 14,782. Add in the unofficial ones, and it’s perhaps around twenty thousand in total. Not many at all.”

It couldn’t be helped. Only a small number of people were ever born with soul stigmatas. Moreover, heroes, by nature, fought demonic monsters and demons all their lives, which resulted in their mortality rate being tragically high.

Sophia asked, “And what does that have to do with anything?”

“Compare those twenty thousand heroes to the continent’s population of tens of millions. Divide it up, and each hero is responsible for more than two thousand people. Do you realize how absurd that number is?”

A single hero tasked with protecting over two thousand lives. Words alone couldn’t capture how impossible that burden was.

“Even five hundred years after the Demon God was sealed, people still suffer endlessly. Not because heroes don’t try, but because there are far too few of them. And so, we sought to imitate gods.”

The two of them had wanted to artificially create blessings and grant soul stigmatas to those born without them, even if they were imperfect imitations. They wanted to give ordinary people the strength to defend themselves.

Jayden continued, “But the price for daring to mimic the gods was never going to be cheap.”

He recalled that day when the incident happened. The soul stigmata had spiraled out of control, and his disciple’s screams echoed through the room. Jayden had stood there helpless, watching as his disciple’s blood vessels twisted and ruptured, his life draining away before his very eyes.

Sophia stared at Jayden with trembling eyes, unsure what words could come out of her mouth. “You…”

Was this why her brother had been so obsessed with Artificial Soul Stigmatas? She had never imagined such a reason lay behind it. Her thoughts tangled in a storm of confusion, her expression twisted with turmoil, and her grip on Jayden’s collar loosened.

At that moment, a flash of blue light burst outward, and she was flung across the room.

“Kyahhh!”

“Sister Sophia!”

Berald dashed in just in time to catch her. The explosion had been violent enough that he expected her to be gravely injured, but when he looked down, she looked unscathed, not a scratch on her.

Jayden exhaled a deep sigh. From within his robes, he pulled out a palm-sized glass vial filled with a shimmering blue liquid. Forming a hand seal with his other hand, he lifted Raios, still unconscious, into the air.

Sophia frantically shouted, “You, what are you trying to do?”

Jayden ignored her and stretched his hand toward Raios. From Raios’s left chest, a radiant light poured forth and flowed into the vial. It was just a handful of mana, yet this mana wasn’t ordinary. It was the combined essence of twenty-one soul stigmatas. This was an Artificial Soul Stigmata, and even a mere handful of its mana held unimaginable power.

Jayden’s eyes wavered with conflict as he gazed at the vial. For the past two years, he had devoted himself to this research, again and again, yet he still hadn’t found a way to stabilize the Artificial Soul Stigmata. He had nearly given up entirely when he had met him.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Dale Han, a third-year cadet from the Warrior Division.”

Jayden, who had been drifting through life like a dead man, had suddenly felt the faint embers in his chest flare back to life. The fire burned bright and sang of hope. But the world was never so kind. Hope alone didn’t solve anything.

He threw himself back into his research, but the solution to stabilizing the soul stigmata remained elusive. Lost in a graveyard of failed experiments and endless documents, he was at his lowest when a white serpent slithered toward him. Its long tongue had flickered as it had whispered to him.

“Shall I grant your wish? With this mana stone, you can stabilize that soul stigmata.”

***

Jayden’s memory surged back to two years ago, the day when everything came crashing down.

Anguished, he had shouted at his fallen disciple, “Why? Why did you continue the experiment without permission? I told you it wasn’t ready for human trials!”

Coughing blood, Oscar had looked up at him with dimming eyes. “I heard the Holy Empire has ordered a ban on this research.”

“That’s…!”

With a faint smile at his lips, the boy had continued, “Professor, you see, I-I wanted to be a hero.”

Fool. A brat like you, a hero? Jayden had thought.

“Not just a so-called hero, but a true one. Like the Great Five Heroes of old.”

For that, you went against your teacher’s warnings and conducted the experiment in secret? These words had lingered on Jayden’s lips, but he had not said anything.

Oscar had said, “If I became such a hero, I could save… so many lives.”

Ha! You couldn’t even save yourself, and you think you can save others? You’re not even worthy of the title.

“And… I wanted to give you… a brilliant new laboratory too, Professor.”

Because of you, I’ll lose not only the lab but even the pitiful scraps of funding I had left. My life’s work, gone in a single day.

“I’m… sorry.”

Idiot. Idiot. You damned fool.

“But still, Professor. Our dream, it isn’t over yet, right?”

***

Jayden let out another heavy sigh, his eyes sinking onto the vial filled with blue liquid. “Yeah, alright.”

With a low murmur, he raised the vial to his lips and drank it down in great gulps. Then, mana exploded within him, tearing through his body. A burning pain surged in his right chest, where his soul stigmata blazed with unstable light.

“Ghhhhh!”

Jayden clenched his teeth, blood biting at his lips, the agony consuming him. Then, he pressed a black mana stone against the soul stigmata carved into his chest. The black stone shattered into pieces, its essence absorbed into the Artificial Soul Stigmata. The flickering, unstable light suddenly stabilized, surging with intense brilliance.

His breath came ragged. His eyes were bloodshot, his face twisted in madness. Showing his bared teeth, he growled, voice shaking with obsession. “We… will save this world.”

However, as he stepped forward, his tone wild with mania, Dale tightened his grip on his sword hilt and strode forward, step by step.

“I can’t say you look like a hero saving the world right now, Professor.”

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